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As I prepare for a 4-hour social web workshop at OACUHO in Toronto this weekend, I find myself asking this question….

Should I be designing my slides more for the people who are there, or for the people who aren’t there?

Here’s where the thought came from.  I was browsing through my old presentations on SlideShare and realized that I’m reaching a much wider audience post-presentation. We’ve all been in this stage of ‘Presentation Zen’  and ‘Slideology‘ for many months as everyone tries to make their slides more simplistic, but are they still able to tell the story to the casual viewer online, and do they still reflect the message enough?  In other words, is there enough meat on the bones of your slides to transcend into the online world effectively?

See what I mean?

How to Recruit Students using New Media Outlets - MACAC 2009
Presentation: 40 people
Online: 930 views in 2 weeks

FacebookGate - Online Webinar
Presentation: 2 webinars, 20 people each
Online: 1,085 views in 4 months

Rock Enroll: Integrating Social Media into your Recruitment Strategy - MPSEOC
Presentation: 60 people
Online: 1,636 views in 9 months

The Recruitment Long Tail - Stamats 08  (Slidecast - Audio + Slides to tell the story)
Presentation: 150 people
Online: 1020 views in 6 months

After these presentations happened in real life, they reached an audience on average 15 x’s larger on the web.  Surely not all visitors viewed the whole thing, not all of them stayed after the first 5 slides, but they all came across the content. And if was easier to follow, would they stick around longer?

Which leads me to think: How can I create engaging presentation slides that capture the needs of both my live audience and my online audience? The live audience ALWAYS comes first. Bottom line. But would a little more clarification on a slide hurt for when you post it online later? Will it ruin your presentation? If you’re engaging, lively and captivating, does it even matter?

I’ll talk for several minutes this weekend on this slide:

But I wouldn’t expect someone on Slideshare to spend more than several seconds on it. On the other hand, you don’t want your slides to end up on the other extreme:

Just something to think about as you prepare for your next presentation. Be remarkable, be rememberable, and be aware of your post-presentation audience.  See you on the stage!

I was fortunate enough to hit up seven conferences and several more webinars in 2008. I met a ton of great people, was filled with many ideas, and really never got off ‘the conference high’ because of the timing of them all.  2008 has been a great year for me professionally.

But there is one thing I continue to see at conference after conference.

Someone stands up to present, gives fact/stats/thoughts/theory, and people write it down and take it for what it is.

Don’t do that!!!

Yes, conferences are GREAT opportunities to learn, and there has to be some data/research/basis behind the presentation. But, there is not a ‘one solution fits all’ out there.  What works for me at Butler might not work for you at your school.  The methods that they are having success with might not be your best option.  Their failures might be your greatest decision ever.

Conferences are great places to get ideas, but please… do your homework.  Take the time to get to know your students. Your recruiting region. Do a survey. Ask students when they visit.

You’ll be much better off, and your efforts will be more fruitful.

[This post is similar to my eduWeb2008 afterthoughts, but still very applicable for all subscribers, old and new.]

You’re back from Stamats08.  Florida was great, you’ve met tons of new people, and the trip home went fairly smooth. So today you’re getting settled into your desk, fresh with ideas and energized to change the world. You’ve got notes, resources, new connections at universities and colleges across the map, and you’re ready to rock.

So where do you go from here? Most of the time, someone who attends a conference follows a graph like this:

You get really excited at the conference. Your enthusiasm for your job is renewed. You have faith that things can be changed. But as soon as you get back to your office, confidence starts going down. Things start to return to business as normal, and before you know it you’re right back where you were before the conference.

Let’s do better than that.

Here is a quick 10-step plan to help you get the most out of your conference experience from Stamats08 if you’re just getting your feet wet in a lot of the topics you heard about this week.

10 Steps to Maximize Your Conference Experience

1. Schedule a meeting with your supervisor/boss/direct reports/team. Right now. Come prepared with a short and sweet summary (no more than 1 page) of key takeaways and implementations that you want to move towards. Have a discussion about each, and what steps you can take to get it done. Proceed.
2. Reflect on resources other than yours. Use this BlogHighEd.org post of Stamats08 content that we have all created to refresh your mind or to catch up on sessions you might have missed.
   1. Did you notice that this post was compiled by Jacob, who works at Central College and was not even at the conference? Chew on that for a second…
3. Watch presentations again, or share them with your co-workers. Point out specific segments they should watch. All presentations and videos are linked here.
4. Join Twitter! Stay connected with others that you have met and continue to have conversations revolving around what you’re doing at work and the trending topics in higher ed. [Follow Me!]
5. Start using RSS. A few months back I did a quick how-to on getting started with RSS. Watch it and begin subscribing to blogs so that you can keep up with the information better.
6. Start a blog. Head over to Wordpress and start to type out some thoughts about what you’re working on. Be sure to email me your link at bradjward(at)gmail(dot)com so that I can add you to my RSS feeds.
   
7. Try something new.  I personally am going to play with analytics more and try some of Kyle’s tricks and tips.  Think of one thing from the conference you’ve never heard about or used, and try it out.
   
8. Book another conference for yourself or a co-worker. Karine Joly has an event calendar of upcoming conferences.
   
9. Read a book.  Check out my list of eduWeb 2008 Book Titles here, which are all great choices.
   
10. Join the Conversation. Start commenting on blogs or posting in the uwebd forums. BlogHighEd.org is also a great place to start, but there are many more great blogs out there. Check blogrolls of others to find many more quality blogs in higher ed.
    

I hope that you can take a few of these steps to get started towards better work and amazing projects. You can do it; be persistent and make change happen in your organization.

Stamats08 was awesome. The conversations and connections that took place both in and outside of the conference room stimulated me and gave me some great ideas.

I was glad to be a part of the event, and look forward to keeping in touch with all of you.

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Remember when I told you to keep an eye on the HighEdWeb backchannel?  I hope you have been this week.

And like me, you’ve 1) probably felt a little left out, and 2) had no clue what some of the presentations were about.  I’m more of a front-end technology guy.  You all build the tools, I’ll figure out awesome ways to use them. Thanks, web geeks!

SO, are you ready to 1) experience an awesome conference, and 2) learn about the front end of technology such as analytics, social media, ROI, creating a web 2.0 plan, and more?

Well, my dear subscribers, I hope you’ll join me and many others at the Stamats Integrated Marketing Conference in St. Petersburg, FL from November 5-8, 2008.   Speakers include myself, Chris Brogan, Karlyn Morissette, Kyle James, Matt Herzberger, and several others. We wil discuss many of the hot topics in higher education, and you don’t want to miss out.

My presentation is titled ‘The Recruitment Long Tail’, and is shaping up to be my favorite presentation out of the ones I have put together.  While The Long Tail by Chris Anderson is certainly not required reading to come to the session, I certainly would encourage you to read the book for professional growth. The presentation stems from a post I did earlier in the year.  The good folks at Stamats asked me to come present it, and I’m looking forward to it.

It was at the Stamats 2006 conference, my first conference as a higher ed professional, where my eyes were opened to a world of possibilities in higher ed recruitment.  This will be my 3rd Stamats conference.

Budgets might be tight, and the economy might be down, but now is the time to start preparing your 2009-2010 recruitment plans and the Stamats Conference will provide you plenty of material to learn where to get started, how to do it, and how to measure the success of your campaigns. My personal goal is to give you your money’s worth in my allotted 1 hour of speaking, and I know others will not disappoint either.

Click here to register for Stamats08 for only $499!!

I am back from NACAC08 in Seattle and have had a lot of time to reflect on the previous week.

First, it’s amazing to see the difference between a conference of ‘techies’ and a conference of ’suits’.  Absolutely night and day.   No user-generated content.  The twitter backchannel was… well, it wasn’t. Blog… what’s that again?  There was one presentation on social media.  Did I mention there were nearly 6,000 people in attendance?

If you went to NACAC and have no clue what I’m talking about, keep an eye on HighEdWeb this coming week and watch the quality of content and connections made.   That is the future of web and conversation.   And that is the future of how you are going to need to have conversations with prospective students.

We had something great going at eduWeb08, and the HighEdWeb planning team has been smart enough to catch on and begin providing those avenues for discussion before, during, and after the conference.

I got so much more out of eduWeb due to social media because I could essentially ‘listen in’ to 2 other presentations while sitting in a 3rd, and still digest it all.  I could read many blog posts reviewing the events of the day and catch up on what I missed.

I just feel empty about the content on NACAC because the only way to consume it was to be in the session. My knowledge and learning was limited to what I could personally attend and sit in on. Nothing more.  I felt so out of touch with everything that was happening around me.

Oh well.  At least the scenery was great.

I have arrived in Seattle for NACAC08, and while I feel like I should be heading to bed soon, we’re going out to eat and then head to Safeco Field for a Mariners game.

Today was essentially travel + meeting the Zinch.com team and helping them set up their booth.  I also ran in to Steve Kappler who is now with ACT, and also chatted with the YouniversityTV and FireEngineRed crews.

YouniversityTV gave me a sneak peek of their new site, which they will soft launch tomorrow and go public with next week.  The facelift is a great change from the current site, although still flash based for the most part.  There will be additional features such as user generated content, submitted videos by students and schools, ratings and comments, and more.  It’ll be good.  Another site to monitor, but the more the merrier.. right?

Monster also announced today a revamp of Admissions.com.  It gets a big FAIL so far from me since the comment feature is broken. NRCCUA has something up their sleeve in the admissions/high school student world as well, and I’ll share what I find out about their revamped site.

Big shout-out to Pauline from The C-Word, who I linked in this post. She’s a student at a college in the area and emailed me, so we’re going to get together and pick each other’s brains and learn more from each other.  Very excited about that.

Here are some pics from the trip so far.  To see them all, check out my Flickr group and submit yours too!

In 2 days I’ll be flying out to Seattle for NACAC08.  Thanks to the awesome team at Zinch.com, I will be joining them and my Butler colleagues for the conference.  As a member of the Zinch Advisory Board I’ll be spending lots of time with the crew and getting to know them better, and helping out with a training session as an admission officer who uses the site.

Are you going to be in Seattle for NACAC08?  Let’s meet up!! Email me (bradjward at gmail dot com) or @bradjward me on Twitter.

If you’ll be there and you use Twitter, tag your tweets with #nacac08 and I will compile them at http://tweetfeed.com/bradjward/nacac08.

If you’ll be there and you use Flickr, add your pictures to the NACAC08 Pool at http://flickr.com/groups/867772@N20/.

If you’ll be there and you’re in the Exhibitor Hall, stop by Booth 133 or 1309, where I’ll be hanging out a lot.

I’ve got a good list going already of people I hope to meet up with, including

• @brianwmniles from TargetX
• @kathrynspruill and @jbrower514 from Stein Communications
• @tom8williams from Innogage
• @krommenhoek, @mickhagen, @bradhagen and the others from Zinch
• @donna_bowling from Mindpower, Inc.
• The folks from Stamats, FireEngineRed and YouniversityTV
• … and YOU! If you’re there, I want to meet you.

On the list for presentations I’m heading to include:

• Meetings — Bane of your Existence?
• Time to Talk: Current Trends in College Admission
• Admission Best Practices: Perspectives from Around the World
• Using Blogging and IM in Public and Private Universities
• Enjoy the Green Pastures You Have: How to Develop Professionally in an Office You Love
• Student Views on Technology in the College Admission Process

See you in Seattle!
Brad

I’ve started to prepare my presentation for the Stamats Integrated Marketing Conference and picked up a book last month called Slide:ology.

At a little over $20, you definitely get your $$ worth from this hefty 294 page book.  It’s jam packed with information about creating great presentations.  From how to present data, organize slides, choose color palettes, to slide composition and much more, I don’t see how you could miss out on this book if you are a presenter.  Veteran, first-timer, or somewhere in between, you WILL find something in this book for you. Even if you’re just giving presentations to prospective families or to the office, better slides will engage the viewer more.

Needless to say, I’ll be keeping this book near and dear to me up to the October 20th deadline for my  presentation slides for “The [Recruitment] Long Tail.”  I hope I can achieve half of the awesomeness that this book provides for making presentation slides. The book just makes you want to make great slides.

Buy Slide:ology today!

It seems like nearly everyone has arrived home from eduWeb 2008 after travel issues plagued the trip back (I’m still waiting on my luggage…). So today you’re getting settled into your desk, fresh with ideas and energized to change the world. You’ve got notes, resources, new connections at universities and colleges across the map, and you’re ready to rock.

So where do you go from here? Most of the time, someone who attends a conference follows a graph like this:

You get really excited at the conference. Your enthusiasm for your job is renewed. You have faith that things can be changed. But as soon as you get back to your office, confidence starts going down. Things start to return to business as normal, and before you know it you’re right back where you were before the conference.

Let’s do better than that.

Here is a quick 10-step plan to help you get the most out of your conference experience from eduWeb 2008 if you’re just getting your feet wet in a lot of the topics you heard about this week.

10 Steps to Maximize Your Conference Experience

1. Schedule a meeting with your supervisor/boss/direct reports/team. Right now. Come prepared with a short and sweet summary (no more than 1 page) of key takeaways and implementations that you want to move towards. Have a discussion about each, and what steps you can take to get it done. Proceed.
2. Reflect on resources other than yours. Use Matt’s post of eduWeb2008 content that we have all created to refresh your mind or to catch up on sessions you might have missed.
3. Watch presentations again, or share them with your co-workers. Point out specific segments they should watch. Here are the streams:
   1. Email’s Role in the New Media Landscape - Greg Cangialosi
   2. Email Marketing for Higher Education - Kyle James
   3. Head in the Cloud - Mike Richwalsky and Josh Tysiachney
   4. eduWeb Closing Keynote - Karine Joly
   5. SkoolPool Facebook App - Melissa Cheater
   6. Blogs: The Many Voices of a University - Heidi Cool
   7. 1st Annual eduStyle Awards - Stewart Foss
   8. eduWeb Opening Keynote (partial) - Mark Greenfield
4. Join Twitter! Stay connected with others that you have met and continue to have conversations revolving around what you’re doing at work and the trending topics in higher ed. After joining Twitter, head over to Kyle James’ blog and start adding other higher education tweeters from the extensive list.
5. Start using RSS. A few months back I did a quick how-to on getting started with RSS. Watch it and begin subscribing to blogs so that you can keep up with the information better.
6. Start a blog. Head over to Wordpress and start to type out some thoughts about what you’re working on. Be sure to email me your link at bradjward(at)gmail(dot)com so that I can add you to my RSS feeds.
   
7. Try something new.  I personally am going to play with cloud computing to see how it works first-hand.  Think of one thing from the conference you’ve never heard about or used, and try it out.
   
8. Book another conference for yourself or a co-worker. Karine Joly has an event calendar of upcoming conferences. Two to note are HighEdWeb 2008 and Stamats. Don’t have the budget? Try a HigherEdExperts.com Webinar.
   
9. Read a book.  Check out my list of eduWeb 2008 Book Titles here.
   
10. Join the Conversation. It’s not just the title of my eduWeb 2008 presentation, it’s something you can do to become more connected with others. Start commenting on blogs or posting in the uwebd forums. BlogHighEd.org is also a great place to start, but there are many more great blogs out there. Check blogrolls of others to find many more quality blogs in higher ed.
    

I hope that you can take a few of these steps to get started towards better work and amazing projects. You can do it; be persistent and make change happen in your organization.

eduWeb 2008 was great. The conversations and connections that took place were so much richer and in-depth than any conference I’ve been to before. Kudos to the vendors for providing multiple networking receptions for us to gather at. The BlogHighEd.org Meetup was also highly attended, with approximately 75 people joining us through the hour. I was glad to be a part of the event, and look forward to keeping in touch with all of you.

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After 2 days at the conference I have been reminded of a ton of great books and been introduced to a few new ones.  Here is a list of books that I would recommend based on reading them or hearing rave reviews.

(I’ve also created a Linkbunch here in case you just want to open them all at once.)

• The Big Moo - Seth Godin
• The Long Tail - Chris Anderson
• Small is the New Big - Seth Godin
• Meatball Sundae - Seth Godin
• Groundswell - Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li
• Join the Conversation - Joseph Jaffe
• Here Comes Everybody - Clay Shirky
• The Overachievers - Alexandria Robbins
• The Open Brand - Kelly Mooney
• X Saves The World - Jeff Gordinier
• The Price of Admission - Daniel Golden
• Cluetrain Manifesto - Christopher Locke
• The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
• Made to Stick - Chip and Dan Heath
• Fat Envelope Frenzy - Joie Jager-Hyman

Added from Reader Comments:

• Personality Not Included - Rohit Bhargava
• Now is Gone (A Primer on New Media) - Geoff Livingston / Brian Solis
• The New Rules of Marketing and PR - David Meerman Scott
• How to Become a Marketing Superstar - Jeffrey J. Fox
• Beyond Disruption - Jean-Marie Dru
• How to Drive Your Competition Crazy - Guy Kawasaki
• Fast Company Magazine
• Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want - James Gilmore
• The Experience Economy - B. Joseph Pine

If anyone has a book to add or hears of others as the conference progresses, please leave a comment!