November 2012

Posted by Carlyn Foshee Chatfield on November 16, 2012

    • Educause annual conference recap by Lisa Trubit - UAlbany

        • 75-80 in attendance. early morning (9AM start) and better scattering of CG group meetings but also conflict with other interesting sessions offered at 9am.

        • 50% of attendees were already members of ITCOMM list, others came to see what it was all about.

        • Fun to see faces of the names we see on the list. Thanks to Cathy McVey for scribing. Got some nice ideas for coffee shop as well.

        • Faculty Communications were a hot topic.

    • How to get additional coffee shops going for members outside the main time zones in the contiguous US? Try a Doodle poll also set up a coffee

        • Allison UNorth Florida: we should have opened up the CG groups to the online conference session so they can at least listen to the ITComm CG group discussion.

        • Maureen participated in ELI online like Allison participated in Educause online and the session content was good but they missed the networking.

        • Chuck: how to set up break out rooms. Can interact in a small group in the break out rooms. Can have a large group, can break out into small problem solving groups then reconvene. Enterprise 2.0 - social media for enterprise, also have F2F and social conferences. New features in Adobe, heard about them.

    • Launch into discussion topic: Use of video in communications. Video online in Camtasia - looking for "how do I set up my vacation message on my calendar" - seeing more ways video might be incorporated. Where are you putting those videos?

        • Gina at Tulane: We are using video for help topics and general topics. An hour long presentation of our annual Technology Services Roadmap is video captured and posted online for anyone to view. Blog format - posts are links to videos.

        • Tulane and Texas A&M both shared links for their videos.

        • Hard to determine how much ROI - try to offload video creation/production to student workers whenever possible. 2000 views - is it really worth it. Will use a video to introduce our annual report this year.

        • http://tulane.edu/tsweb/help-and-support-videos.cfm

        • http://vimeo.com/tamuit/videos, http://www.youtube.com/TAMUIT

        • Sherri - LSU: also tried, but found the labor intensity wasn't worth the pay off.

        • Wendy: also, we can't abandon the other channels, but have to keep videos tight, low time and intensity.

        • all: the editing and production is where the time is really spent. The script can be written in an hour, but the editing and production is a killer. That's where you have to say - is it really worth it for 1500 views or 2500 views?

    • Compare the time spent on videos and payoff versus the amount of time you spend on your annual report and its payoff.

        • Well, if only 150 views of Texas A&M IT annual report, they were/are all top people, even across the state in/on committees that make budget decisions.

        • Carlyn - Rice: I agree, the top people reading the annual report control the purse strings.

    • Back to video, what is the pain point here? What are you trying to solve that no other channels are solving?

        • Not sure, not convinced even though interim VPIT is very interested in this channel. Maybe start with a "fireside chat" of the CIO/vpit? We're doing an audit of all our communications channel and wants video to be part of that.

        • Have already filmed CIO in introductory video.

        • Maybe show CIO the videos we've posted here, and share with CIO our thoughts on their ROI as perceived by the institutions who created them.

        • Chuck - Indiana: we did use video several years ago, but for those pages that have 1000s to 10000s hits per day, we were seeing 20-100 hits on the videos so we retired the video effort because it wasn't drawing the attention we wanted.

        • If you are going to put the effort into the videos, publish them in as many places, make visible in as many places as possible.

        • We learned a hard lesson on our LMS - we developed how-to videos but quickly became useless when a color changed or a button changed. We had to review how we were doing them to extend shelf life and also use tools that allowed for editing later.

        • Shelf life is so critical.

        • Yes, a really great video we had created with a student now graduated needs to be updated. It's a great video but a small part of it makes it out of date.

        • Patrick - Oregon: not in my role a long time, but my background as a technologist makes me ask "is this the right tool for the right purpose?" As you've pointed out, they are difficult to produce, get out of date quickly, etc. Wendy's audit of different media in use is a very interesting way to approach it, wish I had data to back up what we are doing here.

        • Allison - Texas A&M: using a more kinetic studio so less editing. Use Adobe Connect to create. Have something impactful without all the work.

        • Carlyn - Rice: we used a student worker to produce videos on our IT Ambassadors "I'm the ambassador for your residential college" on Youtube, low production, low editing. Was supposed to be very natural.

        • Wendy: yes, another university created "hello, I'm a student" and here's what you can find... That seems like a VERY good way to use video.

        • Gin: yes, we have a mixture, no students at this point, but definitely IT staff appearing in the video. We get experts in the subject area to discuss and they get very conversational, but also, hard to get people to agree to be video'd.

        • Carlyn, (laughing): like get the IT Security Officer talking about protecting your identity and have his face/eyes blacked out like they do on news videos.

        • Wendy: thank you EVERYONE for all you for all your input!

    • Carlyn: has anyone have experience with Yammer?

        • Sherri: we have explored but not launched yet, want to make sure it is a tool that everyone can use, has access to

        • Lisa - Pepperdine: our business school of management uses it a lot. We don't use it in IT but the graduate students use it to post articles and it does look like Facebook. I can put you in touch with the professor...

        • Carlyn, yes! Let's do that, I'll touch base with you so we can include as part of our social media discussion.

    • Wendy: what about annual reports?

        • Sherri: yes, we have a few printed copies and send it all around electronically. However, now instead of a fluff piece, we are targeting our program review, metrics, staging for re-acreditation process.

        • Carlyn: Maybe we'll target this for December and have assigned reading before the coffee shop then we can ask questions during the coffee shop. It takes 3 months of your time but it may have to be worth it.

        • Allison: we're trying to cut down on time and focus on 5 stories only: Teaching, Research, Infrastructure, Wireless and Mobile.

        • Jennifer - Case Western: just put our annual report online for the first time this year. Base it on school submissions and their strategic goals. Our annual report has been just for ITEA.

        • Allison: yes, we tried that and had 20 stories and the revisions and everything was so labor intensive that is why we are cutting down on it.

        • Chuck - Indiana: Accomplishments Report tied to strategic plan. Not directly involved in it but will post links. In 2009, we started a different pattern of updates.

    • Carlyn: Why do you come to the Coffee Shop?

        • Even though I don't have a lot of communications duties in my current role, I stay engaged because it is a very engaging group of people.

        • I find it therapeutic. Listening to how other people are dealing with their problems, cheaper than therapy and safer than alcohol!

    • Becky Grant - OU: What do you know about an idea generation website

    • Carlyn: what pain point are you trying to solve?

        • Directive came down, want to take a poll on what fac/staff/student think of our administration now and what they want to see in future. Will start with a survey, but have to have a way to collect ideas and brainstorming as well for the future part.

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