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Intelligence
An Affair of the Want & Need

Intelligence

An Affair of the Want & Need

Oct 13, 2007By Voltaire Santos Miran

Had a really good conversation today with the student affairs office of one of our clients. At the end of it, one of the team members mentioned to me that I’d talked a few times about the work that we’d done for a large, public university out east and how they were definitely not like that place. Point very well taken, and shame on me for not being more sensitive in conversation to those differences. Indeed, we do find students are different-sometimes vastly so-from institution to institution, and part of the wonder of the web is the ability to convey those differences effectively.

Got me to thinking what things might stay the same. And I think I can say in good conscience from what I’ve seen that:

  • Most students think in terms of what information they want to learn and what they need to accomplish. They don’t necessarily think in terms of the offices or departments that provide those needful services.
  • Their needs are cyclical—what’s important in August is not important in December.
  • There’s often a divide between what students know … and what they need to know. A website should serve an educational component, highlighting resources that they can take advantage of.
  • Students and their influencers look at “internal” information earlier than we once expected. By the time that they apply, they’ve most likely drilled down into academic departments, read faculty profiles, explored the career services site, and learned whether they can have their car on campus as a freshman.

Makes ease of navigation, clear nomenclature, and intuitive site structure essential, no? How quickly the days of aiming for internet eye candy have passed … 


  • Voltaire Santos Miran EVP, Web Strategy I've developed and implemented communication strategies in education for more than 20 years now. I think my team at mStoner is the smartest, funniest, and coolest group of colleagues ever, and I can't imagine being anywhere else. Except Barcelona. Or Paris. Or Istanbul. To quote Isak Dinesen, "the cure for everything is salt ... tears, sweat, and the sea."