View Listen Now, Talk Later on Slideshare.

Back in high school we took a senior class poll in which we voted on who was "most likely to succeed," "most likely to end up in jail" and so forth. Your school probably did the same thing. The answers were then printed in the yearbook. In our yearbook, Julia Talsma and I were listed as the responses for "talks least, says most." I don't recall who won "talks most, says least," but was glad it wasn't me.

The same idea applies to social media. "Talks most, says least" is not going to make you popular* on Twitter, Facebook or most other social spaces.

*Popularity isn't our goal, but we do want to forge connections with our audience. They are more likely to listen to us if we also listen to them.

Alas, many individuals and businesses see social media as an extra publishing channel. Our species seems drawn to fast easy solutions, and publishing an RSS feed out to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. seems easy. It is. But it's not always productive. The true value is found in two-way communication. If we start our social media efforts with listening activities, we can learn how our audience perceives us (if they do) and what they want to hear. Then, when we're ready to speak, we'll know what to say.

What we listen for varies by our goals. In a recent client training session I focused on how we could use listening for that client's specific niche. But there are some general principles that can be adapted to a wide variety of use scenarios. On January 25th I gave a presentation, Listen Now…Talk Later: Listening as the foundation of your social media strategy, to our "Local Entrepreneur & Social Media Network Meetup Group" (run by another client) in which I discussed listening in this broader context. After reading this you may find it helpful to peruse those slides as they include screenshots and other examples of what I'll discuss here.

Listening for brand, product and service monitoring.

For marketers and public relations professionals, monitoring is nothing new. They've used clipping services to monitor brand and product mentions in mainstream media, conducted focus groups and surveys among customers and target audiences, and otherwise monitored feedback and opinion for years.

Monitoring our brands and products is important for a variety of reasons. Whether you're the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or an individual freelancer, monitoring can give you insights into:

• Brand/Product/Service awareness (name recognition)
• Brand/Product/Service perception (what do people think of who you are and what you offer)
• Customer Satisfaction (how happy are current customers)
• Your Competition
• Your Industry
• Opportunities for product/service/customer service improvements
• Opportunities for sales and lead generation
• Market needs (gaps in the industry which you may be able to fill by providing a new product or service)
• Liabilities (product faults, bad press, potential communications crises...), etc.

Now that we're in an era when customers blog and share opinions via Twitter—and media outlets publish their content online—monitoring is easier than every before. Rather than paying for expensive clipping services, we can search online ourselves. If the budget allows, we can also use commercial monitoring tools that can give us far more data than we've had in the past.

In this video a somewhat unscrupulous boss finds a new opportunity to take advantage of buyers after social media listening uncovers a customer service problem related to cow making equipment.

When you listen to what mainstream media and the public have to say about you, your competition and your industry, you can then apply that knowledge to everything from your marketing strategies to product development. For example, If you manufacture machines that make plastic cows, and your listening habits tell you of a growing need for plastic pigs, you can retool your equipment to produce pig making machines and get a jump on your competition.

Or, if a user has found fault with your plastic cow making equipment, you can fix the problem for that customer and put your engineers to work to make sure that it doesn't happen again. If the customer has complained publicly, you can also publicly share how you solved the problem to your customer's satisfaction—thus resolving the issue before the customer feels compelled to share his complaint so loudly that it becomes the most watched video on YouTube.

Listening is only half the battle. You still have to make plans for what you'll do with what you learn. But if you listen, then you can plan…instead of having to react in an emergency when it may be too late.

Listening for content curation.

Just as we listen to what customers think about our products, we can also listen to learn more about their interests. If we can find out what intrigues them, then we can create content strategies designed to serve their needs as well as our own goals. Listening also helps us select the content we share on our blogs and through our social media channels. Many companies just blog about themselves. Their Facebook status updates all relate to product news, usage tips and announcements. If you're Apple this type of content could be interesting enough to draw in readers. But if you manufacture plastic cow-making equipment it probably isn't.

By listening to your target audience (plastic cow and other novelty toy manufacturers) you can find out what else they want to hear. Perhaps they've shown an interest in toy trends or the development of new polymers that can produce more resilient cows. If you keep listening you can find blog articles, news stories and Web sites that appeal to their interests and share them through your social media channels.

When you become the go-to source for the information they seek, you give them a far better reason to follow you than if you only shared information about you.

Listening to converse

Imagine this conversation on Twitter. Here a dog food manufacturer quickly offends his new follower by talking at him, instead of to him. (No dogs were injured in the making of this video.)

The easiest people to listen to are the ones with whom we already have a connection. These include the people who comment on our blogs, the people we follow on Twitter, the friends we make on Facebook, Ning, etc. If we want to make friends, share information with peers, convert followers to customers, and so forth, we can begin to forge these connections by listening to them.

On Twitter this means reading your stream one or more times per day and responding to Tweets that are relevant to your industry or interest. If you have a Facebook Fan page this means visiting your page daily to respond to comments and posts made by fans. How often you do this depends on your own situation.

To those familiar with social media this seems obvious, but for those more accustomed to traditional publishing channels, this is a new idea.

When I was working at Case Western Reserve University I created the Case News Twitter account to share our latest news and press releases. These were (and still are) automatically posted to Twitter via Twitterfeed. I then started following Tweeps who might be interested in the university and followed back those who followed the account (with the exception of spammers).

Once a day (usually during lunch) I would skim through the stream to see what people had to say. If it was something related to Case or academia I would respond. In doing so I could answer questions, wish students good luck on exams, thank alumni for donating, etc. I also added event and other postings of interest that weren't included in the automated news feed. Doing this helped me connect with followers and gave me a better sense of what they wanted to hear from Case. It also showed readers that someone was listening and would respond if they wrote to us.

Many organizations just post without listening. This works fine for services like Twitter accounts that post weather updates. But for organizations that want to use social media to build business, posting without listening and responding can send a message that you don't really care what customers think. It can also lead to a rather boring Twitter stream that customers don't find interesting enough to read. This isn't unique to Twitter. The same principles apply to Facebook, Ning, YouTube, MySpace and others.

If you follow a large number of people you won't be able to read everything. But if you check in once or more per day, read all replies and skim the rest of the updates you'll easily find opportunities to converse.

How to listen: news, social media and related searches

Tools and services such as Radian 6 and Social Mention are designed to help with monitoring, but you can also learn a lot through targeted searches. By searching on brand and product names, keywords related to your industry, competitor names and related topics you can find news stories, blog posts, social media comments, discussion boards and other online resources related to what you are monitoring. Here are a few (of many) possible sites to use for social media and related searches.

• Addict-o-matic (social media monitoring)
• Board Tracker (discussion board search)
• Delicious (social bookmarks)
• Digg (crowdsourcing)
• Google News
• Google Blog Search
• How Sociable? (brand visibility scores - more useful for comparison w/competition)
• Reddit (crowdsourcing)
• Same Point (social media search)
• Social Mention (social media monitoring)
• StumbleUpon (crowdsourcing)
• Twitter Search
• Whos Talking (social media search)
• Yahoo Advanced News Search

You'll notice that some of these are typical search sites while others may include bookmarking and other services. Which of these is best for you will depend on your goals and your industry. Generally you'll find that you can choose a select combination of tools that suits your particular situation. Subscribing to blogs in your industry is also a useful way to find out what topics are hot in your field and discover articles you may wish to share with your followers.

The link to this Simpsons Coke commercial was the most popular message found when searching Twitter for "coke" today. (The Superbowl was yesterday, so it makes sense that a Coke ad would dominate the search results.)

When searching it is worth noting that it is easy to get false positives. If you are "Coca Cola" then most of your results for that phrase will be appropriate—but a search on "Coke" may also bring up posts that have nothing to do with refreshing fizzy beverages. Key word terms and phrases can be equally vague. A search on recruiting may bring results ranging from employment and military recruiting to student recruitment and recruiting for cults. But if you specify something like "executive recruiting" you can get more focused results. You may need to experiment a bit to find keyword combinations that provide the results you seek. For Twitter searches you can also compare your results for plain keywords and commonly used hashtags. #recruiting, for example, is popularly used as a hashtag for recruiting related to employment.

Subscribing and sharing via RSS Readers

Many of the search tools listed above will provide you with an RSS feed for your search. Feeds allow you to subscribe to your search so you don't have to conduct fresh searches each time you want to listen.

For those unfamiliar with RSS, such feeds function like magazine subscriptions. If you subscribed to the print edition of National Geographic, then a new issue would show up in your mail box each month. When you subscribe to an RSS feed, new articles show up in your feed reading software as they become available.

Google Reader is one of the most popular feed readers. Once you sign up for a Google Reader account you can subscribe to blog posts and search feeds and organize them by topics for easy viewing. To read the articles you just check Google Reader on a regular basis as you would check your e-mail account.

Slides 22-30 in the Listen Now, Talk Later presentation include a video and screen shots that demonstrate how one uses Google Reader. Google Reader is but one of many readers available, but most work in a similar manner. NetVibes is another popular choice. Some users also use e-mail programs such as Outlook to subscribe to feeds.

To listen is to learn

Listening takes time, but with the right tools we can find manageable ways to listen. What we learn will then guide us to better serve our audience. Now it's my turn to listen to you. I've only covered the broad strokes of this topic here. If you have more tips and ideas for social media listening, please share them in the comments below.

Social Media Listening Resources

When I pick the related links to share in my blog entries, I try to choose articles that will expand on what I've written, or offer a different perspective or insight, so that you can delve deeper into the topic. While some are found through Google I also find them using the listening strategies I've discussed in this post. The following were found via blogs I subscribe to, Twitter searches, Delicious and Google searches.

• 5 Simple Twitter Listening Tips Every Marketer Should Know by ReadWriteWeb's Elyssa Pallai
• Framing Your Social Media Efforts by Chris Brogan
• Free Social Media Monitoring Tools
• Listening Literacy For Nonprofits by Beth Kanter
• The Five W's of Social Media Listening by Chuck Hemann
• The Importance of Social Media Audits by Jeremiah Owyang

Fan me on Facebook - Follow me on Twitter

We all know these blog posts don't get written as frequently as I'd like. But that doesn't mean you need to go weeks without hearing me babble. Over on http://www.facebook.com/heidicool, I'm sharing one tip per day, usually as a short paragraph with a link to something interesting I've found in the blogosphere. At one tip per week day it won't clog your Facebook stream, but hopefully you'll find something useful. And for more links (and ramblings that may not always be related to the Web) I usually Tweet and reTweet a few (or several) times per day at @hacool. (I also have links to more accounts on My Social Media Profiles page.)

Note to local northeast Ohio readers: The Lake Erie Moose Society is holding its monthly meeting tonight, February 8, 2009. If you blog, or are thinking about blogging please feel free to join us.

Monday I started redesigning a site that I'd first built in 2003. Tuesday I received today's mission from Problogger's 31 Days to Build a Better Blog project: "Write a list post." Somewhere in my brain these thoughts collided, so today I thought I'd share some of the core issues I consider when working on a redesign project.

Why do you want to redesign your Web site?

Hint: The answer is not "because the old site is old and boring and I'm sick of looking at it. I want something new." A lot of site owners use this line of reasoning, but we have to keep in mind that we're designing sites for our visitors, not ourselves. If you're thinking about redesigning a site, take stock of the old one.

Look at your site analytics and read your visitor feedback to gauge what is or isn't working. As Cameron Moll wrote in 2005, Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign, so it is up to you determine which changes will enhance your site and which are change for the mere sake of change.

Web site goals

You've heard me wax forth about goals in my Planning Your Web Site Tutorial, so you already know that you have to set specific goals to develop content and measure results. Presumably you did that when you first built the site. But things change over time. Does your original goal still apply? Or is it time to focus on something else? For the site I'm working on now, the goal remains the same, but the scope has expanded. The site was developed to market one product. Now the company has 9 products in 3 product lines. These lines have related, but slightly different target audiences. So while the site still has a goal to sell widgets, it must now be adapted to appeal to a broader audience.

That site had, and continues to have, a clear objective. Such objectives are easy to determine for small commercial sites. For others it is more difficult. Most of us want our sites to do it all: sell more widgets, increase brand recognition, make coffee, etc. But if we try to tackle too much we'll never develop a clear vision. Instead try to focus on one primary objective. What do you want the site to accomplish this year? Is this the same objective you had originally or have situations changed in such a way that you should now focus on something else?

Let's say you're the chair of the philosophy department at University X. You have an interest in applying philosophical thinking to real-world scenarios and want to add more interdisciplinary classes—covering topics such as cognition and intellectual property. Doing so will require more faculty—and the funding to hire them. To make a case for this you must demonstrate a demand for these courses, a demand that can be shown if there is an increase in the number of students taking philosophy classes or, better yet, selecting philosophy as their major.

You have several weighty goals for the department, but if you establish student recruitment as the primary goal of your Web site, you are one step closer to achieving the rest.

Content: What information must you provide to support your goal?

Given that you already have a site, you may have existing content that will also serve your goal. That said it can be distracting to sort through what exists and what doesn't. Instead come up with a new outline based on the new goal. You can then use that to determine what old content to keep or revise, what content to create anew, and how the content should be organized.

For our philosophy site we can consider our recruitment goal by asking the following types of questions. What do students need to know about philosophy to decide if it is right for them? What are the features of the program? What benefits will it provide? What are the requirements?

Students must be given sufficient information to determine if the subject is right for them or not. Philosophy seems vague and esoteric to many, so the site should define the topic, the skill sets used in studying it and the benefits gained from its study. In our current economy, when many choose a major based on how it will help them find a job, it's also helpful to show the practical value of studying philosophy.

I majored in Philosophy because I found it intriguing. I'm the kind of nerd who liked the story problems in algebra; I see the world as a series of puzzles. The study of philosophy gave me a new approach to solving these puzzles, a framework through which I could approach problem solving from a variety of vantage points. I later discovered that this type of critical thinking applies as much to marketing and Web design as it does to hypothetical questions of ethics and meaning.

Prospective students and their parents may not yet know this. My parents supported my choice as they were already strong supporters of a classic liberal arts education. But they had friends who weren't. Vocal friends who asked things like "What are you going to do with a degree in philosophy, sit on a mountain top dispensing wisdom?

In this day and age it's not enough to show that philosophy builds critical thinking skills that can be applied to all aspects of life. People are more skeptical about spending money on a degree that doesn't seem as practical as one in business or engineering. To counter such obstacles you'll need to show exactly how the philosophical method can be applied to the real world. Examples of logical fallacies used in advertising, or ethical questions regarding file-sharing, help demonstrate how the specific reasoning skills learned in the study of philosophy can be applied in real life.

Whether your goal is to share information or sell more widgets, it's important to think about the audience. What information do they require to make the choice to do what you wish them to do? Get into their heads, consider the goal from their perspective, do market research, then apply what you've learned to developing your content.

Content formats: how can we most effectively convey this information?

These days people are anxious to add video and interactivity to their sites to show that they are keeping up with the latest technologies. But video isn't appropriate for everything. Think about the content first and let that help you determine its format. Will you be including a list of available philosophy classes and course descriptions on the site? How would you present that? Would you show a video of Professor Smith reading the course descriptions? Or would you present the information as text? I'd go with text.

How is a philosophy class different than one in math or history? Would it help students to see a class in action? Perhaps this is the time to videotape Professor Smith. If he's known for leading dynamic class discussions, ask him if he'd let you video tape a few seminars. This allows you to share his expertise and knowledge with the public while also letting prospective students see what a philosophy class is like.

Do you want to include educational resources on ethics or logic that will teach students about the field while also enticing their interest? Perhaps you could create a blog or discussion forum in which you pose questions so that readers can respond.

If you think carefully about the information you wish to share and what site visitors should do with it, you'll soon find yourself choosing content formats that are far more appropriate than some talking head yammering at a camera.

Organization/navigation

Once you've come up with a list of the content, and content formats, you will need to support your specific goal, you can organize it into an outline or site map that will guide you in organizing the content and navigational structure of the site. As before try not to look too much to your old site for guidance at first. Instead look at your outline with fresh eyes. Put yourself in the mind of your target audience, and see which content items form logical content clusters.

Then, when your new outline is complete, compare it to the old site. Is the new structure completely different? Or are there only slight variations? This will help you determine whether your revised site will need a new menu system or just some minor adjustments. Also look at your site analytics. Are there pages on the current site that are important but don't get enough traffic? Are those pages hard to find? Is the content less than compelling? Will your new outline make it easier for visitors to find and view these pages?

Whether our new site will be redesigned entirely, or modified slightly, we can learn a lot from the statistics for our old site. They can show us the pathways visitors use to get to specific pages, the amount of time people spend on pages, and which pages they are likely to use as exits from our site. If certain pathways are often used we can try to maintain them so that we don't break anything that is currently working well.

The pages our visitors spend the most time on are typically the most important. If they're not on your new site outline, you may wish to add them. Are there important pages (to you) on the old site that visitors don't spend time viewing? Do these pages support your new goal? If so consider how you can make these easier to find and improve the content so they provide more value to visitors.

Technology/code

Ideally your old site was built in W3C standards compliant HTML using semantic mark-up. If so it will make it far easier to re-use any of the old content you intend to keep. If not, here is your opportunity to clean things up. Whether you are making significant design changes or minor alterations this project will probably involve edits to every page. Given that, it's a good chance to make some changes.

Did your old site use a table-based layout? Did you use bolded paragraph elements instead of headers? If so, try recoding your site using CSS and semantic mark-up. This will both clean up your code (so you're not stuck trying to make sense of all those old nested tables) and help with search engine optimization (SEO).

Also consider how technology has changed and what new options are available through your hosting provider. For example I used to use SSI (server-side includes) to include repeating elements such as headers, menus and footers. I'm now using PHP which also makes it easier to create unique page titles based on my page headers. If your content will include new features such as videos and interactivity, research the best methods for presenting these. Perhaps a content management system or blogging software would help. For my project I'm using WordPress. This makes it easier for me to group items by category and generate RSS feeds and will allow the client to post event and product announcements.

Your needs will vary, but if you take the time now to determine what the best practices are for the features you'll require, you'll find that the site is easier to rebuild and maintain.

Graphic Design

People assume that a redesign means a change in the visual look and feel of the site. But how much you change depends on your goals. Does the current look support your corporate identity and brand? Does it work with the new goal? Does it support the navigational scheme of the new site plan? Do visitors like it? If so, a dramatic change may not be necessary, it may in fact cause confusion. If this is the case you may want to just tweak things here and there to support the new structure.

On the other hand, if you've changed your logo, the old design doesn't serve the new goals or if your site looks like it was built by someone's 10 year old nephew, then yes, change is in order. Let the new goal and your brand identity lead the way.

I take a fairly minimalist approach to design. I don't want flashy graphics and images to compete with the message. Instead I want them to augment the message. But the header image on the site I'm redesigning focuses on only one product. Now that there are more products I'm changing the header graphics and color scheme to better reflect the theme of the full product line. For example, if my site had originally been about grapes, I might have had pictures of grapes and vineyards on the site. But if the company now sells a variety of fruits, my imagery must reflect that.

There's neither time nor space here to fully discuss design theory, but as you work on your new design concepts, keep your visitors in mind. Your favorite color may be hot pink, but your site is meant for your visitors so choose color schemes and readable typography that make it easy for them.

Marketing

Build your new site with marketing in mind. Properly marked-up code, and the use of keywords in your content (especially headers) will improve SEO, thus making your site more easily found in the future. Avoid technology choices, such as using Flash for your entire site, that don't support SEO, page linking, bookmarking, cross-browser compatibility, etc.

Compare your new site plan to the old. Try to keep the old file structure intact as much as possible. If your site has been around for awhile, then others are already linking to your pages and those pages are ranked in Google and other search engines. You don't want to lose what you've already established, so if you can avoid moving old pages, that will help. If you must move or delete old pages, then use 301 redirects to guide visitors seamlessly to the new pages.

When you launch the new site, consider this an opportunity to re-connect with your visitors. If appropriate, poll your visitors before and after the redesign process to get their input. People hate change but they like to feel included. It's impossible to design a site that will appeal to everyone, but if you have access to user input, it will help you design a site best suited to your audience.

When the site is ready, you might also send an e-mail, announcing the launch to your existing user base. Some people will praise you, some will opt-out, and some will complain. Respond to the complaints in a timely and thoughtful manner. You may have annoyed them with your changes, but you've also started a conversation with someone who cares enough about your site, product or service to voice their opinion. Keep them onboard by responding to their issues.

As with any Web development project, there are far more details to consider, but I hope these have provided you with a good starting point for your next redesign. If you focus on the goals and the needs of your site visitors you'll be well on your way.

Web Design and Development Resources

• 10 Tips to a Successful Web site Redesign
• Daniel Burka on Iterative Design (video)
• The Definitive Guide to Semantic Web Markup for Blogs
• Understanding Web Design
• Usability First: Web site design

Edu Blogger Scholarship Update

Thanks to everyone who read Learning for fun and adventure: online education comes in many flavors. Through your support I made it to the finals! If you're interested in higher education and related topics, you may want to peruse the blogs of the other finalists. You'll find some good reads there. (Which means I've got some stiff competition.)

Late last night my Twitter friend, @jewelsann announced that she'd just launched the Cantores Cleveland Web site. When I hear someone has launched a new site I typically pay it a visit to see how it turned out. There I discovered that Cantores Cleveland is a local vocal ensemble "devoted to providing an accessible, educational early music experience." Seeing that this was a music site I immediately looked for the audio to see how it was presented. Going to the "Listen" tab, I found a list of five .mp3 files including song titles, track length and file size.

And then I thought, "I wonder if they've considered podcasting." It struck me that podcasting a new song every week, month or other regular interval would be a good way to keep their fans engaged with their music. Or, because they have an educational mission, they could alternate music podcasts with discussion podcasts in which the singers tell stories and explain the history of the early music they perform.

There in the wee hours of the morning my brain had turned to thoughts of content marketing strategies. It was late, so rather than pursue these thoughts I dragged myself to bed, and awoke hours later…thinking about the ways one can use podcasts to provide rich educational content that engages listeners. And by listeners of course I mean our target audience, the people who will enroll in our educational programs, attend our events, support our cause or buy our products.

Podcasts are like product samples delivered regularly to your door.

As you know, the best way to know if you will like something is to try it before you buy it. That's why grocery stores continue to fire up their portable skillets and offer us toothpick-speared bites of low fat chicken sausage in the aisles. It's also why bands like Nine Inch Nails (NIN) give albums away online. In doing so they end up selling more, which in the case of NIN meant topping the Amazon sales charts for 2008.

There are many ways to give away product samples, both online and in the real world, but doing so via podcast gives us two advantages worth considering:

Repetition

Brand recognition is built through repeated exposure to a brand name, product or service. Years ago I had a boss who told me that it takes 16 impressions for a name to stick. (I don't know if 16 still holds true, but we'll stick with that for the point of argument.) In traditional marketing terms this means that each potential customer needs to see 16 ads, media mentions, direct mail pieces or some combination thereof. Online it could mean seeing 16 ads via Google, mentions on Digg or StumbleUpon, etc.

16 doesn't seem like much, but it can take a lot of time and money to get those first 16 exposures one needs to solidify brand recognition. And to maintain recognition one needs to ensure that such exposure continues into the future. Podcasts distributed on a regular periodic basis provide a venue for ongoing exposure.

Automatic Delivery

Some listeners will simply visit your site when they want to hear the latest news, tips, etc. But, if you get visitors to subscribe to your podcast, as I encourage you to subscribe to my blog, you can create a conduit that provides your audience with continual exposure to your brand via regular updates. Every time you produce a new podcast it will be downloaded automatically to iTunes or their podcatcher of choice, automatically reinforcing the connection you've built with the listeners most interested in your organization (a.k.a. your best customers.)

Podcasting Recipe: Inform and Entertain

As I've mentioned before goal driven content should drive technology, not vice versa. I'm not encouraging everyone to run out and start a podcast. For many of you a blog will provide the same advantages of repetition and automatic delivery.

But some of you, both in higher education and industry, have access to information and resources that would be well suited to an audio or video format. Every situation is different, so to illustrate my point here are some examples of podcasts that fill an audience need while also reinforcing branding and other marketing goals.

Boagworld

Boagworld is "the podcast for those involved in designing, developing and running Web sites." I also wrote about this in 2007 in my Boagworld podcast recommendation. As a Boagworld listener I gain new insights and ideas regarding my field of Web development. As a podcast producer, Paul Boag has built up brand name recognition and solidified his reputation as one of the leading Web designers in the world. This undoubtedly helps bring more business to his design firm, Headscape, and also leads to speaking engagements, book sales, and so forth.

Off the Shelf

Librarian Bill Claspy, of Case Western Reserve University's Kelvin Smith Library, created Off the Shelf to expose people to faculty authors from the university. In these half-hour podcasts, Claspy interviews authors about their latest books and their approach to writing so that we, the listeners, gain new insights into the topics within the books while also learning more about the writing process and the personalities behind their work. As an avid reader—who has read some of these author's works—I find it intriguing to hear the story behind the stories. As a writer, who has yet to get far on my first novel—though I can wax forth endlessly here—I also find it helpful to learn about their writing habits and what compels them to get the words from mind to computer.

Disclaimer: I discovered this podcast when I was still working at Case, have come to know some of the authors involved, and have had many e-mail discussions with Bill Claspy about the project. When I first discovered the site, I knew I'd subscribe, but I was also intrigued by the marketing possibilities.

This podcast serves many roles. On an individual basis it provides exposure to the authors, their publishers and their books. For those titles written for a mainstream audience this could garner more sales. The quality of the podcast also reflects well on the university, by showcasing the talented faculty available to students who enroll there, and by supporting the university brand through the repetition of the podcasts. It also serves students who may decide to apply to the school or enroll in an author's class based on what they've heard in the podcast. Thus, in just 30 minutes per episode, Off the Shelf, not only entertains, but also supports a multitude of listener and marketing goals.

Inside Colby: For Students, By Students

The student produced podcast, Inside Colby, offers informal discussions of campus life, programs, surveys, student projects, interviews and other topics offering insight into what life is like at Colby College. Inside Colby truly does what the name suggests, it provides a taste of the Colby experience while also exposing students to new campus opportunities.

While communicating with students is the primary mission, the podcast also serves a valuable marketing role. For prospective parents and students, Inside Colby, let's them know what to expect. It reveals the personality behind the Little Ivies reputation and the beautiful campus, showcasing everything from what students wear (casual-outdoorsy-preppy) to the wealth of activities they engage in—whether they're playing lacrosse, taking classes in the blacksmith shop or ghost hunting in the theater.

For alumni, such as yours truly, Inside Colby invokes nostalgia. As I listen to the students discuss the different personalities of the dining halls or hear an interview with a professor I had, I'm immediately transported back to Mayflower Hill, cross-country skiing in the arboretum and eating a Colby 8 (cheeseburger with fried egg) in the campus pub. While Colby's monthly newsletter, Out of the Blue keeps in me in touch with campus happenings, the student podcast puts me on campus—at least in my mind. And, as it should, it also reminds me that I should figure how much I can afford to give come June 3oth, the end of the fiscal year.

Why (or when to use) audio/video rather than text

Podcasts, as we've seen in the above examples come in many forms. The trick is having the resources and the personalities necessary to create an audio or video experience that surpasses what you could provide in text. Podcasts can offer information similar to text, but add a depth of experience that let's us feel we're part of a conversation. They can be informal discussions or instructional lectures, so long as they include content that somehow seems more fitting when heard or viewed than it would in print.

Boagworld, for example, is also a content rich Web site that would be a perfectly suitable resource unto itself. It features blog posts that cover material similar to the podcast (handy for reference) and a discussion forum. The podcast builds on this by offering an hour of entertaining commentary, tips and interviews with industry leaders that I can listen to at my convenience. While I may not have time to keep up with all my blog subscriptions, I can plug my iPod into the car and listen to the repartee between Paul Boag and Marcus Lillington so that I can keep learning while I'm away from my computer.

This portability in time and space is key. I'm an avid reader. My house is overflowing with books while my Google Reader account is hemorrhaging more blog entries than I can ever hope to keep up with. But when I'm not on my couch with a novel or my Macbook Pro, I can still ingest information by learning about the Library of Alexandria via the BBC or getting cooking tips from The Splendid Table.

If you can offer similar information, be it lectures from your academic department, or educational resources related to your products or services, you too can engage listeners—like me—with an interest in what you have to say.

A few more podcasts worth exploring

• The Moth Spellbinding Story Telling
• Messing About in Ships News and views of the maritime industry
• This Week in Tech Leo Laporte and friends discuss all things tech and usually something about Twitter
• Creative Xpert Interviews with designers
• City Club of Cleveland Forum for free speech

Help Heidi win a blog scholarship!

Read Learning for fun and adventure: online education comes in many flavors between March 18-30th, and click on the red "Edu Blogger Scholarship" image. Every click made during that time period brings me one step closer to the finals.

Since we released the logos on Monday, I've received a number of questions regarding file formats. The .gif files I made for the Web are pretty easy to use, but many of you are also incorporating logos into your print projects, and aren't sure which version to use when. To help you choose the best format for your project, here is a bit of background on the differing file formats and some recommendations on their use. Follow the links within the text to learn more about each of these formats.

Vector Files: Resizable line drawings appropriate for printed applications

Vector Graphics, created by drawing programs, are defined mathematically. Whether you draw a circle, a line, or the letter A, the program defines your shapes by factors such as X,Y coordinates, line width, curve radius, etc. If you draw a small circle in a vector-based drawing program you can shrink it or enlarge it without any loss of definition. As you enlarge it the program will recalculate the data keeping your circle smooth at any size.

Graphic artists typically use vector drawing programs such as Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Freehand to create line art such as logos and illustrations. Vector programs can be used to layout printed documents such as space ads and street banners, or to export graphics that are imported into page layout programs such as InDesign and animation programs such as Flash.

Vector Versions of the Case Logo

The Case logos were created in Adobe Illustrator and saved as .eps (Encapsulated PostScript) files that you can import into a page layout program for use in printed materials. These are the most appropriate files to use for projects that will be commercially printed. When you import them into a program such as InDesign or Quark you can then make the logo either larger or smaller without loss of resolution. These logos have a transparent background and can thus be placed on a variety of colored backgrounds. Note: If you import these files into a Word Processing program such as Microsoft Word, the logos will only print properly if outputted to a Postscript device. If you need to import the logo into a Word document you may prefer a different format.

Bitmapped/Raster Files: Photographs, color gradients, line art for use in onscreen applications such as the World Wide Web and PowerPoint

Raster graphics, commonly referred to as bitmaps, are defined by pixels. Imagine your picture is a chessboard in which each square (pixel) is defined as a certain color. On screen these squares are usually defined by a combination of values for Red, Green and Blue. Thus, when you look at a photograph or raster image you are really looking at a mosaic. It the mosaic is composed of sufficiently small squares, and these squares come in a large enough variety of colors, then your image will look smooth. Computer monitors that display more pixels per inch and 24 bit or higher color produce more realistic images than older monitors. Bitmapped images can be shrunk, but they cannot be enlarged to any great degree. If you enlarge a bitmapped image you are in effect just creating a picture with larger squares. When working with raster art always start with the highest resolution available.

It is also worth noting that raster images to be displayed on screen are measured in pixels rather than inches or centimeters. This is important to remember because it means the image will appear in different sizes on different computer monitors. If I'm editing a 72 x 72 pixel image in Photoshop, I can define that image to be 72 pixels per inch. But if I take a real ruler and hold it up to my screen I will see that the image is actually smaller than one inch. That is because my monitor displays more than 72 pixels per inch. If I look at the same image on a low resolution monitor my ruler may measure the picture to be an inch or even larger. While pixels per inch are a relative notion on screen they are important for printed applications. If using a photograph in a brochure you will want it to have a resolution of at least 300 pixels per inch. On your desktop printer you may find a range of 125 -225 pixels per inch works well. (Consult your printers documentation.)

Bitmapped versions of the Case Logo

Bitmapped logo files are available in .gif, .jpg, .wmf and .png formats. These are packaged in sets downloadable as .zip files. Your best option for printed matter will be .eps files followed by .jpg for positive images and .png for reversed images.

Graphics Interchange Format (.gif)

Logos and banner photos for use on Case Web sites are distributed in .gif format via the Banner Logos and Photos page in the Web Toolkit. This format works well for logos because it retains crisp edges and compresses cleanly. One can also create .gif images with transparent backgrounds which can be useful in many applications. This format is not recommended for color photographs as it only supports 256 colors per file. Logos for other uses are also available in .gif format via the Case Logos page. These should only be used for low-resolution applications, and not on Case Web sites.

Joint Photographic Experts Group (.jpg, .jpeg)

Logos are distributed in .jpg format via the Case Logos page. This format is suitable for applications in which the images won't be enlarged, such as MS Word documents. Note: The JPEG format does not allow for transparent backgrounds, so reverse versions of the logo are not available in this format. JPEG is the preferred format to use when displaying photographs onscreen.

Windows Metafile (.wmf)

Logos are distributed in .wmf format via the Case Logos page. Technically .wmf files are vector format but they can also include bitmapped images. This format tends to be less crisp than the .jpg files, but does support transparent backgrounds. Use only in low-resolution applications.

Portable Network Graphics (.png)

Logos are distributed in a .zip file in .png format via the PowerPoint Assets header on the Word and PowerPoint Templates page. This format compresses cleanly, offers the best transparency support and works well when using reversed logos against a colored background.

In Conclusion

If you have a print project, your best option will be to use the .eps files, for Web sites use the .gif files in the Web Toolkit, and for PowerPoint presentations use the .png files.

If you are developing your own print documents, Adobe Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator are all available from the Software Center. If you need professional design assistance, please contact Creative Services.

Implementing the new sun logo on your site is easy; it's simply a matter of replacing two image files.

Replacing the files

1. Go to the Banner Logos & Photos page. This page features the files for gray banners. If your site uses a different color, just choose that color in the menu and follow the link to that page.
2. Right click (Windows) or Ctrl-click (Mac) on the Left Edge image and save it to the images directory for your Web site. If you have not renamed your original files you will be told that the file already exists and asked if you want to replace it. Say yes*.
3. Right click (Windows) or Ctrl-click (Mac) on the Main Logo image and save it to the images directory for your Web site. If you have not renamed your original files you will be told that the file already exists and asked if you want to replace it. Say yes.
4. Upload the new files to your Web server using Dreamweaver or your preferred file transfer program.
5. Visit your Web site to make sure the new images are now visible on your site.

* The new image files are being distributed with the same names as the old files, so that users won't have to edit their HTML files. If you renamed your original image files you will have to rename the new files correspondingly.

Examples

Web site banners currently consist of three images. The left half of the square, the right half of the logo, and the right hand background photo. Only the left and right logo files will be replaced as illustrated below.

The old left edge of the blue square in the old logo will be replaced with a plain white rectangle.

Old Left Edge - left_logo_edge.gif

New Left Edge - left_logo_edge.gif

The right side of the old logo will be replaced with the new logo.

Old Right Logo - logo_CWRU_navy.gif

New Logo - logo_CWRU_navy.gif

Troubleshooting

If you're still not seeing the new logo on your site after following the above instructions, you'll want to make sure that the files are in the proper directory and that they have the correct name. To verify what the names and directories should be, go to your site, choose "View Source" and look for something similar to this:

<td><img alt="" id="leftlogo" src="images/left_logo_edge.gif" width="24" height="50" /></td> <td colspan="2" valign="top"> <table cellpadding="0" border="0" cellspacing="0" summary="layout"> <tr> <td><a href="http://www.case.edu"><img alt="case western reserve university" src="images/logo_CWRU_grey.gif" width="300" height="108" /></a></td> <td valign="bottom" class="masthead"><h1>(h1 style) SITE NAME</h1></td>

This example shows that the files left_logo_edge.gif and logo_CWRU_grey.gif are both located in the images directory. If your path looks different, make sure you copy the files to the directory indicated. If your file names don't match, simply rename name your images to match the file names shown in your code.

After uploading the image files again, refresh the page in your browser and the new logo should now be visible.