Blogging, Identity and Expression of IdeasAwareness of our environment and our place reveals an understanding of the activities of others and provides us with context to discuss our knowledge. A blog opens doors of opportunities to not only be known to others, but let our thoughts be known in regards to our relationships. Blogging has become a popular social context for many to engage in deep conversations regarding life. It provides a space of creative thought and design of a social forum. There is an integration of individual and social creativity that takes place through discussions in a shared blog space.Most blogs are a personal journal type of entry that deals with the personal experiences and reflections. Our concept of ourselves is derived from a perceived membership in a particular blog through the deeper connectivity of the dialog. Most bloggers are under 30 and influenced by the postmodern philosophies. Some of these are discussed and parallels are made to bring more understanding of this fascination with the public broadcast of thoughts and feelings.Individual creativity can be specifically supported through awareness in distributed collaboration tools such as blogs. It consists of a presence that is an expression of who we are, our identity. Culture attempts to adopt this technology across dimensions of life, such as personal and professional life. Dertouzos (1997) described it as a world of human-centric computing that will insinuate the lives of individuals in societies that have learned to accept technology. Blogging is a way of extending ourselves in a virtual world. We are virtually being broadcast through the ubiquitous platform of the Internet. ?We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results.? Hermann MelvilleBlogs tend to focus on particular topics, because bloggers often try to serve a certain community. Why do people feel such a need to blog? Most of the people write blogs to express themselves and their part of life. Writing a blog empowers individuals to freely express ideas and be heard by those who read it. One can also make connections with others with similar thoughts.This presentation with discuss some of the social implications of blogging as well as present some examples of blogs that reveal identity and thoughts that are reaching out to connect with others.

If you're like most recruitment and admissions professionals in higher education today, you are tasked with not only managing contacts and cultivating relationships with existing prospects, but generating new leads through proactive marketing efforts. In this session, Todd Gibby, CEO, Intelliworks (former VP of Operations at Blackboard) will offer insight into how new web-based solutions allow departments and small institutions to better manage their constituent relationships and deliver impactful marketing campaigns to prospective students, current students and alumni.Citing real-world examples, from New England College and Northeastern University, Gibby will address some of the pain points of integrating data in today's higher ed environment (i.e. having to pull information from Student Information Systems into another program), and how institutions could benefit from a single repository for actionable marketing information that then integrates seamlessly into existing CRM and SIS.To date, most recruitment and admissions departments have had siloed approaches to relationship management and marketing, using one contact database to collect and update student information, and another solution to send outbound marketing campaigns.

Breaking the agency code, members of a successful marketing and communications agency, Earthbound Media Group, lead a tell-all presentation that exposes how you can do it yourself when it comes to advanced recruitment initiatives. Learn how to leverage search engine marketing, comprehensive brand research and user-generated content for remarkable recruitment results from the pros. Then, find out what an agency can offer in terms of guidance, service and solution development if you need some help along the way to success.

There are a multitude of open source options available today and nearly all of them are free. Open Source Solutions are designed with a different motive than proprietary business products. Open Source Solutions are designed to accomplish a task, not to make a profit, and more often than not the support comes free, directly from the developers of the product rather than a help desk consultant. These products are often designed to be custom tailored to fit your specific needs, anything from custom themes and templates to custom data fields can be added. During this presentation we will discuss the theory and meaning of Open Source, as well as discussing where and how best to obtain open source products. We will mention some of the big players in the open source community and their practical application in a university setting. We will also talk about some the drawbacks of open source and how to determine if these products are right for your institution based on the type of technical resources you have available.

Many universities have one long page devoted to an individual program. While this might seem logical ? everything a prospective student needs to know is on one page ? it?s actually the worst thing you can do. Learn why both people and search engines prefer a separate microsite, by hearing the results Robert Morris University garnered for their MBA program. This part-time program now has number one page rankings on all of the major search engines. Not only do Web surfers now have an easier time finding the program, but once they land on the site, they are persuaded to act thanks to the compelling copy and strategic visuals.

Social networking is a vital component for most schools' alumni communications. With so many choices, which one is right for your institution? Discover how other schools are keeping -- and building -- value with their own private online communities (and keeping MySpace and Facebook from grabbing all the accolades!) Today's online communities offer much more than simple social networking -- gain a complete perspective of what your online community could look like. A comprehensive online member community can include: online donations, dues collection, event management, reporting, collaboration, career networking, photo libraries, social networking... and more. YourMembership.com has provided online member communities to schools around the world for over a decade.

Spend Time on Strategy and You'll Thank Yourself Later by James Runkle, Director of Strategy and Account Management, and Mike Graham, Creative Director, Second Melody LLC

Abstract: CMS implementations in higher education face unique challenges: editors with widely differing technological backgrounds, varying requirements and little or not background in writing for the web. Add to the mix that many editors see learning the CMS as an additional, uncompensated skill they must acquire and resistance can mount to the point the community refuses to use the system. In an engineering oriented school where even Administrative Assistants know HTML, a CMS can be seen as a step backward.A case study of a typical CMS system implementation will show how a ?failed? implementation was resurrected and is now valued by the community. The audience will learn how a combination of Customer Service techniques, Project Management skills and use of Web tools helped turn around opinions of the CMS and led to widespread acceptance and use of the system throughout the university.At the end of the session the audience will have the tools to create a plan for resurrecting their CMS systems or for ensuring their upcoming CMS implementations are viewed by their communities as successful and worthwhile.

Academic transparency is becoming more important in the shifting tides of higher education. But our most knowledgeable and exciting faculty tend to be among our most technically resistant. How can you market your academics excellence online, if all the evidence is locked in paper binders or in print journals? In this session, we'll talk about useful ways to bring that knowledge online.