Case in Point: Content Culture at Vanderbilt

One of the biggest challenges we face in higher ed getting people to buy into the value of content strategy and build support for content across our organization. At Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., executive director of integrated communications Melanie Moran has rung up a string of successes doing just that. Whether it’s their news site, the 365@VU photo project, the alumni magazine or a recent reorganization, Moran and her team at … [Read more...]

Case in Point: Building Community at UW-Madison

How can we use content to develop a true sense of community—both online and off—among our audiences? Whether it’s through a revamped newsletter or new ways of using social channels, University of Wisconsin-Madison social media and internal communications manager John Lucas has made it work. Through his work on innovative projects like #UWRightNow, a 24-hour crowdsourced snapshot of life on campus, the Bucky Challenge, a social media scavenger … [Read more...]

Happy Days for Content at HighEdWeb 2012

Another HighEdWeb conference is in the books. This year’s event, hosted in beautiful Milwaukee, Wisc., featured cheese curds, beer, the Bronze Fonz, bratwursts—and of course, tons of incredible insights into making our university’s online experiences awesome. As for content, there were two compelling themes that ran through the various sessions, and I’m going to get to my recap faster than you can say “Laverne and Shirley. Creating a … [Read more...]

Content Takeaways from SXSW 2012

I recently returned from the annual SXSW Interactive festival, which brought 25,000 nerds of various stripes to Austin, Texas, for a week of learning and networking (and breakfast tacos). There were several highlights, but two things pleased me in particular: the strength of the panels on content-related topics and the significant number of higher education professionals in attendance. The great thing about SXSW is that, if you’re interested … [Read more...]

Going Long: The Role of Longform Web Content

With 140-character tweets and short, scannable web copy often top of mind, it can be difficult to think of a situation where we would willingly want to publish thousands of words. But longform content is carving out a significant niche in the habits of online content consumers, as evidenced by trends in journalism and ebook publishing. In higher ed, there are opportunities to capitalize on this trend, as well as implications to … [Read more...]