Mass Meida vs. the Personal Experience

I'm thinking about our e-comm plan here at SMC.

Our site allows students to "personalize their experience." They are able to check off areas of academic, athletic, and student activities that they are interested in. I can then send information and news specific to those interests.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if this really is a good thing. I'm beginning to think that I'd be better off letting students filter on their own.

Thinking back to my experience (and I may not be typical) I applied to 3 schools with 3 different majors. I was just clueless.

I also wonder if getting news on a variety of different programs speaks to the academic quality of the institution overall? If I see that psych students and history students are getting grant money to do research, than it must be a pretty decent place academically, right?

The volume of messages isn't overwhelming ( less than ten a month probably). Does narrowcasting make sense and how would I measure that?

I'm leaning towards no. Send it all out and let the students decide.

I'd appreciate any opinions out there.

Willoughby

Willoughby
Originally uploaded by A Little Spunk

Maria, Liz and John hiking Pisga

Laptop free weekend

I'm sick of looking at this thing. At the end of the day today, I'm going to shut this thing down and not open it until Monday.

Going big time!

ALS is going big time. As you can probably tell, I've totally committed to the new blog title. It took me a couple of week to test drive it, and now www.alittlespunk.com is official.


A couple of other random bits:

• That little screen clip of Twitter below is proof that this tablet is useless.Wish we had Macs.
• I can't decide what to do re: Flickr. My pro account expires next month. I've gone back and forth b/n Flickr and Google's Picasa. I just can't decide which one I like better. Here are a couple of albums of my two stupid dogs. You decide which you like better and let me know.
  

media overload

I need to take a little break from social media for a bit. Just one little post though. This was probably my favorite tweet of the week:

#eduweb2008 Closing Speaker

Here we go! Last one! Good thing too, my brain is full.

Karine Joly, editor of www.collegewebeditor.com.

Twitter is the star of eduweb2008 for sure.

"The Medium is the Message." Marshall McLuhan second time i've seen this quote in the last two weeks.

"The conversation is killing the messenger, the message and the recipient." Karine Joly

You can't catch up, keep up so stop trying.

The big question is, "What is important?" This goes back to what Mark Greenfield said: "aggregate and filter."

Conversations are the best relationship builders, but here are a lot of conversation s out there trying to build relationships.

Groundswell at least the second time this book has come up. Definite must read. (here are the damn italic gremlins again)


7 things to think about: (I forget what the title is but there are 7 of them)

1. What can you do for them!!!!! YES!!!! This is so true and often overlooked by non-natives!!!!!!!!!!!
2. What do you want? (GD Italcs)
   
3. If you build it they will they will come. NOT TRUE! If you build it WITH them, they will come
4. Exclusive content starters
5. Listen, Identify, Empower - once the most active community members have been identified, they should be empowered.
   
6. Call them back on their terms
7. Meet you new bosses - The community is your new boss

They know more than you do!

Club Red @ U of Nebraska. Brad Ward says it's sexy!

Last word:
www.collegewebeditor/secret

#eduweb2008 New Media

Nicely done. Quick intro into what Datamark does, and then onto the presentation.

I'm liking this!

Rule #1 Ask for forgiveness after the fact!
I'm right on with this. Do it an deal with the consequences after the fact.

I continue to hate Blogger's Italics issues in Firefox.

The admission staff should be on Facebook. I have mixed feelings about this and whether or not we should be totally on there. I think it depends on age. It would freak me out to see my director and/or my VP on there. I don't think it's worthwhile to have them on there. Just more work and no value. Young admission officers, yes. They definitely should be there.

I also feel strongly that people who are making marketing decisions regarding new media and Facebook should be on there and embedded into the culture. Otherwise they're making decisions on a technology that they don't understand. Blind leading the blind sort of situation. If you don't have a Facebook profile, you don't get a vote. There I go getting all worked up again.

I really need to blow up that useless Office of Admission Facebook page. I need to talk with ACP about creating a general page.

Yup! You can't market on these things! I wonder how he recommends directing traffic to these things?

#eduweb2008 Can't please everyone!

No kidding.

Webpagesthatsuck.com I like it.

Usability testing is important. usability.gov

Another mobile reference. I really think we're going to have to test this. I disagree with Brian in that I think this will be big

waybackmachine Here's where SMC has been in since 1997. That's me in the orange and blue shirt walking in front of our library in 2000.

Pannel discussion #eduweb2008

Good morning!

Well....This is a very we developer heavy. Might be over my head.

Holy Sh**! Eric just responded to a question about video, and I thin I passed out after the first 3 words. Waaaayyyyy over my head.

Section 508. Had no idea what it was. According to Mark G. There hasn't bee a lot case law re: this issue. This might be something to keep an eye on.....

The commercialization of higher education and higher ed marketing. Good or bad? Both I think. Not all marketing is evil.

Aggregate and filter! There are a ton of tools out there but which ones are valuable?

Totally agree. In order to understand the tech, you have to be on it playing with it. I find this hard to do sometimes when people walk by my office and see me on Facebook and Twitter, etc. they don't get that it's part of the job.

#eduweb2008 Admission Life Cycle

Christopher Ferguson, Dir. of Admission at Wilmington University.

Interesting. He went to a real estate company for the virtual tour.


Ning, interesting that they have it open to anyone not only accepted students. I'm not sure about how I feel about this. Get a kid who applies and then is denied...

What is Blogger's problem with Italics? It won't shut them off. Starting to get annoyed by it.

It's been a long day of live blogging. Clearly, this post has not been very enlightening. Sorry, I'm fried. (::DAMN ITALCS!!!::)

#eduweb2008 High School Students Tell All

Presented by Bill Royall and Pam Kiecker

The Wealth of Stealth: the stealth market place. Website and other internet resources (think first contact application) -from the Lawlor Group

A few of the top most important information resources for students:

1. Admission website
2. Virtual tour
3. Student blogs
4. Online chats
5. Instant messaging
6. Personalization of website

Insights:

• College websites are used for information not entertainment
• Functionality: must be easy to use
• Two click rule - it's even more important now that there
  

Most frequently used sources during colelge search:

1. Websites
2. Other students/peers
3. Letters from colleges
4. Email messages from specific colleges

.edu websites are used more than any other. They are the most trusted and are used by all h.s. ages

Heavy traffic time winter break of their Sophomore and Junior years!!!!

They are searching for:

• Can I get in?
• Major?
• Can I afford it? (GD financial aid again)

Seniors use website for:

• Make an informed decission on where to apply
• Develop a strong application
• Make the FINAL choice

Everyone is on Facebook, but I'm surprised that the high school numbers are low. I'm not surprised that they're not using it to get information on colleges.

I'm also surprised to see such a high the numbers were for those accepting of colleges on Facebook. I wonder if the students really understood what they were being asked. I also wonder about what kids picture when they're asked about colleges being on Facebook.

More insights:

• Website is important.
  
• Connect with current students
• Despite what you may think, students want more information not less. Email sin't as dead as you've heard. This makes sense especially when considering how much Royall uses email and the incredible response rates they get in direct mail.
• Students are saying, let me have it all and then I'll sort through it and get what I want

Bill just suggested a financial aid estimator and how it can help enroll students!!!!!!!! No more!!!! I can't take it!!!!!!!!

#eduweb2008 E-Mail Marketing for Higher Ed

Kyle James, webmaster @ Wofford College

Consistency is key. branding should be similar to the over all branding of your site.

Wish we had a dog for a mascot.


What to send?

• New releases (check)
• Weekly newsletter i.e. athletics
• Data mining blog posts
• Promoting Website features

Good idea from Kyle: Find an alum who is already blogging about what they do and piggyback onto it.

Content

• Subject line (a must have)
• Small bite sized chunks
• link back to site
• multiple content options
• Pictures should ad to content but not dominate

Use Google anylitics in emails.

http://bronto.com


I'm a little grossed out by the feet on our website.

#eduweb Brian Niles, "Recruiting 2.1"

Lot's of talk about population trends and the economy. Scary stuff. He did mention wasteful travel.

Stay away from fads. i.e. Second life and crappy facebook applications

Where's the big picture? Are we doing this just to do it or is there a plan in place?

Email: What we use to talk to old people

IM/SMS: What we use to talk to our friends

(YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

64% believe that advertising is dishonest or unrealistic. Taglines. The marketing speak.

>25% of first contacts are at the point of application. >13% start searching at the 8th grade.

How to reach these kids? Where are they getting there information?

In 2004 75% of students researched colleges online. Really old study. Must be way higher now.

Damn Financial Aid Estimators again. 90% of parents want one. We continue to get killed by that one.

Funny, I don't see those IM #'s. I never get IM's from kids.

Quality: Define it! How is your program different! Think of the question, 'how is your english program?"

Graduate student blogs. The whole damn website needs to be blown up and focus on recruiting students.

Biola for parent programs. It's a great page and hits on a lot of stuff we've been talking about in our communications meetings.


Transforming a College George Keller

I've got a lot of reading to do. http://linkbun.ch/hh0


WVU roommate assignments in February(!!!). The ability to connect with your future roommate can help make the sale!

Travel, where are we going and why? I don't think we've cut it enough in our office...

Book list:
The Overacheivers
Beyond Disruption
X Saves the World
How to Drive your Competition Crazy
Fast Company ( I need to subscribe to this for the office)
Don't Make Me Think

Presentation available at knowledgecenter.targetx.com

#eduweb2008 Buzz, Brands, and Babes

Sexy title.

Sean Carton, CSO from idfive. sean.carton@idfive.com

6 trends of change

1. The consumer is in the driver's seat
2. Everything is digital
3. Real time now = when I wnat it
4. Bye, bye centralization
5. The future is always on (wireless)
   
6. Peace out desktop

It should be standard practice to search around for what they're sayng about you. I think we've lucked out here.

Memes - a unit of cultural information. Richard Dawkings The Selfish Gene

Malcolm Gladwell, the Tipping Point- You just need to reach the ten people who will be the ones to make it grow and then it will be viral.

Duncan Watts One-to-one - disagrees with Gladwell.

******Honesty***********************

I was talking about this yesterday. I really think that this web 2.0 movement will force conversation from the marketing speak to honest conversations.

Keep it honest
Multiple channels
Frequent updates

This is more to the point that you can't always control your message and sometimes you have to let it ride. More passive Marketing.

Helicopter Parents

Presenter: Stephanie Geyer - Noel-Levitz

Parents say the darnedest things. Stephanie had us read various quotes from parents about their involvement in their kid's college search.

I don't think this will shock anyone out there: Parents fill out forms for their students and pose as students when they can. I know we see parents on the student chats @ SMC.

Here's an important piece, "The more parent information the better."

Some quick numbers:

90% either have or would chat online one on one with a counselor.

87% would or have email a counselor.

Virtual Tour is huge!

Social Networking:

I wonder how many parents are on facebook, etc. I wonder if a Parent social networking site would be useful if it was directed solely at parents.

Recommendations for colleges:
More detail into curriculum requirements
Financial costs/financial aid/percentage of students receiving aid
Application status

Not surprised here. 2 of the top five web content priorities for parents are financial aid related. I worry about this and our site.

Email is not dead for parents!!!! It's in fact the number one way to connect with parents. That's a real bad thing for us and our CMS.

Millennials go to College, must read.

To me, parents aren't going away. Colleges should accept that. You can't bite the hand that feed you.

First day a geek camp

Run down of last night's events:

After the second session, a quick beer at the cocktail hour and up to the room to cleanup and recharge.

I stopped by the Bloghighered.org meet up. Chatted with Brad Ward and Mark G. for a bit.

Hit the Deck for a quick bite to eat and then played craps in the casino for a couple of hours. First time for me and ended up $70. It was tough to find a good table but just as I was about to call it a night down $20, I decided to try a table where a guy was on a roll.

Looking forward to today. So often at these things, you only get one or two sessions a day that sound interesting. In fact, I can't decide which 5 o'clock session to go to. I guess I've got plenty of time to figure it out.

Faculty Marketers by Dr. Greg Williams

It makes sense for both sides, administration and faculty. He's presenting from the point of view of a graduate administrator/faculty needing to grow enrollment. I can see a lot of some parallels b/n his program and ours.

aside: (this may be a stretch for me, but I might be able to pass some of this along to our Dir. grad programs)

Going back to Mark Greenfield's presentation: Forget about the technology. Go over your goals and answer the question: what are you looking to accomplish?

LOL!!! He's talking about Open Houses for a Graduate Program and he's got a huge chocolate chip cookie on the screen. This totally reminds of our Open Houses. He has a great point. What's in it for me? Besides the free cookies.

another aside: This will be a real test for me and my understanding of Twitter. I just downloaded TwitKit (or something like that). I can see how it can be a great tool here, but I agree with Mark G. that h.s. kids are using it. I can see them not getting the point. Loopt on the other hand....

It sounds like they totally blew up their old program, changing course titles, changing curriculum, inquiry management and put a lot of their services on line. I have no idea how he got all of this done in one year...

I really need to blow up the grad site. It's awful. There's too much stuff and it's all buried.

Google Adwords is number one referrer. It sounds like it has a lot of useful data that you can extract from it.

iTunes University: This would work for both the undergrad and graduate schools. I wonder if h.s. kids would look it up? I think adults might. Guess we could link it to the website, but that's just more clutter.

YouTube: YES! Such an easy technology and ads another dimension to the website. That silly little YouTube account (SMCBloggers) has had over 1500 views in 3 months.

Ahhh, I see. It took him four years to go through this redesign. I wonder how much it cost.

Definitely focused on the career opportunities that would come out of the degree. It's be really easy to do that with the Education program since VT pay schedule is based on education level.

All done. Foooood.....

Live from eduweb2008

So it's begun.

I'm at the third annual eduweb conference in Atlantic City, NJ. I'm going to try to post here as much as I can through out the week.

Right now, I'm in the opening speaker's presentation: Mark Greenfield from the University of Buffalo. This is the second time I've heard him speak. The man loves his Slingbox and his Sabres.

Mark's top 10 Web Trends:

10. The end of print - see Kindle

9. World network (web3.0) Loopt - a social compass that the new iphone has. There's not much that Vermont is missing, but the fact that Vermont doesn't have the iphone is ridiculous.

8. Virtual Reality - Club penguin, webkins, second life, second life teen. Not sure about this one.

7. Email is dead. I totally by into this. Email is ridiculous. Completely annoying and people don't know how to use it appropriately. Facebook is becoming this way too.

6. Read/write web. I like his idea of striking out the word "audience" and using "community" when talking about for whom content is directed.

5. Information overload. Too many people out there and it hard to separate the chafe from shaft. (I think that's the saying)

4. Redefining Time. Stuff has to happen much quicker than before. Qik.com going to have to check that site out. Live video streaming through your cell phone.

3. The end of the walled garden. The conversation has left the blogosphere. I was talking about this in my final presentation last Friday. Blogs have become one-way conversations. This is why we need to use all of the different social networking media out there. (Flickr, YoutTube, etc.) Ping.fm (need to check this out as well)

2. Cluetrain Manifesto! Must read according to Mark. Chris Andersen (wrote The Long Tail) says that social networking sites should be a component not a destination. In otherwords, he's an advocate for niche social networking. I this has some value. We certainly use it with accepted students. I wonder about this though. I wonder though.... Who has the time? (cuwebd.ning.com)

1. Mobile. This is where we get killed in Vermont!!!!! Push the damn AT&T deal through!!!!!

Strategies to deadl with these trends:

Focus on the relationships, not the technology. Yes, exactly!!! What is our goal? Why do we want to have a presence in a place like Facebook?

Read Groundswell, The Revolution Will not be Televised

1. Be first.
2. Refresh. Keep it moving. Update daily.
3. Be authentic.
4. Be honest. Love the marketing jargon.
5. Community!!! Build it.
6. You can't control it. You must cede control. Understand that if you let them in, they'll poke around in places you don't want them. (see what happened when I got off of the Facebook group)
7. The world is flat. Connections can be made that wouldn't otherwise be possible. There's a lot of wonder that can happen, but there's a lot to be skeptic.

CMO
Chief Marketing Officer. Now we need a Chief Community Officer. Someone to advocate for the Community first and the Organization second. This is a tough one for educational institutions I'm sure. It goes back to #6. I've been thinking about this the last couple of weeks. It's almost like passive marketing. I want to explore this more in the future. I think there's a lot there.

2008 Tour de France - The Big Picture - Boston.com

2008 Tour de France - The Big Picture - Boston.com

I love this blog. The photos are incredible. This one for instance. You almost feel like you in motion moving with the cyclist.

Blogger shirts

A shirt idea for my bloggers

Make custom t-shirts at CustomInk.com

SMC Bloggers

Rolling right along with the new SMC Bloggers page. I've spent the last two days in CMS hell during this redesign, but I'm almost satisfied with how it's coming.

Why Rebuild?

1. Because our blogs are good. They're better than good. They're great. They averaged over 2,000 hits a piece last year.

2. Because our other efforts are bad. Real bad.

We (the Office of Admission) rolled out a Facebook group specifically dedicated to high school prospects interested in SMC. It bombed. It has 35 members, 4 are SMC Class of 2012. The rest are alums and current students.

Our online photo albums are weak. Not a lot of photos, and not easily accessible. I’m not even sure where it is on our website.

We were in what I call the "Old Marketing Approach" when we built these things originally. They were all done before Facebook really took off and we didn't have a good understanding of it. We thought that all we had to do was build it and they would come.

That's clearly not how it works.

I have this article that was sent around my department posted on the wall in my office: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/06/03/facebook as a reminder of that old mentality. It's an article in a higher education marketing magazine praising this new, revolutionary, initiative on Facebook.

Number of users: 0.

Again it is that old we'll build it, you come mentality. It's gimmicky and the kids who are on Facebook see right through it.

What I hope this rebuild will do is cut through the marketing junk. The only "marketing" that will be going on are honest conversations with our students, faculty and staff. And the blogs will help to initiate that conversation.

Introduction: Blogs; Building the relationship: Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, and more(?)...

Regular blog readers begin to develop an emotional relationship with the writer wether they realize it or not. You can't help but not to. These students are giving prospective student and families and glimpse into life at SMC. Extending the glimpse into other social media will help to strengthen these experiences.

Blog relationships tend to be one sided however. That really is the nature of the format. Certainly there is the ability to post comments, but it isn't a fluid conversation.

Adding Web 2.0 applications like Flickr, will give the blog readers a wider view of the bloggers experience at SMC and that of a typical SMC student by providing visual evidence of these experiences. The benefit of Flickr over other e-web albums is the social aspect. Users can post comments on the photos and discuss and share with others.

YouTube is much the same except in video format.

The tricky one here really is Facebook. The new Facebook page will be centered around the SMC Bloggers. It's all about them. I don't want the Admission Office to be there first association when they visit the group. I want it to be a means for them to connect with the bloggers and continue to grow that relationship. No admission marketing speak. Honest conversations are more valuable.

My hope with this new webpage is that prospective students and their families will have access to all of these social media through one site. They’ll be able to read the read the blogs, connect with the writers on Facebook, see their photos and videos, and get up to date info on what their doing through Twitter.



Implementation

Building these things are easy enough, but how I'm going to teach the bloggers how to use these tools?

Teach really isn't the right word because I think they already know how to use the technology or it at least won't take them long to figure out. I need more of a guided exploration experience. So how to do this?

1. Summer homework

I have started by asking them to upload some photos of "Summer Fun." I gave them a lot of freedom to go out and get photos (appropriate for our audience) and upload them into our Flickr account (SMCBloggers).

I will also ask them to take video of their first week on campus. Moving in, seeing friends for the first time, first night of homework, first day of practice, that sort of stuff.

2. Geek Session on campus

We'll probably have a meeting during the second week of school to which I'll have them bring their laptops so we can have a real geek session (hopefully we'll have wireless by then).

They all have Facebook accounts, but I will have them all set up accounts in Blogger. This way they can customize them, giving them a feeling that it really is their blog.

I will also have everyone surf around each other's photos on Flickr and post comments to them.

I will also work with them to upload the videos they made of their first week back on campus to YouTube.

From then on it is up to them to keep blogging, uploading, posting, etc.

Twitter feed test

I'm testing out www.twitterfeed.com. It's supposed to feed my blog to my Twitter account.

----------------
Now playing: The Black Crowes - Jealous Again
via FoxyTunes

Top Ten Things I learned in Media Literacy

10 Things I learned in Media Literacy:

1. Just because they tell you it's true, doesn't mean that it is true. This class has definitely reminded me that I have to be a skeptic when looking at any type of media.

2.Lunz scares me. He seemed okay with what he was doing. He didn't appear to believe that he was misrepresenting information by changing the words politicians use.

3.I was watching the news this morning and saw a clip on U.S. Air. It's pilots were filing grievances saying that the airline was pressuring them to take on less fuel. The news clip seemed to be very much on the side of the pilots complete with Experts and Plain Clothes interviews. It didn't quite seem to fit in the local broadcast. I wondered if it was put out by the pilot's union. Before this class, I wasn't aware that news broadcasters would do this.

4. How enormous companies like AOL/TimeWarner, Disney, Viacom are. I know they were big, but I wasn't aware of how diverse their holdings are.

5. Yaks are raised for fiber and meat.

6. The 7 Basic Principles of Media Education and the 29 Persuasive Techniques. Super valuable.

7. The Feed. It's there and I'm plugged into it to some extent. What does that mean and can I resist the Feed? Should I resist the Feed? These are some new questions that came with this renewed realization that the Feed is all around us.

8. This is big business, man. I can't find the name of the French consultant that said, "American cheese is dead!" but I was blown away at how much companies will pay to consult with him. I'm very curious to see what his formula is.

9. Political ads are evil. They just prey on emotions. The Bush ads in particular were total fear mongering. How did the dems not beat them?

10. Awareness. It's important to be aware of the Feed. It's there. One should always look at whats presented with a critical eye.


Remaining questions?

Is resistance futile? Can you fight the feed? Or, like V's dad, will we all succumb?

I wonder what critics thought of advertisement back in the 20's and 30's. Sure it was factual based, and very different from it is now. All those facts couldn't be true though. Did Crest really give you the brightest smile? Just a made up example there, but I wonder if people thought critically at those ads.

Where do we go from here? I'm cynical I guess. When Money gets involved with something it immediately becomes corruptible and it's hard to put right. Clouds TM, school TM, etc. Are these inevitable?







Drew, bring food and project next Friday.

Well, the wait is over. Maria is finally on Facebook.

It's funny that it happened this weekend because we were talking about it in class on Friday. Somebody asked me why she was holding out, and I told them that it was because she had no interest in it. I didn't think she'd ever sign up.

What happened?

Her friend and college roommate sat down with her and set it up.

We had a couple of long distance friends (Mike from Chicago and Donnie from San Diego) at our house this weekend. They were both on Facebook and talking about how great it was when keeping in touch with everyone. Donnie convinced her that it was time to give in and sign up.

It's new and she seemed to like it, but I wonder how long she'll really stay with it. This will be like a little experiment.

Blackberry Addiction

Facebook

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook

Hodkinson's article here is interesting. Clearly anti-Facebook, he looks into the money behind Facebook.

His strongest two arguments against Facebook are that all that data is being mined and sold to advertisers, and all the data available makes it much easy for orgs. like the CIA.

He really weakens his argument, by going after Thiel so hard. He clearly disagrees strongly with the guys politics and spends a ton of time in the article attacking him. He also really over simplifies the abilities of Facebook.

Sure Facebook connects people who work and live around each other, but it also connects people of great distances as well. I like to give the example that my brother lives in San Francisco, my sister in Maine, and we're all playing a game of Scrabble on Facebook.

He seems to argue that bringing people together globally is a bad thing, but I don't agree with him.

Hodgkinson does make the reader think by writing about the money behind Facebook, but he just comes off a little too strong for me.

Chapter 7

I can't remember which part I'm supposed to read, so I'll read this one too.

• Everything is political. That's what I grab from the bulk of this. If a show chooses to address a political issue then it's obviously going to be political. If it chooses not to address a political issue, then it is being political as well. in fact, the book says, "the most non-political programs may be making the strong political statements of all."(p 254)
• Viewers will interpret ambiguous political message in their own way.
  
• Music can have political influence as well. However, it can fade away too. Dylan used to be the anti-establishment. Now he's selling cd's in Starbucks. It's proof that the music industry is interested less in the message and more in the money.
• Cultural Imperialism - Western culture is distributed around the world, especially developing countries. Western culture can be influenced in the reverse order, but it happens on a smaller scale. Think Beatles going to India, Paul Simon going to South Africa and Tiananmen Square
  

What in the hell?

So I just bought an iPod Shuffle. Well, my wife bought it for the charger that came with it as she seems to have misplaced hers. The charger by itself costs $30. A brand new Shuffle costs less than $50. (You're shocked by this I'm sure) My old iPod died a while back so she just went ahead and bought a whole new one and now we're sharing chargers and have two Shuffles.

Anyway, I'm getting of track. I'm sitting here at our dining room table, reading for class and listening to this neat little gadget. I've been here for an hour or so and at least three times I've said to myself, "What the hell is this and where did it come from?"

Is this a sign that I have too much music?

Is my taste in music really this bad?

That's what fun about these little shuffles, and completely annoying at the same time. If you allow it to add music randomly, you'll never know what is coming next. Of course, if you in the mood for that one particular song, good luck finding.

Now playing, some song by Weezer off of some album.

Chapter 7 and "Project Harmony"

I read the "Project Harmony" article first, and it is such a cool idea. Not only is it important for American students to understand the American media, but it is also important for them to learn about foreign media as well. I'm sure it was also eye opening to hear their opinions on American media and culture.

This is also why Web 2.0 stuff is such a great teaching and learning opportunity. I'm sure the students were able to communicate well using email, blogs, youtube, etc.

Onto the last two sections of Chapter 7:


Whoops, should be reading chapter 8 not 7:

• "Interpretive Resistance" in other words is essentially the idea that people have preconceived notions and it's hard to break those down. It happens when people read messages that are in direct opposition to their preconceived notions.
  
  The authors use Ms. as an example to illustrate that audiences will see what they want to see and may miss the larger message in doing so.
  
  
• I like the "Semiotic Robin Hoodism" term for those who remake billboards or ads to poke fun at the original.
  
  
• Pleasure in media - This is the reason it is so popular. I bet that most media is used as an escape to distract for other areas (and perhaps more important) of life. the authors talk about fantasy and how it can be empowering and pleasurable and liberating to escape reality into a fantasy world.
  

Chapter 4 & "Making Media That Matters....In Minutes"

Really glad we decided to split up the readings. It makes it much more manageable and it makes the wife happier that we can spend time together.

So I'm going to try to read and blog at the same time again. Didn't really work as well as I had hoped last time, but here goes:

Chapter IV:

• Right off the bat, that adapted quote from Marx on pg 121 is an important one. The past plays an important role in everything, the media included.
• There's a great thesis topic, "The educational value derived from 'the Flintstones' and 'the Jetsons': Past v. Future". That's pretty funny that networks were able to pass those two shows off as educational in order to satisfied the 1990 Children's Television Act.
• I wonder if journalists get bored. I wonder if they get stuck in a rut, doing the same thing over and over again. That's what I didn't like about journalistic writing. It was like a math formula. I hated the funnel format because I didn't feel like it gave me enough room to be creative.
• The Clayman study is intersting. I expected that editors would fight for one of their writer's stories to hit the front page. That they tend to midly support the stories was suprising.
• Bennett's 6 Key Practices (p 133) are very valuable!
• All of those spin offs of Survivor are lame. Is imitation really more successful than the alternative? Or are they just easier?
  
• It's just occurred to me that they've spent a lot of time talking about newspapers here and only a page or two about the Internet. I guess that is because of the age of this text, and we've talked about that in class. If newspaper readership is really dwindling, then what structured forms of news media is taking its place?
• The star is the key. Look at Katie Couric and how the CBS Evening news is doing.

Making Media That Matters...In Minutes

• A great way to teach kids about media literacy - through hands on experience.
• I'm sure they love doing these little films.
• The movie awards nights must be a hit

FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've been trying to figure out how to add a Title Field for months!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's been driving me nuts!

As you can see, I found it. It is under settings and formatting.

Choose Responsibility

I got going on the beer topic and kinda left it hangin' (thanks Rob for reminding me).

A day or so after writing that post, I received a mailing from ChooseResponsibility.org

It's an organization founded by former Middlebury College President, John McCardell. Their mission is to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18. They have some unique ideas like a "learner's permit" for consuming alcohol.

I really believe in this cause and think our entire approach to alcohol is misguided. I really recommend checking out their site. www.chooseresponsibility.org

Old enough to serve (go to war), but not enough to get served (a beer).

How does that make sense?

The Fourth of July

Upta camp!

Had a great weekend on this July4th weekend. Dan, Kim, Maria and I went up to Lake Willoughby and then went to my family camp on Lake Seymour. Here are some photos (I'm a little annoyed that you can't add tags to photos in Web Picasa):

Seymour Lake, Willoughby Camping

I'm going to post and read all at the same time.

I'm into Part II of the Media Society book. I knew that there was consolidation going on in the media industry, but I have to say that I didn't realize how huge these companies are until I saw the flow charts on pp 41- 43. The section on Integration and Self-Promotion is also eyeopening when describing the release of the Harry Potter movies.

Came to the section about the BBC. It immediately brought to mind a NPR segment I heard this morning. Britons have to pay a TV tax if they own one. It amounts to about $260 pounds a year. in order to prevent people from skipping out on paying the tax, the BBC just released a really creepy Orwellian ad campaign. It essentially says that we know where you live. All of your information is in our database, and we will come get you. The article is here. I'm not sure how I feel about state run media. What's worse: state run media or conglomerated media?

Onto the article:
Have you ever ordered a burger that looked like it does in the photo? NO. You know, I hate that we have to look at this as skeptics. It seems like we should be able to take in and not have to worry about what messages advertisers are sending us. I find myself wanting to believe that a story is just a story, but I know better. Kids don't though. Media literacy education needs to happen. I'm not sure it will happen at home so it should happen in schools.





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Now playing: Rustic Overtones - Rock Like War
via FoxyTunes

About Me

What's A Little Spunk ?

Well, when I started this thing I had planned on writing mostly about higher education and marketing, Web 2.0 and technology. My plan was to essentially be one of those New Media D--- (see this May post).

I discovered that I didn’t want to write about that stuff. I wanted to write about other topics – family vacations, neat things I found on the internet, making beer, and other stuff that just popped into my head.

So that’s why I decided to redesign. And toss out everything – url, title, etc. The only thing I’m saving is the layout (I like the simple design) and the photo of that special place of mine in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.

If you ever see a car with a NEK euro sticker, guaranteed they’re not originally from the Kingdom. They’re either from Connecticut or Massachusetts.

So why “A Little Spunk”?

Well, this blog idea has been through a couple of different redesigns. It has been Drew In VT, Millin’ in VT, Millie in VT, and in its latest installation, edu-Mill. Those were all pretty lame. I liked the edu-Mill the best out of all of them, but it stopped making sense when I stopped writing about higher ed.

So, I came upon "A Little Spunk".

My Dad's nickname is Spunk. He comes from a family where they were all given nicknames in addition to their Christian names. My mom, in her good sense, put an end to this with our generation.

My grandfather from time to time would call me Little Spunk or Spunky Jr., but otherwise, there were no quirky names for us.

So when pondering a quirky and witty title for his blog, I thought back to my grandfather calling me Little Spunk, and thought it would be a neat title. There's a nice play on words in there too.

Like: It will add a little spunk to your day.

Now there is some sexual innuendo there. We've learned not to call my dad "Spunk" in say, England where it means something inappropriate. But I'll live with it. Who knows, maybe it will drive more traffic to the site?

Now on to me.

I live in Northern Vermont outside Burlington where I work in the admission office in one of our many private colleges. My focus is mostly on social media and e-communications. I know a little html and css, but just enough really to get by, adjusting size, changing colors, etc.

My wife and I have two stupid pugs. You'll see photos of them from time to time. I love traveling, skiing, beer, and my family's camp in the NEK.

Writing for me is therapy. I write about what's on my mind. I'll try not to censure too much, but knowing who some of my readers are, I have to be smart. I clearly can't write something like, "I hate my job and am desperate to GET OUT!" That could get me in trouble.

I hope you enjoy this.
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Now playing: Grateful Dead - Big River
via FoxyTunes

sucks to the rss feed.

Trying to figure out how to put an RSS reader into a website. This is a test

Is it me or is Facebook getting noisy?

Maybe it's because I've got more junk on my profile, but I'm starting to get annoyed by all of the notifications and the messages in my inbox. It's all junk that I can only blame myself for I guess.

I get a lot messages because I became of a fan of DJ Craig Mitchell. He's a SMC alum who owned a club here in Burlington. He's moved onto bigger things and is a regular on the techno scene in Boston and NYC. I became a "fan" because he's a really nice guy and I want him to be successful. I don't think I'll ever go to one of his shows in Boston or NYC so I find the notifications and updates more annoying then helpful.

A certain alumni office sends out notices often too. Especially when it's the end of the fiscal year and they are revving up their fund raising for one last push.

I took one of those movie compatibility tests. It's constantly telling me that someone else took that same test and I should check out how we match up. I'm trying to figure out why I care.

One of my friends from high school sends me a Lil' Green Patch thing every day. Maybe I'm too cynical, but I don't really believe that 1 acre of rain forest is saved each time I accept a Lil' Green Patch request.

So I guess my question is, is it me? Am I too much of a curmudgeon to appreciate these little notes? Should I care that someone matched me on the perfect match personality test?

Or is Facebook heading the way of the email? Too much spam and too much junk has turned a once efficient communication device into annoying time waster.

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Now playing: Toots & The Maytals - Freedom Train
via FoxyTunes