Following Cole's lead, a little reflection about the One Post a Day project.
I agree with him in that it helps focus a concept to the point of sharing succinctly, but the down side I'd share is that I certainly have less time.
In fact, today's the first night in a week that I haven't had obligations other than this post. Well, I do, but they're not as pressing/scheduled as the others have been. Haven't even touched WoW in that time, in fact.
And I also suspect that quality suffers.
From memory, my blog output has generally been best when it's one or two a week. That gives me some time to percolate on a subject rather than just tossing it out there for the sake of having something up for the day.
And in fact, after the obligation of one-a-day is over, I suspect I'll take a hiatus to get things back to normal, and then try to go back to a schedule of that sort.
One a week is manageable. One a day is pressure, and it's not a good kind of pressure considering everything else I've got going on. But I've made it this far, so I'll (be trying to) finish out the month.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Information online
At a recent meeting, I and a bunch of our decision-makers were trying to make changes to how we use some of our brochures. Costs are rising, both in terms of printing a piece and the cost of postage to distribute them, and budgets are being cut back, so it was time to take that hard look.
And I finally heard one of the sentences I've been waiting for out of our Executive Director's mouth:
"People are looking for this information online."
. . .
Thank you. And darn right they are.
Even putting aside the fact that we created this piece because the colleges stopped printing their own pieces with similar information, there's the doubles and triples that students get of the same brochure, not knowing it's in their folder already or that there's one in the mail to them, etc.
And besides which, they're getting the information the way they want to already. The related pages in question on our site are our most popular pages. We know people are accessing this information there. Even our Knowledge Base entries show it's the most popular question people have in mind when they get to our site.
So I presented a mock-up of a new landing page for the subject in question. I poured all the information we had about the subject onto a page and then faithfully trimmed it by half. I did not go the half again that Steve Krug recommends because--frankly--this was just a mock-up. I didn't have the go-ahead to spend more time on it, really.
And the first response? "Awfully cluttered," and "wordy," to quote the two folks in question. Absolutely right, and I'll admit it. I could certainly spend more time and cut it back more.
And thank you for recognizing what people want on the web: clarity and simplicity.
Be succinct. That's my best web writing tip.
This is, however, super difficult to do when you're dealing with a multi-campus system that's truly (more or less) integrated in terms of curriculum and admissions. With 12 academic colleges at this campus and another 6 throughout the rest of the other 19 campuses scattered across the commonwealth. And especially when multiple campuses offer majors that have the same name, but are different programs with different curricula and options.
Not an easy task. But one I have to tackle.
But tomorrow. I almost missed today's post-per-day due to midnight hitting, and that just won't do, now will it?
And I finally heard one of the sentences I've been waiting for out of our Executive Director's mouth:
"People are looking for this information online."
. . .
Thank you. And darn right they are.
Even putting aside the fact that we created this piece because the colleges stopped printing their own pieces with similar information, there's the doubles and triples that students get of the same brochure, not knowing it's in their folder already or that there's one in the mail to them, etc.
And besides which, they're getting the information the way they want to already. The related pages in question on our site are our most popular pages. We know people are accessing this information there. Even our Knowledge Base entries show it's the most popular question people have in mind when they get to our site.
So I presented a mock-up of a new landing page for the subject in question. I poured all the information we had about the subject onto a page and then faithfully trimmed it by half. I did not go the half again that Steve Krug recommends because--frankly--this was just a mock-up. I didn't have the go-ahead to spend more time on it, really.
And the first response? "Awfully cluttered," and "wordy," to quote the two folks in question. Absolutely right, and I'll admit it. I could certainly spend more time and cut it back more.
And thank you for recognizing what people want on the web: clarity and simplicity.
Be succinct. That's my best web writing tip.
This is, however, super difficult to do when you're dealing with a multi-campus system that's truly (more or less) integrated in terms of curriculum and admissions. With 12 academic colleges at this campus and another 6 throughout the rest of the other 19 campuses scattered across the commonwealth. And especially when multiple campuses offer majors that have the same name, but are different programs with different curricula and options.
Not an easy task. But one I have to tackle.
But tomorrow. I almost missed today's post-per-day due to midnight hitting, and that just won't do, now will it?
Monday, August 18, 2008
On the light side
Lest you think it's always like last Friday:
Everyone needs some levity in their lives. Especially so after a tough day at work, I'd say. Or a Monday. Or a Tuesday. You get the idea.
To that end, I'd like to share some of the sources of such that I turn to:
Everyone needs some levity in their lives. Especially so after a tough day at work, I'd say. Or a Monday. Or a Tuesday. You get the idea.
To that end, I'd like to share some of the sources of such that I turn to:
- Tales from Redesignland - for work-related woes, comic style
- I Can Has Cheezburger - cats with captions
- Indexed - humorous Venn diagrams
- Apostophe Abuse - for the grammarian in me
- Week in Pictures - Reginald Golding's intermittent work. ;)
Friday, August 15, 2008
Fires vs. meetings
My day in brief:
No way I can answer all the email I got today, nor catch up on what I got previously and haven't gotten to/resolved yet.
While today was mostly an exception, this sort of thing happens all the time, to one extent or another. And it's frustrating.
And I know it's not just me. Other people have similar workloads.
At some point, I'm going to have to call an embargo on meetings, or
declare email bankruptcy, or not be on IM, or close and lock my door. Or all of the above. Something. Because otherwise, I can't actually put into action the things I'm in those meetings for.
We're down two content people in my office now, so that could be aggravating the problem. But man. Rough Friday.
The web obviously needs some man-hours, and not just in my office. If there are any web folks out there at Penn State twiddling their thumbs (not that I think there are), drop me a line. I sure could use the help.
- Meetings 8:00 to 12:30, some of which were interrupted by three different people looking for me, all leaving tasks for me behind them.
- Brief hour at my desk for email/IM and lunch.
- Interview for a programmer position open from 1:30 to 2:30,
- half-hour of post-interview review, then
- a good hour of fire-putting-out on our online application for admission--with no resolution.
- Back to email/tasks left behind.
No way I can answer all the email I got today, nor catch up on what I got previously and haven't gotten to/resolved yet.
While today was mostly an exception, this sort of thing happens all the time, to one extent or another. And it's frustrating.
And I know it's not just me. Other people have similar workloads.
At some point, I'm going to have to call an embargo on meetings, or
declare email bankruptcy, or not be on IM, or close and lock my door. Or all of the above. Something. Because otherwise, I can't actually put into action the things I'm in those meetings for.
We're down two content people in my office now, so that could be aggravating the problem. But man. Rough Friday.
The web obviously needs some man-hours, and not just in my office. If there are any web folks out there at Penn State twiddling their thumbs (not that I think there are), drop me a line. I sure could use the help.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Social bookmarking/the problem with marketing
Social bookmarking has caught my attention again. I've had one account or another for years and years, but in the last year or so I've really latched onto it.
In part, I think it has at least a little to do with my iPhone. Before this, I've (generally speaking) had two computers in use at any one time. One for work and one at home. And the work bookmarks went on the work laptop, and the personal bookmarks went on my home computer.
When I started emailing myself links to my work email address from my home computer rather than hauling out my work laptop, though: that's when I knew I was in trouble.
And then the iPhone came along. And believe it or not, it's my main mobile device. When I stopped in on the Learning Design Summer Camp, all I brought was my iPhone. No laptop. And I did fine interacting with the Live Question Tool, and backchanneling via Twitter, and all that.
But to really get the most out of whenever I was websurfing on my iPhone, I needed to be able to access my bookmarks. And putting them "in the cloud" on a social network (so to speak) has done that.
Someone a few weeks ago told me that you can tell a lot about someone by looking at what they bookmark. I'd give that more credence than judging by their shoes--though I don't know a lot about shoes past what's comfortable and looks decent.
My top tags in delicious (name change from the original del.icio.us, so named because a friend of the founder compared finding good links to eating cherries) on my professional account are as follows: socialmedia, reachingstudents, marketing, web2.0, admissions, socialnetworking, usability, content, culture, webdesign.
That's telling. Though I rather dislike that marketing shows up there: I've always resisted that label.
I'm the one usually telling my boss or my equal on the print side (who's a marketer) that we shouldn't do that when he suggests a scheme that smells suspiciously of spamming. We didn't even have an unsubscribe on the marketing email going out of our office until I got there, and our security policies were (emphasis there on the past tense) not very strong on a few points.
Is it that I'm more ethical than my marketing colleague? Possible. I do know that I'm closer to the age of the students we're trying to talk with, and way more tech-savvy than he is. And social media-minded, for that matter.
It's more that I, like many of a similar age and younger, have been totally suspicious of marketing for as long as I've been aware of it. "All Marketers are Liars" is more than a book title to me.
In this vein, social bookmarking has become really valuable to me. I'll more often trust--or at least follow--a link passed to me by a friend or colleague than one being advertised.
So in short, those are the two big draws for me. Social bookmarking is:
In part, I think it has at least a little to do with my iPhone. Before this, I've (generally speaking) had two computers in use at any one time. One for work and one at home. And the work bookmarks went on the work laptop, and the personal bookmarks went on my home computer.
When I started emailing myself links to my work email address from my home computer rather than hauling out my work laptop, though: that's when I knew I was in trouble.
And then the iPhone came along. And believe it or not, it's my main mobile device. When I stopped in on the Learning Design Summer Camp, all I brought was my iPhone. No laptop. And I did fine interacting with the Live Question Tool, and backchanneling via Twitter, and all that.
But to really get the most out of whenever I was websurfing on my iPhone, I needed to be able to access my bookmarks. And putting them "in the cloud" on a social network (so to speak) has done that.
Someone a few weeks ago told me that you can tell a lot about someone by looking at what they bookmark. I'd give that more credence than judging by their shoes--though I don't know a lot about shoes past what's comfortable and looks decent.
My top tags in delicious (name change from the original del.icio.us, so named because a friend of the founder compared finding good links to eating cherries) on my professional account are as follows: socialmedia, reachingstudents, marketing, web2.0, admissions, socialnetworking, usability, content, culture, webdesign.
That's telling. Though I rather dislike that marketing shows up there: I've always resisted that label.
I'm the one usually telling my boss or my equal on the print side (who's a marketer) that we shouldn't do that when he suggests a scheme that smells suspiciously of spamming. We didn't even have an unsubscribe on the marketing email going out of our office until I got there, and our security policies were (emphasis there on the past tense) not very strong on a few points.
Is it that I'm more ethical than my marketing colleague? Possible. I do know that I'm closer to the age of the students we're trying to talk with, and way more tech-savvy than he is. And social media-minded, for that matter.
It's more that I, like many of a similar age and younger, have been totally suspicious of marketing for as long as I've been aware of it. "All Marketers are Liars" is more than a book title to me.
In this vein, social bookmarking has become really valuable to me. I'll more often trust--or at least follow--a link passed to me by a friend or colleague than one being advertised.
So in short, those are the two big draws for me. Social bookmarking is:
- in the cloud
- with my community
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
rural/urban: an unusual request
So this afternoon, an unusual request sent me down a rabbit hole.
A colleague over in ITS asked me what seemed on the surface a relatively simple question: how many students that enroll come from rural environments within Pennsylvania?
During the course of the conversation, I expanded that to include those who visit our website but might not end up enrolling who were from Pennsylvania, since a lot of Penn State's services also assist those outside of the officially-affiliated Penn State community. Not to mention that was an easier number to come by, relatively speaking.
To that end, I went to our web analytics and expanded to look over the course of a year. Just on the high end of traffic, it was pretty easy to see the major population centers in the commonwealth. Likewise, by going to the low end of traffic, you could see the less densely populated areas, though this was less accurate. But here we run into the problem that folks from rural environments may not be online, and thus not even making it onto this count.
So what about our enrollment numbers? There's no checkmark (rural/urban) for us to bounce against, thus the Penn State Fact Book doesn't list it, nor have we ever run these numbers before. After talking to one of my data-minded colleagues, our best solution was to tap into our sociology folks at the university for a list of "rural" zip codes: once we had that, from there we could run these numbers with some degree of accuracy. Problem is, even a ballpark was tough to come by until we had some definitions like this.
Simple question, yes? Not so very.
A colleague over in ITS asked me what seemed on the surface a relatively simple question: how many students that enroll come from rural environments within Pennsylvania?
During the course of the conversation, I expanded that to include those who visit our website but might not end up enrolling who were from Pennsylvania, since a lot of Penn State's services also assist those outside of the officially-affiliated Penn State community. Not to mention that was an easier number to come by, relatively speaking.
To that end, I went to our web analytics and expanded to look over the course of a year. Just on the high end of traffic, it was pretty easy to see the major population centers in the commonwealth. Likewise, by going to the low end of traffic, you could see the less densely populated areas, though this was less accurate. But here we run into the problem that folks from rural environments may not be online, and thus not even making it onto this count.
So what about our enrollment numbers? There's no checkmark (rural/urban) for us to bounce against, thus the Penn State Fact Book doesn't list it, nor have we ever run these numbers before. After talking to one of my data-minded colleagues, our best solution was to tap into our sociology folks at the university for a list of "rural" zip codes: once we had that, from there we could run these numbers with some degree of accuracy. Problem is, even a ballpark was tough to come by until we had some definitions like this.
Simple question, yes? Not so very.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Exercising your knowledge base
Prompted by an excellent post by Shelby Thayer, as well as a meeting today with IntelliResponse, our knowledge base provider, I'd like to dig into what you can find out from and how you can fine-tune a knowledge base.
I personally find it fun and entertaining to track our top ten over time and see how things shift. Yes, I'm a strange bird. I know this and embrace it. But watching "how do I apply" crawl up over inquiries for our academic calendar shows the shift in the year again: that shift in what students and parents are thinking about. Likewise, inquiries for campus tours.
And I was thrilled to see "is Penn State a multicampus system" actually gain enough traction to make it to one of our top tens (the one that people actually type in, rather than browsing the provided questions). Thrilled. Essentially, that means that the message that Penn State is not one place has gotten out there.
But I found, when I looked farther, that "2+2" goes unanswered if someone enters it. Likewise, "campus offer." And these oversights (my own fault, mostly) are pretty egregious.
Now, those not familiar with the Penn State system might say "huh?" But both those questions should likely point to the "is Penn State a multicampus system" answer, or one like it. (2+2 is what we call our system of two years at a smaller campus, followed by two years at a larger one to finish an undergraduate degree; campus offer is an offer of admission to one of our campuses.)
As much help as we've gotten from IntelliReponse (and we've gotten a ton: they've been great), you really need someone who knows the institution and office in question pretty much inside and out to evaluate your answers on a regular basis. I've found miscategorized questions, questions that don't get answered, and quite a few that are really just garbage--often someone with a juvenile sense of humor trying to see what they can get the system to answer to pretty ridiculous questions.
The miscategorized and unanswered worry me the most. That said, we're almost at a 90% response rate, and haven't been up and running too terribly long, so I'm not losing sleep over it. Yet.
I've seen as many misspellings as I think might exist for "Schreyer" (referring to our Honors College), including "shriars," "shryer," and "scyers" (virtually never capitalized, I might add), as well as referral to the aforementioned as "honros colelge." I also know the Penn State system is confusing, but I really wish we could get enough info out there that people wouldn't be so bewildered as to ask "what college is the university campus on?"
I'm also sincerely hoping that "convicted of a felony" does not become a common question to turn up.
Examples aside, paying attention to these and getting them categorized appropriately not only helps your numbers, it helps your community, and that has real results when it comes to customer service. I've found that it's not just prospective students and parents using our knowledge base: it's also Penn State staff and faculty, some of them internal to admissions.
And people are using it all hours of the day, from all around the world. So rather than staying up until it's business hours on our side of the world, a student from Thailand or China can get the answer they need right then. Likewise those that are in our time zone and don't want to pick up the phone or write an email. Not to mention those right at any one of our Penn State campuses.
So in the end, to serve your customer, you have to find out what they want or need and try to deliver it to them in the way that's easiest for them to use, not the easiest for you to manage, although the two often intersect. Keep in touch with your community and serve them well, and you'll find the benefit is enormous.
I personally find it fun and entertaining to track our top ten over time and see how things shift. Yes, I'm a strange bird. I know this and embrace it. But watching "how do I apply" crawl up over inquiries for our academic calendar shows the shift in the year again: that shift in what students and parents are thinking about. Likewise, inquiries for campus tours.
And I was thrilled to see "is Penn State a multicampus system" actually gain enough traction to make it to one of our top tens (the one that people actually type in, rather than browsing the provided questions). Thrilled. Essentially, that means that the message that Penn State is not one place has gotten out there.
But I found, when I looked farther, that "2+2" goes unanswered if someone enters it. Likewise, "campus offer." And these oversights (my own fault, mostly) are pretty egregious.
Now, those not familiar with the Penn State system might say "huh?" But both those questions should likely point to the "is Penn State a multicampus system" answer, or one like it. (2+2 is what we call our system of two years at a smaller campus, followed by two years at a larger one to finish an undergraduate degree; campus offer is an offer of admission to one of our campuses.)
As much help as we've gotten from IntelliReponse (and we've gotten a ton: they've been great), you really need someone who knows the institution and office in question pretty much inside and out to evaluate your answers on a regular basis. I've found miscategorized questions, questions that don't get answered, and quite a few that are really just garbage--often someone with a juvenile sense of humor trying to see what they can get the system to answer to pretty ridiculous questions.
The miscategorized and unanswered worry me the most. That said, we're almost at a 90% response rate, and haven't been up and running too terribly long, so I'm not losing sleep over it. Yet.
I've seen as many misspellings as I think might exist for "Schreyer" (referring to our Honors College), including "shriars," "shryer," and "scyers" (virtually never capitalized, I might add), as well as referral to the aforementioned as "honros colelge." I also know the Penn State system is confusing, but I really wish we could get enough info out there that people wouldn't be so bewildered as to ask "what college is the university campus on?"
I'm also sincerely hoping that "convicted of a felony" does not become a common question to turn up.
Examples aside, paying attention to these and getting them categorized appropriately not only helps your numbers, it helps your community, and that has real results when it comes to customer service. I've found that it's not just prospective students and parents using our knowledge base: it's also Penn State staff and faculty, some of them internal to admissions.
And people are using it all hours of the day, from all around the world. So rather than staying up until it's business hours on our side of the world, a student from Thailand or China can get the answer they need right then. Likewise those that are in our time zone and don't want to pick up the phone or write an email. Not to mention those right at any one of our Penn State campuses.
So in the end, to serve your customer, you have to find out what they want or need and try to deliver it to them in the way that's easiest for them to use, not the easiest for you to manage, although the two often intersect. Keep in touch with your community and serve them well, and you'll find the benefit is enormous.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Committees, usefulness thereof
This post started after reading this blurb questioning the need for committees. And I have to say I agree.
My office excels at bringing together committees, or working groups, or what-have-you. In practice, though, the most effective use of everyone's time that I've seen has been in bringing together the two or three people who will actually do the work for the project and having them keep up with each other.
In a lot of cases, this could be done online. Twitter could be used for up-to-the-minute updates. Or, of course, you could use a more normal project management package. A few of us used Backpack pretty extensively for awhile. The subject experts should only be pulled in as consultants to make a good project run.
But the point of committees in our office (often), unfortunately, and I see the need for it, is generally for buy-in. To keep people aware of how the project is coming.
And I really feel it's a waste sometimes. But there's a huge culture change that would need to take place to make it all work without them.
Has anyone else actually been in a place that has managed that change? Any tips you can share?
My office excels at bringing together committees, or working groups, or what-have-you. In practice, though, the most effective use of everyone's time that I've seen has been in bringing together the two or three people who will actually do the work for the project and having them keep up with each other.
In a lot of cases, this could be done online. Twitter could be used for up-to-the-minute updates. Or, of course, you could use a more normal project management package. A few of us used Backpack pretty extensively for awhile. The subject experts should only be pulled in as consultants to make a good project run.
But the point of committees in our office (often), unfortunately, and I see the need for it, is generally for buy-in. To keep people aware of how the project is coming.
And I really feel it's a waste sometimes. But there's a huge culture change that would need to take place to make it all work without them.
Has anyone else actually been in a place that has managed that change? Any tips you can share?
Friday, August 08, 2008
One-upsmanship (internet culture)
We're creating our own language here at Penn State.
Then again, people in groups together for any significant period of time do. Does anybody outside of Penn State understand the significance of "BS Breakfast"? Probably not: they'd take it for what it sounds like. Which was, of course, the intent. (BS here stands for "brainstorming," for those not in the know.)
"Language" may be an overstatement, but it's at least a code. You're "in" if you know what we're talking about.
I'm part of a lot of these communities with their own codes: Penn State TLT groupie (joke!) is just one of them. And acronyms are just part of these codes.
One community with a ton of community-made acronyms that I'm part of is BPAL enthusiasts (keep in mind, with the following links, that their aesthetic is quite dark--don't be shocked). Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is a Los Angeles-based outfit that creates perfume oils, and it has its own parlance. GC (general catalog), LE (limited edition), CD (Carnaval Diabolique) and the like are pretty common to see in discussions on the topic, as is BPTP (Black Phoenix Trading Post, their sister company, which produces all their non-perfume oil goods).
Other communities of a sort are more based on quotes or references. The video Shannon posted yesterday contains a bunch of these. Whether or not you notice them depends on where you spend your time online. One of the first clips is a re-creation of the Numa Numa guy. There's also "first!" (warning: expletives, immaturity), commonly seen in comments. See also: Internet Commenter Business Meeting (same warning applies, only way more so. plus offensiveness. plus . . . oh, nevermind--it's from College Humor, so you should expect as much), which is basically what would happen if a meeting was run like virtually any popular open forum online.
And, of course, if you haven't yet been hit by a Rick Roll, you haven't been online long enough, and you certainly haven't been taking a look all the way through my links. But that may be just as well, really.
Internet Memes (warning: too many warnings than I can list) attempts to collate all these references. It doesn't hit all of them, but it hits the highlights quite well.
And there's certainly some mocking of that communal language of references. An editorial in the New York Times today, Lord of the Memes, tells us that to be on the cutting edge, we need to be "not only an early adopter, but an early discarder." We should go through these products, services and references before anyone else and then get sick of them and dismiss them with disdain should anyone else bring them up. The article ends with "remember, cultural epochs come and go, but one-upsmanship is forever."
I didn't discover that editorial on my own. In a rare reverse-crossover reference--real life to online rather than the other way around--someone told me about it at lunch and I looked at it on my iPhone when the conversation waned. There's some irony there, believe me.
But this is connectivity. Or the cost of connectivity. Or the advantage of connectivity.
The point is, that too is part of your cultural education. So choose your influences wisely--they will become your references, and part of your language. Maybe I should be a bit more selective in mine. ;)
Then again, people in groups together for any significant period of time do. Does anybody outside of Penn State understand the significance of "BS Breakfast"? Probably not: they'd take it for what it sounds like. Which was, of course, the intent. (BS here stands for "brainstorming," for those not in the know.)
"Language" may be an overstatement, but it's at least a code. You're "in" if you know what we're talking about.
I'm part of a lot of these communities with their own codes: Penn State TLT groupie (joke!) is just one of them. And acronyms are just part of these codes.
One community with a ton of community-made acronyms that I'm part of is BPAL enthusiasts (keep in mind, with the following links, that their aesthetic is quite dark--don't be shocked). Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is a Los Angeles-based outfit that creates perfume oils, and it has its own parlance. GC (general catalog), LE (limited edition), CD (Carnaval Diabolique) and the like are pretty common to see in discussions on the topic, as is BPTP (Black Phoenix Trading Post, their sister company, which produces all their non-perfume oil goods).
Other communities of a sort are more based on quotes or references. The video Shannon posted yesterday contains a bunch of these. Whether or not you notice them depends on where you spend your time online. One of the first clips is a re-creation of the Numa Numa guy. There's also "first!" (warning: expletives, immaturity), commonly seen in comments. See also: Internet Commenter Business Meeting (same warning applies, only way more so. plus offensiveness. plus . . . oh, nevermind--it's from College Humor, so you should expect as much), which is basically what would happen if a meeting was run like virtually any popular open forum online.
And, of course, if you haven't yet been hit by a Rick Roll, you haven't been online long enough, and you certainly haven't been taking a look all the way through my links. But that may be just as well, really.
Internet Memes (warning: too many warnings than I can list) attempts to collate all these references. It doesn't hit all of them, but it hits the highlights quite well.
And there's certainly some mocking of that communal language of references. An editorial in the New York Times today, Lord of the Memes, tells us that to be on the cutting edge, we need to be "not only an early adopter, but an early discarder." We should go through these products, services and references before anyone else and then get sick of them and dismiss them with disdain should anyone else bring them up. The article ends with "remember, cultural epochs come and go, but one-upsmanship is forever."
I didn't discover that editorial on my own. In a rare reverse-crossover reference--real life to online rather than the other way around--someone told me about it at lunch and I looked at it on my iPhone when the conversation waned. There's some irony there, believe me.
But this is connectivity. Or the cost of connectivity. Or the advantage of connectivity.
The point is, that too is part of your cultural education. So choose your influences wisely--they will become your references, and part of your language. Maybe I should be a bit more selective in mine. ;)
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Serendipity and complications
Amit Gupta wrote about social serendipity today, and it feels like we've got a landslide of that going on here at Penn State, though much closer to home than his examples (he's the guy behind Photojojo, for those not familiar).
As my follow list on Twitter grows, I'm finding more and more amazing, knowledgeable people out there who "get it," in the words of one of those folks, who it just so happens I got to meet for lunch today.
And the give-and-take of that community, online and off, has been amazing. You end up tapping into the collective knowledge of a ton of experts, as long as you're willing to wait for an answer.
This has happened to me before, in other forums and communities, but this is as close to home as it's come. And while it's really cool to have connections wherever you might need them--an online shout-out for info about Buffalo a couple months ago turned up online friends that I didn't know were out there, for example--having them right in your backyard is amazing.
I mean, hey. Impromptu lunches are a possibility, even.
But it does cost attention. Design for Emotion and Flow describes this really well in the second paragraph of the article. The rest is no less important, but it's unrelated to my point here.
There's a point of balance that I think most of us are still trying to find in this newfound community:
Some of this, no one has talked about at much length. But I'm feeling it out there. And it's something we all have to work through. Personally, I worked out some of this by dividing my Twitter presence into personal and professional. Folks I meet at conferences may get one or the other depending on the context.
Some folks have made parts of this problem quite plain: Shannon posted two videos to explain why she might "unfollow" someone on Twitter. Other bits of this are way more unspoken.
It's exciting to me that these new modes of being create new problems, bizarrely enough. It means we're progressing, expanding. Perhaps not in a geologic time sense, but significant nonetheless.
I'm looking forward to solving these problems for myself and seeing what they mean on the grander scale, especially as re-localization becomes a trend.
As my follow list on Twitter grows, I'm finding more and more amazing, knowledgeable people out there who "get it," in the words of one of those folks, who it just so happens I got to meet for lunch today.
And the give-and-take of that community, online and off, has been amazing. You end up tapping into the collective knowledge of a ton of experts, as long as you're willing to wait for an answer.
This has happened to me before, in other forums and communities, but this is as close to home as it's come. And while it's really cool to have connections wherever you might need them--an online shout-out for info about Buffalo a couple months ago turned up online friends that I didn't know were out there, for example--having them right in your backyard is amazing.
I mean, hey. Impromptu lunches are a possibility, even.
But it does cost attention. Design for Emotion and Flow describes this really well in the second paragraph of the article. The rest is no less important, but it's unrelated to my point here.
There's a point of balance that I think most of us are still trying to find in this newfound community:
- how to give and take equally to one's network;
- how to enjoy oneself and others evenly;
- how to find a sympathetic ear to vent without alienating others;
- where "no invitation [is] required" and crashing the party;
- expansion of connections and input overload;
- "value" of contribution and "just being yourself."
Some of this, no one has talked about at much length. But I'm feeling it out there. And it's something we all have to work through. Personally, I worked out some of this by dividing my Twitter presence into personal and professional. Folks I meet at conferences may get one or the other depending on the context.
Some folks have made parts of this problem quite plain: Shannon posted two videos to explain why she might "unfollow" someone on Twitter. Other bits of this are way more unspoken.
It's exciting to me that these new modes of being create new problems, bizarrely enough. It means we're progressing, expanding. Perhaps not in a geologic time sense, but significant nonetheless.
I'm looking forward to solving these problems for myself and seeing what they mean on the grander scale, especially as re-localization becomes a trend.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Usability in admissions
So as of yesterday, I've been approved to move forward with some usability testing on our online application for admission. As an excellent bonus, I'll be allowed to waive the application fee of the students who help us by letting them observe them.
Our Directors Planning Team, which collectively makes most of the important decisions in the office (which I'm a member of), was somewhat characteristically interested in the details. Who are we testing? Just students who visit? Out-of-state students? Students in the different regions of Pennsylvania? Those who visit our Community Recruitment Centers? I took it a step farther to make it clear that breadth isn't necessarily our aim considering our resources for the project--as of yet, I have no further funding approved--by suggesting transfers and international students. Further than that, we should look at adult students. But if I intend to test 5 - 10 students, there's no way we'll hit all these populations. How do we balance my funding, resources, support, and time? Not to mention equipment and travel, possibly?
The easy answer is: we don't. Keeping it simple and keeping it close to home (so to speak) keeps it feasible. And we'll get plenty of useful feedback just with that, potentially more than we can change in the time we have. If I get the funding and time I need, though, the equation changes completely.
This morning (during the Spend a Summer Day admissions presentation, I'll admit, with the caveat that I've seen it five times now) I started mulling over my own questions about the project, which in some ways I find more important. What should we ask on a pre- or post-survey? Do we really strip this down to make it fast and easy and not have either? Do I want to publish/speak on this topic and thus slow us down with the IRB process? (No, probably not. What we do now falls under process-improvement and hasn't required one thus far.)
Should I contact my Usability Engineering instructor from last semester and see if he knows a student who might be interested in helping with this very important research? Do we want to try to include someone with accessibility issues to make the point that we need to work on that end of things? (One rule of usability testing is not to go in with an agenda, so I probably shouldn't pursue this.)
The questions go on and on.
In the end, we'll probably end up on the end of a stripped-down version, because doing that way gets it done. Getting ambitious may mean it doesn't happen, and I'd hate for that to occur. We need to know what real students do rather than continuing to make suppositions.
Our Directors Planning Team, which collectively makes most of the important decisions in the office (which I'm a member of), was somewhat characteristically interested in the details. Who are we testing? Just students who visit? Out-of-state students? Students in the different regions of Pennsylvania? Those who visit our Community Recruitment Centers? I took it a step farther to make it clear that breadth isn't necessarily our aim considering our resources for the project--as of yet, I have no further funding approved--by suggesting transfers and international students. Further than that, we should look at adult students. But if I intend to test 5 - 10 students, there's no way we'll hit all these populations. How do we balance my funding, resources, support, and time? Not to mention equipment and travel, possibly?
The easy answer is: we don't. Keeping it simple and keeping it close to home (so to speak) keeps it feasible. And we'll get plenty of useful feedback just with that, potentially more than we can change in the time we have. If I get the funding and time I need, though, the equation changes completely.
This morning (during the Spend a Summer Day admissions presentation, I'll admit, with the caveat that I've seen it five times now) I started mulling over my own questions about the project, which in some ways I find more important. What should we ask on a pre- or post-survey? Do we really strip this down to make it fast and easy and not have either? Do I want to publish/speak on this topic and thus slow us down with the IRB process? (No, probably not. What we do now falls under process-improvement and hasn't required one thus far.)
Should I contact my Usability Engineering instructor from last semester and see if he knows a student who might be interested in helping with this very important research? Do we want to try to include someone with accessibility issues to make the point that we need to work on that end of things? (One rule of usability testing is not to go in with an agenda, so I probably shouldn't pursue this.)
The questions go on and on.
In the end, we'll probably end up on the end of a stripped-down version, because doing that way gets it done. Getting ambitious may mean it doesn't happen, and I'd hate for that to occur. We need to know what real students do rather than continuing to make suppositions.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Facebook and recruiting, initial thoughts
Wish I had more time to address this today, but this one will have to be quick. Keep in mind most of this is supposition.
Sometime during their search, I bet students looking at colleges and universities are likely to tap into Facebook. While this is still theory, it's supported by others such as James Howell, in his entry a few days ago.
Unfortunately, right now I don't expect that Penn State Admissions will be headed in that direction just yet, despite the presentation I made this past spring at our Penn State Admissions conference. The basic gist of that presentation was a suggestion to use Facebook Pages rather than Groups or Profiles for an "official" presence there. The "fan of" dynamic is just easier to deal with. That aside.
So for those students who choose to take a quick peek via Facebook into the ins and outs of a university, they'll probably breeze through the groups, maybe take a look at some interesting people.
If I were to give some advice to that student, it would be: don't judge us by a quick run-through, by our more popular groups, or even by our more active students on Facebook, necessarily. Take a moment to search for faculty. Look through staff like advisers, if you can find them. Look through the clubs and organizations with an official presence there. And better yet, contact people. Ask the question you've been wanting to of that student leader, that professor whose department you're interested in, especially if they've been active recently.
The head of the Undergraduate Writing Center, Jon Olson, resisted getting onto Facebook for years. The peer tutors he works with created a "Get Jon Olson on Facebook" (or some such title) group. He finally relented recently and has been posting enthusiastically since: status, photos, even video.
It's a hurdle for faculty sometimes, but I think most of them find that it's super easy (and maybe even fun). But it does present some interesting quandaries: do I provide advising for the student that contacts me on Facebook, or do I refer her/him to email? That sort of thing. And while they all make their own decisions on that end, I would hope they would at least answer you. So reach out.
Social networks are for interacting, after all.
Sometime during their search, I bet students looking at colleges and universities are likely to tap into Facebook. While this is still theory, it's supported by others such as James Howell, in his entry a few days ago.
Unfortunately, right now I don't expect that Penn State Admissions will be headed in that direction just yet, despite the presentation I made this past spring at our Penn State Admissions conference. The basic gist of that presentation was a suggestion to use Facebook Pages rather than Groups or Profiles for an "official" presence there. The "fan of" dynamic is just easier to deal with. That aside.
So for those students who choose to take a quick peek via Facebook into the ins and outs of a university, they'll probably breeze through the groups, maybe take a look at some interesting people.
If I were to give some advice to that student, it would be: don't judge us by a quick run-through, by our more popular groups, or even by our more active students on Facebook, necessarily. Take a moment to search for faculty. Look through staff like advisers, if you can find them. Look through the clubs and organizations with an official presence there. And better yet, contact people. Ask the question you've been wanting to of that student leader, that professor whose department you're interested in, especially if they've been active recently.
The head of the Undergraduate Writing Center, Jon Olson, resisted getting onto Facebook for years. The peer tutors he works with created a "Get Jon Olson on Facebook" (or some such title) group. He finally relented recently and has been posting enthusiastically since: status, photos, even video.
It's a hurdle for faculty sometimes, but I think most of them find that it's super easy (and maybe even fun). But it does present some interesting quandaries: do I provide advising for the student that contacts me on Facebook, or do I refer her/him to email? That sort of thing. And while they all make their own decisions on that end, I would hope they would at least answer you. So reach out.
Social networks are for interacting, after all.
Monday, August 04, 2008
Geology and tech: the end is the beginning is the end
I think I prefaced over this last weekend that I wasn't going to have a theme with this entry in mind.
I started college as a geology major. Somewhat obviously, I didn't stick with it, but it's still a great interest of mine.
Some of you know and some of you don't that I have an MFA in Creative Writing. So a lot of my so-called "personal" reading is actually keeping up on that end of things for me.
And to combine both interests, I recently read Threshold, by Caitlin R. Kiernan. It's very much in a genre I used to write--a pseudo-magical realism, if magical realism in literature could be divorced from its Latin American roots (which it can't be, really). It starts out gritty, modern, and then wanders gently into science, myth, urban legend, and a particular superstitious nature you find in the south.
But my main point in addressing the experience of reading this book was the following passage, voiced by our narrator, Chance, who was in college as a geology major at the time:
I'm learning to read in a larger sense than I've ever read so far. And to some extent this was an evolution: I did, after all, start on email quite awhile ago, then moved to forums, then Livejournal, then Blogger, then Facebook/MySpace, then Twitter, and Google Reader and the big feeds (Slashdot, BoingBoing, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, etc) got stuck in there somewhere too (and I may be skipping steps, of course: on the multimedia end, Flickr and YouTube are two examples, but I'm talking about text here, in the main).
But in terms of an educated and informed community that I can have face-to-face contact with and shares my academic/work interests, this is a first (which might be, I might add, because my college/grad work had little to do with technology). Not just casual friends giving updates on their lives, but I get a touch of friendliness and personality alongside the theory.
So I get these fantastic ideas as well as the context surrounding them: the problems that were faced to prompt them to come up with these ideas. It's good stuff.
But larger than that, and for a longer period of time, I've been learning to read people and their interaction with technology; learning to read the evolution of society due to technology's influence; learning to read how technology is changing our minds and changing our spaces.
I'm reading the future. I've already learned to read the past.
So between geology and tech, I feel like I've got the span of things.1 And while this current tech iteration is more minute than an atom in a drop in a bucket in terms of geologic time, it's monumental for us living in it.
And I get to read it. And better yet, write some of it.
[1]Oroboros.
I started college as a geology major. Somewhat obviously, I didn't stick with it, but it's still a great interest of mine.
Some of you know and some of you don't that I have an MFA in Creative Writing. So a lot of my so-called "personal" reading is actually keeping up on that end of things for me.
And to combine both interests, I recently read Threshold, by Caitlin R. Kiernan. It's very much in a genre I used to write--a pseudo-magical realism, if magical realism in literature could be divorced from its Latin American roots (which it can't be, really). It starts out gritty, modern, and then wanders gently into science, myth, urban legend, and a particular superstitious nature you find in the south.
But my main point in addressing the experience of reading this book was the following passage, voiced by our narrator, Chance, who was in college as a geology major at the time:
It's this urge that drives me, strangely enough, in my current work as well."Can you think of anything else I could do with my life that could ever possibly be half this splendid, half this important? I'm learning to read, Deke, and not just the handful of things men have been around long enough to write down. The history of the whole damned planet is written in rocks, just lying there waiting for us to learn how to read the words." - p. 177
I'm learning to read in a larger sense than I've ever read so far. And to some extent this was an evolution: I did, after all, start on email quite awhile ago, then moved to forums, then Livejournal, then Blogger, then Facebook/MySpace, then Twitter, and Google Reader and the big feeds (Slashdot, BoingBoing, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, etc) got stuck in there somewhere too (and I may be skipping steps, of course: on the multimedia end, Flickr and YouTube are two examples, but I'm talking about text here, in the main).
But in terms of an educated and informed community that I can have face-to-face contact with and shares my academic/work interests, this is a first (which might be, I might add, because my college/grad work had little to do with technology). Not just casual friends giving updates on their lives, but I get a touch of friendliness and personality alongside the theory.
So I get these fantastic ideas as well as the context surrounding them: the problems that were faced to prompt them to come up with these ideas. It's good stuff.
But larger than that, and for a longer period of time, I've been learning to read people and their interaction with technology; learning to read the evolution of society due to technology's influence; learning to read how technology is changing our minds and changing our spaces.
I'm reading the future. I've already learned to read the past.
So between geology and tech, I feel like I've got the span of things.1 And while this current tech iteration is more minute than an atom in a drop in a bucket in terms of geologic time, it's monumental for us living in it.
And I get to read it. And better yet, write some of it.
[1]Oroboros.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Spend a Summer Day notes
Writing my first post-a-day blog post in August on my iPhone during gaps in a Spend a Summer Day.
SASD, as we know it and love it for short, is a day-long open house event held at all Penn State campuses. At Penn State University Park, due simply to demand, it's held on six days: every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday spanning two weeks, usually bridging July and August.
August 1st, incidentally, is also the day our new application for admission goes live. Given that and the fact that EVERYONE in the office helps during SASD (our Executive Director was running between the HUB and Schwab Auditorium on Monday trying to fix a problem), to say this time of year is stressful is an understatment.
I've been staffing our table at the information fair during the event pretty regularly so far, and I've noted a difference in style between me and some of my colleagues. Some colleagues push our brochures, despite all the information in a few of them being available online.
If I can make a generalization, these tend to be the older admissions folks who are more used to using the brochures. Others offer options: you could grab this AP brochure to see what credit you'd get for what score on which test, or you can look it up on our website. (for my own commentary, why waste the paper and cost us the money for four scores they could easily look up?)
I've also found that when I offer my AIM handle to students I'm talking to, they get super-enthusiastic. And even their parents start telling me I'm the last word in customer service: above and beyond and all that.
So while this doesn't affect the larger conversation of the newest modes of electronic communication, it does tell me that some folks are picking them up no problem (students, to generalize), some folks are slowly picking them up or recognizing their value (parents), and some folks will print out webpages if the brochure is discontinued (the non-technologically-savvy).
But the thing is, we have to serve them all. Penn State is committed to serving the Commonwealth, and any one of the above could either become a student here or at least interface with the University in some way.
So how do we serve all, even those not comfortable with technology?
I think the idea of engaging the early adopters is a good one (apologies that I don't remember who suggested it right now), and certainly paves the way to spreading the word in a grassroots fashion.
Something else I'd like to explore further, perhaps in a later post, is how technology can help us realize cost savings and green initiatives without leaving anyone behind, especially considering the widespread nature of Penn State's mission.
SASD, as we know it and love it for short, is a day-long open house event held at all Penn State campuses. At Penn State University Park, due simply to demand, it's held on six days: every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday spanning two weeks, usually bridging July and August.
August 1st, incidentally, is also the day our new application for admission goes live. Given that and the fact that EVERYONE in the office helps during SASD (our Executive Director was running between the HUB and Schwab Auditorium on Monday trying to fix a problem), to say this time of year is stressful is an understatment.
I've been staffing our table at the information fair during the event pretty regularly so far, and I've noted a difference in style between me and some of my colleagues. Some colleagues push our brochures, despite all the information in a few of them being available online.
If I can make a generalization, these tend to be the older admissions folks who are more used to using the brochures. Others offer options: you could grab this AP brochure to see what credit you'd get for what score on which test, or you can look it up on our website. (for my own commentary, why waste the paper and cost us the money for four scores they could easily look up?)
I've also found that when I offer my AIM handle to students I'm talking to, they get super-enthusiastic. And even their parents start telling me I'm the last word in customer service: above and beyond and all that.
So while this doesn't affect the larger conversation of the newest modes of electronic communication, it does tell me that some folks are picking them up no problem (students, to generalize), some folks are slowly picking them up or recognizing their value (parents), and some folks will print out webpages if the brochure is discontinued (the non-technologically-savvy).
But the thing is, we have to serve them all. Penn State is committed to serving the Commonwealth, and any one of the above could either become a student here or at least interface with the University in some way.
So how do we serve all, even those not comfortable with technology?
I think the idea of engaging the early adopters is a good one (apologies that I don't remember who suggested it right now), and certainly paves the way to spreading the word in a grassroots fashion.
Something else I'd like to explore further, perhaps in a later post, is how technology can help us realize cost savings and green initiatives without leaving anyone behind, especially considering the widespread nature of Penn State's mission.
Meta on the level.
You may have cycled back here to find a flood of new posts. More than usual, anyway.
Most of it is explained here, but the gist of it is that a colleague put us up to the challenge of writing a post per weekday in August and I'm giving it a whirl.
I set up Ubiquitous Connectivity to be the primary place those posts will go, but I also decided to copy/paste them over here.
So yes, these are very much theory/work-related, but I figured the folks over here would appreciate them, so I'll save you the trouble of checking both blogs.
Most of it is explained here, but the gist of it is that a colleague put us up to the challenge of writing a post per weekday in August and I'm giving it a whirl.
I set up Ubiquitous Connectivity to be the primary place those posts will go, but I also decided to copy/paste them over here.
So yes, these are very much theory/work-related, but I figured the folks over here would appreciate them, so I'll save you the trouble of checking both blogs.
August challenge
Taking up Cole's challenge of a post a day for August, according to the rules outlined there. Me and Daniel and Shannon so far, as far as I've seen.
Love to say more on the matter, but I've got a meeting in a second here. One thing to share before I go: I'm reading Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations and also was fed a video of Shirky talking about his book by someone in my network (the section about flash mobs is especially engaging: "nothing says dictatorship like arresting people eating ice cream," for example).
And the commentary I'd like to add is that this is, to some extent, what we're doing. Someone has an idea, puts the call out there to see if anyone's interested, and people throw their hats into the ring, cooperatively arranging taxonomies (er, folksonomies, really) to tag and aggregate content, resulting in a pool of information and new ideas being created.
It's what I've seen in action growing slowly over a year, accelerated by the TLT Symposium and Twitter, sparked further by TweetMeets and BS Breakfasts and Bookclub, and burst into full flame (as far as I can tell) in Learning Design Summer Camp here at Penn State. And I'm convinced that this is the way to do it.
But it's happening this way (or similarly, at least) elsewhere: EduWeb happened recently, and people were Tweeting and videostreaming (alternate) and liveblogging sessions, and it was almost as good as being there, minus a significant amount of in-person networking and fun. But it can be done. I've been caught up in this plus Jeffrey Veen's idea of an audience ombudsman for conferences and trying to figure out how this works in purely-online communities.
And it really goes back to the idea of an alpha user, I think. But the thing is that we've got a bunch of them here at Penn State.
More to develop on this idea. But it will have to hold: I've got a meeting for our campus tour podcast project coming up.
Love to say more on the matter, but I've got a meeting in a second here. One thing to share before I go: I'm reading Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations and also was fed a video of Shirky talking about his book by someone in my network (the section about flash mobs is especially engaging: "nothing says dictatorship like arresting people eating ice cream," for example).
And the commentary I'd like to add is that this is, to some extent, what we're doing. Someone has an idea, puts the call out there to see if anyone's interested, and people throw their hats into the ring, cooperatively arranging taxonomies (er, folksonomies, really) to tag and aggregate content, resulting in a pool of information and new ideas being created.
It's what I've seen in action growing slowly over a year, accelerated by the TLT Symposium and Twitter, sparked further by TweetMeets and BS Breakfasts and Bookclub, and burst into full flame (as far as I can tell) in Learning Design Summer Camp here at Penn State. And I'm convinced that this is the way to do it.
But it's happening this way (or similarly, at least) elsewhere: EduWeb happened recently, and people were Tweeting and videostreaming (alternate) and liveblogging sessions, and it was almost as good as being there, minus a significant amount of in-person networking and fun. But it can be done. I've been caught up in this plus Jeffrey Veen's idea of an audience ombudsman for conferences and trying to figure out how this works in purely-online communities.
And it really goes back to the idea of an alpha user, I think. But the thing is that we've got a bunch of them here at Penn State.
More to develop on this idea. But it will have to hold: I've got a meeting for our campus tour podcast project coming up.
Monday, July 07, 2008
4th fun
Though tentative plans made got shoved aside, the 4th was a remarkably fun time. We made giant bubbles, grilled veggies and tofu and chicken and burgers, hiked out to a field for the fireworks (a bit late, but hey), made up some new drinks with what we had on hand, tested new scents out (some of us, anyway: BPAL, of course), had our own little fireworks display and light show, and generally had a good day of it.
The next couple days were filled with the crunching of photos, yoga, and there was a game in there somewhere as well. Photos from the 4th here, and the Wisconsin visit here (Lady of the Lake tour alone here).
And I realized today I haven't touched WoW since, like, Thursday. Even to check the Auction House. Bit of a rarity, though no huge deal or anything. I'd say people are probably wondering where I am, but then again, I've been out a lot lately, though usually for trips or conferences. Which is mostly over for the season, I think. And now the press to Spend a Summer Day.
The continuing limbo . . . well, continues. Thus the name.
Got more RAM into my computer and it's behaving well, finally, which is a very good thing. Exciting times in the onthelevel household.
Arts Fest is this week. Took a couple days off for that, so I'll have at least two short weeks in a row. Going to do pirate day properly this year, sounds like. So that should be fun.
Recently re-read The Long Tail, now moving on to Everything is Miscellaneous. Just my professional reading list is out of control, let alone my personal. I should really tackle the ones I have out from the library before the ones I own, though. Tough to prioritize, though, due to things like the Brainstorming Bookclub getting shoved in there. Don't get me wrong: great idea and it'll be fantastic. But it does mess up the order of my list a bit.
Too much to do, too little time. But isn't that always the case?
The next couple days were filled with the crunching of photos, yoga, and there was a game in there somewhere as well. Photos from the 4th here, and the Wisconsin visit here (Lady of the Lake tour alone here).
And I realized today I haven't touched WoW since, like, Thursday. Even to check the Auction House. Bit of a rarity, though no huge deal or anything. I'd say people are probably wondering where I am, but then again, I've been out a lot lately, though usually for trips or conferences. Which is mostly over for the season, I think. And now the press to Spend a Summer Day.
The continuing limbo . . . well, continues. Thus the name.
Got more RAM into my computer and it's behaving well, finally, which is a very good thing. Exciting times in the onthelevel household.
Arts Fest is this week. Took a couple days off for that, so I'll have at least two short weeks in a row. Going to do pirate day properly this year, sounds like. So that should be fun.
Recently re-read The Long Tail, now moving on to Everything is Miscellaneous. Just my professional reading list is out of control, let alone my personal. I should really tackle the ones I have out from the library before the ones I own, though. Tough to prioritize, though, due to things like the Brainstorming Bookclub getting shoved in there. Don't get me wrong: great idea and it'll be fantastic. But it does mess up the order of my list a bit.
Too much to do, too little time. But isn't that always the case?
Sunday, June 22, 2008
conference season
Long time no update: apologies. We're well into conference season, which is always a whirlwind, plus I've had other trips here and there to throw into the mix as well. Oh, and moving.
As always, Twitter's the best way to keep track of me: check out the running commentary on the right.
So in advance of moving, I whipped back to Wisconsin for a brief visit. I have many photos, audio, and fond memories of that quick trip, as well as some fantastic curtains. Long story. I intend to get to crunching and uploading those photos soon, hopefully.
Then there was the moving, which went about as well as a move can. Surprisingly well. There was an issue with my bed and the size of our generously-lent van, but other than that, I really can't complain. And complaining's what I do best when it comes to moving. I kid. I do know how to go about it, after so many moves in my past and such, but it's never fun.
There was one quick symposium which opened the run of conferences: the TLT Symposium, which was simply amazing. The community really came together and evolved online for this one, which was a fantastic experience. I really can't say enough about how relationships were created and strengthened and we continued to help and inform each other even afterwards.
Memorial Day got stuck in here somewhere, during which I ran from one event to another (three in all) and got terribly sunburned. Good times, though.
We started conference season proper with the Penn State Undergraduate Admissions Spring Conference, during which we traveled between Penn State DuBois and Penn State Altoona. Great to see both campuses. The one session I thought I was doing there turned into three--all went well enough, I think, and I hope I spread some of the social networking word in the original. I don't think it's news to any of them--at least I hope not--but I hope it provided some practical advice for starting/managing one.
A few weeks later was the Penn State Web Conference, which was potentially game-changing. More, perhaps, on that later. But there were excellent sessions by Steve Krug demonstrating the need for usability testing in our own backyard, by Mark Greenfield showing the hows and whys of social networking, and many others.
After that was a quick trip to Buffalo and one to the Hershey area. Both excellent visits. Yesterday was Dax's birthday party which, as always, was a trip and a half and left us all sleeping quite well. Dax likes to hold his birthday at a park, and there's always fun mucking about on the playground equipment, with gymnastics and jumping around and fake parkour and generally wearing ourselves out. Because that's what Daxes do, and we're obviously obliged to help on his birthday.
Today--in about an hour, in fact--I'm leaving for another conference, this one for all the admissions counselors and high school counselors that deal with the college search process in Pennsylvania. It'll be good to connect with folks I haven't seen in awhile--and heck, even those I haven't seen since our Spring Conference.
There's been talk about other trips: Hershey again for the usual monthly event, as well as other trips to visit the spa and Hersheypark. Possibly a visit to H. and K. in the fall, which is a longer endeavor. But I'm loath to schedule things right now: I'm experiencing a kind of limbo which I'll clarify later, but is making things difficult right now.
So that's the current state of things. More later.
As always, Twitter's the best way to keep track of me: check out the running commentary on the right.
So in advance of moving, I whipped back to Wisconsin for a brief visit. I have many photos, audio, and fond memories of that quick trip, as well as some fantastic curtains. Long story. I intend to get to crunching and uploading those photos soon, hopefully.
Then there was the moving, which went about as well as a move can. Surprisingly well. There was an issue with my bed and the size of our generously-lent van, but other than that, I really can't complain. And complaining's what I do best when it comes to moving. I kid. I do know how to go about it, after so many moves in my past and such, but it's never fun.
There was one quick symposium which opened the run of conferences: the TLT Symposium, which was simply amazing. The community really came together and evolved online for this one, which was a fantastic experience. I really can't say enough about how relationships were created and strengthened and we continued to help and inform each other even afterwards.
Memorial Day got stuck in here somewhere, during which I ran from one event to another (three in all) and got terribly sunburned. Good times, though.
We started conference season proper with the Penn State Undergraduate Admissions Spring Conference, during which we traveled between Penn State DuBois and Penn State Altoona. Great to see both campuses. The one session I thought I was doing there turned into three--all went well enough, I think, and I hope I spread some of the social networking word in the original. I don't think it's news to any of them--at least I hope not--but I hope it provided some practical advice for starting/managing one.
A few weeks later was the Penn State Web Conference, which was potentially game-changing. More, perhaps, on that later. But there were excellent sessions by Steve Krug demonstrating the need for usability testing in our own backyard, by Mark Greenfield showing the hows and whys of social networking, and many others.
After that was a quick trip to Buffalo and one to the Hershey area. Both excellent visits. Yesterday was Dax's birthday party which, as always, was a trip and a half and left us all sleeping quite well. Dax likes to hold his birthday at a park, and there's always fun mucking about on the playground equipment, with gymnastics and jumping around and fake parkour and generally wearing ourselves out. Because that's what Daxes do, and we're obviously obliged to help on his birthday.
Today--in about an hour, in fact--I'm leaving for another conference, this one for all the admissions counselors and high school counselors that deal with the college search process in Pennsylvania. It'll be good to connect with folks I haven't seen in awhile--and heck, even those I haven't seen since our Spring Conference.
There's been talk about other trips: Hershey again for the usual monthly event, as well as other trips to visit the spa and Hersheypark. Possibly a visit to H. and K. in the fall, which is a longer endeavor. But I'm loath to schedule things right now: I'm experiencing a kind of limbo which I'll clarify later, but is making things difficult right now.
So that's the current state of things. More later.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
update for the update-impaired
Here's a bit more complete an update:
Health-wise, my allergist has figured out that I have what basically amounts to a chronic sinus infection. Three rounds of seriously stupid antibiotics and anti-inflammatories and expectorants and nasal sprays planned: if these don't work, they're talking surgery. In a lot of ways I don't expect them to, since the first one did not (though did improve matters for a time) and this round seems to be making things worse, not better. Tea with honey is my friend currently.
Work-wise, my patience is running on the thin side. Stress-wise, I'm rather through the roof, since I'm also taking a class this semester and it's consuming a large portion of the time I'd otherwise get to unwind during.
Personally, despite all this, I'm doing okay. I'm starting to make plans to move at the end of May, though whether that's local or away from the area is still up in the air. It's about time I had my own space. Part of what makes J such a great roommate is that we stay out of each other's way well, generally, but that has started to degrade over time and is no longer fully the case, enough so that I'm ready to be done. We're still good friends, nothing's changed on that end--it's just time.
To that end, I'm eyeing all my belongings, readying for a purge. Though there's a lot I don't want to lose, just put away so I don't have to move it two or three times, potentially (one or two local moves, then a longer one).
A lot of things are coming to a head in the next three months or less. I'm just hoping against hope that the timing all works out well.
Health-wise, my allergist has figured out that I have what basically amounts to a chronic sinus infection. Three rounds of seriously stupid antibiotics and anti-inflammatories and expectorants and nasal sprays planned: if these don't work, they're talking surgery. In a lot of ways I don't expect them to, since the first one did not (though did improve matters for a time) and this round seems to be making things worse, not better. Tea with honey is my friend currently.
Work-wise, my patience is running on the thin side. Stress-wise, I'm rather through the roof, since I'm also taking a class this semester and it's consuming a large portion of the time I'd otherwise get to unwind during.
Personally, despite all this, I'm doing okay. I'm starting to make plans to move at the end of May, though whether that's local or away from the area is still up in the air. It's about time I had my own space. Part of what makes J such a great roommate is that we stay out of each other's way well, generally, but that has started to degrade over time and is no longer fully the case, enough so that I'm ready to be done. We're still good friends, nothing's changed on that end--it's just time.
To that end, I'm eyeing all my belongings, readying for a purge. Though there's a lot I don't want to lose, just put away so I don't have to move it two or three times, potentially (one or two local moves, then a longer one).
A lot of things are coming to a head in the next three months or less. I'm just hoping against hope that the timing all works out well.
non-update update
I know, I know: I've been terrible about updating the blog part of this blog. Micro-blogging, though, I can manage pretty darn regularly: round-about once a day. Check the Twitter feed on the right of the blog (the original, not the LJ feed-type-thing) if you really want updates. Warning: they're really, really mundane most of the time.
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