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2018 Conference Analytics Content Creation Marketing Social Media

Is Facebook dead? Melissa Mae Cheater’s epic data-driven presentation says: Hard no!

“Facebook is dead!” How many times have you read that? In tech blogs, in industry blogs or even (cue the irony) on Facebook? Breaking (or not) news: Melissa Mae Cheater, digital content manager from Western University, has found that Facebook is alive and still very useful for higher ed. And she has the data to […]

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2018 Conference Management & Professional Development

Here’s How to Make Conflict Productive

Mike Powers wants you to use your imagination. “Picture this,” he started his best-of-track session titled “If They Would Just Listen to Us.” “The phone rings in a busy office. The person answers. A professor is on the line. He has a picture of his favorite students under a tree. And he wants it posted […]

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2018 Conference

Sir Ken Robinson: Leading a Culture of Innovation

“You find something in your life that interests you, and then you pursue it.” -Sir Ken Robinson Ken didn’t think he would ever find himself in education. He began his closing keynote by asking the audience, “how many of you wished that you’d have a career in higher education at 15?” Not many. That’s because we […]

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2018 Conference

Mermaids, magic and the myth of ‘us vs. them’: A quick #heweb18 overview

It’s perhaps an apt metaphor that one of our favorite stops during the recent HighEdWeb Conference in Sacramento (aka #heweb18) was the nightly mermaid shows at a place called Dive Bar. Because, in a way, higher ed communicators find themselves in the mermaid’s dilemma. The folk tale that also served as the basis for the Disney blockbuster “The […]

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2018 Conference Management & Professional Development

Diversity on Higher Education Websites

Presented by Scott Olivieri. Session details. Presentation slides. “This session will be uncomfortable, but we have to talk about it,” Scott Olivieri said as a preface to his HighEdWeb 2018 presentation. Titled “Diversity on Higher Education Websites,” Olivieri examined ways institutions try—and many times fail—to portray an authentic representation of campus diversity on their websites. Olivieri […]

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2018 Conference

Creating a Culture of Giving: Digital Tactics for Students and Young Alumni

Presented by Kendra Saldana Kendra Saldana said that when Cornell University noticed fewer young alumni (the previous ten graduating classes) were giving to their alma mater, she knew they had try something new. She just wasn’t sure what. Kendra and her office ran focus groups, asking young alumni about their barriers to giving. Responses ranged […]

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2018 Conference

Erin Supinka Shares the Key to Understanding Everything

Presented by Erin Supinka, assistant director of digital engagement at Dartmouth College Erin Supinka is a big believer in context. “Without context, we can’t understand the full story,” she said during her session HighEdWeb in Sacramento. “Context helps us understand everything else.” What followed in her fast-paced, information-packed talk—titled “A Tale of Strategy Discovery and […]

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2018 Conference Social Media

Are You Addicted to Data? Balancing the Heart and Mind in Your Content Strategy (MCS2)

Liz Gross and Andrew Cassel entered the session room tossing out vital organs to audience members. This distribution of hearts and brains set the stage for a presentation about the tug of war we often face between our feelings and “the numbers.” Each speaker played their role well. Andrew, of University of Alaska Fairbanks and […]

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2018 Conference

Stop Taking Your School so Seriously

Presented by Melissa Dix and Bonnie Willison A few years ago, Beloit made a big mistake. A 30,000-person email-wide mistake. 30,000 high school sophomores and juniors received an email with the dreaded salutation,  Dear {first name}. Twitter blew up with students pointing at the glaring error. Parents weren’t having it either. But, Melissa didn’t let the […]

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2018 Conference Accessibility

Be Human, Be Kind, Design With All in Mind

Presented by Amanda Frisbee How do you dream? For many of us, it’s visual or audio. For Amanda Frisbee’s deaf and hard-of-hearing colleagues, “It’s more telepathic. Things just sort of come to us.” English is a second language for many people in the Deaf community, who may process information more intuitively through American Sign Language […]

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2018 Conference

Give content contributors the AX, or Authoring Experience!

Presented by Nikki Massaro Kauffman Web developers, designers, and content creators focus a lot on user experience, or UX. It impacts everyone who visits our websites. But one audience we don’t spend much time and energy on is the gaggle of content contributors we rely upon to make the day-to-day updates, to write the articles, […]

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2018 Conference Social Media

Building a student social media team

Presented by Lougan Bishop As higher ed professionals, we’re often called upon to wear many hats…all at the same time. And it can be overwhelming! Five years ago, to take on some of these tasks, Lougan started a volunteer student team to help with social media. He called them the Boulevard Team (think street team, except […]

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2018 Conference

Inclusion for All! Making Your Social Media Content Accessible

Presented by Erika Forsack from Virginia Commonwealth University. Many of us know that web content has laws and regulations regarding accessibility. Social media does not. There are no officially adopted guidelines, and people can’t edit the code on social media to meet accessibility needs like they can on their website. How does someone with healing […]

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2018 Conference Marketing

Level Up: Using Gamification in Content Strategy and Marketing Campaigns

Presented by Mitch Canter He was dressed for the part. A self-proclaimed nerd, Mitch Canter’s presentation ensemble was topped off with a Nintendo-controller hat. A perfect way to set the mood for a session on gamification. Mitch opened up talking about his interest (obsession?) with video games and other nerdy stuff. But he also developed […]

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2018 Conference

Sorry Not Sorry: Managing Content Strategy Challenges in Decentralized Environments

Presented by Amy Grace Wells, editorial director of UX Booth, and Alaina Wiens, director of marketing at the Flint & Genessee Chamber of Commerce One of the presentations kicking off the HighEdWeb 2018 conference was “Sorry Not Sorry: Managing Content Strategy Challenges in Decentralized Environments.” The idea for this session emerged from a panel Alana […]

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2018 Conference Management & Professional Development

‘Common Sense Leadership When You Don’t Feel So Leader-y’

Every curling match begins with handshakes and teams telling each other “good curling.” Every curling match ends that way. These bookends set the tone for a sport that is high on sportsmanship and, according to Jesse Lavery,  assistant vice president of college relations and digital strategy at Alleghany College (and an avid curler), and are […]

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2018 Conference

More Than Numbers—Your Data Doesn’t Need to be Boring

Presented by Chris Seek, web and digital design manager at the Office of the University Controller at the University of Colorado Chris Seek sees a lot of numbers in any given day. His challenge, he explained during a HighEdWeb session titled “Your Data Doesn’t Need to be Boring,” is how to present those numbers a […]

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2018 Conference

Tough Topics and New Platforms: Using an Instagram Story to Help Sexual Assault Survivors

Presented by Jon McBride Sexual assault is a topic that is becoming a larger and larger part of the online conversation, both on college campuses and off. Jon acknowledged that this Instagram story has given him the opportunity to learn more about sexual assault, even re-titling his original presentation title, changing “victims” to “survivors.” Headlines often highlight […]

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2018 Conference

“Techsanity?” Keynote Manoush Zomorodi asks HighEdWeb attendees to take control of their technology

Entrepreneur, author, podcaster, and journalist Manoush Zomorodi is on a mission to make technology more relatable. And she brought it to HighEdWeb in Sacramento. “I want to empower people to understand technology to the point where they feel like they have autonomy over it,” she said in a talk that dove into some of her […]

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2018 Conference Content Creation

A people search engine: The power of human-to-human (H2H) marketing in higher ed

Presented by Lisa Nguyen and Amy Davis Lisa Nguyen described UC Davis as a “sleeper school, ” meaning that not a lot of people know about the college worldwide, but in California, it’s very popular. Their business school has a young but strong alumni program, and they have an equally strong but young and small team […]

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2018 Conference Usability

‘Can You Do It In The Dark?’ enlightens attendees on social media accessibility.

About halfway through “‘Can You Do It In The Dark?’ Making Your Social Media Accessible” — by Justin Romack, assistive technology coordinator with the Department of Disability Services at Texas A&M University, and Chris D’Orso, associate director of undergraduate admissions at the College at Brockport — Chris asked the room: “How many of of you think […]

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2018 Conference Marketing Social Media

A Contest from @VisitSacramento!

Our friends at Visit Sacramento are launching a social media contest for HighEdWeb attendees next week. (Not that this crew needs any sort of special inspiration to tweet a lot.) The first contest is on Sunday and Monday, and it’s called “GO WEST.” Post on Instagram or Twitter, using the hashtags #heweb18 and #visitsacramento: 1. […]

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2018 Conference

Monday Night at #heweb18

Monday nights at HighEdWeb are an opportunity to take advantage of a free night to network with your colleagues from all over the world. Our great sponsors have lined up a series of events to give you time to do just that – learn more about other institutions, solutions, and opportunities! Take advantage of one […]

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2018 Conference

Welcome (and thanks to) our #heweb18 sponsors

Every year our HighEdWeb Annual Conference sponsors provide value to our attendees through the content, services, and products they provide, both during the conference and throughout the year. Not only that, but they’re fun humans, and have a ton of knowledge about our industry and about the products and services their companies offer. We’ll be […]

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2018 Conference Content Creation Marketing Social Media

It’s marketing. It’s social. It’s content strategy. With glitter. (#MCS)

Take the most awesome thing you can think of, then put glitter on it. Now, add some unicorns and magic. That’s the Marketing, Content and Social Strategy (MCS) track this year. While the other tracks at the 2018 HighEd Web conference certainly won’t disappoint, we (Jeff Stevens and Jackie Vetrano, track co-chairs) can guarantee it. […]