Monday Link Roundup, 11.30.09

Every Monday we'll post a roundup of interesting communications news
and articles from the past week. What have you been reading, listening
to, and watching? Add a comment or suggest a link for next week.



So I was not very "connected" to all-things-communications over the
break, so I thought I'd share some of my favorite local blogs. What are
you favorites?

I'm a close follower of local music, partly for work and partly for play. Here are my favorite indie blogs, all spotlight both local and national acts.
MFR
More Cowbell
Culture Bully

Deets After Dark - The "About" section does a great job of summing up the hodgepodge of entries, ranging from google search statistics on mashed potatoes to what really is a "tweet."

Mediation - Commentary on media, in addition to funny .jpegs and videos.

Stuff About Minneapolis - All the things that make me love this city are found right here. Enjoy the most recent story on the wild turkey running amok in Brooklyn Park. 

Chronicle: Bad times shape communication from the top

Here's an interesting article in the Chronicle of Higher Education  on how college and university presidents are communicating more, and differently, during bad economic times. They are using varying strategies to talk about uncertainty and cutbacks.

 

Monday link roundup, 11.23.09

Every Monday we'll post a roundup of interesting communications news and articles from the past week. What have you been reading, listening to, and watching? Add a comment or suggest a link for next week.

• Beats and Tweets: Journalistic Guidelines for the Facebook Era
  
• Good Bloggers Make Good Neighbors, New Survey Shows
  
• Seven roles of the intranet home page
  
• How Consultant and In-House Content Folks Can Play Nice
  

Poll: How's your inbox looking?

Are you a searcher or a sorter? Does everything stay in your inbox, or do messages go to folders as soon as possible? I believe e-mail management to be an impressive talent. If you have a good method, leave it in the comments. In the meantime:

U's social networking link page launched

From Kathy Jensen in University Relations:

The U's social networking link page has launched! University units on all campuses are invited to submit their official social networking site links. Over 30 units responded to our initial invitation and we'd like to add more.

To be considered for inclusion on the link page, your social networking site:

• should be your unit's official page (not a page run by a student), and


• should conform to the social networking guidelines

A set of layered Photoshop files are now available from the Images Library (login required). These files can be customized for use as your profile image on many social networking sites.

Please send your link submissions to University Relations and consider adding a link to the Social Networking page on your Web sites.

Are you encouraging conference "tweckling"?

You know how every conference we attend these days has its own hashtag? So we can all tweet about what we're learning and how awesome the event is? Well, there is a dark side to the conference tweet: tweckling. Fair communicators, you can probably figure out what that means.

As event planners and programmers, what can we do to discourage tweckling? Should we? Check out this article from the Chronicle and post your thoughts on this. Oh, the humanity!

"Conference Humiliation: They're Tweeting Behind Your Back"
http://chronicle.com/article/Conference-Humiliation-/49185/

Monday link roundup, 11.16.09

Every Monday we'll post a roundup of interesting communications news
and articles from the past week. What have you been reading, listening
to, and watching? Add a comment or suggest a link for next week.

Do you need to make a video for your job, but have limited resources to do so?  As a former TV producer, I thought I'd share some simple ideas and Web sites to help you get your work done on the cheap!

There are three things you need to to make a video.  First, you need a camera.  Secondly, you need some type of editing software, and finally, you'll need a place to host your video.  Here are some links to get you started down the path to making great video!

Camera:

Digital Camera Reviews

The Flip Camera-Video Production Tips

Advice on how to use your Flip to shoot video

Editing Software:

PC Video Editing Software Reviews

Top 5 Free Video Editing Software Programs

Video Editing Tips and Techniques

Video Distribution:

YouTube

CLA Media Mill

Other Resources:

In 2008,  UMCF did a program on Using Video at the U of M.  Watch the presentation here.

Colin McFadden from CLA Video Services has offered his advice to UMCF members at past programs and the 2008 Conference.  CLA Video Services rents out equipment to departments.  Contact Colin at mcfa0086@umn.edu if you have any questions.

Poll: How do you get to work?

Tomorrow is World Usability Day

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) and the Digital Technology Center are sponsoring a free program of events on Thursday, November 12, for World Usability Day. The purpose of the program is to promote awareness of the benefits of usability engineering and user-centered design.

World Usability Day was started in 2005 by the Usability Professionals Association and involves 36 hours of usability-related activities around the world in 30 countries.

See the schedule of events on campus. Of particular interest to communicators may be:

• 10:00-10:45 a.m. - "Designing for the Mobile Web"
• 11:00-11:45 a.m. - "Usability and Enterprise Applications: The Case of UM Survey"

Member profile: Jake LaSota

Thanks, Jake!

If you know a member you'd like us to profile, let us know.

Inviting 3-year-olds to strategy meetings

This post by Seth Godin on "The why imperative" got me thinking about the power of that little word why.

The university environment is a fascinating mix of innovation and entrenchment, of cutting-edge ideas and slow-moving systems. University researchers grew a beating heart in a lab, yet a unit's Web site redesign can get stuck in committee for years.

Each unit and department has its own view of "the way we do things." That is important, and I am not advocating change for change's sake. We are lucky to work within a trusted and established brand, and decisions on communications strategy need to be well thought out and supported by research.

I am, however, advocating for us to make sure we have a good answer to why we do the things we do. (And "because that's how we've always done it" is not a good enough answer.)

I'm also proposing we embrace that other favorite question of children: So what?

What would happen if your department's communications decisions had to go through a stubborn three-year-old?

"We need a brochure for our program."
"Why?"
"Because our program is new."
"So what?"
"So we want people to know we exist."
"Why?"
"Because we think the information we have will help them."
"Why?"
"Because it's information we haven't seen anywhere else."
"So what?"
"So we need to get the information to our audience so they can use it."

Now our hypothetical three-year-old has gotten to the real goal. Programs often request an end product without thinking through the problem they want to solve. Our three-year-old has helped us find the objective, so we can work with the program to determine whether a brochure is the best way to achieve this goal.

Now, let's discuss nap time...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vauvau/ / CC BY 2.0

Metrics, Part 2

In September, we presented a program that introduced analytics and measurement. Next month, the Program and Change Management Collaborative is running a program that goes more in-depth on the subject. The PCMC is a professional group for project managers here on campus.

Reporting and Metrics

Thursday, December 10, 2009

3-4:30pm

101 Walter

 

Understand how reporting and metrics can help support and
further your project. Come learn how to identify the concepts needed to measure
a project, design a strategy to collect that data, refine a measurement
instrument to collect data, select analysis techniques, think through how to
present that data visually, and then how to incorporate visual presentations
into written communication about a project.

 

Peter Radcliffe is the executive director of planning andanalysis for the University of Minnesota system and is responsible for
gathering, analyzing, and disseminating information to support evidence-based
decision-making, ensure data integrity, demonstrate accountability, and enhance
the University's analytic capacity. He has oversight for the office of
Institutional Research, Service and Continuous Improvement, Measurement
Services, and Space Management. His work assists senior University leaders in
making management and policy decisions.

 

Peter has served on a number of institutional committees,
task forces, and project teams. He is active in organizations of data analysts
and institutional researchers, and helped found the University of Minnesota
Analysts Group. He recently chaired the steering committee for the Association
for Institutional Research in the Upper Midwest (AIRUM).

To book, visit the PCMC's website at http://pcmc.umn.edu/ and log on to Moodle using your x500.

Monday link roundup, 11.9.09

Every Monday we'll post a roundup of interesting communications news and articles from the past week. What have you been reading, listening to, and watching? Add a comment or suggest a link for next week.

Web

• You Can Get There From Here: Websites for Learners
  
• Don't lose your identity - Create an effective print style sheet
  


• Microformats: What, How, and Why
  

Other

• Obama's first job: Newsletter editor
  


• Periodic table of typefaces
• Good information design is Interesting, Easy, Beautiful, True
  

Poll: When did you join Twitter?

Tonight: First Thursday Mixer at the Campus Club

When Cicero said, "We were born to unite with our fellow men, and to join in community with the human race," I'm pretty sure he was talking about happy hour.

Join fellow Forum members tonight from 4:30 to 6:00 at the Campus Club for some laid-back networking with like-minded souls. You don't need to RSVP, and you don't need to be a Campus Club member to attend.

New internal communications resource

Another update from our busy friends in University Relations. In the Faculty and Staff section of the University's site, you can now find Resources for Internal Communications. The page includes information on things like U of M audience segmentation and which University units to contact in different situations. There are also updates on the Reinventing Internal Communications initiative.

At the bottom of the page, you'll see information on the Internal Communications Network. I attended the kickoff meeting last week and am looking forward to the group's accomplishments (view the meeting recording here). The Communicators Forum has been and will continue to be in close contact with this new network to make sure we're clear about how the two groups fit together.

Send your social networking pages to U Relations

Kathy Jensen from University Relations has the following request. A great opportunity to share your work!

Hello, social networkers,

University Relations is gathering links to official social networking pages developed by University colleges, departments, centers, and units. Our goal is to provide a single Web page, like a directory, that will allow our visitors to quickly find and link to all the great social networking pages that the U has to offer.

If your unit has developed an official social networking page, please send the name of the page and the link to webdepot@umn.edu. We will publish this social networking directory page (we're working out just where) and link to it from the newly created social networking standards page on the eCommunication Standards site.

Resources for getting started in social media, from Cari Hatcher

At last week's Web 2.0 presentation, Cari Hatcher offered lots of tips for getting started with social media. Here is her list of online resources.

• Brand Awareness: It's all a 'Twitter' (PDF)
  
• "Get on Twitter" is Not a Social Media Strategy (PDF)
  
• NSO to Try Beethoven's Tweet Suite
  
• Facebook Best Practices for Nonprofit Organizations
  
• Online Communications that Don't Suck
  
• Using Facebook for Your Nonprofit
  

Thanks, Cari!

Monday link roundup, 11.2.09

Every Monday we'll post a roundup of interesting communications news and articles from the past week. What have you been reading, listening to, and watching? Add a comment or suggest a link for next week.

Web

• HTML5: The Basics
  


• Confusing menus and links: the web's biggest challenge
• 12 Cool Ideas from Event Apart Chicago 2009
• Reunifying duplicate content on your website
  

Social networking

• A sharecount button for Facebook
  


• I'm loving the new Twitter Lists feature

Writing

• The Art of Persuasive Writing ...based on bank robbers' notes
  

My reading (and thus my links) lacked subject-diversity this week, so tell us about what you've been reading in the comments.