Michael Fienen | .eduGuru

Author Archives | Michael Fienen

Michael Fienen - who has written 43 posts on .eduGuru.

Michael joined Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, KS (NOT Pennsylvania, they spell it wrong anyway) in 2006 as the Web Marketing Manager. Don't worry, he doesn't know what that means either. Web development's role as a tool for interpersonal communication is a principle focus of his efforts to improve and enhance higher ed web commodities. He is an active supporter of the dotCMS community, accessibility advocate, freelance consultant, and general purpose geek who wears many hats. Read his complete bio.

The Web Singularity is Near

Friday, February 5, 2010

12 Comments

I should probably feel terrible for making a play on Ray Kurzweil’s famous book title, because I don’t think I’m quite good enough to borrow from someone like him. But, I did it anyway. I know, I’m without shame. I’ve come to terms with that. I want to go a little editorial on you all [...]

Want help? Ask the Gurus!

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

3 Comments

Okay, today marks the launch of an exciting new experiment – and hopefully permanent addition to the .eduGuru web site. We all have a lot of resources at our disposal in our day to day job, and we want you to consider us among them. So, to kick this off, note the new button in [...]

[Results] Are Classes in Your Toolbox?

Friday, January 29, 2010

2 Comments

Towards the end of 2009, we started a new survey of higher ed web professionals to take a look at one potential way that you are using the resources around you. The question centered on a fairly simple, central concept: odds are that on your campus you have classes teaching the creation of different kinds [...]

IMHO 7 Reasons Why Higher Ed Is the Best Gig in All the Web

Thursday, January 28, 2010

16 Comments

Okay, I simply couldn’t resist tossing out a counterpoint here. This topic was started by Mark Greenfield (who was following up on a Steve Krug presentation) and continued here recently by my colleague Nikki. The reason that I want to run this from the other side is twofold: one, sometimes we just need a boost. [...]

Best Admission Uses of Twitter

Monday, January 11, 2010

12 Comments

For 2010, it is safe to expect that Twitter will not see a diminished roll in university marketing and admissions strategy plans. However, it’s hard to avoid that some people will be coming to the web guys to have them set up their admissions office with Twitter (or will do it themselves), but then will [...]

[Guru Survey] Are Classes In Your Toolbox?

Monday, December 7, 2009

1 Comment

Good budgeting includes doing effective resource management. The web has to produce a lot of different media, and so making the most of our resources is extremely important. This is becoming increasingly important as we’re asked to do more with less. The neat thing about higher ed though is that we have access to a [...]

Learning SEO From Lady GaGa

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

15 Comments

Dear God, forgive me my sins, for I must speak the name of the Unholy One. I mean Lady GaGa. Let me be very clear on this point: prior to a couple months ago, aside from hearing some passing references to the name, I really had no clue who she was. Frankly… I’m still not [...]

Is There a Brain Drain Coming?

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

8 Comments

Just last night, it was announced that the State of Kansas would be making its fifth round of budget cuts (cutting higher ed back to 2006 levels), now equaling a full $1 billion in cuts from of what was originally supposed to be a $6 billion state operating budget. Kansas is small potatoes. Students recently [...]

Mobile Analytics Revisited (Have You Been Keeping Up?)

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

9 Comments

Mobile Analytics Revisited (Have You Been Keeping Up?)

This past March, I wrote a tutorial that described some techniques of measuring mobile traffic in Google Analytics. Believe it or not, you can’t just set that kind of stuff and forget it. In just the eight months since then, the topography of the mobile landscape has changed, and I wanted to share some changes [...]

Building Your Own Listening Post

Monday, October 19, 2009

5 Comments

The basic concept of the social web and Web 2.0 is one of conversations and user generated content. Engagement. Interaction. My focus today is on the former, with a dab of latter. Universities are much like other big brands, people talk about us in a lot of places, in a lot of ways, both good [...]