So on Friday of last week, my new office hosted a conference for all the college communicators around the state of Virginia and Washington D.C. Needless to say it was a lot of work to get it up and running but it all started it ran really smoothly.

I sat in on 3 sessions (2 and 1/2 technically): “Research and Creative: How the Right Brain and Left Brain Can Work Together to Develop Stellar Publications” and “Writing for the Web (double session)”

Both of the presenters have connections to my new office so I felt very comfortable in each session. The first one was very eye opening and is congruent with what I have thought about marketing for a long time. It also brought up a little dissonance about my previous position. We didn’t do any research or the research we did was not up really valid. I know that student activities is a rapidly changing environment and we are always aiming at a moving target, but the idea behind the session is amazing. Do real research, apply the real research. Drill down to your core, find a specific niche and stick to it. There are too many universities that have the sweeping shots of campus and classrooms, instead of that, know your audience. Brilliant!

The afternoon was filled with Web design/management discussion. We talked about Information Architecture, which was genius! Find your key audiences (again) and think about/research what they want out of your website. Perspective students, Parents, and People giving money. Those are the biggies. Then figure out what they want. Group it all together or “create gateways” and test your proposed layout with people before throwing it up.

Excellent.