The ol’ Conference Suck - #heweb09

With this year’s HighEdWeb conference winding down, I want to take a moment to share a few thoughts.

  1. <rant>My department has no budget for operations and travel.  This is the reason I didn’t attend. Thought I could make it happen. I couldn’t. Really? Zero? Yes. Zero. Zilch. No matter how you multiply and/or divide it. Add and/or subtract it. Increase it 30% from year to year. The result is still the same. “0” </rant>
  2. Having said that, it was an AMAZING conference. How do I know? I followed the #hashtag on twitter. #heweb09 provided me with more than 140 characters of insight…at warp speed. It also provided quite a few interesting images and video. I read more and bookmarked more in 2 days than I have the entire year. I started following several people on twitter and began, what I hope, will be several great relationships.
  3. I bought a round for some of the Arkansas folks who got to attend. We shared a toast from afar.
  4. I missed out on htm<ale> (I think that hurts the most).
  5. I was reminded that others like me exist. All working to control the world toward a similar goal.
  6. I was also reminded that as everyone heads back to their own worlds, the ol’ conference suck begins.

What is “The ol’ Conference Suck”?

It’s that feeling you get when you walk back into the office. The feeling you get when you start to wade through the mountain of email and voice mail. You know the one.

I’ve experienced this over the years as a member of CASE and taking active parts in district conferences. For me, overcoming the ol’ conference suck involves brainstorming, a reality check and patience.

Here’s what I like to do.

First, list as many of the great ideas you can remember and rank them in several different ways.

  1. most important to you
  2. most important to the university
  3. hardest to implement
  4. easiest to implement
  5. easiest to implement w/o a committee (you know what I mean)
  6. and so on

Eventually, a few of your great ideas will bubble to the top.

Next, take those top bubbling ideas and do a reality check. Unfortunately, there are those around you who were not a part of #heweb09. They probably don’t have the same energy you do (or an appreciation of that which is @tsand). This is not a bad thing. It’s just a reality check.

Patience? Yes. I know. So many great things to implement…so little time. Patience. It’s an entire year until the next conference. Pace yourself and stay in touch with your contacts. They will continue to fuel your fire.

Remember, we’re all in higher ed for a similar reason. We’re all working to control the world toward a similar goal. It’s what brought us all to #heweb09.

Mall marketing. Impressive. Effective?
Pop-upView Separately

Mall marketing. Impressive. Effective?

Posterous as backbone of crisis communication plan

I’ve been thinking quite a lot about setting up posterous as the backbone to our universities crisis communication plan.

A blogger site currently exists if needed, but the idea of emailing content updates in a crisis is appealing.

More soon…