CASE District V 2010 Conference Wrap Up

January 5th, 2011

A few weeks ago I attended the Case V Conference in Chicago (opens new window). They asked me to present about Flexible Web Branding, the Case Against Single Web Templates (opens new window), it went really well and the slides are now posted.

I mainly attended the Web track and wanted to run down some key takeaways from the conference. Below are my notes from each session, they are not proofed so please ignore incomplete sentences and typos.

Everyone already has their social media accounts setup, now what.
Making it part of a strategic campaign is a whole lot more difficult
Social media definition
- Web-based tools user for social interactions
Social media tools are a way to connect with different groups of people on a platform where they spend their time
Social media Campaigns
- A focused effort to achieve goals using a variety of channels appropriate to the results sought
Blend of offline and online channels
It's easy to get from your blog to flickr, to twitter, to your blog to facebook
Amusing ads in the student newspaper
- Pig got kidnapped, ads that were amusing
Facebook will never replace your website.
Powered by Orange
- Budget crunch in Oregon
  - Ad budget is getting cut
- web, blog, google map, sm, merch, real world, personal
- Spotlight on a business
  - Feature story
  - Surfaced business & alumni they didn't know existed
- Post things that other audiences would be interested in
  - Will get your stories into non-typical audience hands
- Initial purpose was to get more attention for Oregon State
- Extended into a LinkedIn group
Northfield Mount Herman
- Budget cuts
- Went from 6 to 5 staff
- Reorganized dept and roles
- Now has a social media person
- NMH Book
  - A connector for their social media presence with their website
- Facebook was the most likely way someone getting to their website
- Posts getting the most interaction
  - In house video
  - Emotional attachment
- Using WordpressMU
  - Started out with existing bloggers
  - Capital Campaign
    - Comment about why you liked NMH
  - Promote the blogs only after they prove themselves
- Using Flickr to allow parents to download their child's photos
- YouTube and Vimeo
  - Vimeo has higher quality videos
- Engagement is the strongest reason to do this
  - Build relationships
  - Don't over structure messages
  - Every social media message doesn't need to have a call to action
- Rule of thirds on social media: 1/3 about yourself, 1/3 sharing, 1/3 conversation.
- Captioning videos
  - Not really doing any now.
  - Suggestion: Start with the YouTube default and use student minions
Matt Mertzberger has a great policy that he developed for social media on campus
Facebook is about connecting with friends
- Ads are not going to impact them

# Brand as Transformation: Attracting Your Best-Fit Student

# Eureka

The change in enrollment was due to marketing
They never told their story
- This was the difference in how the school was perceived
Family First
- People go out and people tell you thing that you don't know
- Tell the family first, don't let people get blindsided
Make it personal
- Do it with each other, not just an external audience
Central voice
- In writing
- In speeches
Service never ends
How they did it
- Tuition reduction
  - Causes window shopping
  - Big burst in viewers
  - Everyone got the scholarship reduction
- Wave the banner
  - Marketing
Get the tuition information out there early
3.38% - add the detail so people think you struggle over it

# Capital University

2008 lost their focus
- Chasing their competitors
- Loosing money
Provost became president and turned it around
- Cut costs
- Figuring out who they are
Best student: Highly focused kid
- Not the average liberal arts college student
Who they are
- Capital University is..
What are the benefits
- Helps students get started in a career
Where are they going?
- Changing the graphic from columns of departments
- To a circle that shows everyone is connected
- Students start in the middle and move their way out
- No hierarchy to it
Tag line
- Ask. Think. Lead.
Campaign that ensued from all this
- "Will You?"
Social Media story site
- Existing students tell their will you story?
- Identified the URL for the site around campus
- Lead them to a video unscripted of students
- Allowed students to tell their story
The video made all the difference
- 80% of current students added their story
"I WIll" admissions office has a poster board
- Students put up photo and story
- Given them back at graduation
Virtual tour
- Student prospective tour
- Imports photos from facebook
- Pop quiz
- Then gives them a first day agenda
- Photos scrolling are based on that agenda
Acceptance letter
- "Size of a little says something about the contents"
Living the brand
- 6 mini workshops with nearly 200 student, factuly and staff
- Train the trainers

# Higher Education: The Toughest Gig in all the Web

Download: markgr.com/caseV2010 (opens new window)

# University at Buffalo

Not printing class schedule
Not printing catalog
Save $100,000 per year printing
- Money went other places
- Not into the web department
581,601 pages indexed on the main buffalo website
What is the bottom line?
- Higher ed has no idea
Mission statement
- Five page document
- Reduced it down to nine words
- "Understand the Business"
- "Understand the User"
- "Understand the Medium"
Governance
- Higher Ed Follow federalism
Paradigm, your world view
Let their be web divisions!
- Jeff Zeldman
Think like an entrentpeur from the beginning
Business Plan
- "Funded to to meet every reasonable request in a reasonable amount of time"
"A man's gotta know his limitations"
- Clint Eastwood
24% of people in the Noel Levitz Survey
- Eliminated a school off their list because of a bad web experience
The world is flattening because of the Internet
SUNY
- Going to discontinue their language programs
- Tenured faculty are being cut
Books
- Higher Education?
- Wannabe U
- DIY U
"It is not necessary to change, survival is not mandatory" - W. E. Deming (via @markgr) #casev

# Six Sigma Approach to Website Redesign

Different Approach
Methods
- Define priorities
- Guide creative process
- Minimize competing interest & politics
- Establish the means to prove success of the redesign
- Create a framework to monitor quality and predict changes
National university of health sciences
65% of CASEV member colleges have redesigned their sites in the past two years
1/3 of the sites will redesign in the next year or two
251 CAEV institutions
Website redesign are often reactions to fix short term issues or problems
Websites use quality over time
- Resources
  - Don't invest a lot in between redesigns
- Life Span
  - What we implement can't be sustained over time
  - Expectations of the users have changed
"I'm drowning here, and you're describing the water!"
- Jack Nicholson, as good as it gets
Six Sigma
- Doing superior work
- "Six Sigma is a fact-based, data-driven philosophy of improvement that values defect prevention over defect detection. It drives customer satisfaction and bottom-line results by reducing variation and waste, thereby promoting a competitive advantage"
- Concepts
  - Philosophy of Work
    - Processes that can be: defined, measured, analyzed improved, controlled
  - Set of Tools
    - Use of qualitative and quantitative techniques to drive process improvement.
  - Methodology
    - Rigorous approach toward problem solving.
  - Metrics
    - Specific benchmarks
- Six Sigma Web Management is a fact-based, data-driven approach to website management (strategy, design, development, marketing, maintenance) using Six Sigma philosophy, tools, methodologies and metrics.
- SSWM recognizes the success of a website is dependent on the Web team's ability to articulate, measure and monitor website quality during all stages of this process
- "Higher education websites are consensus-driven"
- You can never have a superior website if it is built on a consensus basis
- (Overlay the redesign timeline on the applicant, acceptance and enrollment)
1. SSWM Process
- Content Audit
- Materials Review
- Competitive analysis
- Motivational assessment
- (Find patterns)
- Web quality layers
  - Content
  - Design
    - Drives the younger generations
  - Navigation
    - If it makes them feel like they are dumb they will leave
    - Hurts their ego
  - Technical
    - Response Time
- Brand experience
  - Messaging
    - Do you have a message that is effective
  - Satisfaction
    - Are they happy about what they are hearing
  - Website rating
    - How are they personally rating the site?
- Audience Intent
  - Motivation
    - Will your website get them to do something?
      - Visit, Apply, Request Information
- New Prospect & Alumni
  - Have the same motivations but different goals
  - Prospects looking for people doing great things to aspire to
  - Alumni looking for people doing great things to relate to
- Do this when you are redesigning
  - Then do it again six months after
- Vendors need to stand by their product and fix it if there is a problem
- Segment the audience types
  - Enrollment
    - Prospect
  - Sent the survey out via email
- Lizeral software to ensure surveys are functional
- The problem they found was the design was created by consensus
  - Current student, faculty and admin
2. Top down Strategy
- Share the data with the leadership, president
- Got their motivations and intentions
  - These translated to the focus group questions
3. Iterative Design Process
- Started with the basis
- Leadership wanted to go further
4. Bottom up implementation
- Web committee comes in to play
- Not to make decisions on strategy
- Building the pages and communicating he changes
- Doing all the content at the department level
5. Continuous improvement
- Tools setup initially that can be monitored over time
- Making small tweaks to design or nav every so often
- 6 months being the least amount of time
  - Then yearly intervals