January 2008 – Andrew Careaga

Sick day = blog catch-up day

I’ve been fighting an upper respiratory infection all week long, and today I’m staying home in hopes of sending this bug to its death.

But I can’t seem to sleep, daytime TV is too dull for words (except for a showing of A Mighty Wind on Comedy Central this morning), and I’ve got several neglected RSS feeds in need of a severe pruning.

Plus, it’s been a long time been a long time been a long lonely lonely lonely lonely time since I blogged. (For the previous sentence, blame the Sudafed. And too much Led Zeppelin during my formative years.) Anyway, it all adds up to lots of contextless links for your point-and-click pleasure:

A del.icio.us list of iconic icons for web design, courtesy of Seth Meranda.

I Can Has Cheeseburger!. In a can, even. Yes, it’s true. Just what the world’s been waiting for, right? Right? Via Snark Hunting.

Wired‘s interactive life cycle of a blog post will just warm the cockles of any bloggeek’s heart. Via (dis)information architecture.

$100 for a link on Digg’s front page? A new low in online marketing?

Meet the new web influentials. They’re not necessarily the most people-connected, but rather the “people who influence the network by leveraging the most powerful force on the web — the link. So says Publishing 2.0. (Note to self: More contextless links in the future.)

Hidden mysteries of marketing revealed! Anita Campbell, editor of Small Business Marketing Trends, asked a bunch of A-list marketing gurus to share their best-kept marketing secrets, and they obliged. A bunch of lesser lights also shared their tips in the comments. Lots of good ideas here. Link via Chris Brown’s Branding and Marketing.

While we’re on the subject of marketing gurus…no aspiring marketer should be without the Seth Godin Action Figure. Now with built-in BrandOMatic © and PurplePower ©. Via the man himself.

Use Hey!Spread to upload several videos at once.

Digital Perspective asks: What kind of tech user are you? And then links to ways to find out. Say hello to an omnivore (according to this Pew Internet quiz).

The rise of open-source mega-universities. “The world’s top universities have come late to the world of online education, but they’re arriving at last, creating an all-you-can eat online buffet of information. And mostly, they are giving it away.”

All the presidents’ blogs. Bob Johnson updates his list of college and university presidents who blog. There are 32 in all.

OK, folks. Sudafed’s wearing off. Time to go.

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Now playing: Cat Power – Lord, Help The Poor & Needy
via FoxyTunes

Share your idea, maybe win a major award!

OK, all you idea people, here’s your chance to shine.

Andy Shaindlin, the guy behind the Alumni Futures blog, has come up with an ingenious contest to tap into the wisdom of the higher ed blogging crowd, and maybe help improve higher education administration along the way. Today, Andy announced on his blog the Alumni Futures Innovation Award contest to solicit ideas for improving higher education administration. To participate, go to Andy’s blog, click on a button to generate a random word, and then brainstorm an idea to improve administration — on your campus, in your department, wherever else academic administrators may lurk — based on the word that came up when you clicked.

Your idea can apply to alumni relations, development, PR, marketing, communications, admissions, career services – or a combination. Or some other specialty. We’re flexible.

I’ll select a recipient from the submissions to receive the Alumni Futures Innovation Award, and post the idea and winner in a future posting.

Ideally, the winning idea will reflect some of the following characteristics:

Hasn’t yet been thoroughly tried or tested in higher ed administration;

Challenges standard assumptions and practices in our professions;

Could be implemented at many kinds of institutions – or better yet, could happen across many or even all institutions.

Is so cool, so clever or so simple that we won’t believe we haven’t thought of it.

Andy has some lovely gifts for the winner, so send enter right away. (I’ve already entered my own idea, and you wouldn’t want to lose to me, would you?) The contest ends Feb. 14.

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Andy’s approach is a great way to brainstorm problems or stimulate thinking when you’re stuck — as we administrators often are. It reminds me of a chapter from Roger von Oech‘s classic book on creativity, A Whack on the Side of the Head. The idea, as Whack describes it, is to let a random piece of information stimulate your thinking.

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Now playing: The Fiery Furnaces – Ex-Guru
via FoxyTunes

More about Facebook and Twitter

Judy Gombita of PR Conversations tried to leave a comment on my recent post about the (apparently exaggerated) decline of Facebook, but her comment was rejected due to its plethora of links. So, she emailed the comment to me, and I thought it was worthy of its very own post. Here it is. (As a caution to commenters, the WordPress comment function on this blog isn’t very link-friendly, so please keep that in mind when posting. Just post the URL instead of trying to insert html code, and you should be fine.)

Hey Andrew, I agree with you that the kool-aid crowd has moved on to Twitter, but whether it will ever reach the critical mass/numbers (worldwide) of Facebook, I’m highly doubtful.

The bright shiny new toys crowd (BSNTC) tend to be very loud and adamant at the front end about how useful and necessary is the tool/platform/channel, but they are also the first to be fickle and move on. Twelve to 18 months ago everyone was telling me that I *had* to be exploring Second Life, because my organization would *have* to have a presence in there or risk being left behind by the competition.

I held fast.

For the last six to 12 months I’ve been rejecting “be my FB friend” requests. The BSNTC is always amazed that I haven’t sent up a profile in FB. Of course they are now yawning in boredom about how “so 2007” it is and complaining about FB’s numerous applications (you know, the ones they happily installed), the Beacon fiasco, etc.

Yep, the main problem with FB is that it *isn’t* as fast and easy and valuable and fun as Twitter! (At least for the next two to three months…after that they will move on to the next BSNT….)

I haven’t rejected the concept of micro-blogging wholesale (although I doubt the current iteration of Twitter will prove to be the killer app). It just hasn’t proven itself for (my) business direction/needs as yet. (And I have a real office water cooler, so don’t feel the need of an online one.)

FYI, I keep my eye out for relevant articles (and not always negative ones!) and send them on to my University of Georgia “blogging prof” and unabashd Twitter champion pal, Karen Miller. See how she is incorporating Twitter into her class assignments and building up a nice little list of resources for her students. FYI, I sent her these two:

How Individuals Use Twitter, Peter Kim

17 Ways to Use Twitter

(When I sent this second one, I actually put in the Subject line: OK, this makes sense)

On a side note, I think there would be a greater acceptance and use for Twitter if the BSNTC didn’t try so hard (and often) to be “clever” on Twitter. Or so obviously cliquey. Not to mention the excruciating amount of details about their food intake and travel plans and the “good mornings” and “good nights Twitterati.” It’s that kind of behaviour that earns the phrase “overactive tweets.” (Credit to Jenn Mattern for that one.)

My Twitter and Facebook activity has been pretty light lately. Likewise with this blog. A combination of work craziness and some under-the-weatherness has contributed to my malaise. Maybe next week I’ll get back into the social networking groove.

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Now playing: Angelique Kidjo – Salala ft. Peter Gabriel
via FoxyTunes

The “Best Ever” blog: Best blog ever?

Flacking for my colleagues at Missouri S&T again — this time to let you know that we’ve launched yet another blog. This one’s a short-term project to promote the upcoming 100th anniversary of our St. Pat’s Celebration, a tradition since 1908. Since the students have taken to calling each year’s event the “best ever,” we thought the blog the Best Ever Blog. Could it also be the best blog ever? Have a look and let us know what you think.

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Now playing: Various Artists – My Spine Is The Bassline – Shriekback
via FoxyTunes

OEDb announces best online programs

The Online Education Database (OEDb), a database of accredited online education programs, has released its 2008 online college rankings. This is the second year for the rankings. Since there are only 96 accredited online colleges, the universe for this ranking is narrow. But OEDb looks at all the important metrics — acceptance rate, financial aid, graduation rate, peer web citations, retention rate, scholarly citations, student-faculty ratio, and years accredited — and uses a fairly straightforward methodology.

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Now playing: Cat Power – Song To Bobby
via FoxyTunes (OEDb)