Mike Rivera › Comments

"Thank you for the work that went into this. I’ve done similar survey analyses and it’s not a picnic. Well done. Many of the findings surprised me, but I wonder if that’s because of the preponderance of smaller schools in the results. Future editions of the survey, if any are in the works, might benefit from sorting all questions based on the school’s size. That way, readers can review the findings in an apples to apples way based to the size of their own institutions." - Mike Rivera

Videos on the People, Issues, and Ideas Changing the Planet - Mike Rivera

Video lectures from the world's top scholars - Mike Rivera

In browser page editor - Mike Rivera

A Shared Encyclopedia of Typefaces - Mike Rivera

Create a font from your own handwriting - Mike Rivera

"Yes! These are the important matters in life." - Mike Rivera

"This discussion centers around departments wanting or needing to be different. I’d like to ask why we offer navigation systems based on departments to begin with. Degree programs are what prospects are interested in. Allegiance to a department doesn’t come into play until a prospective student becomes a current student. Given that, I think a better navigation system is one where subject matter take center stage, not departments. Once you turn that corner, this entire thread becomes moot. More here: http://www.heavywinter.com/2009..." - Mike Rivera

"This discussion centers around departments wanting or needing to be different. I’d like to ask why we offer navigation systems based on departments to begin with. Degree programs are what prospects are interested in. Allegiance to a department doesn’t come into play until a prospective student becomes a current student. Given that, I think a better navigation system is one where... more... - Mike Rivera

"Prospective students, certainly undergrads, don’t think or talk in terms of attending the art department or the business department (according to our research and my own personal experience). They think and talk in terms of attending “the University of X”- the totality of the school which not only includes the program of study, but also the social aspects, sports, surrounding area, housing, etc. We find they prefer a universal experience because its easier. Differentiation can be done through content or linking off to student blogs or other types of unofficial (but related to the university somehow) sites. Also, an art student may never go to the business school’s site (or any other program of study they’re not interested in) so they’d never notice the similarity in layout/colors/etc. And if they did, so what? Does the fact that a a business and art program website are the same going to result in taking that school out of consideration? I doubt it and our research would support that..." - Mike Rivera

"Prospective students, certainly undergrads, don’t think or talk in terms of attending the art department or the business department (according to our research and my own personal experience). They think and talk in terms of attending “the University of X”- the totality of the school which not only includes the program of study, but also the social aspects, sports, surrounding area, housing, etc. We find they prefer a universal experience because its easier. Differentiation can be done through content or linking off to student blogs or other types of unofficial (but related to the university somehow) sites. Also, an art student may never go to the business school’s site (or any other program of study they’re not interested in) so they’d never notice the similarity in layout/colors/etc. And if they did, so what? Does the fact that a a business and art program website are the same going to result in taking that school out of consideration? I doubt it and our research would support that..." - Mike Rivera

"Prospective students, certainly undergrads, don’t think in terms of the art department versus the business department (according to our research and my own personal experience). They think in terms of “university X”- the totality of the school which not only includes the program of study, but also the social aspects, sports, surrounding area, housing, etc. We find they prefer a universal experience because its easier. Differentiation can be done through content or linking off to student blogs or other types of unofficial (but related to the university somehow) sites. Also, an art student would ever go to the business school’s site (or any other program of study they’re not interested in) so they’d never notice the similarity in layout/colors/etc." - Mike Rivera

"Prospective students, certainly undergrads, don’t think in terms of the art department versus the business department (according to our research and my own personal experience). They think in terms of “university X”- the totality of the school which not only includes the program of study, but also the social aspects, sports, surrounding area, housing, etc. We find they prefer a universal experience because its easier. Differentiation can be done through content or linking off to student blogs or other types of unofficial (but related to the university somehow) sites. Also, an art student would ever go to the business school’s site (or any other program of study they’re not interested in) so they’d never notice the similarity in layout/colors/etc." - Mike Rivera

"This is my major criticism of university sites so I’m glad the topic has come up again. Our university is about to launch a site that provides a single experience for prospective students. Of course, as you’ve stated, it’s a monumental task. We have many standalone sites (no one has done a full count, but the number easily exceeds 40) so reigning them in will be an ongoing endeavor. For launch, we’ll only have the foundations of this idea in place. After we get the initial bugs solved, we’ll begin to absorb the academic sites and, over the long term, build similar single experiences for our other major audiences. If you want my take on all of this, you can start with a couple of my blog posts: Why Decentralization Doesn’t Work The Case for Centralization Centralization Around Audience A New Take on How to Find a Higher Ed Degree- this is a screencast of the mechanism we’ve built for prospects to find their degree program. It’s old at this point and has been tweaked a bit in our launch..." - Mike Rivera

"This is my major criticism of university sites so I’m glad the topic has come up again. Our university is about to launch a site that provides a single experience for prospective students. Of course, as you’ve stated, it’s a monumental task. We have many standalone sites (no one has done a full count, but the number easily exceeds 40) so reigning them in will be an ongoing endeavor. For launch, we’ll only have the foundations of this idea in place. After we get the initial bugs solved, we’ll begin to absorb the academic sites and, over the long term, build similar single experiences for our other major audiences. If you want my take on all of this, you can start with a couple of my blog posts: Why Decentralization Doesn’t Work The Case for Centralization Centralization Around Audience A New Take on How to Find a Higher Ed Degree- this is a screencast of the mechanism we’ve built for prospects to find their degree program. It’s old at this point and has been tweaked a bit in our launch..." - Mike Rivera

"I’d love to listen to the interview, but editing out all the dead air and uh’s is just… weird and definitely hard to sit through." - Mike Rivera

"@Cody The bonus section would be a great addition. It’s always comforting to know that others are in the same boat as you in terms of team size, political hurdles, resource challenges, etc. Speaking of resource challenges, maybe that’s why some schools didn’t get back in touch with you?" - Mike Rivera

"I agree that the site has a lot of the same information. In fact, the authors state that they derived their conclusions from having seen some 2,700+ sites at edustyle.net over the years. But to answer your question Chris, a casual site visitor would need to dedicate a lot of time surfing all the various websites in order to form an opinion of what works and what doesn’t. That research would have to go beyond the 20 good sites mentioned in the book to also learn what not to do from the bad ones. As I state in one of my criticisms, the book would certainly benefit from a quick reference page stating the best takeaways gleaned from all the examples. You might call that “best practices.” If we’re honest, we can certainly find best practice advice in many books and blogs out there. However, the benefit of this book is the focus on higher ed. The best practices are tailored to our niche which is valuable in and of itself. I suppose you could argue that good websites are good websites,..." - Mike Rivera

"Let’s not forget that good IA is as much for the team that maintains and operates a site as it is for the end visitor to the site. That’s why, on a personal blog, IA isn’t as big a concern as it is on a large site. You’re the only writer on the blog, the only person maintaining it, the only person that has to determine any future changes. Since it’s a one person show, you can do, or not do, whatever you want architecturally. If it turns out to be a problem, change it and move on- case closed. Alternatively, for a large site, you have multiple people involved in the operation of the site. Any change or decision affects more than one person and any miscommunication or difference of opinion can create friction and, perhaps, hard to remove consequences like politics, power struggles and/or poor teamwork. IA, in that sense, comes to the rescue. A well crafted IA phase where key people collaborate and are empowered to contribute their best efforts serves as an agreed upon platform for..." - Mike Rivera

"I cover the intersection between higher education and the web. For everyone’s convenience or so I hope), my blog posts are auto tweeted so, in essence, Twitter is the new RSS for me. ONe stop shopping at: http://twitter.com/heavywinter" - Mike Rivera

"@Karlyn Not only can you directly measure more than people traditionally do, you can attempt to measure indirect causation. By “indirect causation” I mean accounting for marketing you do over time that doesn’t have an immediate effect, but does in the long run. It’s not perfect though. There are many variables (some of which change over time complicating things), but I’d prefer an informed guess about indirect effect (with known caveats) is better than guessing or only looking at direct effect. And yes, it takes extra time and reflection to do this, but I feel it can be worth the effort in cases." - Mike Rivera

"@Isaacson I agree that engagement is important, but Karlyn makes a great point not to cop out by throwing your hands up with the claim that it can’t be measured. Karlyn is right when she says “…the email they eventually do make the donation from is the trigger…” and, therefore, that’s the email that gets credit with a measurable direct action. There may have been 5 emails that preceded it, but those don’t have a DIRECT measurable action associate with them. So therein lies the engagement conundrum. How do those earlier emails get credit for the work they do if it’s not directly measurable? One way, I think, is to measure over time- generate trends. After your first email, track how many people ended up donating or applying or whatever it is you want people to do. Do it again for a second email, then a third and fourth and so on. Once you have a few emails under your belt, see how the measure changes. If all else stays the same (who the emails go out to, the message, the call to..." - Mike Rivera

"@Jake: That’s great to hear. My background is spread across agencies, in-house marketing departments, for profit and non-profit and I’ve never, in any of these situations, found a centralized management and maintenance program not work. There were problems and issues, no doubt, but none that were traced to this model or, in fact, helped by this model. I’ll check out Ithica’s site as I’ve yet to see this idea at any higher ed sites so far (I’ve been doing this for a year now). Most .edus don’t come close and I don’t say that in a condescending manner as I know the hurdles and challenges to the idea are huge. Places like bu.edu are beautifully done, but even they end up being a loose confederation of sites once you get into the school, college and department levels. If they can get so far in created a stellar visitor experience only to see it unravel a couple of clicks in is frustrating." - Mike Rivera

"While the following idea has not been approved, we’re moving forward with it anyway. I think any hesitation on the part of upper management will evaporate as budgets get squeezed and the utility and efficiency of the idea makes good business sense. So what’s the idea? Centralize web operations. It’s simple and powerful (and obvious to me), but never and has never happened. I write about this topic a lot at my site, but the jist is to stop making a different website for every department and group on campus. Instead, build a single web experience that all departments can tap into and leverage. That means you plan/strategize a single site, architect a single structure, design a single visual language, and code a single set of tools and functionality. Once that’s done, all departments stop spending time and effort on re-creating the wheel (i.e. developing a custom site complete with discovery, IA, design and code phases). Instead, all of those phases are essentially done and only minor..." - Mike Rivera

"@Curtis Cline- I agree with your statement that we don’t want to abandon hierarchies because they do provide benefits. So the issue needn’t be a choice between breadth and depth. Instead, the issue for me is why the balance doesn’t seem to work. Does one eclipse the other? That’s a difficult thing to discuss in this type of forum since none of us knows anything about anyone else’s particular work setting, personnel, pay, status, workload, etc. What we can discuss here and perhaps form ideas we can put to use are the attributes found within the breadth & depth dynamic that we are likely all exposed to and affected by. Notable for me is lack of authority, lack of leadership and higher ed’s favorite tactic- design/decision making by committee. All three of these point toward a weakness or inability to make decisions. Furthermore, committees spread responsibility, sometimes to the point where no one can be held accountable anymore. If there’s no accountability, no leadership and no..." - Mike Rivera

"This is a topic that crops up from time to time at the university where I work. Administrators are hesitant to let go, to lose control. They don't understand that control is already lost or don't want to believe it. As best I can tell, they are not part of the social web and therefore don't see it, don't think it's important or don't think anything needs to change." - Mike Rivera

"At my university, the print people are in the Brand Marketing group while the web people are called the Web Team and never do the two cross because the org chart says so. Both groups are given different assignments with no crossover whatsoever. The web is simply not considered marketing as far as I can tell (I’m a web designer and have worked here for a year now). To further complicate things, the web team is comprised of writers and designers while developers are in yet another separate department, although fortunately in this case, both sides talk to one another. How does anyone in a position of authority think this is a good way to do business?" - Mike Rivera

"In a nutshell, my university’s problems stem from not doing this: “Marketing looks outside the university for new opportunities, rather than serving internal stakeholders at the expense of students.” Happily, we’ve begun to change this attitude. Great post with wonderful insights." - Mike Rivera

"To join the vibrant and intellectually stimulating community that is higher ed. Like in all other fields I’ve known, higher ed is filled with smart, talented pros (like those who read this site!). So one of my goals this year (which I actually got a head start on in November with my blog) is to communicate, in my own small way, what I’ve learned over the years working in the web world. I want to broadcast my ideas and, in turn, get ideas fed back to me from people with unique and interesting points of view. So I welcome 2009 and all the new people and ideas I’ll encounter." - Mike Rivera

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