My first ever meeting with the Little Rock Chapter of the PRSA was today. My boss is member, and invited a few of us from the university to go along and see Adam Broitman give a presentation about Social Marketing.

First off, it was odd to imagine a room full of public relations professionals listening to someone talk about social media, because the two seem to exist on opposite ends of the communications spectrum.

Adam gave a good presentation though. It was geared towards PR, and how it will be effected by the online conversation that bypasses mainstream media and ignores the carefully crafted press release.

Though it was a first for most of the audience, many of whom had never heard of digg, del.icio.us, rss, or popular blogging platforms, Adam talked more about concepts, which worked well.

Let me tell you, there probably aren’t many meetings of the PRSA in which a featured speaker whips out quotes from the Cluetrain Manifesto. I was shocked, to say the least.

Just in terms of academia, a recent article that ties in really well with his presentation would be the User Generation, from the 2007 issue of Currents Magazine, which is basically a short overview of popular web 2.0 applications as they relate to college and university communications.

Quotes from the article:

“…Web 2.0 signals many changes for education communications and marketing efforts, but the greatest and perhaps most difficult to accept is the end of the controlled message. While traditional news outlets have already started to notice the media revolution in progress, it will probably take more time for most institutions to acknowledge and accept it

…Institutions also have multiple audiences—current and prospective students, parents, donors, friends, and faculty and staff members—each eager to participate in a communications process in its own way.

…In this age of Web 2.0, what makes the biggest difference isn’t your promotion budget, but the quality of your content.With user-generated media, target audience members can create, publish, and promote their own messages about a particular topic or issue. Instead of a few message sources and distribution channels to choose from, virtually hundreds now cohabit and compete.

The key, really, isn’t the latest or greatest internet app or web 2.0 buzzword, but simply acknowledging that the days of managing public perception through one or two media channels will soon be over.

Having been employed as a web designer in various environments/companies, I can tell you there are several perks that only college/university employment can provide. Someday I’d like to write them all down. One of those perks, for sure, is the library.

Granted, most libraries are far behind in terms of having decent collections of books related to web design/development, but there are many other things to value in a good university library. For one, it makes for a great 20 minute escape. If I’m stuck in a design rut, or just mentally stressed and need to get away from my office/telephone/computer, I can often come back refreshed and refocused following a little excursion to the library. Cause, you know, there’s neat books in there.

On one such excursion recently, I realized that our library is a keeper of all the Graphis Design Annuals. Good find. A very good find.

Upon checking out the 2007 Design Annual and flipping through it in my office, I noticed a feature of the website: Design Build Bluff.

A url wasn’t provided in the book, but I was able to find it (almost) by a search for the University of Utah College of Architecture & Planning, which was spelled out inside the feature.

Once at the college site, I clicked on “design build bluff” thinking it would take me to the fantastically designed, 2007 Graphis award winning flash website featured in my book. But alas it didn’t. Instead I was directed here, to the blog of Design Build Bluff:

The blog makes reference to the other site in the header, and stops there. Now, I may be reading too far into this, but it looks like they’ve made a choice to feature the blogspot blog instead of its award winning couterpart, because the blog, while being a standard blogger template and not as pretty, is easier to update and maintain than the fantastically designed, 2007 Graphis award winning flash website.

Anyone given access can update it, add a photo, a description, add new links etc… in a matter of seconds by using blogger. The fancy flash website? …not so much.

Herein lies the rub of award-winning flash websites that are almost exclusively featured in the annuals and design publications. They look great. The have wow factor, but all to often they merely function as online brochures. Static, impossible-to-update-without- getting-another-bill-from-the-agency ..brochure’ware.

Throw in flash sites having the quality of being ignored by search engines and google, and don’t forget about sites like these not meeting accessibility laws.

But, I still love the site. It’s a thing of beauty, and it showcases very interesting and important projects.

You just wish that site builders and designers of these showcase-sites made them easier to maintain, and built them to grow. It isn’t impossible. In the meantime, visitors are directed to the blogspot blog for the most up to date news and information, and the fancy award winning wow factor site is fixed in stone like a petroglyph.

University magazines present an interesting challenge. The printed version will always be around, because faculty, donors and alumni prefer something tangible to hold in their hands. But the budget required to print thousands of copies can get out of hand.

Into this void steps a website dedicated to a magazine, hoping to accomplish the same goals as the glossy printed version. That’s where it gets tricky.

A university magazine or a journal may be quarterly or even monthly, with new issues and new themes for each edition, and print designers are usually prepared for this reality.

A printed version can throw on a fresh cover, complete with major sections designed with specific subject matter in mind. Magazine designers don’t necessarily reinvent the wheel with each new issue, but they’ve got considerable room to let content drive design, adding fresh new paint that adds meaning to the articles.

Website maintainers for print-publications, however, seem to have a more difficult go of it, the result being a dramatic drop-off between the experience a reader will have with the print version, as compared to the online version.

To put it simply, you can’t just slap a new cover on a website. Or, can you?

With the design of the soon-to-be-online version of UALR Magazine, I’ve tried very hard to allow for change. Drastic change. The main image borrows from the actual cover of the magazine. I’m hoping that when the next issue rolls around, the transition will be very easy.

…Change the main background component, and archive the previous issues that still retain their own look and feel.

A great deal of painstaking decision making usually goes into a design like this, but for some reason it came easy. The key for me is to keep it simple. Start of the core of the page and build outward. Focus on content. And design for change.

Oh and a few photoshop skills and an art degree. Those help a little, too.

Sure, you’ll see scattered bits of advice here and there about how to interview / screen / hire the RIGHT people, but you’ll never read anything as true as Marc Andreessen’s How to hire the best people you’ve ever worked with.

Maybe “true” isn’t the right word. Comprehensive. That’s it. Short and too the point, yet comprehensive. He covers all the bases, and oddly enough never seems to write a paragraph that takes up more than two lines. Strange.

This is the start of something new, a chance to share my experiences and inspirations that relate to my job at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

I was hired in June of 2006 as “Web Design and Services Manager” at UALR, a title although sounding prestigious, really involves graphic design for web.  Interactive Design.  Whatever you want to call it.

I’m pleased to be part of something special growing here at UALR.  We’ve got a talented, specialized, cross-campus team. And we’re really only beginning to create great things.

Things I’ll document via this blog will vary in scope, yet all relate somehow to design for web, specifically institutional / collegiate / university web design.  More than anything it will serve as a reference to me, a notebook of sorts.  And so it begins.