Please don't call it "IUB"

It one of my personal crusades. I constantly advocate against use of "IUB" as an abbreviation for the campus name in external communications, especially official documents like press releases and public-facing websites. This may seem trivial, but I feel that concern is justified.

First, according to the IU Style Guide, the official name of the Bloomington campus is still "Indiana University," and we only use "Indiana University Bloomington" for the sake of clarity (to denote the campus specifically when confusion with the state-wide system might occur). So, unlike IUPUI, "IUB" is not an official acronym.

Second, every public use of "IUB" fails to leverage – and, worse yet, actually undermines – the value of the "IU" brand which has been established over the past 100+ years. The easiest way to illustrate this point is that no one ever refers to our sports teams as the "IUB Hoosiers" (and, for good or ill, our sports teams are still the most highly visible extension of our brand).

I think the most obvious cause for this confusion is that "iub" appears in our campus website URL. However, a website URL is not the same as a brand, and this is just one example. It's an unfortunate conflict but, at least for now, we have to live with it. Some universities have already gone so far as to "rebrand" their institutional URLs. For example, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign recently changed their institutional URL from www.uiuc.edu to www.illinois.edu.

At the very least, I hope that you will consider avoiding use of "IUB" as an abbreviation in official communications, like press releases, etc. And, in the future, I hope that you might consider removing references to "IUB" from your site(s), whenever or however it is convenient for you to do so. I appreciate your time and indulgence.

Normally, this is the sort of thing that would be handled by a campus communications/marketing director; but, given that there is no such representative for the Bloomington campus, I’m the only one able to carry the message.

Field Trip!

Today, our campus website development team grabbed our cell phones and laptops and crammed inside of a 4-door sedan for a drive up to Indianapolis to meet with the IUPUI campus web team (http://ocm.iupui.edu/staff/). For an hour and a half, we talked about how they run their office and their site.

The atmosphere was very collegial and the conversation was very informative. I think that sometimes Bloomington and IUPUI are unfairly characterized as rivals. Certainly, we have two very different campuses with very different personalities. But, at the end of the day, each of us loves our campuses for all the right reasons. There is a lot to be gained from working together.

Blast from the Past, Pt. 3

In 2001, a new Chancellor was appointed to lead the Bloomington campus of Indiana University. And, in 2002, the campus received a new website to reflect the new era. (Click on the image for a closer look.)


Argh! I can't believe the official campus homepage used the "IUB" acronym. I am going to have to write a whole other post about that issue.

Connecting with Fans via Facebook

Just after Noon on Friday, Feb. 27, an update message went out to fans of the IU page on Facebook, asking them to participate in the current campus website visitor feedback survey.

This was the first time that IU made use of an update to communicate with all of IU's facebook followers simultaneously. As such, we weren't quite sure what the response would be. Would loyal fans enthusiastically take action to support their favorite school or would they interpret this as an abuse of the fragile fan/school relationship and leave the Facebook page in droves?

Prior to the time the update went out, 625 individuals had completed the survey, over a span of 16 days, for an average of 39 responses per day. The response to the Facebook update was almost immediate, with several new surveys being submitted within minutes. Since the Facebook update went out, 3 days ago, 202 individuals have completed surveys, for an average of 67 responses per day. So the benefits for soliciting feedback were significant.

Of the responses received to the campus web visitor survey since the Facebook update went out, over 50% are from self-identified alumni. For the entire time the survey was available prior to that, alumni accounted for only about 20% of survey responses. But keep in mind that, during this period, the campus web visitor survey was available to anyone visiting the IU Bloomington homepage, and was receiving promotion on the campus Office of Admissions site as well, not just via the update sent to fans of the IU page on Facebook.

But what about the impact on IU's presence on Facebook? Did fans jump ship at the first attempt to engage them? At the time the update was sent, IU had 20,617 fans. And now, 3 days later, the number of fans has increased by 150. So, if anyone decided to remove themselves as an IU fan, they were more than made up for with new fans. If anything, sending the update to Facebook fans seems to have sparked a flurry of activity, with page views, wall posts, and photo comments all showing increases. This period of activity will probably be short-lived, of course.

This is purely my own conjecture, but I assume the relationship between Facebook updates and fan response would prove to be a parabolic function. Keep in mind that this method of contact had not been used previously, so it may have helped reinforce to fans that the Facebook page existed for their use. And, in some cases, it may have served as a reminder that they were even fans to begin with. However, at a certain point, repeated use of Facebook updates would probably annoy our audience and cause some "fair weather" fans and individuals with little tolerance for unsolicited communication to remove their involvement from the Facebook page. So I do not recommended this as a approach we use to communicate with IU fans except in very special (or specific) circumstances; although I concede that more research is needed.

Blast from the Past, pt. 2

It was the year 2000. We'd all survived the dread of Y2K. A new millennium of unlimited potential lay ahead. And Indiana University debuted a new Bloomington campus website. (Click on the image for a closer look.)


Does anyone even remember "INSITE"?

Blast from the Past, pt. 1

Sherman, set the Wayback Machine to 1996... and behold the first official Indiana University Bloomington campus homepage. (You can click on the image for a closer look.)


You've come a long way, baby!

IDS reports on campus Web site 'revamp'

The Indiana Daily Student (IDS) published a story today which serves as a nice little introduction to the campus website redesign project:

IU to revamp campus Web site (by IDS reporter Bailey Loosemore)

The article provides a very general overview of the project and refers to the current visitor feedback survey. Ironically, the story doesn't mention the web address nor provide a link to the campus website.

I would have preferred that the rest of the people involved in the project had been identified as well, rather than just quoting me for everything. Also, I had hoped the story would mention the project blog here, as we are making a sincere attempt to keep our visitors informed and engaged throughout the entire process.

Still, it's a fair assessment of the goals for the redesign and I appreciate the IDS presenting the project in such a positive manner.