Last week, three people from the office of web and new media attended the HighEdWeb 2010 Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. As always, the conference offered a lot of valuable material and provided excellent opportunities to network and share with other web professionals from across the U.S. (and world).
Session highlights
Below are top sessions recommended by our attendees:
- Where U at? Location-based services for higher education
Recommendation from Chad Killingsworth
People are using location-based services like never before. Applications like Foursquare and Gowalla are gaining large followings. People enjoy the social networking aspect of the services and enjoy earning the virtual awards. While there are privacy concerns (the presenter called it reverse stalking), universities can capitalize on the usage of these services. Offering incentives for events, both virtual and actual, can entice users to continue to participate. Applications for our campus could revolve around home games and taking a tour just to get started. One example given was a 20% off special if you checked in at a tailgating event. See full presentation.
- SEO best practices: The low-hanging fruit for immediate results
Recommendation from Brian Heaton
This session focused on strategies that can be implemented quickly and easily to improve your website’s standing in search engines. Since more than 30% of website traffic is delivered by search engines your site’s SEO level is important. Also, since more than 80% of search engine traffic is delivered by Google spending a lot of time optimizing for the other search engines has little payoff. A free website SEO audit tool, Website Grader, is available but it isn’t the be-all and end-all. Use it as another tool in your toolbox. See full presentation. See full presentation. - Powered by Orange: Lessons from a digitally driven campaign
Recommendation from Sara Clark
Oregon State University had a goal to color Portland (and the world) orange as a tribute to the positive impact of their alumni. Through their campaign, they reached out to alumni and the campus through both traditional and online efforts to make a positive impact. A few tips for having a successful campaign include being authentic, getting started quickly (even without a full, formal plan) and making big splashes when possible. See full presentation.
Stacey Funderburk also attended the conference and has shared on her blog about another session: Effective Brainstorming.
Missouri State presents
There were also two sessions by Missouri State presenters at the conference. If you haven’t seen them already, check out Helping Academic Websites Make the Grade by Don Hendricks, Stacey Funderburk and Sara Clark and One Map to Rule Them All by Chad Killingsworth. Special congratulations to Chad for winning the best-of-track award for his presentation.