Month: January 2007

Ideas, anyone?

Looks like I’m going to be a panelist at next week’s CASE District VI Conference in sunny Kansas City, Mo. The subject: “Horizon Issues Being Explored by CASE.” I and two of my district VI colleagues — John Amato of the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Michael Johnson of the University of Northern Colorado Alumni Association — will discuss big issues alongside CASE President John Lippincott. Lippincott is as astute as anyone when it comes to assessing where higher education is going, but Amato, Johnson and I need to come up with some ideas of our own — Amato for trends in fundraising, Johnson for the same in alumni relations, and I for trends in communications and marketing.

And that’s where you come in. I’m exercising blogger’s prerogative here and seeing the wisdom of crowds.

What do you see as the big issues facing higher ed marketing and communications? Help me out here, readers. Throw me a bone. The session is Monday. I’m not panicked or anything. But I’d love to hear your thoughts about trends in marketing, branding, PR, communications, new media, old media, graphic design — any and all of it.

For those about to test…we salute you

And I thought Schoolhouse Rock was cool. Now there’s Rock the SAT, a study guide set to music. This NPR piece offers samples (RealAudio only).

If only this existed when I was in high school … it would’ve been on an LP, or maybe even an eight-track. But would I have listened to it more than Blondie or the Knack? Probably not.
Link via YPulse.

Boise State hopes for a bowl bounce

Boise State University is riding high on a victory over Big 12 football powerhouse the University of Oklahoma in last week’s Fiesta Bowl. Now, according to an AP report in Idaho Business News, Boise State officials are hoping a “bowl bounce” will help their campus gain more national recognition — and more students and private donations. (Link via University Business.)

If the increases in enrollment and donations following Cinderella runs by the George Mason and Gonzaga basketball teams can predict Boise State’s “Bowl Bounce,” the commuter school in Idaho’s capital city should expect the glass slipper to fit for months to come.

University President Bob Kustra thinks so. Thanks to the Fiesta Bowl victory, “It’s going to be easier to recruit topflight faculty, easier to recruit students and easier to raise money,” Kustra said. “It’s in a sense a coincidence because we’ve been preparing a comprehensive campaign for a year now.”

The school’s marketing slogan, “Beyond the Blue,” refers to the academics behind the signature blue Astroturf at Bronco stadium. A one-time junior college, Boise State already was slowly blooming into a research university as the Boise metropolitan area attracted technology firms and thousands of urban transplants throughout the 1990s.

Kustra hopes the bowl victory will accelerate that transformation, mirroring the experience of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., in the nine months since it captivated basketball fans on a run to last year’s NCAA Final Four as a No. 11 seed.

Ah, big-time intercollegiate athletics.

It’s good to be Google

Just in case there was any doubt in your mind, Google is now king of all things computer.

So says Rich Skrenta, co-founder of Topix.net, just one of any number of search engine/news aggregators scampering beneath Google’s behemoth feet. Google is more than the king of “the third age of computing,” according to Skrenta. It is also the environment in which we operate, the very air that we breathe. He writes:

Google has won both the online search and advertising markets. They hold a considerable technological lead, both with algorithms as well as their astonishing web-scale computing platform. Beyond this, however, network effects around their industry position and brand will prevent any competitor from capturing market share from them — even if it were possible to match their technology platform. To paraphrase an old comment about IBM, made during its 30 year dominance of the enterprise mainframe market, Google is not your competition, Google is the environment.

In case you forgot about life before Google, the kings of the first two ages of computing were IBM (1950-1980) and Microsoft (1984-1998). Google’s reign began in 2001.

The interregnum between the end of the PC era and the rise of the online world has concluded, and Google is the new king of forward market growth in computing and software technology. Major companies will succeed by working within the framework of Google’s industry dominance, and smaller players will operate in niches or in service to the giant.

“I for one welcome our new insect overlords.”

(Hat tip to if:book).

Angst in the Philly Inquirer newsroom

One of the great daily newspapers, the Philadelphia Inquirer, has become the latest big-city old paper to lay off news staff. The Inquirer will trim about 20 percent of its news staff as it reinvents itself as “a local and regional publication with a growing online presence anchored by a redesigned Web site.”

The Inquirer’s resident blogger, Dan Rubin (whom I met last fall at the CASE conference in Philadelphia), describes the somber mood in the newsroom.

Staff meetings are scheduled for this afternoon. I’m guessing we’ll talk about individual sacrifice, the needs of the group. The paper will take a look, again, at what it needs to do in this crushing time, and many people will be asked to change jobs, to fill in the many holes. (Update: Editor Bill Marimow described this as “the worst day in the history of the Philadelphia Inquirer.”)

I’ve said to a couple of glum-looking people today that there’s part of me that’s envious. I know it sounds hollow, coming from someone who has seniority. But this will be saving some people from heartache later, when it’s harder to pull up stakes. This is a good time to be looking for other ways to use those peculiar skills they put to work here.

I told a young writer who was wondering how she’d manage that the amazing thing is, I’ve never run into anyone who left the newspaper who didn’t look younger and healthier the next time I saw them.

A harbinger of things to come for old media?

Related: Will the old media survive?