Life has been pretty hectic here in the last month of the calendar year. So much so, that I have undoubtedly been fairly delinquent on the blog front. But, I was able to participate in an event last week that shook me out of my recent blogging- drought and helped cure my case of Blogger’s Block.
At the request of Brad Kleinman of WorkSmart eMarketing, I made a (web-cam)eo appearance as part of the Virginia Community College System’s Peer-to-Peer conference, which Brad helped to organize. The event was a blast, and I really enjoyed our quick on-air discussion about campus marketing and getting started in using Web 2.0 tools to support outreach efforts.
More importantly, I was once again impressed with the approach taken by Brad and the WorkSmart team. First and foremost, they place a lot of emphasis on having fun with every marketing tactic or campaign that a school undertakes – this is a really important concept that often gets lost amid the need to effectively and efficiently drive results.
Second, they turn almost every session into a hands-on lab experience. For instance, immediately prior to my brief session, Brad had walked a room full of people through the process of (a) setting up their own blogs, (b) getting introduced to and signing up for both Facebook and Twitter, (c) viewing some very cool videos by Valencia Community College, and (d) spending some time on SecondLife.
Most importantly, WorkSmart encourages its institutional clients to actively explore and to jump-in feet first. They really go the “last-mile” in helping attendees try out many different means to communicate their message and engage in a dialogue with students and prospects.
Brad is an incredibly charismatic speaker, and I strongly believe that he will have a big presence in the campus marketing scene in 2009 and beyond. Below are the slides from his keynote speech from the conference...hopefully people will enjoy them as I did.
My thanks go to WorkSmart eMarketing for getting me back in gear on the blog-front. It feels good to be back on track, and I am looking forward to picking up the pace through the remainder of 2008 and throughout 2009.
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