Penn State Ag Sciences - ACE/NETC 2009 Presentation

College Relations & Communications
ACE Presentation, June 7, 2009

College Relations and Communications

Presenters:

Mary Wirth
Director of College Relations and Communications

Jillian Stevenson
Associate Director of Communications & Alumni Relations

Chris More
Associate Director of Web Communications


Today’s discussion focus:

1. Strategies for change
2. Structure matters
3. Effective/creative decision making
4. Prioritizing for maximum impact with limited resources
5. Strategic implementation of technology opportunities


College Overview as a Point of Reference:

1. Current enrollment of approximately 2,500 students with 12
academic units, twenty majors, three two-year programs, three
certificate programs, and twenty-four minors, with students at
twenty-four campuses state-wide

2. Invest more than $89 million in research and graduate study with 500
graduate students in 16 program areas and more than 240 active
student and faculty research projects

3. Cooperative extension offices in each of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties


2005 – 2008 College Strategic Plan

Impetus for change:
• Enrollment Decreases
• Federal/State Funding Decreases
• Remaining Relevant

Charge:
Strengthen meaningful communication and mutual education with stakeholders
• Enhance Web-based materials
• Expand college’s role in Ag literacy
• Enhance recognition, reporting, and distribution of the impact of our programming
Charge:
Increase enrollment …
• Intensify college marketing efforts to increase awareness of program relevancy


Implementation of College
Strategic plan:

Creation of Communications and
Marketing Study Group…

“Update and improve college
marketing materials, specifically
recruitment publications and Web
site, to enhance the image of the
college to target audiences.”

Final report was submitted January
2006 and approved by Deans.

The foundation was laid for change!


Dean
RESTRUCTURING:
Integrating those charged to
build strategic stakeholder Mary Wirth Communications and
Director Marketing Advisory
relationships with those College Relations and Communications Committee
charged to deliver Rhonda Demchak
Focus area (CMAC)
Staff Assistant Industry and Government Relations
strategic information to
stakeholders.
Mary Seaton Jillian Stevenson Chris More
Assistant Director of Associate Director Associate Director
College Relations Ag Communications/Alumni Web Communications
Manager Office of Relations
Conferences & Short Courses
Area Leader
Pete Kauffman
College Relations/Communications Design/Print/Exhibits

Mission: Naomi Knaub Jonathan Ziegler
Assistant Director Marketing/Creative
Area Leader
Connect, Alumni Relations
Chuck Gill Specialist
Public Info Team
Collaborate,
Communicate… Steve Williams
Photographer


With significant change comes
significant opportunities…
Integration of Ag Comm into the
College Relations Office:
1. Define expectations (College Strategic Plan, CMAC)
2. Assess current structure (Service)
3. Vision (Service to strategic/integration of all CR units)
4. Strategic Plan (Set direction/inform new dean)
5. Assessment
6. Continued quality improvement


Jillian Stevenson
Associate Director of Communications
and Alumni Relations


Ag Communications and Marketing
…moving forward
• Define expectations and focus resources

• Establish vision (from service to strategic)

• Review current structure

• Continually assess and improve


Define Expectations
College Strategic Plan and areas of focus—Research,
Teaching and Extension
• Energy
• Environment
• Entrepreneurship
• Food, Diet, and Health
• Pest Prediction and Response


Define Expectations
Extension Reframing Process:
• Increase translation of new knowledge into innovative
solutions that address societal challenges
• Consolidate and improve programs (quality and
consistency) statewide
• Improve flexibility and agility
• Create self-empowered teams (21 working groups)


Establish a Vision—shifting from
a service unit to a strategic unit by:
• Focusing resources (financial and human) on the
priorities of the college and positioning the college

• Making efficient, creative, and strategic decisions

• Managing expectations—cannot be all things to all
people


Review Structure and Staffing

• Staff reorganization for most efficient match of skills to
needs of the unit
• Leadership/Creative Team established to address various
communications request and to approach each request
as a team—focusing our efforts for the greatest impact


Web
Leadership/Creative Team
Chris More—Assoc. Dir., Web Communications

Marketing
Jonathan Ziegler—Marketing Specialist

Design, Publications and Exhibits
Peter Kauffman—Communications Specialist

News and Information
Chuck Gill—News Coordinator

Photography
Steve Williams—Sr. Photographer


Project Focused Committees/Teams

• Undergraduate Recruitment Committee

• Trade Show Committees

• Dean’s Web site, emerging issues, etc.


College Communications & Marketing Advisory Committee
Membership:
Associate deans for research, UG education, and Extension, and
directors representing college stakeholders (industry, government,
alumni and donors, international programs)

Purpose:
• Develop protocol and make policy recommendations as it
pertains to Extension communications and marketing

• Coordinate and assess Extension communications and marketing
efforts


Extension Communications & Marketing Advisory
Committee

• Membership:
State Program Leaders and Associate Dean of Extension
• Purpose:
• Develop protocol and make policy recommendations as
it pertains to Extension communications and marketing
• Coordinate and assess Extension communications and
marketing efforts


Working with Extension

• Ag Comm serves the College (Dean’s Office), Undergraduate
Education, and Research, in addition to Extension—need to
manage the workload

• Working with Extension’s self-empowered teams (21 working
groups)


Marketing Think Sheets
(Information to direct marketing efforts gleaned from
Extension Program Proposals)

• SWOT Analysis • Positioning Strategy
• Target Audience Data • Key Message
• Competition • Proposed Strategies and
• Marketing Objectives Tactics
• Motivators/Barriers • Budget
• Marketing Mix (4Ps) • Timeline


Assess and Improve

How will we know when we have
“arrived?”


Contact Information:

College Relations/Communications
229 Ag Administration Bldg.
University Park, PA 16802
814-863-2822

Mary Wirth – mfw10@psu.edu
Jillian Stevenson – jxh41@psu.edu
Chris More – cmore@psu.edu


Chris More
Associate Director of Web Communications


Today’s discussion focus:

1. State of the Web – pre-2008
2. Changes implemented in 2008
3. Our Web site policies and philosophies
4. Recent accomplishments


State of the Web – Pre-2008

1. 300+ Web sites
2. Separate URLs created for every site
3. 20,000 broken links
4. Technologies: Dreamweaver, RedDot and static HTML
5. Static College homepage
6. Many RedDot projects stalled during creation
7. No formal intake process or project management


Changes Implemented in 2008
1. Developed procedures and practices
2. Implemented Microsoft SharePoint
3. Developed custom Web tools
4. Implemented Google Analytics
5. Reviewed RedDot CMS
6. Implemented Plone CMS
7. Redesigned College homepage


Developed Procedures and Practices
1. Defined team member roles
2. Request Type: Problem / Enhancement / Project
3. Priority and Criticality
4. Request Workflow
5. Projects
1. Phases: Inception, Elaboration, Construction, Transition
2. Artifacts: Charter, owner, stakeholders, purpose, scope, etc.
3. Lifecycle
4. Deliverables


Implemented Microsoft SharePoint

1. Funnel for all requests
2. Management of all projects and tasks
3. Document library
4. Internal meeting notes and accomplishments
5. Discussion forums and team collaboration
6. Versioning enabled on all objects (projects, tasks, files)
7. All projects and tasks viewable by College faculty / staff


SharePoint: Requests


SharePoint: Tasks (non-project)


SharePoint: View Task (non-project)


SharePoint: Projects


Developed Custom Web Tools

1. College-wide broken link checker: Spiders the entire
College on a daily basis looking for broken links and
creates reports and charts.

2. Google page rank tracker: Performs Google searches on
a daily basis for words/phrases related to Agriculture.
Records position in Google results.


Broken Link Checker


Google Page Rank


Implemented Google Analytics
1. Free, comprehensive, and easy-to-use
2. Single account for entire College
3. Anyone in College can request read-only access
4. Multiple custom filters to separate traffic and allow for
sub-domain reporting
5. Two main reports:
1. External-only traffic
2. Internal and External traffic
6. 175+ Web sites have the same code in their HTML footer
7. Does not track file downloads by default


Reviewed RedDot CMS
1. Closed-source / commercial product / expensive
2. Windows / ASP / Microsoft SQL based
3. Lack of any built-in Web 2.0 or dynamic features
4. Not easily extensible
5. Difficult and time consuming for end users to update content
6. Difficult for Web developers to create simple Web sites
7. Poor customer and technical support from parent company
8. Future versions not addressing any of these issues


Implemented Plone CMS
1. Open-source / GPL license – free to use
2. Widely used at Penn State and fastest growing CMS on campus
3. WebLion partnership
4. Linux / Zope / Python / Apache / Squid based
5. Many Web 2.0 features built-in
6. Free add-ons for almost any type of functionality
7. Very simple for end users to created and maintain content
8. Steep learning curve for non-technical Web developers
9. Programming and UNIX expertise on Web team required to be successful


Plone – Edit Page


Plone – Edit Event


Plone – Edit Person


Redesigned College Homepage
Before

After

Our Web site policies and philosophies

1. Form vs. Function
2. Information Architecture
3. Technical
4. Content


Form vs. Function

1. “First Impressions” exists in the digital realm
2. Web sites need to function / work properly
3. Negative form can damage impressions of an organization
4. Negative function can damage reputation of organization
5. People often make decisions based on emotion instead of logic
6. You don't have to like a design for it to be effective on the
target market


Form vs. Function – Examples:
Function Biased Web sites (Give me the content!):
• Google
• Wikipedia
Form Biased Web sites (Wow me!):
• Any flash-based major motion picture
• Many photography / graphic design companies
• Art schools
Which extreme has it right?
• They both do
• Purpose, target audience, and goals dictate the correct balance


Form vs. Function – Bottom Line

• Know your audience
• Perform or gather market research
• Design Web sites around the needs / desires of your target audience
• Balance of form and function can only happen if you know your
audience
• Try to remove personal preferences (client and internal)


Information Architecture – 1st level
1. Can only be done after you know all of your audiences and their
priority
2. Separate audience information from content types
1. Audiences (information for …): Future students, current
students, industry, alumni, public, etc.
2. Content types (information about …): news, events,
directory, research, etc.
3. Keep navigations separate or their purpose clearly defined
4. Short general words in navigation – keep it simple


Technical

1. Minimize broken links (404 errors): affects users and search engines
2. Minimize the use of URLs: use directories for sub-sites
3. Don’t have multiple URLs point to the same content
4. Use 301 redirectors when a URL changes or goes away: users can find
new content and search engines will be happy
5. Adhere to W3C Web and accessibility standards: benefits everyone


Content

1. Core content should be in HTML and not a PDF
2. Minimize the use of “link farms”
3. Investigate the use of content expiration and notification
4. Define owners of content and method to keep it “fresh”
5. Define an “overseer” of all content (text and photos) for
consistency


Recent Accomplishments
1. Converted five RedDot sites into folders of an existing Plone site
2. Launched three Plone sites
1. Food Science – foodscience.psu.edu
2. College homepage – agsci.psu.edu
3. Entomology – ento.psu.edu
4. Collapsed 25 URLs into three
5. Increased traffic, page rank and return visitors
6. Decreased bounce rate
3. Six of twelve academic units/departments in project queue
1. Four to five months per academic unit/department


Penn State Ag Sciences - ACE/NETC 2009 Presentation

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