Category: higher education

Friday Five: By the numbers

It’s been a while since we’ve posted a “by the numbers” Friday Five. Heck, it’s been a while since we’ve done any kind of Friday Five. So let’s get back in the groove. Here are five numeraltastic links for your consideration:

1. 5 reasons you should sign up for the .eduGuru summit. Get your ticket today. (Thank me later, gurus, for giving you top billing. I’m also bummed that I won’t be able to attend this year.)

2. The 6 habits of true strategic thinkers, according to Paul J.H. Schoemaker, one of Inc.’s best strategic thinkers and writers. “‘We need strategic leaders!’ is a pretty constant refrain at every company, large and small,” he writes. (The same goes for colleges and universities. – AC) “One reason the job is so tough: no one really understands what it entails. It’s hard to be a strategic leader if you don’t know what strategic leaders are supposed to do.” No matter if you’re a business leader, a middle manager or an artisan laboring in the fields of content creation, web design or creative services; Schoemaker’s advice is worth reading and heeding.

3. 20 phrases you can replace with one word, via PRDaily. I could go on and on about the time I got in trouble for editing a boss’s text from “we are now currently at the present time planning to …” to “we plan to …” but I won’t bore you.

4. The 6 most important ideas from An Event Apart Seattle, by Douglas Gapinski, an mStoner strategist. My favorite takeaway: In the future-friendly web, generalists rule, but most good generalists still have specialties.

5. 20 creative guerrilla marketing campaigns. These are pretty brilliant examples of creative thinking.

A good weekend to all.

Blogging on

I blog thereforeI want to thank a couple of fellow bloggers whose responses to my recent post about blog abandonment have encouraged me to keep on blogging.

I was feeling especially stuck when I wrote that post. Still emerging from a kind of social media hibernation that lasted through February, I had started to dip my toes back into the waters of Twitter and Facebook, but I hadn’t yet taken the plunge back into the deep end of the pool that is blogging.

In that post, I asked my fellow higher ed bloggers what motivates them to continue blogging, especially in the face of all the other social media outlets and tools that continue to demand so much of our time.

One of the first to respond was Kyle James, the guy behind the influential higher ed Internet marketing blog .eduGuru and the CEO of nuCloud. Kyle has been blogging consistently since January 2008, so he’s no Johnny-Come-Lately to this pursuit. One thing Kyle said in his comment really hit home with me:

To answer your question, what motivates me to blog is because I know how important it is in it’s deepest form! I don’t know how to explain it but at some point all this crazy social media stuff will go away but blogging will still remain. Quality writing will always have a purpose.

I’m not sure I agree that “all this crazy social media stuff” will pass, and I’m not sure all of it should. After all, blogging is morphing, or has morphed, into micro-blogging (a la Twitter), and people can blog on other social media platforms, such as Facebook. So other platforms allow for blogging to happen.

But I do agree with Kyle that blogging in important. Even if you’re blogging for no one other than yourself, if it serves a purpose — cathartic or otherwise — then it is a valuable pursuit.

Which brings me to my second source of inspiration, Chris Syme. Chris is another terrific and prolific blogger whom I respect (despite her love of the Kansas Jayhawks). Check out her blog at CKSyme.org. You’ll find lots of good stuff there. Like Kyle, Chris is no longer employed by a higher ed institution. So, again like Kyle, her purposes for blogging are tied to marketing her consulting services.

Still, her comment resonates with my inner blogger.

Remember that scene in “Singing in the Rain” where Gene Kelly does a long number about a young hoofer coming to Broadway called, “Gotta Dance”? Well, I guess I “Gotta Write.”

I think I’m in the same boat as Chris.

Gotta write.

Gotta blog.

So, blog I shall.

How frequently I’ll be blogging remains to be seen. Another veteran blogger, Karine Joly, commenting on my coming-out-of-hibernation post, reminds me that “you [dont] have to post 10 times a week, but I’m sure you can manage 1 post every other week.” I’ll do my best, Karine. Thanks, too, for that encouragement.

P.S. – Ron Bronson also weighed in with a comment, then with an excellent post of his own. Any time you can work a Portlandia skit into your post, as Ron does with this one, you know it’s going to be good stuff.

Image courtesy of alamodestuff on Flickr.