So why not just go for the free open-source option - they ask? Don’t let the hype fool you, those much loved free “open-source” solutions are indeed great, but only great if you know how to program for the web. Match that with a solid understanding of good user interface design if you really want a successful outcome.

Content management should be fun. It should be easy. It should empower your organization to own its content and feel no qualms about logging in and updating that information whenever they need to, from anywhere they might be. It should be stress free, there should be no chance that the CMS will break the site or allow for inconsistencies. That makes a good content management system.

If you need a full IT team to support it, if you have to jump through hoops to get updates posted, if you have to pay thousands of dollars every time you want to add a feature or upgrade, then you don’t have a good solution.

While I am biased since Fastspot has developed BigTree CMS and installs it on many of our projects, it’s important to know the only reason we designed and built BigTree was because the market was so sorely lacking. There are the big enterprise level CMS solutions that you might shop for if you are a Boeing, or an IBM or The Smithsonian. And then there are little buggy CMS solutions that never work quite right, tie you to the IT developers constantly needed to make them work properly and which in my opinion lack any robustness or thought towards the user experience within the CMS itself.

There are hundreds of CMS solutions being promoted and sold, but rarely do I hear good things about them from clients actually using them. Rare occasions are from clients who already have a really impressive internal team with the technical know-how and time devoted to their daily workflow to ensure those CMSs function well. I would dare to ask the question, “What happens when your internal team gets another job?”.

Conclusion? Think long and hard about what you need, who’s in place to support it if it needs support and how will your organization’s team be empowered to use the system once it’s in place.

Have a love or hate story to share about a CMS? Feel free, it’s still relatively new territory out there, with little transparency in order to compare notes.

Good customer service isn’t about being nice only when things are going along swimmingly. It’s more about how you conduct yourself during difficult or stressful situations.

Interesting Fact: If you look around, you can find some recent studies showing that experiences which produce lots of adrenaline also cement those experiences into your memory more firmly than experiences that might have produced less of a chemical reaction.

When I get mad, my adrenaline gets going and, thus, I remember it—for a long, long time. Whereas when I feel happy, I don’t necessarily feel my adrenaline pumping, although my endorphins are definitely assisting my state of happiness. Though it feels good in the moment, its impact isn’t enough to have the same effect on my physical memory. I suspect I would have to be 500% happy to produce the same lasting memory that 80% mad generates.

Why does this matter? Well, you have to work harder at keeping people happy; making people mad is easy. And, for every person you make mad, you create a negative and long lasting memory. Although you’re making people happy, they may forget about it or they may not realize just how great it was to feel happy—or they may be distracted by an angry memory. So, you have to remind them more and more often about how great feeling happy is and you must make sure you don’t ruin all your hard work by making them angry along the way.

This is my motto when it comes to customer service. The only time I stray from it is when I am faced with a customer who is “toxic”, or impossible to make happy. Then it’s clear that we should part ways—hopefully, in the most pleasant manner possible!

This post was inspired by pictures our client shared with us showing their celebration of the launch of their new Website. I would say these pictures helped me create a lasting positive memory of working hard for this client—definitely something worth caring about. And a client who is celebrating this joyously over what we all know can be a long and painful journey is definitely a happy customer.

I am often asked by admissions and communications folks working in higher ed, “How many Facebook Fan Pages should we set up? One for admissions? One for transfers? One for prospective athletes?” I always respond with a question, “Well, would you become a fan of something you had no idea about yet?” My point is - I doubt prospective students are scouring Facebook looking for schools they may or may not apply to or attend and becoming fans. I also seriously doubt they are giving as much weight to what an Admissions representative has to say as they are to what current students have to say. Thus creating the case for why the in person visits are so critical, as well as why student tour guides should be carefully selected by schools. Don’t get me wrong, I think Facebook is a great resource for schools to use to keep in touch with alumni and current students. I just don’t see the tremendous value in relying on it to connect with prospects.

I do think that allowing prospects to connect with current students in social networks they are comfortable within is the ideal scenario, assuming the school trusts its students, and assuming these students understand what it is they are being trusted with. I was pleasantly surprised at how excited and positive the UMBC students were when they were told, “This is a site for you guys to use, but it’s also a site we plan on using to market the school to prospective students. We want to ensure that the right kind of kid knows about UMBC and applies because they see what you all are doing.” They totally got it, and not only did they get it, they have embraced it. Personally, I would have loved this idea back when I was in school. I remember flipping through the viewbook every year, hot off the press, and grumbling to myself about bad photo choices or pictures of students who had graduated 4 years ago. With a site like College.Be I could have jumped online and ensured that every kid looking at my school knew all about it from my perspective.

What do you think? This is a hotly debated subject and I welcome all opinions and thoughts! Also - you can read Mark Neustadt’s thoughts on the project on his blog - here.

I was particularly interested in one admissions counselor who discussed how simply redesigning an application led to more applicants. Amazing! A change in design affected the results? The old adage still holds true, it’s quality over quantity, and in many cases - good design and usability = better quality.

While the reach of these schools continues to be very important, the “way” they reach out is of equal if not more importance. As admissions staffs fight against a rising tide of tuition and travel adverse families, with students tossing viewbooks in the recycling bin with growing disdain, how will they make sure they connect?

It will still boil down to one basic element, marketing. It is the marketing (the “usability”, the tone, the feeling), that will make the lasting and compelling connection, and using the right media to send out these marketing messages must also be strategically approached. The NACAC keynote speaker Nancy Giles couldn’t have made a stronger case when she shared this quote from Maya Angelou. “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”.

So my advice? Before you begin blasting out your materials, and watching your admissions counselors hit the road, take a good long look at your messages. What are you saying about your school? Are you making a compelling and unique case that will connect with the right students in the right ways? Do you know how you will be making these students feel? Because the way you make them feel is the thing they will remember.

Fastspot will continue doing what we have been doing over the past decade, creating and producing outstanding interactive work and delivering unparalleled client service, which is the foundation of our success. However, as the world of higher education marketing undergoes major shifts which require an integrated and progressive approach, we are fortunate to have formed a fruitful relationship with one of the leaders in the industry, Neustadt Creative Marketing. This partnership is generating exciting work for our current clients, and we look forward to Door No. 2 making it even easier for our friends out there in higher education to make the right choice, which as we all know, is always behind Door No. 2.

Face it, today technology can do whatever we want or need it to do. And one of it’s primary roles is to act as a facilitator for a message. So why would we first worry about the “how we want to say something” before we think about the “what we want to say”?

Typically technology and marketing departments are separate entities, with the tech people focused on internal software, security, protocols, databases, all very technical stuff. Then you have the marketing folks worried about the message of the institution, the look and feel of the new brochure, the copywriting and tone in the radio spot, all very non-technical stuff.

And then the issue of the Website comes up (or talk of a microsite, or an email campaign, or an employee portal area) - and suddenly - both groups must work together, because these things involve technology. This is where the first mistake is made. A company’s interactive marketing has very little to do with the internal technology or protocols. Sure, there will be some areas that “cross over”, where security or the transferring of sensitive data should be monitored, where databases will need to be able to speak the same language, or technical nuances will require some sort of expert IT guidance to move forward. However, if the initiative is oriented towards “marketing”, then it should live in the hands of the marketing folks. Yet I can’t recount how many times I have found a marketing team struggling with an overly complicated content management system (CMS), or worse, a marketing team dependent on a few skilled coders over on the IT side, who are the gatekeepers of the marketing projects.

Lets face it, when someone encounters your interactive marketing initiative, be it a Website, a HTML email, a microsite, perhaps even an iPhone app - the last thing they will be thinking about is the technology… unless of course, it doesn’t work well. I am not simply talking about something being “broken”, I am talking about overall “usability”, the ease with which an interested viewer can access the content they seek while experiencing the brand of the company. This is one of the most important experiences your audience will have with your brand, and if technology has lead the way, chances are, usability has been delegated to what “works” with the technology - not the other way around. This shift in importance is a critical mistake, and will leave your viewers feeling they experienced something that was more about tech than communicating with them.

So, before you start shopping for software, adding firewalls and overhauling your servers, stop and ask yourself, “Is this an IT project or a marketing project?”

Just because things live on “servers” vs. on paper, doesn’t mean they necessarily need to be controlled by IT folks. After all, these days your marketing team probably does much of it’s work online in places like Twitter, the company blog, Facebook, press release sites like Pitch Engine, etc. Why would the Website be any different?

One common cause for the confusion is due to the “types” of information being shared or distributed through the Website. I often see people confuse Websites with “Intranets”, and this is something that is very important to differentiate. How do you find the answer? It’s all about the audience! If your Website is primarily geared towards outside audiences, who don’t have a need for or interest in your internal stuff, then don’t build in an Intranet. If the site is to market to your internal audiences, like a company wide bulletin board, an area to log in and review tax information or payroll, etc., then focus on security - and don’t build a public facing Website!

Bottom line - give your audiences what they are looking for, and empower the people who need to constantly craft those messages and content the tools they need to manage it themselves. Empower your teams with tools that work for their needs, and be very clear about the goals, audiences, and most importantly, who needs to be able to take the wheel and work with the tools you give them.

Curt Kotula’s Current Favorites:
Album: Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
iPhone App - Keymote
Blog - http://kottke.org/
Website - http://www.creasedcomics.com/

April Osmanof’s Current Favorites:
Album: Hercules and Love Affair - self titled album.
Web app: Tone Matrix at http://lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix. Its really fun to play with.

Tim Buckingham’s Current Favorites:
Album: Acceptance - Phantoms
iPhone App: Civilization Revolution
Blog: Engadget

Amy Goldberg’s Current Favorites:
Album: Uh Huh Her - Common Reaction
iPhone / Web App: Facebook
Blog: Remodelista

Tracey Halvorsen’s Current Favorites:
Album: Gregory Alan Isakov - This Empty Northern Hemisphere
iPhone App - Pandora
Blog: Tim Ferris

Fastspot Reel - 2009 from TraceyHalvorsen on Vimeo.

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- Posted by Tracey Halvorsen