November 2012: Our "On Topic" link blog has been retired. Below is an archive of published On Topic posts. To keep up on news, resources, and ideas about content in higher ed, check us out on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
On Topic
The People That You Meet Each Day
By on May 18, 2012 • Leave a Comment
In higher ed, any content worth its salt is going to convey some sense of the life on campus, whether it’s student experience and an active research community. And that sense of life often boils down to people and their stories. Who are the people—real people, mind you, not stock photos and composite sketches—who make our campuses come alive? We can tell these stories well through profiles, both written and [...]
A Little More Conversation
By on May 10, 2012 • Leave a Comment
Last week, I saw this great tweet by the University of Kentucky’s Jeana Clark: @markgr IA = the building/rooms/floorplan. UX = Hospitality in the building. — jeana (@jeana_with_a_j) May 2, 2012 So, if UX is hospitality, how do we express that hospitality? In a hotel, hospitality may be conveyed in part through tone of voice, manner, the questions we ask and answer—in short, content. Ginny Redish, author of the essential [...]
Update Your Style Guide to Keep It Useful
By on May 4, 2012 • Leave a Comment
Are you ready to get pumped about editorial style guide updates?!! (Would it help if I added a third exclamation point?) If you have a hard time keeping your editorial style guides current, you’re not alone. Even the best of us need to work at keeping our style guides updated and useful. Angie Halama of Brain Traffic shares a great style guide pep talk to raise our spirits (or "spirts" [...]
Nimble Content Development
By on May 3, 2012 • Leave a Comment
Much content development in higher ed happens in giant leaps — major news channel launches, 18-month website redesigns, expansive social media campaigns, you name it. A big rollout can mean big impact, but it also means big resources and, potentially, big failure if we haven’t done our due diligence. In the field of software development, there is an increasingly popular school of thought around agile development, which entails iterative changes [...]
Be Interesting, Please
By on May 2, 2012 • Leave a Comment
It’s fast and easy to create and publish content, right? Maybe, but not if you intend for your content to rise above the onslaught of emails, tweets, blogs posts and ads people are hit with every day. Crosby Noricks of Fast Company makes the case to "think like a publisher" by referencing an Instagram photo that reads, "I’ll be interested, if you’ll be interesting." That’s the voice of our readers [...]