Las Vegas Signage

I spent some time last night and today scoping out the different types of signage here in Vegas…and there’s A LOT. It’s interesting to see all of the different installations – some of them are discreet and simply convey information, and there are others that are just over the top and span the entire side of a building.

So, what content is playing on these screens? Well, nearly all of them serve an advertising purpose – they’re all selling what Las Vegas has to offer. Most content is quick, flashy, bright, and colourful – maybe that’s to attract the attention of the intoxicated crowds but it’s definitely something that helps add to the “gimmicky” Vegas feel. I really don’t think the same type of content would work on the UBC campus.

One thing that I feel really adds to the signage is that on the really large, high visibility installations all of the content appears to be continuous, no apparent slide transitions whatsoever. Having a long and continuous piece of content allows you much more flexibility and creativity in the transitions between messages. One sign, outside of the Wynn hotel/casino actually has a physical bar that moves up and down across the LED panels, and the content plays such that when this bar moves across the screen it appears to move the content with it.

The other type of installation that I caught was the use of LED panels to make a path of digital rain drops that wrapped around a restaurant – this was more of an art feature, but it was still really interesting. I’ll be looking forward to the exhibit hall to see what the manufacturers have to provide.

It’s certain that the sheer amount and nature of signage here makes it very overwhelming – this is something that I really think can be avoided on campus with the right guidelines for content creation and best practices for signage management.

Digital Signage Expo 2011 – Las Vegas

Over the past year, more and more of my work has shaped up around the launch of a Digital Signage service on campus (digitalsignage.ubc.ca). As a result I’ve ended up here, in Las Vegas, Nevada for the Digital Signage Expo 2011.

With the service set to launch in April and more and more requests for information/consultations about digital signage arriving in our inboxes every day, the Digital Signage team thought that the opportunity to attend DSE 2011 was an excellent way to get up to speed with the latest and greatest in the industry. Of those attending, we’re all going to be in educational workshops as well. The workshops that I’m attending are:

• Content Strategy Development
• Data Driven Custom Content & Content Automation
• Managing the Maze of Third-Party Content
• Creating a Consistent Cross-Channel Experience
• Effective Content Design  & Display

There are other on-floor workshops at the exhibition portion, but I’m expecting those to be more centered around a specific product as opposed to general knowledge building.

This is also my first time in Las Vegas, as was it my first time in Chicago for NASPA 2010 – so for the sake of consistency, here are some movie trailers showing what I know of Vegas:

I’m hoping for a…well balanced time here in Vegas, unlike any of those movies. I’m also looking forward to trying to find some time to take pictures – the mountains around here look beautiful.

My Glass Office

One of the big pieces that I took away from the social media workshops that I attended a few weeks ago was how essential honesty and transparency are in engaging your users/customers/colleagues. I’ve tried to translate this into a few tangible actions:

• I always take the time to explain the work that I do in the context of whomever I’m working with and leave myself open for questions/mini-chats about how my projects relate to someone’s work/needs…even if it slows down a process or two. Eventually, it’ll pay off.
• I make a point of blogging and having those who work on UBCevents with me blog about our project. You can see the UBCevents blog here.
  • We’ve had over 1,126 unique pageviews with an average of 1:22 spent on this particular blog post within a month of it being posted (I’m pretty darn happy with that).
• I share my difficulties as well as successes with my colleagues in a constructive way. I think that it’s good practice to share processes and their outcomes (desirable or not) in order to draw upon the experience/wisdom/insight of others. Usually, when I ask for help it turns out that I’m not too far from a solution…I just needed a suggestion or question from a colleague to get the gears turning again.

I hope to continue to share the ways in which I share my work as I develop them…hopefully this could be useful to someone down the road…or even to myself, in the future. And on that note, I’ll leave you with this:

(trailers really do give away too much)

Executing Social Media Vancouver: Day 2

I’ll keep this short, here are some of my take aways from today:

• Marketing has moved from push+pull to attract+engage
• Social Media can really be more of a Social Utility – can be used to perform a customer service duty (see Best Buy’s Twelpforce) – from Rob Begg
• 5 C’s of Social Media – Content, Community, Conversations, Collaboration, Connections – Rob Begg
• If you’re just starting w/ social media for an organization: set some goals and benchmark. Find out what your competition is doing and at the very least you should listen to what people are saying about your brand – Rob Begg
• What can I measure? Well…share of convo, share of voice, fan mentions, points of need, customer service conversions, sentiment, engagements/day, influencer mentions, & RT’s – Rob Begg
• You can actually test the ability of your site to generate conversions (actions that people take – i.e. buying stuff) and get statistically relevant data about which configurations work best – Chris Goward
• Your “value proposition” is positively affected by your relevance and clarity and negatively affected by distractions and customer anxiety – Chris Goward
• Consumers no longer have time to process promotional messaging and don’t respond well to intrusive advertising – Eric Weaver
• When there are social media “fires” (pr problem), it’s important to have social media “water” (honesty, fans, quick response) = BP just keeps throwing oil on everything…hence more fires. – Eric Weaver
• An organizations reputation is one of its most important assets – it’s also the end result of ALL of its operations/communications (same goes for people). – Wayne Hartrick
• There are legal issues w/ social media that can’t be ignored. Apparently Twitter and FB are gold mines for lawyers.
• Notable issues: privacy laws and user data, internal policies for employees, defamation, and intellectual property issues

I know these are not fully explained, but I hope to touch upon each of these as my work with students, UBCevents, and communication moves forward.

Big thanks to Acuity Forums for putting together the event and to all the speakers who made the time in their busy schedules!

Executing Social Media Vancouver: My First Social Media Conference

"The World Is Psychic" sign on a tree in Vancouver

I know, I know…lame. But, it’s my first time trying this social media conference thing out and it’s not really like full fledged conference anyways…but hey, thought I’d share.

I’ve always been pretty skeptical of social media conferences in the past because I had the idea that social media existed solely online…Over the last few years I’ve changed my views and have ‘gotten’ that it’s just another form of something that’s very natural for people – to connect and be social and NOT to isolate themselves behind a back-lit LCD screen.

The sessions that I’m attending today and tomorrow (June 15 & 16, 2010) were organized by Acuity Forums. I hadn’t heard of Acuity before, but it was passed on to me by a trusty colleague so I decided to give it a shot. Acuity was really helpful in making the reservations for myself and 4 colleagues and provided some darn good customer service.

Anyways, let’s get down to the details. The audience was small (<100 people) which was nice because it allowed you to feel free to ask questions and for the presenters to get a better sense of what the audience wanted to take away from the day. The sessions were packed back to back with small breaks in-between – pretty grueling, but it allows for a lot of content to be presented. It does leave some networking time to be desired…but we’re all grown-ups and can do that on our own time.

The presenters, for the most part, were really engaging and each brought something unique to the event. It was good to see a mix of social media “guru’s” and people who are in positions more similar to my own who were really pushing hard for engagement via social media. It really made some of the work that I have ahead of me feel less daunting…but at the same time I still know that there’s a lot I need to learn.

Some things for me to keep thinking about from today are:

• How does an organization like UBC use ALL of the data that gets collected to paint an accurate picture of its target audience?
• What incentives exist for people to engage w/ my projects via social media?
• Well run social media campaigns require A LOT of resources…
• How do you find a clear “voice” of a large organization?
• Deadly social media sins (c/0 Rob Cottingham): Lying, Interfering, Delaying, Under-staffing, Omitting, Dismissing, Spamming, Playing it mum, Not thinking it through, Going legal, Not trying
• Metrics are important…they’re just different than standard communications metrics
• Case studies are also important
• Social media can do good for the INSIDE of an organization as well

I’ll try to post on each of these topics as I digest them more…it’s all just a bit raw right now. I’m sure I will have a lot more after tomorrow, so hopefully it’s a list that I can keep hacking away at.

Workshop – Clicking Through to Student Engagement Using CRM Technology

I was really attracted to this session by the fact that this school (Hunter College, CUNY) has implemented a piece of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software to help with their engagement of first-year students. Essentially, the CRM software takes the information that resides in many independent systems (like what we currently have at UBC – not a secret) and pulls it together and presents it in a way that can be interpreted easily by students, staff, and faculty members who interact with the system. It really lets information become knowledge for students. You can learn more about knowledge vs. information here.

Personally I’m really interested in seeing what great knowledge and understanding we can pull from the data that we have on our past and current students. Part of this is already done by PAIR, but I suspect that there’s A LOT more information out there that we just need to tap into. One example of this could be to analyze photographs and extract knowledge and understanding from that type of data.

For Hunter College, the CRM system has been implemented only for students in first-year. It allows students some degree of  customization in terms of the “opt-in-able” information they’d like to receive (ie. sports, events, etc) and it displays critical information (ie. deadlines, administrative info, etc) to them in a timely manner. An example of the delivery of timely information is in how they communicate orientations information to students. When a student first accepts the offer to go to Hunter, they are given the option to sign-up for an orientation event. When they RSVP to an event, their “portal” (web interface of the CRM) automatically displays their response and a reminder of when and where their specific orientation event is. It also prompts them with any further instructions for that event. The information from their RSVP can then be compared with the attendance list from the orientation and if the student did not attend an advisor can view that when they pull a file on a particular student. On the other hand, if a student does attend, the CRM can automatically place an evaluation form on the students’ portal for them to fill out during their next portal log-in.

CRM solutions vary in complexity, but they still need a set of “rules” to work by. These rules are determined by people who set-up what is analogous to a giant flow-chart for the system to follow. It’s important to note that a CRM system can’t replace any human interactions that students might have with front-line staff or advisors, it simply helps make information sharing more intelligent.

The presentation ended with the speakers indicating that they’ll be looking to expand their CRM to cover all years of students – I hope they present at a future NASPA conference to share their findings. As for a UBC solution, it’s clear that we need to make our many systems “talk” to one another and I feel that a CRM will help to provide that cohesiveness. It really seems like there’s a lot of positive energy to push our systems and student service in the CRM direction; which is a good thing because any system is only as usable as the intelligence used to set it up – I’m fairly confident in our group intelligence at UBC.

Workshop – Collaborating With Technology Professionals

I was attracted to this workshop because I felt a connection to the work I do on the UBCevents calendar project, and indeed, the workshop met my expectations. It was set-up as a panel discussion where student affairs professionals discussed how they work with the IT professionals at their respective institutions to create programming/resources for students.

Much of the discussion centered around communication with IT professionals and how to begin those conversations. Some of the tactics that really stood out were:

• Regular Meetings – This gets you the face-time required to remain a priority for people who are often inundated with heavy workloads and keeps you in the know of what’s “in the pipeline” for current or future projects. This also helps you better understand the other facets of an IT professionals job (as much as we feel our jobs as student affairs professionals are greatly varied it’s not surprising to hear that they feel the same way about their work)
• Identify Key Players Who Make Decisions – If there’s anyone who should be “in the know” of the impact of the work you’re doing it should be those who determine resources in the IT world. Any IT solution is only as good as the people who implement it, if the solution to your problem doesn’t have the resources allocated to it, it simply won’t fly.
• Focus on Process – It’s not really up to us as student affairs professionals to know the in’s and out’s of software and hardware configurations, it’s up to us to help inform the process by which solutions are designed (ie. incorporating student feedback into development cycles). The IT professionals that I work with often refer to this as the “business model” whereby my side of the table comes up with the business model of how the solution will be implemented and the stages at which we’ll need input from other stakeholders and the IT professionals bring their expertise and creativity to the table. What makes the relationship work is the TRUST between the two groups.
• Set Parameters – When setting out a plan for project development it’s important to set deadlines for deliverables. These deadlines help all parties who are working on a project prioritize their time and help everyone work efficiently towards a defined goal. The panelists highlighted that tech based solutions that take too long to implement are either forgotten about, or are simply obsolete by the time they come to fruition – both of which don’t serve any use for students.

The last piece that I really appreciated was the emphasis on annual planning for IT operations. One panelist outlined the way their VP-Students office approaches planning with their IT projects:

1. Shared consensus building for IT priorities within VP-S units by Directors
2. Consolidated list of IT priorities
3. Enterprise level IT group takes VP-S priorities and folds them into budget considerations (resources!)
4. Result of budget considerations is a priority list for the University of how they will approach student affairs issues on the IT front

I feel that I’m already in a fairly successful partnership with our IT professionals, but I have identified that the annual planning process is an area that can contribute greatly to the success of some of the projects that I’m working on. In fact, I had a meeting today about planning for the next phase of developments for UBCevents – it definitely feels like a good year is on its way.

Workshop – 21st Century Data: Photography and Student Affairs

This was the first workshop that I went to and I feel it really set a great tone for the whole conference. The presenters, Matt Birnbaum and Flo Guido (both from University of Northern Colorado), were very personable and gave the audience the right amount of information – not too much to leave you overwhelmed, and not too little to leave you questioning the validity of their presentation.

Their thesis was that photographs are valid sets of data for the field of student affairs. Photographs have been used by many scholars in anthropology and sociology to collect data, preserve information, and describe cultures. If we extend that into assessment of programs (a large part of student affairs) we can use photography to record data, evoke responses, and report results by supplementing written findings.

They did caution that photography isn’t without its biases – while a photograph (undoctored, ie. no Photoshop) may capture what was in front of the camera, it’s ultimately up to the person who frames the shot that dictates what information is captured, and ultimately what responses are provoked. One way to combat this inherent bias is to structure photography exercises to show different viewpoints. Take a social orientation event, for example, where one person who is heavily involved in the planning of the event is given and camera and another person, who is not involved with the event, is given another camera. Comparing the two sets of photographs that result from each photographers’ experience will reveal two different sets of photographs (with less bias).

After the “lecture” portion of the workshop we broke out into small group discussions about how photography could be used in our work. One of the common things that we came up with was to ask students (or whomever it applied to) to take pictures of things with a theme in mind. Collectively, the audience came up with:

• ask students to take pictures of their “first year experience” – you’d get a sense for what students feel their experience is made up of
• ask staff to take pictures of their colleagues’ successes – great morale booster
• ask alumni to take pictures of, or recreate via photos, their favourite memories of campus
• ask students to take pictures of accessibility

Safe to say, the list can go on for a long time. This really got me thinking of all the different ways I could use photography (both subtly and overtly) in my work. You could have photography as a part of a complex exercise, or be an entire exercise unto itself. Heck, they even used photography as an icebreaker when the session started (photo at the top of this post)! They asked us to take a picture of a person beside us and have them take a picture of us and then talk about the photos – I must admit, it’s really difficult trying to talk about a photo when the subject is sitting beside you looking at it too – but I thought it was absolutely great because it got strangers talking!

This session was a great motivator for me, it showed me that something I have a passion for as a hobby can be folded into my work – always good to love what you do! The workshop also brought my attention to preserving photographic data and the importance of archiving it properly and adding metadata to make the images that we collect robust sources of information. Hopefully we can make some quick gains in this area at work – student staff training is right around the corner!

Keynote – Condoleezza Rice

Dr. Condoleezza Rice gave a great keynote on the Monday morning of the NASPA Conference – safe to say, the entire ballroom was packed with ~5000 delegates. She presented herself through personal stories and inspirational points about the importance of the student affairs professional.

I took away a few specific points from her speech, mainly around what it means to be a student affairs professional. I find it nice to hear that the work that I’m doing has a great deal of importance, Dr. Rice emphasized the power of the first conversation with a student that allows them to realize that they can do what THEY want to do, instead of what SOMEONE ELSE wants them to do. I feel that I’m starting to have more and more of those conversations with the students that I come across. I think i’m developing the ability to ask probing questions that get to the bottom of what students are really wanting/feeling – good to know I’m on the right track.

Another aspect of student affairs that was mentioned was the ability to push students to take the “road less traveled.” Pushing our students to do something difficult may be the most rewarding part of their post-secondary experience because, according to Dr. Rice, “it feels good to know that you overcame something hard.” This commitment to overcoming difficulties really reflects the high standards to which we hold our students, and in turn, the future of our society. I’d like to think that in my interactions with students I’m able to encourage them to push their own boundaries in order to find those “good feelings” about themselves. I will definitely keep this in mind and perhaps be more intentional about reinforcing it in the day-to-day interactions I have with students.

The last piece that really resonated with me was the importance of a sense of optimism towards students. I feel that it’s easy to fixate on the infrequent negatives when working with students (unfinished tasks, lack of commitment, etc…). But, if we, as those who are asking our students to be more than their coursework, don’t model optimism towards their potential for success – how can we ever expect them to achieve that success? It’s like watching a plant grow, but blocking all of the sunlight by the act of watching it – it just won’t grow. Optimism, in this case, provides us with transparency to allow the students to reach for the “light” that we know is there.

All Checked In…

Kudos to those at United because the flight arrived 30 minutes early and my bag was the first one off the plane so baggage claim was pain-free. On the shuttle to the hotel I met two other NASPA Conference delegates who were from Calgary (I expected the other Canadians to be few and far between…but it was a pleasant surprise).

The Sheraton is a pretty nice hotel and the place is buzzing with student affairs professionals – I think it’ll be great when I explain what I do for work and am not met with a puzzled face as a response (happens all the time with friends & family).

The first night was great, I met up with a group other UBC’ers at the Rock Bottom Grill – I think we’re heading out on a boat tour of Chicago today, I’m definitely looking forward to it.