Internet and web – Page 199

Catching up on my higher ed blog-reading this morning, I discover two posts about blogging and the higher ed workplace.

One post, from erelevant, is an announcement that Warren Wilson College is looking for a VP of advancement. But it’s interesting that Morgan posted the ad on his blog. I’d be interested in hearing whether any candidates respond to the announcement, and whether any inquiries that begin, “I found your ad for the vice president’s position on the erelevant blog…” will make it past HR’s screening. Morgan, keep us informed, please.

The other post comes from Rob at UBrander, and it’s a lament about the substandard quality of applications he’s received for a web copywriter position.

He writes: “[M]ore than 50 applicants have made it through HR to my desk. Only four have received interviews. None have been hired.”

It seems they haven’t done their homework. But Rob has done his. Read on:

The ones who did get an interview didnâ€™t bother to Google me. If they had, they would have found my blog, my LinkedIn profile, etc. They would have learned that I have a particular philosophy of higher ed marketing related to the IMC process. They would be able to impress me with marketing terms like â€œbrand equity.â€ They would have even learned what I looked like so they could immediately recognize me when they walked into the department. Those who didnâ€™t get interviews might have checked me out on the Web, but what prevented them from getting an interview was that I checked them out too.

A cautionary tale for job-seekers in the Internet age: Google your prospective employer. And beware what you post about yourself.

Viral is all the rage, it seems — in video, in marketing, in sickness. Or at least it’s enough of a rage to give me enough Friday Five fodder.

Let’s start off with SCADshorts, a viral video campaign developed by the Savannah College of Art and Design. Developed by the Dandy Dwarves, a group of SCAD alumni who put their video production education to work, the campaign consists of a series of oddball videos — one a month — that are part of a puzzle prospective students must solve in order to win an iPod. Morgan Davis of erelevant offers his take on this clever campaign.
More about viral video from Karine Joly, who discusses how Vancouver Film School made the most of one graduate’s video, “Piece of Mind” (YouTube link), by creating and releasing on YouTube it’s own “making of” video (YouTube link). “In this 7-minute video,” Karine writes, “VFS manages to let this talented student promotes the Canadian institution, its professors and its offering – all this done by presenting the work that went into ‘Piece of Mind.'”
Great writing, unfiltered. Seth Godin extols the benefits of infectious prose that is free from corporate filters, and creates a mini-virus by uncovering some pretty decent, linkable bloggage. “The filter,” Godin writes, “is important, sometimes. It keeps us focused and on time and from veering too far in the wrong direction. But in a Long Tail world, the filter is actually better off gone.”
In what we hope will become a viral campaign across campuses, 70 presidents of U.S. colleges and universities have signed the Presidents Climate Commitment, a move to make college campuses more sustainable.
Virality is not confined to cyberspace. Take the underground press movement. It’s alive and well on a campus where you’d least expect it: right here at UMR, a predominantly engineering- and technology-oriented university. While the official student newspaper (The Missouri Miner) is threatening to sue the university and student council for cutting the paper’s budget, a group of students have created an alternative newspaper called The Mineshaft. (Tag line: “Where the real news is buried.”) This weekly publication sprang up in December. In the fine tradition of Soviet samizdat newspapers, The Mineshaft is printed on 8 1/2-by-11 paper, photocopied and distributed throughout campus. All the writers use pseudonyms, but according to the latest edition, that may change. (Writes Sybil, the editor in chief: “While we initially thought that anonymity would allow for all discussion to be on our content, we have found instead that the issue of who we are has just become even more controversial.”) The writing and reporting isn’t terrific — as I said, most of our students are here to study engineering, and we have no journalism program — but the spirit behind The Mineshaft is right.