Woah... I am tired... I just got back from a return visit to the Institutional Web Managers Workshop which this year was held in the city of Bath. The theme of the conference was 'Managing Change' and with the shake up introduced to the sector in the form of tuition fees, as well as this possibly being the last IWMW (due to funding cuts), it was extremely apt. Each plenary session had clear undertones of how things are now very different for staff in higher education, there is no longer a guarantee of a job for life and return on investment is more important than ever.
These conferences are unique in that they have good representation from the vast majority of UK web teams and have a great mix of sharing best practice, learning new things and therapy sessions! The parts I particularly enjoyed was the opportunity to speak to other universities about what is working for them at the moment. This happened in two sessions which focused on social media and analytics and how they are being used. I was really pleased to come away feeling what we are doing is up there with the best and that the effort we're putting into tracking all of our campaigns is really paying off. This was also evident during one of the lectures delivered by our friend Ranjit from SID. He went to great lengths to showcase to everyone all the work done by us during clearing last year and the benefits it had on recruitment.
Great presentation from @rssidhu showcasing all of the work we did together last year in clearing #iwmw13
— Paul Fryer (@deep_phat) June 27, 2013
Taking a break on campus between lectures
Two talks which had a real effect on me were those delivered by Paul Boag from Headscape and Neil Denny from allLD. They benefited from having great presentation skills and from not being afraid to tell it like it is. I agreed with the vast majority of Paul's talk which basically stated that instead of feeling hard done-by it's up to us to make a change to the way we're perceived professionally. Only by being proactive, outspoken and full of ideas will we be respected and given the resources we need to innovate. It also ended with a great quote from Grace Hooper that 'It's Easier to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission',so instead of acting like victims we just need to take the bull by the horns (something I wholeheartedly agree with!)
The Roman baths in the early evening
No trip to Bath would be complete without a visit to the Roman baths themselves and we were fortunate enough to have the place to ourselves on the second evening's drinks reception. It was truly breathtaking and highly recommended to anyone who is in the area. We also had a chance to catch up with our good friends at Squiz and Funnelback who did a great job of keeping us entertained as well as discussing some of the big projects we have on the go at the moment - it's great to see them expanding yet further in HE and they are busier than ever before.
Finally, there was a good session on working with developers and the benefits of having an in house team or outsourcing, the usual mentions of responsive web design and lots of thinly veiled recommendations on the need for Agile project management. No doubt my favourite quote cited in a presentation was one from Winston Churchill: 'Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm'. A great message and hopefully one that is taken on board by the organisers so they can continue to keep this event going into the future...
Last week was one of mixed emotions as Hannah left the team (and the University) to move onto pastures new after three years here. We're all really happy that she's moved on to a more senior role elsewhere, but were very sad to see her go. It's clear that the wide variety of jobs she's undertaken whilst here, as well as her proactive attitude has really stood her in good stead for the future. No doubt, one lasting project she completed whilst here was the corporate video - a truly fantastic piece of work which has had an impact far surpassing our objectives for it. She said herself, it was the best work she has ever done and it will be really hard for us to top.
Bruno the Bull - the Beds SU sports masot
One job she did set the ball rolling on before leaving was the new SportBeds website which has gone live this week. Although still in it's infancy, the plan is for this to grow into a central place for everything sport related at Bedfordshire. We have the buy in of the sports academics, the Student Union, and those responsible for our various sports clubs and will be closely monitoring the impact both on recruitment and team sign ups.
The University of Bath plays
host to the IWMW 2013
Things move at such a fast pace here that I almost missed the fact I have now been in this role for a full year (meaning this blog is now a year old as well!) It's easy to get caught up in all of the jobs (and emails) coming our way and not realise just what we have achieved in such a short period of time. There's still the wide variety of new projects coming up (as well as at least one more awards ceremony) so there will definitely be no shortage of content to keep this blog going for another year!
My next blog post will focus on the Institutional Web Managers Workshop 2013 (taking place this year in Bath). I'm looking forward to networking, learning new things and also taking part in some therapy sessions with people in the same boat as me at other universities! Last year's event in Edinburgh was great so I've got high hopes.
Last week we gave some attention to the course pages on our website. The decision was made when we launched over a year and a half ago to display two years worth of courses and that we would manage these pages via an XML feed. This feed basically takes a selection of the course information held within our SITS database which is relevant to Marketing our courses (Title, description, duration etc.). It is then sent to the website to update on a nightly basis and ensures consistency across all publications - this is also where our Prospectuses take their copy from.
One bit of work which was necessary, was replacing all of the descriptions held within SITS with more marketing focused copy. This is where we asked our Faculty Marketing Assistants for help and they do a great job of liaising with the relevant academic and pulling out the key selling points for each course.
It's very important have a system in place for checking the copy, adding more Marketing related content that the feed cannot provide (e.g. images, videos and links) and also for switching over the years of courses on display. The latter of which we have just completed.
On Tuesday we switched our website from displaying 2012/13 and 2013/14 courses to displaying 2013/14 and 2014/15. This is the second year we have done this and the process was extremely simple thanks to all of the hard work we did last year. I'm also pleased to have a set date for this change to happen on our site annually so that all departments can work together to make sure the content is of the highest quality possible once we hit the switch! It is also very important that this fits correctly into our application cycle - so, job done for another year!
As this is (quite rightly) one of our most accessed sections we'll definitely be looking at continuing to develop our course pages yet further in the near future. The planning of this is all important, along with the buy in from other departments who are essentially supplying us with data!
PS. You may also have noticed that we've tweaked the style of our blog templates (including this one) to be more in keeping with our website - I'm particularly pleased with how they now display on mobile!
One of the key features of our current Vice Chancellor's tenure so far is his unwavering focus on the student experience, and, as we approach the end of the standard academic year, it seems only fitting that the efforts, commitment and achievements of staff and students alike are recognised at our innagural Vice Chancellor's Student Experience Awards.
Which means that tomorrow night (Friday 7 June), set against an amazing backdrop provided by our Putteridge Bury campus, lecturers, support staff, senior managers and students will gather to find out whether they are the proud winner of one of the awards, which range from Inspirational Teaching and Team of the Year, to Best Collaborative Project and the big one, Student of the Year.
Naturally this has required a fair bit of input from us in the marketing and events teams! Graeme and I were asked to produce nomination videos for each of the categories, which was a great opportunity to go and meet the people that have nominated this year's winners and hear about what these (often unsung) people have been up to. These kinds of videos are definitely one of my favourite parts of this
job because it reminds me what this University can do for people - and
how the 'transforming lives' motto is actually achieved, in most cases,
by the encouragement of a single tutor or the dedication of an
individual student.
What's more, this project meant our new team member Graeme had the opportunity to flex his After Effects muscles to produce a really nice set of motion graphics which complement the printed materials and the physical awards perfectly. Check out a tiny teaser clip of his work below:
The awards are just another example of the exponential growth of the use of video across the University, and this project has provoked some discussion amongst the team about the best techniques for this kind of video - it has certainly given us both the chance to hone our interviewing and prompting skills to ensure we have soundbites from nominators that really capture the essence of the awards ceremony, and the University's values.
With this kind of project, you have to achieve a balance between graphics, music, and interview to ensure that the tone is in keeping with the rest of the occasion - it's as much about understanding emotion as it is technical production. Having been given a maximum length for each of the 15 videos, there were a few that we just couldn't edit down because the content was so good - and I think the skill here is knowing when to break the rules to really hit the mark. After all, we all know that our deserving winners won't mind sitting for a few extra minutes before they hit the dancefloor (and the bar!) once they have seen the incredibly touching things their colleagues and students have said about them.
After two weeks off on paternity leave it's like I've never been away. There has been one major change though and that is that a new team member has joined us! Graeme Stenhouse started on Monday the 29th April as our new Digital Marketing Assistant. Due to some spectacularly bad planning this was also the day my son was born which meant my team had to step up at very little notice and guide him through his induction. They did a brilliant job though (particularly Hannah) and on my first day back he was already in the swing of things and producing some great work on his brand new Mac.
Graeme had previously worked at the University as a Print and Digital Designer for the Student Union and it was this experience that convinced us he was right for the role. One of his first tasks was to produce a video on the official opening of our new Postgraduate and CPD Centre which you can see below:
The timing of a new team member has actually worked out very well as there is lots of new work coming our way to help organise the new Vice Chancellor's Awards (nominations videos and the programme etc.) and we seem to be producing more video work than ever before. It will also give him a good chance to get up to speed with our systems before the onslaught of Clearing begins. All hands on deck...!
Blog posts have taken a bit of a back seat recently. That's partly due to some big things afoot - planning for clearing, a new CRM and a new team member (more on all of those soon). Also, I've become a Dad for the third time which is both amazing and massively tiring. This means I'm taking advantage of the University's very generous paternity leave policy at the moment but felt that I couldn't wait to share the following news...
Looking back over the past year it seems a lot of what we do is attend award ceremonies. These are generally great fun and show that the work we're putting in is up there with the best. The really big marketing awards in higher education though are the Heist Awards which this year are to be held in Manchester. I was fortunate enough to win a silver one in my previous role for 'best internal communications campaign' which was an amazing experience and got me hungry for more. Well, that time has come!
We're also very excited for the traditional marketing team who have been shortlisted for 'best postgraduate prospectus' and the library who are again featured in the 'best internal communications campaign' category. There's no doubt that there will be a great atmosphere on 11th July when the awards are announced.
I'm now off to stockpile some more sleep. Being a Dad is almost definitely as tiring as being a Digital Marketing Manager!
It's been a little while since our last post on here and this is partly due to the Easter holidays. However, the main reason is that the team has been extremely busy working on the first ever University of Bedfordshire cinema advert!
The success of our new corporate film coupled with the fact that our Vice Chancellor was extremely keen to get us advertising in cinemas built to this project - which became a real team affair. We had four weeks from conception to deliver a finished 30 second cinema advert complete with online campaign. Ready, set, GO!
Overall, I'll say that we're very pleased with the finished result and below is the rough process of getting an advert like this made:
Firstly we needed to select a production company. We had a number in to pitch their ideas to us and the VC and were very pleased to award Spectrecom (who we worked with during the corporate film) the contract. Their original pitch focussed on a student in an interview situation. However, we felt that we wanted to depict someone already in work and excelling due to them coming to Bedfordshire. This all took shape really well and was meticulously storyboarded. We then began our search for locations, extras, and of course, a STAR!
The decision was made that we first wanted to give our current students a chance to audition as it would add authenticity and be a great addition to their CV. We sent out the call to our Performing before the Camera and Theatre and Professional Practice students and shortlisted the best applicants for a day of auditions. The standard was extremely high and students from both Bedford and Luton applied. However, one girl stood out with a breathtaking reading of a monologue from the film Annie Hall. We were therefore very happy to give the role to 3rd Year Theatre and Professional Practice student Stephanie Pearson for the four day shoot.
Once we had organised a strict schedule for filming (comprising four of our campuses, a live graduation scene and a large number of extras) we were ready to start shooting. The planning was definitely the toughest bit so as not to disrupt any lectures but also to effectively showcase our fantastic facilities. It all paid off though, as the shoot went extremely smoothly with plenty of time to refine each shot and make the most of what we had at our disposal. Take a look at the gallery of production photos below for an idea of how the advert was crafted:
Whilst all this was happening we were also finalising the cinema bookings, clearing the music licence and liasing with the BBFC in order to get the film rated. This also proved a very smooth process and the edit was locked after just two days of refinements leaving plenty of time to negotiate with record companies and get the advert rated as 'U' - Suitable for all!
That's me! Abusing my privileges
(as usual) in a cameo as a lecturer
This whole process has been extremely enjoyable (but VERY tiring) and is a real eye opener as to the amount of work that goes into creating something of high enough quality to be shown in the cinema. What we were particularly pleased with is the way the project took shape as a true collaboration and it was almost like we were all one team. Stephanie, as the lead actress, could not have been more professional and we're sure she has a bright future ahead of her. She even said that this experience has shown her what she wants to do when leaving the University of Bedfordshire!
If you want to watch the advert in the cinema for yourself then take a look at the schedule of where and when it will be running and if you are fortunate enough to see it then Tweet us using #bedscinema. Also, if you like the music, we've been granted the licence to use it by our old friends Various Cruelties again!
The final part of this project is to monitor it's effectiveness, which is where the online campaign comes in... that's a blog post for another day though...
This blog will be updated fortnightly (every other Monday) with my views on the latest trends in web, social media and video. I'll also be giving details of projects I have been working on within Higer Education marketing.
