Category: conferences

The great #hewebar Red Stapler caper

One unexpected, somewhat nerve-wracking but surprisingly fun element of my HighEdWeb Arkansas conference experience involved Twitter, the disappearance of the Red Stapler Award, and the ultimate discovery and return of this coveted office product to its rightful owner (me).

To document the experience, I put together a Storify — The #hewebar Red Stapler Caper — chronicling the sequence of events, including tweets from the missing stapler itself.

I hope you enjoy this little tale. And word of caution to whoever wins the Red Stapler Award from this year’s conference: Don’t be surprised if you find yourself an unwitting participant in some shenanigans involving your award.

Cover image: Screenshot of Lumberg nabbing Milton’s red stapler, from the movie Office Space, via VirtualStapler.com.

Upcoming: HighEdWeb Arkansas

Update: Tonya Oaks Smith, one of the conference organizers, recently asked speakers to submit video clips about their upcoming topics. She’s posted the submittals on the HighEdWeb Arkansas YouTube site. Enjoy!

Next month, I’ll be heading down to Little Rock to attend a great conference, along with a lot of great higher ed web and marketing folks. The event is HighEdWeb Arkansas, and if you aren’t yet signed up to attend this two-day conference at the end of July, you should register now.

I attended last year, presented on how our campus used blogging to talk about our university’s name change (was back in 2007-2008), and even won the coveted Red Stapler for my efforts. This year I’ll be talking about a topic near and dear to my heart, managing change.

But don’t let that keep you from attending. The lineup of speakers is ah-mazing, a veritable Murderer’s Row of higher ed web luminaries. (I’m especially looking forward to hearing from, and finally meeting, keynote speaker Mark Greenfield, whom I’ve followed on Twitter since my earliest days on that network.) The conference organizers are first-rate pros who are all passionate about putting together a great event, from the programming to the after-hours activities. And many higher ed partners — too many to list here but posted on the conference’s main website — join with the volunteer organizers to help keep the event affordable.

The event is July 26 and 27 in Little Rock. It’s cheap. You should join us. Register today.