1. New Home, New Views
BATES ONLINE – PHASE 1
Jay Collier • Communications and Media Relations
September 10, 2009
2. ONLINE ENGAGEMENT
Context for engagement
Process: Interactive engagement, bridging
broadcast and interpersonal relationships
Result: Mutually-satisfactory exchanges of value
facilitated by online experiences
Benefit: Meaningful impact
Timeline: Continues for a lifetime
3. ONLINE ENGAGEMENT
Vision for engagement
• Start with
FROM
powerful
universal ideas
Powerful, universal
ideas
• Deepen Ambivalence to
involvement Awareness to
Interest to
toward greater
Participation to
commitment Commitment
• Ultimately: TOWARD
build personal Personalized
relationships interactions
4. ONLINE ENGAGEMENT
Online engagement at Bates
• Start with universal, The most universal messaging
persuasive messaging
TELLING THE BATES STORY
• Learn what’s happening in Publishing to global audiences
areas of interest
• Visit public collaboration NEWS, EVENTS, UPDATES
Informing interested people
spaces and participate in the
creation of new knowledge
LEARNING COLLABORATIONS
• Make exchanges of value Creating knowledge together
through online transactions
• Build personal relationships SERVICES & TRANSACTIONS
Exchanging value
and commitment
5. ONLINE ENGAGEMENT
Shift in perspective
• Functional perspective • Engagement perspective
Powerful, universal ideas Powerful, universal ideas
TELLING THE BATES STORY TELLING THE BATES STORY
NEWS, EVENTS, UPDATES NEWS, EVENTS, UPDATES
LEARNING LEARNING
COLLABORATIONS COLLABORATIONS
SERVICES &
SERVICES &
TRANSACTIONS
TRANSACTIONS
Personalized Personalized
interactions
interactions
6. ONLINE ENGAGEMENT
Lifelong engagement
• This deepening of
General
engagement Public
continues over time
• Each time a Bates Prospective Prospective Corporations,
Faculty & Students Foundations
person or partner Sta & Families
enters a new role,
they begin a new Current Current Philanthropic
phase of engagement Faculty & Students, Partners
Sta & Families
• Continuity is
important at those
potential “speed Alumni &
Friends
bumps”
7. ONLINE ENGAGEMENT
Goals of Bates online
• Help Bates people connect with each other, across roles
— student, faculty, staff, alumni — on campus or off.
• Help people connect with the ideas that interest them
the most: scholarship, research, narratives, events, places,
groups, and service.
• Draw constituents and friends into a satisfying and
deepening lifelong experience of Bates that reflects and
expresses core values.
• Make online Bates ultimately portable, so that people can
participate from anywhere, anytime.
8. ONLINE ENGAGEMENT
Principles of effective online experiences
• Be dependable – anywhere, any time, any device
• Be intuitive – simple publishing, searching, finding
• Be useful – helpful information and instructions
• Be engaging – appealing, personal, immersive
• Be personalizable – up to date feeds on personal interests
• Be sociable – online spaces for intellectual collaboration
• Be meaningful – insight into what matters to you
9. ONLINE ENGAGEMENT
Indicators of success
• Increased length of average visit
• Increased number of pages per visit
• Increased number of actions, such
as email subscriptions or clicks to
donation URL
• Increased external use of content
• Improved response time for content
updates
• Reduced technical skills required
for content developers
10. ONLINE ENGAGEMENT
Timeline – 2007
• January: Started prototyping
in Drupal, WordPress, and
Expression Engine
• March: Began establishing
Bates brand in social media,
starting with Facebook,
YouTube, Flickr, Twitter
• December: Began listening
sessions with students,
faculty, staff, alumni, parents
11. ONLINE ENGAGEMENT
Timeline – 2008
• March: “One Bates, Many Journeys”
• May: Collaboration with Cornell
• June: Full-time position from Bill Hiss
• September: Created prototypes for
Bates Views, Explore Bates, and Dabble
database for events, tables, lists
• October: Active development on
prototypes by students
• November: Recruited new producer
• December: Home 4 sponsored
12. ONLINE ENGAGEMENT
Timeline – 2009
• January 2009: Selected strategic
partner agency
• February: Hired and oriented
online media producer
• March: Convened multiple
strategy discovery sessions
• April: Completed final
information architecture
• May: Completed first round
interface design
13. ONLINE ENGAGEMENT
Timeline – 2009
• May: Proposed visual concept
• June: Released clickable prototype
• July: Released campus-wide
• August: Copy & images edited,
external sources, recoded for IE6
• September: Launched Home 4.0
• October: Release Home 4.1 and
Views interface
• Content platform discovery,
selection, configuration, production
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25. ONLINE ENGAGEMENT
Next phase
• Home and Views The most universal messaging
improvements
TELLING THE BATES STORY
• Content platform discovery Publishing to global audiences
• Proposed: Departments and
NEWS, EVENTS, UPDATES
Offices online strategy and
Informing interested people
site production
• Consulting on collaboration
LEARNING COLLABORATIONS
software (wikis, blogs) for Creating knowledge together
groups and teams
SERVICES & TRANSACTIONS
Exchanging value
and commitment
26. EVOLUTION
Thank you
Please help us continuously improve online Bates
Jay Collier — jcollier@bates.edu