See You in Rochester

I'm deep in final preparations for the workshop, so no more material to be added here. But the blog will be open, so if anybody comes up with a specific issue you'd like addressed during the workshop post it here.

Thanks for the feedback heretofore; travel safe, see you next Wednesday.

Blogging at Ball State

Ball State University's student-blogging program is now in its third year, which makes it one of the old ones. Presented under the banner Real Life at Ball State, the blogs are written by 12 undergraduates (4 from each year) and hosted under BSU's domain. I chatted this morning with Nancy Prater, the university's web coordinator, about the program. Here are a few salient points from our conversation:

• For first year of the program (2005-06), BSU got by using Wordpress as its blogging software. "It was ok as a short-term solution to get us through," she told me, "but it wasn't really sophisticated enough for our needs." The IT department had its hands full with a change in content-management systems; it made the most sense to roll that out and then tack on the new blogging platform. Ball State runs its blogs on Community Server.
• BSU used traditional means to promote the blog --- via postcards to prospective students/parents, posters to high-school counselors, plugs in the viewbook and newsletters to parents, and high-visibility links throughout the BSU web site. "We talked it up to parents as much as we did to students," she says.
• By the end of the inaugural semester, the site was drawing nearly 3,000 hits a day. The following spring, traffic spiked to more than 10,000 hits a day. "We started getting comments from people that said things like, 'I've been accepted to Ball State and I'm trying to decide whether to enroll,' or 'I'm coming to Ball State next fall and I have questions about classes or dorms,'" Prater says. "People had reached a certain decision point and were really focused on getting information, and that drove the traffic way, way up."
• In a survey of incoming freshmen and their parents last summer, Ball State learned that the blogs had really had an impact. Readership was quite high, with parents making up a surprisingly large segment of the readership.
• As part of the training that student bloggers receive before they begin writing, Ball State has an attorney from the university counsel's office come down and give a little talk about legal issues such as copyright, libel, and privacy law. There has never been a legal problem arising out of something that a student blogger wrote, Prater says, but that's because Ball State chooses its bloggers carefully and ensures that they're responsible kids.
• "We don't edit the blogs at all," Prater says. "The bloggers get to curse; they get to criticize professors or the administration. That's all important for authenticity. We do make sure that they take into account that their parents are reading what they write, their friends are reading it, future employers can read it. But we want them to be honest."

Prater considers the blogging initiative a great success. "It was a risk, but there's risk in not taking a risk," she says. "For us, it seems to be paying off."

My thanks to Nancy for the input.

Reading Matter

Here's a must-read from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). It's an article called "Fear and Loathing in Web 2.0," published in the September 2007 edition of Currents. Here's how the article starts:

Talking the Web 2.0 talk has become commonplace for many campus communicators. Yet walking the walk is a different story. For some practitioners, relatively recent innovations like student blogs are old hat. Yet other communications offices continue to ponder jumping on the blog bandwagon.

Ask practitioners what holds some institutions back even as early adopters move on, and the word control comes up a lot. . . .

Rather than trying to control the mes­­sage, a new mindset is required — one that approaches the communications and marketing role as helping to facilitate a conversation about an institution in all its many facets. In this conversation, the institution has a definite voice; it’s just not a definitive voice. Having others — students, faculty, parents, alumni, the media, the outside world — be part of the conversation about your institution and thereby relinquishing the idea of control over your message does not mean relinquishing an institutional point of view or voice. In fact, in this new conversation, understanding and being true to institutional identity becomes more vital than ever.

When we say an institution (educational or otherwise) "doesn't get it," that's the "it" they don't get — they must change their notions about control. The idea that they have control over message anymore is an illusion anyway; their audience isn't listening to PR-machined slogans or marketing conceits in the first place. They're listening to each other.

Accordingly, institutions are stepping out from behind the curtain and presenting a human face, rather than a Great and All-Powerful Oz. A blog is an ideal vehicle for that face-to-face connection.

Another must-read (some of you may have already read it) is Clive Thompson's essay on "radical transparency" in the April 2007 issue of Wired. An excerpt from that article:

Not long ago, the only public statements a company [or university, for that matter] ever made were professionally written press releases and the rare, stage-managed speech by the CEO. Now firms spill information in torrents, posting internal memos and strategy goals, letting everyone from the top dog to shop-floor workers blog publicly about what their firm is doing right - and wrong. Jonathan Schwartz, the CEO of Sun Microsystems, dishes company dirt and apologizes to startups he's accidentally screwed. Venture capitalists now demand that CEOs be fluent in blogspeak. In February, after JetBlue trapped passengers for hours in its storm-grounded planes and canceled 1,100 flights, CEO David Neeleman tried to deflect the blast of bad publicity by using YouTube to air his own blunt mea culpa. Microsoft, once a paragon of buttoned-down control, now posts uncensored internal videos - and encourages its engineers to blog freely about their projects.

I'll have hard copies of both these articles for ev'yone at the conference.

10 Ways to Use a Blog

In May of this year, Wesleyan University hosted a demonstration of Web 2.0 technologies for university students, faculty, and staff. Dubbed "Web 2.0 Expo," it covered not only blogs but also podcasts, wikis, social bookmarking, RSS feeds, and such like. One of the Expo's major purposes was to introduce members of the campus community to these new technologies, but a second --- and equally important --- objective was to gather feedback and which of these technologies people most wanted. Based on that feedback, the university's IT staff spent the summer developing software and instructional support to facilitate the creation of blogs hosted at the wesleyan.edu domain. There are more details in the Wesleyan Argus. See also this post from the Web 2.0 Expo listing 10 ways to use a blog for university business, which includes linked examples.

Wesleyan isn't alone in providing in-house support. The University of Texas' Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment provides one-on-one consulting to faculty members who want to use blogs in the classroom. Penn State's Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT) program has an online blog primer and offers PSU-hosted blogs to faculty and administrators. Michigan State has a Blogs for Learning page.

I'll send out some e-mails and see who responds; details to follow.

Blogger profile: Ben Jones, MIT Admissions

The MIT Admissions blogs are among the most successful higher-ed blogs in the country. I sent a few questions to Ben Jones, who oversees the project (which comprises more than a dozen separate blogs), and he very kindly shared a few secrets of his success. Here's Ben's profile; my thanks to him for responding to these questions.

1. What institutional objective(s) are the MIT Admissions blogs intended to serve?
I was hired in 2004 essentially to communicate to prospective students what MIT is really all about and to tell its stories in a way that they would welcome. It was becoming clear at that time, with the rise of Web 2.0 (etc.), that there was a large demand for primary source content, and that the flat-out rejection of perceived marketing/spin was increasing exponentially. Connecting current students with prospective students directly seemed like the best way to convey the true MIT, and blogging seemed the best vehicle through which to do so.

2. To what degree are the blogs helping MIT meet the intended objective(s)?
We have had a tremendous response to the blog program. We have over 2000 primary-source entries that support our "official" admissions info, and 34,000 comments/questions in response to those entries. Our site gets an average of 20,000 hits per day from 6000 unique users. Applications and yield have both increased since we started the program, and we've helped a variety of other schools launch admissions blogging programs.

3. Your blog community is incredibly active; the comment volume is outstanding. How did you achieve this? Is it merely a function of time (the site having been in existence since 2004), or have you taken specific steps to stimulate the conversation?
Much of it is a function of time - the traffic and commenting have both grown exponentially since we launched the first blog in '04. I also spend an absurd (says my wife) amount of time on Facebook, College Confidential, etc., and answer questions by referencing blog entries (with links, of course). Last but not least, I personally write a lot of content that takes a more general, less-MIT-specific approach to the admissions conversation, so some of my traffic is from kids who have no interest in MIT. But then, after reading my entry, they'll poke around the rest of the site, realize that MIT is actually quite different than the stereotypes, and all of a sudden they're in the applicant pool.

I guess the message is simply: "build compelling content, and they will come!" :-)

4. Have the blogs yielded other, unintended benefits (or unintended drawbacks?)
In terms of the drawbacks, I wouldn't say that there are any, other than the time commitment, which is extensive. A program as large as ours really needs a staff position dedicated to it. I see colleagues in other offices trying to share the management of a blog program on top of their regular jobs, and it's difficult.

5. How much staff time / $$$$ does your office devote to this project?
One dedicated staff member to run the whole thing (me), plus three other staff bloggers who publish entries, plus 12 student bloggers who are paid $10/hr with a weekly cap of 4 hours ($40). (Many of them choose to work more than this, but they are not paid overtime.) I believe we spent about $15K last year in paying our students, which, when you think about the cost of your average viewbook, is really a drop in the water. I designed the site in-house, so there were no expenses associated with launching the site other than my time.

6. Would you advise other admissions offices to launch blogging sites ? Why or why not?
Absolutely. It's by far the most successful of our communications initiatives. Most of our print materials quickly end up in the hands of parents --- this generation is firmly rooted in the Web and in Web culture. The best way to convince a skeptical administration to start a blogging program is to type the name of your university and the word "blog" into google. It will immediately become clear that the question isn't "should there be blogs about our school" but "should we be a part of what is already happening?"

Admission Accomplished

This summer, Yale student blogger Sam Jackson listed 5 reasons why Yale should have an admissions blog. They were:

1. to assist students (especially those who lack good admissions-support resources)
   
2. to counteract misinformation


3. to keep up with the competition


4. to meet prospective students on their terms and connect w/ them in a medium they're comfortable with


5. to gain feedback from prospective students

Good reasons all, but so far Yale has resisted them; its admissions office has no blog, nor any plans to institute one. Dozens of other universities have launched admissions blogs, however, for some or all of the reasons Jackson enumerated. Indeed, Yale's own newspaper ran a nice article about the trend, which provided the fodder for Jackson's 5-point list. Many of these blogs have launched within the last 12 months, but at least a few are a number of years old.

One of the oldest, the Wharton School's MBA Admissions Blog, dates back at least to 2005, when it was profiled by blog consultant Toby Bloomberg. Asked to explain why Wharton was blogging, associate admissions director (and chief blogger) Alex Brown explained:

The blog essentially serves as a portal for MBA applicants, so in that sense it helps us reach out to a pretty wide audience of those potentially considering the MBA, as well as Wharton in particular. . . . it has become an important part of our marketing / communications / customer service while also being a central resource for others.

I highly recommend that profile, which details not only the rationale behind the blog but also some nuts-and-bolts matters of implementation.

Admissions blogs come in two basic flavors: staff-written and student-written. MIT combines the two approaches with an admissions blog featuring 12 student contributors and four bloggers from the admissions staff. That blog has been extremely successful in building community: the typical post draws 10 or 20 responses, and some of the discussions run as long as 50 or 60 comments.

The following list of admissions blogs is far from comprehensive; it's what I could throw together in 40 minutes or so of surfing. I originally had them sorted into staff- and student-written categories, but at a certain point my lines got crossed, so I wound up w/ this unsorted list. Have at it:

• Rochester Institute of Technology: http://www.thetigerbeat.com/blog/
• Oregon State: http://oregonstate.edu/admissions/blog/
• Case Western: http://blog.case.edu/admission/
• MIT: http://www.mitadmissions.org/
• Wharton MBA: http://adcomblog.wharton.upenn.edu/
• Bryn Mawr: http://www.brynmawr.edu/admissions/blog/
• Johns Hopkins: http://hopkins.typepad.com/
• SUNY Stonybrook: http://sbuchris.blogspot.com/
• Valparaiso: http://www.valpo.edu/admissions/blogs/
• Harvard Business School: http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/blog.html
• Harvard Law School: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/admissions/
• UCLA: http://blog.admissions.ucla.edu/
• South Carolina: http://www.uscbloggers.com/allblogs.php
• University of Illinois: http://blog.oar.uiuc.edu/
• Seattle University: http://community.seattleu.edu/blogs/default.aspx
• Virginia Commonwealth: http://blog.vcu.edu/ugrad/
• Creighton: https://blogs.creighton.edu/admissions/
• University of Richmond: http://admissionsblog.richmond.edu/
• University of Michigan: http://www.admissions.umich.edu/blogs/
• Cornell School of Engineering: http://cornellengineeringadmissions-jill.blogspot.com/

Take It From the Top

This summer Nancy Schwartz posted a list of university presidents who blog. These are busy people, so as you might imagine they're not posting every day. But the best of them have a regular posting schedule (usually monthly, sometimes more often) and are engaging audiences and drawing some feedback. Ms. Schwarz apparently drew some of her examples from a New York Times article that appeared last November.

Let's take a quick look at a few of them. Lou Anna Simon, president of Michigan State University, blogs at the "Office of the President" page on MSU's web site. She posts on such subjects as the VA Tech tragedy; higher ed and state fiscal policy; biotech research at MSU and its value to the Michigan economy; and other subjects. In my opinion, this blog has two major strengths:

1. It's prominently displayed at a high-visibility location on the university's web site.


2. It's outward-looking: The President connects what's happening on her campus to what's happening in the larger community / state / nation / world.

On the whole, however, I don't regard it as a very "bloggy" blog. First and foremost, there are no comments --- it's one-way communication. Readers can't speak back to the blogger or talk to each other, and that's a major limitation. Second, the tone is not nearly conversational enough. It's too laden with PR-speak; the writing seems to have been subjected to a few rounds of sanitization. Third, I don't see many links to sites outside of the msu.edu domain. So on the whole, I don't get the sense that President Simon is using the blog to stimulate give and take and create connections between her institution and the outside world. Rather, I get the sense that she's using it to stake out hardened positions --- to speak, and have others listen.

That ain't how the blogosphere works. You don't use a blog to serve a fully baked souffle; you use it to spread the ingredients out on the table, and then you invite in the guests to help make the dish. You want them to see you with your hands covered in flour and your apron splattered with egg yolk. You want them to see you at work. And you want them to work with you.

We get more of that type of sense at Bob's Blog, written by Towson University president Bob Caret. Take, for example, this post about the university's snow-day policy, in which he walks us through the considerations that have to be weighed when deciding whether or not to close the campus. Not a very glamorous subject, admittedly. But the president provides an open window onto his world, he speaks conversationally, and he invites comment. Two readers took him up and offered their views on his post --- dissenting ones, at that. President Caret's blog is far less weighty than President Simon's; he uses it mostly to discuss things like the Towson U. mascot, study abroad, and construction on campus. But that's beside the point. His objective is to convey a sense of invitation and openness, and since most of his posts draw a smattering of comments, he seems to be succeeding.

The same sense of openness comes across at the blog of Martha Anne Dow, president of the Oregon Institute of Technology. During 2006 she blogged pretty regularly, about once a week, but earlier this year she required treatment for breast cancer and, for understandable reasons, didn't expend much effort blogging. In August she resumed posting. President Dow addresses matters of greater substance (budgetary considerations, grants, academic initiatives etc) than President Caret, but she does so without talking down to her audience --- and, accordingly, attracts some commentary and some feedback.

I have e-mails pending with all these individuals regarding their use of blogs; if their responses come back to me before October 17, I'll post them here.