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If you haven’t checked out the Horizon Report in the past, it’s an annual publication that highlights key technologies expected to affect higher education in the next five years. This year’s report was published on January 14 and has some real gems, as usual.

What’s On the Horizon

The near-term technologies include mobile computing and open content.

The mid-term technologies (oddly noted as the “second adoption horizon”) are electronic books and simple augmented reality.

The far-term horizon includes gesture-based computing and visual data analysis.

Go get the full report >

Why Should You Care?

From a marketing communications perspective, these technologies will affect the future of our industry in a number of ways:

1. They will open and close avenues of communication.

Both mobile and augmented reality have been hot topics in the marketing world for several years. Mobile is already a big deal for many of us, working to provide mobile-friendly tools. What we haven’t necessarily done is find ways to communicate through mobile devices. We are hesitant (and rightfully so) to abuse SMS for marketing purposes. But there are opt-in SMS channels that higher ed has been slow to adopt except for use in crisis communications and in certain classroom applications.

Augmented Reality (AR) is another opportunity for blending communications messaging with real-world experiences. Like most tools in this Cluetrain world, AR will need to provide value and not just be an advertisement. Already, there are excellent ideas being pursued – including a an augmented reality campus tour application for the iPhone.

2. They will change the way we are perceived by our audiences.

The latest and greatest technology is a differentiator for a relatively short period of time, as early adopters get credit for being on the leading edge. These schools get more press and are often perceived as thought-leaders.

Next, there are the second-adopters who improve and perfect the technology. This is harder to do, but it’s potentially safer than trying to dive into every new thing. The iPod wasn’t the first MP3 player, and the iPhone wasn’t the first smart phone – but they certainly did them well enough to win some major market share. After all, there’s no medal for being first to market.

Finally, there are those who fail to keep up at all. This is a far more critical differentiator: not staying current. If students start to expect something, it’s folly to ignore those demands and expect to stay competitive. No school wants its students and parents to think it’s behind the times.

3. The model is changing.

As the report notes, “Open content has now come to the point that it is rapidly driving change in both the materials we use and the process of education.” (p. 13) Where students once paid a hefty price for access to information, free, open content is forcing schools to shift their value proposition toward education and experience. The higher ed business model is changing.

Communications will have a tremendous role in keeping schools in business by recruiting top students, faculty, and staff. They will have to take advantage of every tool in the toolbox.

What’s on your horizon?

Your own school and situation will be unique. Your size, budget, and priorities may direct you in one direction or another. That’s ok. But you should also be drawing up your own horizon report, asking yourself what you’ll be working on in one, three, or five years. Are you prepared?

Take this brief quiz and make a mental note of your responses:

1. Have you and your boss (or client) agreed on the important metrics for your website’s success?

That’s it. If the answer is yes, you’re on the road to being an analytics superhero. But if you don’t know the answer to that question, all of your analytics efforts are in vain.

Nikki Massaro Kauffman is a smart web marketer (and a daring thief of table skirts). She recently wrote about problems with data collection for eduGuru:

“Tools help you do the job, but they don’t do it for you. They require expertise. Do you even know what information you want to get from the application in the first place? Do you know enough about the data you are collecting to know how to get what you want from the tools? Do you know how to use the tools?”

“Reporting is not Analysis”

Avinash Kaushik has famously said that reporting is not the same as analysis. I believe this is because people mistake tools for intelligence. Just as a programmer is useless unless he has a project, reports are useless unless they are answering a question.

Too often are we asked to provide answers to unstated questions. The result, as Nikki asks, is whether we can read the minds of our bosses and clients about exactly what they’re trying to accomplish.

Analysis is about business intelligence. Web analytics software is supposed to help you make informed decisions. It starts with deciding what you’re trying to measure and how to measure it.

Fortunately, it can be easy to start (and gets harder the deeper you go). Begin by talking with your boss briefly about what you both consider success to be for your website, and then what you both consider the most important thing someone can do on your website. If you’re lucky, it’s as simple as a conversion goal – a checkout process, a signup, or a form. If not, look for ways to measure whatever task you have. Michael Notte has a great resource for defining your web metrics and KPIs.

This is the first step to moving beyond reporting and into analysis. And just as Mr. Incredible had to work out to regain his crime-fighting figure, you’ll need to practice and develop your skills. You’re on the road to becoming an analytics superhero.

In software, an API is a way to get data into or out of a system. It stands for “Applicant Programming Interface” and basically allows outsiders to access or manipulate the information in the software.

The Twitter API lets you access tweets, search users, post tweets, and so on. The API enables apps like TweetDeck, Twitterrific, and all those Twitter-related web apps to exist. The Google Maps API is the engine behind thousands of maps mashups.

APIs Everywhere

One of the most frustrating things to a software developer is reinventing the wheel. They even have an acronym – DRY: don’t repeat yourself. So when you’re building software that needs to pull in campus events, you should hit the API for the campus calendar and grab what you need. Want to show YouTube videos in the search results? Use the API.

Just as frustrating is finding the substandard add-ons that often come with large software packages. Just because a web content management system has a CRM (constituent relationship management) doesn’t mean it’s a good CRM. So it sends HTML emails? Is it as good as the standalone systems? You pour all of your wisdom into selecting a great software package and you often end up with poor add-ons that don’t meet your needs.

This is where APIs can come in handy. If you can get the systems to integrate via their respective APIs, you can get the best of both worlds. And if they’re popular systems, they may even build such integrations right in (like LinkedIn showing your latest Slideshare presentations).

Human APIs

Higher education institutions are notorious for being collections of silos. But some brilliant folks recognize the value in networking across their institutions, serving as connectors, and sharing information. These are Human APIs. Sometimes they’re called Connectors or Trust Agents Zero. They build make themselves available, build relationships, and share information freely. In exchange, they are able to create more value through collaborations.

Meetups and User Groups

One way to start is to form a user group of professionals around a particular topic. Our team has spawned several groups, including the South Bend Ruby Group. This group led to new relationships and I eventually hired one of the members to our team.

We’ve also formed a number of internal groups on LinkedIn around various industries and topics. The outreach doesn’t take much, but it’s absolutely worth it for the chance to interface with other teams and departments, share knowledge, and build on each others’ efforts.

Every project has its ups and downs. Sometimes it’s pretty predictable. This bingo kit is for any web project manager, designer, developer, writer, freelancer, or anyone else who works on website projects.

Rules

Pick a project, any project. Each team member gets a card (reload to refresh the card). As the project goes on, mark off each box as it applies. The first team member to get five across, up, or in a diagonal wins (or loses, depending on how you look at it).

Sorry, there are no free spaces in Web Project Bingo. The middle is reserved for sites that actually launch.

Get Your Own!

Download Web Project Bingo (PDF) …or download the Excel file to print your own. (To randomize the card again, go to the second worksheet and sort by column A.)

Higher ed loves conferences (as do I). My boss has been live-tweeting the AMA Higher Ed Marketing conference for the last day or two. We’ve sent people to eduWEB Conference, South by Southwest Interactive, CASE, EDUCAUSE, RubyConf, RailsConf, and plenty of others.

But these things cost money – travel, registration, food, per diem, etc. And they take time – sometimes you can’t afford a few days away from the office. For that matter, conferences aren’t the only way to learn and develop your skills.

Create a Plan

Seems obvious, but it’s not clear what a professional development plan includes. Doing a search brings up some great resources, including this guide to professional development from EDUCAUSE.

But I’m looking for something simple – something concrete. And I should be able to do this every year. So I’ve worked up a rubric that follows a basic process. I’d love your feedback, as I’m hoping to put this into practice right away.

1. List the skills needed to do the job.

I think these fall into three categories: core requirements, secondary requirements, and professional skills. Core and secondary requirements make up your job description. Professional skills are those abilities that aren’t necessarily part of the tasks you do, but are crucial to your success. They might include public speaking, project management, written communication skills, etc.

2. The employee rates himself/herself.

Next, the employee has a sense of what his/her strengths and weaknesses are. These may only be perceptions – but perceptions have a strong influence over how the work is done. Lack of confidence or over-confidence can lead to poor decisions.

3. The supervisor rates the employee.

The manager must also rate the employee’s skill levels. Sometimes employees do not see opportunities the way the manager does, or are not fully aware of their strengths. Ultimately, the manager is responsible for directing staff to develop in ways that improve performance and serve the department.

4. Prioritize the skills based on the ratings.

If you’re an 8 out of 10 for a core skill, but a 3 out of 10 for a secondary skill, the priority may be to improve the secondary skill because the benefits will be more noticeable. This is subjective, but it is the step that provides focus for where to invest professional development time and money.

5. List specific steps to improve.

Of course there are plenty of conferences, but you should also look to other ways to develop your skills. Depending on how you learn best, you might consider taking classes, reading books/blogs (self-teacher), finding a mentor (a la apprenticing), doing pro bono or test projects (practical application), presenting to someone (learning through teaching), etc. A combination of these is probably best, but it will depend on the skill, the employee, and unfortunately, the budget available.

Collaboration is Key

This isn’t a top-down, manager-drive process to change employees. This is a collaboration between the employee and the supervisor. It should serve the needs of both. By providing professional development, the manager has a more effective, efficient, and generally valuable employee. For the employee it creates new professional opportunities and should translate to merit-based pay increases, promotions, etc. It should be a win-win.

Sample Professional Development Plan

Professional Development Plan Rubric (Excel) or as a Blank (PDF)

So how do you manage your professional development? Any tweaks to this process? Please share in the comments.

In pushing social media on campus (including an institutional blogging platform to hold personal/professional blogs), the question arises: Who owns this content?

I want to explore a few scenarios. Please post to the comments and share your own opinions on these.

1. You post to your personal blog on company time, using a company computer.

On one hand, it’s your personal blog – so it’s unlikely to be an issue because your employer probably doesn’t care about it. But if it’s related to your work and may provide value, the company might care. And the “during company time on company equipment” thing seems to lean toward your employer.

2. You tweet during work hours.

Who doesn’t do this? Do your personal tweets become the company’s property? Again, kind of a moot point given that the employer likely doesn’t care.

3. You post to a personal blog on an institutional platform, regardless of time or equipment.

This depends on the policies of the institution. Institutional blogs are likely to be the company’s property, but personal blogs using the employer’s systems seem like a grey area.

During Work Hours

This is the part that really bothers me. Every night, I do work for my employer. My work hours don’t stop at 5pm simply because the banks close – I’m on email, IM, and often do work because it needs to be done. How do you define “work hours?” What about those increasingly rare days when I work from home?

My perspective (which likely conflicts with that of my employer) is that my job isn’t defined by work hours. It’s defined by meeting the requirements of the position – with a somewhat elastic goal of 40 hours. Realistically, I spend far more than that to get the job done. My presence in the office from 8-5 doesn’t mean the job’s getting done, and my absence doesn’t mean that it’s not.

As a result, it is common for those of us in this situation to take a long lunch, exercise, or leave early. In exchange for pushing our “work hours” outside of 8-5, we expect flexibility during the 8-5 workday. So how does this affect our participation in social media? If I spend 30 minutes blogging during the day, but 30 minutes working at night – is this an even trade?

I’m curious to hear what you think. Have you ever had a “that’s our property” issue with your employer?

Note: This is hypothetical and theoretical. I don’t have any specific issue I’m dealing with at this time. Oh yeah, this post was written during work hours. * gasp *

This week I presented to our team at AgencyND about Mobile – what’s the deal and what’s coming. I call this the Mobile Horizon, as a nod to the Horizon Report which aims to inform higher education about the future technologies and their implications. Mobile is all the rage, and for good reason. View the presentation to learn why.

If higher education is to avoid a painful death in the coming decades I have a relatively simple plan: create an R&D process.

Add it to the Strategic Plan

Executive leadership, the board, deans, and officers of the University must be aware of this effort. The goal isn’t survival – that’s playing defense and it’s easily compared to a number of industries that resisted change. The goal is to thrive in this shifting environment and create lasting, positive changes to the way your institution will do business in the future.

Form a Center for the Future of Higher Education

A number of Universities have established centers, institutes, or commissions dedicated to studying higher education. This seems like a logical place for the conversation about the future of higher ed to start.

Institutions should create such a center (or direct an existing one) for the purpose of studying how changing cultural forces act on higher education, the implications for the future, and ways to adapt to such change. These centers should aim high, but produce meaningful research to be applied in a real world setting. One excellent example of this is the University of Michigan’s Millenium Project, which states:

“Rather than being simply a think-tank where ideas are generated and studied, the Millennium Project is a do-tank where ideas lead to the actual creation of working models or prototypes to explore possible futures of the university.”

The Center should be staffed or led by visionaries, higher ed leaders, faculty, etc. They should ask questions like “what might higher ed look like in 50 years?” and “what if we weren’t able to charge tuition to attend our school?”

Create a Workshop to Test Prototypes

It doesn’t do you any good to have a theory about how to adapt. Ideas are worthless until they’re put into action. But ideas aren’t guaranteed to pay out – they are far more likely to fail than succeed. This department (or an extension of the center, if you like) must be empowered to develop prototypes based on the work generated by the Center.

Like any good skunkworks operation, the Workshop requires talented and creative people. This also requires funding and the understanding that not all projects will pan out. Fail early and fail often must be an acceptable motto for this crew.

Establish a System of Accountability

On one hand, there’s academic freedom and the usual liberties afforded such pursuits in higher education. On the other, there’s some urgency: we’re facing (if not already in the midst of) a looming crisis. Accountability is important if we’re to benefit from such investments in our future. This means setting reasonable goals and measuring projects (as well as these departments) against them. This might be as simple as setting goals for a project, and pulling the plug if it doesn’t perform within the agreed parameters. I’d expect such a system to include the usual accountability for centers and faculty: publications and grants.

Don’t Be Afraid to Do Something Crazy

Rather than play follow-the-leader and mimic the models of other Universities, challenge the Center and Workshop to explore bold, new approaches. Not many Universities consider mergers and acquisitions, but it’s not unprecedented. How about alternative residential experiences? Or developing more customizable degrees that cross the traditional boundaries of colleges, schools, and departments?

The Future is Wide Open

Nothing I’ve written about here is ground-breaking. But few schools are attempting this. And even fewer are investing appropriately. While a new building may cost $50 million, it has a very specific and limited value to the University. Compare that to the potential cost of being ill-prepared as higher education evolves and shifts. For a school with an operating budget in the hundreds of millions, or even in the billions, the opportunity is worth the investment.