New Media: Issues & Opportunities

John Fritz

CASE Summer Institute in Communications and Marketing

Vanderbilt University

Monday, July 21, 2003

 

1.     Disclaimer: There Is No Such Thing as a “Web Master”

 

2.     Issues

 

  • Funding & Strategy: Doing more with less still requires a goal. How does your use of new media influence, reflect and achieve your institution’s strategic goals?

 

  • Organization & Production: Whether you build or buy a content management system, it will expose holes in your organization’s business processes. Does everyone have the stomach for this?

 

  • Evaluating & Communicating Success: Many people still judge a site by how it looks, but success ultimately depends on how it meets the needs of sponsors AND users. How do you know (and broker) what each group wants. How (or what) do you communicate to others when you’ve succeeded?

 

3.     Opportunities

 

  • Recruitment & Retention: Advancement’s typical focus is recruitment of potential customers (e.g, students, donors, media, etc). But effective use of new media can help retain current users and become your school’s competitive advantage.

 

  • Good Neighbors? Collaboration between Advancement & IT can make or break a school’s internal and external online communities.

 

  • Blogs: If you don’t know what blogs are, you should. That said, they still feel like a solution in search of a problem? How might blogs play a role in your school’s communications strategy?

 

4.     New Media Workshops: Preview (all sessions in the computer lab)

 

  • Web Content Development: Learn what makes a good site and how a few, key planning documents (or “content artifacts”) can improve the process of creating one (7/21, 1:30 p.m.).

 

  •  Web Usability Demo & Practice: I’ll demonstrate what a usability test is like, why it’s a natural extension of marketing, and give you some time to practice (7/23, 8:30 a.m.)

 

  • New Media Show & Tell: The best way to learn how to develop good sites (or any new media applications) is to view them “in their underwear” says University of Buffalo’s Rebecca Bernstein (daily, 1:30 p.m.)

 

5.     Handouts

 

  • Best Practices

§       CASE 2003 Web Awards and Judges’ Report

§       Five “To Dos” To Build A Better Site

§       Top 10 Mistakes of .EDU Sites

 

·       A Bit O’ Fun

§       If Architects Had to Work Like Webmasters

§       Twas The Night Before Go Live