It’s that time of the year again… I’m excited to bring you mStoner’s fourth annual top picks. I hope you’ll discover a new resource to use, person to follow, or book to read from this collection of our favorite websites, apps, and more.
Not familiar with the series? Check out posts from 2011, 2012, and 2013.
What is your top pick for 2014? Why not share it in the comments section below or tweet it using #mStoner.
Higher Ed Awesomesauce
Fordham University produces a lot of news content and, until earlier this month, the awesome university news team didn’t have the right platform for publishing it. Bringing together several publications, the new WordPress newsroom is rich with content, filterable by topic, and visually interesting.
— Susan T. Evans, Senior Director for Strategy
What devices do college-bound seniors use to do research? What information do they look for on college websites? Do parents and college-bound seniors have different communication expectations? The Noel-Levitz 2014 E‑Expectations Report is the Farmers’ Almanac of higher education marketing. If you haven’t seen this year’s report, you need to get it now.
— Doug Gapinski, Strategist
From a layout perspective, The Life Less Ordinary site from Australian Catholic University uses a mobile first strategy to emphasize the most important content, allowing the site visitor to quickly engage with the institution. The call to action on the top left, “Register Your Interest,” is a quick, easy and thorough form that collects important data without fatiguing the user. Fantastic all around!
— Paul Heintz, Design Director
I think that Drexel’s ‘Get Going Today’ microsite is brilliant. It takes an approach to user experience that is very immersive, emotional, and compelling. Also, it makes a critical distinction for academic program pages — to look less at the degree itself and more at the person you can become because of it.
— Fran Zablocki, Strategist
I am wowed every time I get to moderate an mStoner webinar. I work with seriously smart people and appreciate the time they spend developing content for the industry. I learn a ton listening in on their sessions. You can watch many of our previous webinars or sign up for our e‑newsletter to learn about what we’re offering in 2015.
— Mallory Wood, Director of Marketing
If you haven’t already checked out American University’s “We Know Success” micro-site, it’s worth a look. One of the most challenging parts of higher ed branding is translating the institutional brand into messages that speak to the needs and attitudes of the institution’s different and varying audiences. American’s micro-site does a great job of communicating American’s overall brand while speaking to the most important concern of prospective students–namely, “Will I get a job?” It’s on brand, it’s visually interesting, and the message is clear, simple, and effective.
— Deborah Maue, Senior Strategist
I’ve been to the Web Conference at Penn State for the past three years in a row – it’s a great one for web masters, developers, and marketing professionals who want to know more about user experience (UX). You can expect relevant and dynamic keynote speakers and a blend of presenters from within higher education and other industries.
— Doug Gapinski, Strategist
This is the second year in a row that we’ve included this conference in our top picks. Seriously, check it out!
The University of Ottawa thought outside of the box when it came to sharing their annual report. This mini-site shows how impactful video, infographics and layout can elevate an institution as well as explain the best characteristics of the school in a way that’s easy and fun to digest. By breaking this content into a mini-site, the school is able to focus on an intuitive design with a singular narrative. This allowed Ottawa to truly amplify the institution’s unique brand attributes.
— Paul Heintz, Design Director
Books
I’d be remiss if I didn’t recommend #FollowTheLeader: Lessons in Social Media Success from #HigherEd CEOs by Dan Zaiontz, which mStoner will publish next year, for a lot of great insights, ideas, and suggestions for presidents who have questions about how to use social media or people who need to advise them.
— Michael Stoner, President and Co-Founder
The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football is a must read for anyone interested in higher education. This book made me think a great deal about institutional priorities and making a statement in a competitive marketplace.
— Kylie Stanley Larson, Quality Assurance Manager
If you follow Audrey Watters’ blog or @hackeducation or @audreywatters, you’ll know that Watters sense of skepticism about ed tech is very well informed by her in-depth reading and research on the promises made (and largely unfilled) by starry-eyed technology boosters. Still, the ghosts of unfilled prophecies past don’t inhibit many in education from being persuaded that (this time!) technology will help to disrupt the dominant paradigm and deliver disruptive solutions for individual, blended learning. [Sadly, many of the words in that sentence are among the buzzwords we’ve legitimized, as she points out.] Check out her eBook, The Monsters of Education Technology.
— Michael Stoner, President and Co-Founder
I’ve shifted a lot of my leisure reading away from fiction and I have deliberately avoided witches/vampires/werewolves books, which are just too formulaic and contrived for me. But I was enthralled by Deborah Harkness’ All Souls Trilogy, the last volume of which arrived in my local bookstore just in time for my birthday! Deborah Harkness teaches history at the University of Southern California; has studied the history of science; and writes about wine. All these elements — plus many more — show up in this sweeping series that takes a fresh look at witches and vampires and how they might exist in our contemporary world and society. The plot is complicated, involves a love story and a lot of pungent commentary on inter-species relationships and political dynamics. There’s a bit too much going on at times, but I found it a great read overall.
— Michael Stoner, President and Co-Founder
Marvel is killing it this year. With Marvel Now releasing a whole new line up of comic series, I have been really wrapped up in reading the All New X‑Men graphic novels. I personally love this particular storyline because it has some refreshingly new plot lines that have been developed over the past few years in the X‑Men mythology, along with a brilliant incorporation of the classic X‑men (first class) that we all love. As a quick synopsis, the Marvel Universe is in complete disarray over Cyclops going renegade and joining up with Magneto! In order to prevent the predicted war, Beast pulls the original X‑Men from the past in order for Cyclops to be met face to face with his heroic former self. I’m on Volume 2, and I have nothing but good things to say about this series. Highly recommended for comic book lovers new and old.
— Mike Schulz, Designer
Gary Shteyngart’s 2010 novel, Super Sad True Love Story, is a fun read, set in a dystopian future in which the smartphone has evolved into a broadcast data device called an äppärät. This device broadcasts your public data, allowing others to assess you based on your credit rating, comparative attractiveness, net worth, (and much more) the moment your äppärät is in range. Turn off broadcast mode and you become a highly suspicious dead zone. It’s 1984 for the 21st century: check it out!
— Sarah Eva Monroe, Senior Creative Director
Productivity
For the serious or casual search engine optimizer, the MozBar is great. It’s a simple Chrome browser extension that can be toggled on or off to provide in-line stats on link metrics, keywords, and a whole host of SEO-related tools. Whether, you’re serious about SEO analyzation or just curious about site performance, the MozBar is an incredible resource.
— Patrick Powers, Project Manager
There are two tools that I’ve leaned on most in the last year to help manage workload: Todoist.com and Swipes.
- Todoist.com is web-based and integrated with Google Apps’ web mail interface. It helps me to manage and prioritize activities, manage my time, and keep track of both simple and complex project activities.
- Swipes is integrated with Evernote (my go-to tool for collecting and curating information), and it allows me to keep track of longer-term items that have no hard deadlines.
— Voltaire Santos Miran, Co-Founder and Managing Director
Lifehacker’s How I Work series was introduced to me by my husband. I find it inspirational! As someone who currently holds a job I didn’t know existed five years ago, I am so excited by how fast technology is changing the world and the innovative people keeping up with it.
— Kylie Stanley Larson, Quality Assurance Manager
I’ve loved using the meeting enhancer Do.com. Like similar product Meeting Hero, this collaborative app makes creating meeting goals and agendas a team sport. I realized its real benefit when my meetings started ending early because we achieved all goals and decided to wrap, rather than plodding through the full 30 minutes allotted for the meeting. Shorter, more productive meetings, FTW!
— Sarah Eva Monroe, Senior Creative Director
Gulp is a streaming build system we’ve started using for frontend development. Gulp gives us the ability to add structure and workflow to our front end development projects without getting in the way. It automates standard best practice development tasks such as minification and concatenation of files, image optimization, sass compilation, and script linting to name a few. There are also hundreds of plugins to choose from that can automate a multitude of tasks. We’ve started using “browser-sync”, for example to inject css and html changes directly into the browser as changes are made and saved in the editor. The end result is a faster more streamlined development process and a better final product.
— Jim Johnson, Lead Developer
Google docs continues to deliver. This year I explored two of the lesser known docs, Drawings and Forms, and both are excellent. Drawings allows quick, collaborative back-of-napkin visual diagrams, and Forms work well for simple to moderately complex data entry and reporting. You can take things a step further and link Forms with Google Sheets to have a quick and easy location to collect user input.
— Fran Zablocki, Strategist
People to Follow
Tony Doody has over 20 years of practical experience and oversight in senior leadership positions within higher education. Currently serving as the director of student life at Rutgers University, Tony is one of Higher Ed Live’s newest hosts on the Student Affairs Live channel and he recently hosted an amazing episode on Digital Leadership with a rockstar line-up that included Dean Kenn Elmore, Erik Qualman, and Dr. Julie Payne-Kirchmeier.
— Mallory Wood, Director of Marketing
I’ve been focused on how leaders in higher ed use social media, especially Twitter, to enhance the reputations of their institutions and their own reputations. My favorites (in no particular order): Paul LeBlanc, president of SNHU; Anne Kress, president of Monroe Community College; Kirk Schulz, president of Kansas State, and Noel Schulz; Santa Ono, president of the University of Cincinnati; Walter Kimbrough, president of Dillard University.
— Michael Stoner, President and Co-Founder
Thanks to my colleague, Deborah Maue, I now follow Jon Boeckenstedt. He’s an enrollment expert and works at DePaul University. His thoughts are right-on and research-based. Jon has a lot to say about #highered in these game-changing times.
— Susan T. Evans, Senior Director for Strategy
Ezra Klein left the Washington Post for Vox.com in part because he wanted to publish using a better CMS. He’s a policy expert and his tweets frequently include powerful data visualizations and succinct headlines on everything from how we board airplanes to Russia’s economic downturn, as predicted by the Simpsons. Follow @voxdotcom while you’re at it!
— Sarah Eva Monroe, Senior Creative Director
Websites
Nailing the right voice and tone is hard, especially when speaking on behalf of an institution. The Voice and Tone website — created by MailChimp — is an incredible example of how to distill corporate-speak lingo into language that speaks to the audience and their motivations. It guides MailChimp employees on how to write for the company in proper voice and tone. Every university should be so lucky to have such a guide.
— Patrick Powers, Project Manager
Mindfulness is a major developing meme in business and tech circles (Buddhist Geeks is one prime example. I’ve been meditating for seven years. In the past two years, my practice has deepened and I’m exploring the connections between mindfulness and Buddhism. I’m extremely grateful to the people who created Dharmaseed, which is an incredibly rich, deep archive of insights from teachers in the Theravada Buddhist tradition from around the world.
— Michael Stoner, President and Co-Founder
Grab Bag
There already existed apps for people and pages, but Facebook in November introduced an app that allows users to specifically manage group activity. Groups are great. There, I said it. While my news feed gets more crowded and cluttered with sponsored posts, my groups are becoming more valuable — closed communities of like-minded people with little fluff and spam. Direct access to this environment is a step in the right direction. Thanks, Facebook.
— Patrick Powers, Project Manager
Sign up for Bespoke Post. New toys in a box, sent to me every month — it’s like Christmas and my birthday, but 12 times a year!
— Voltaire Santos Miran, Co-Founder and Managing Director
How did education in the United States get so expensive? Ivory Tower, an incisive documentary, questions the value crisis facing families and institutions of higher education in the United States.
—Doug Gapinski, Strategist
My Grab Bag pick for 2014 is good health! It’s amazing the havoc a ruptured appendix can wreak inside your body. My 12 days in the hospital were not the 12 days of Christmas, but I’m happy to have it behind me, grateful to the people who took such good care of me, and thankful for my mStoner colleagues who covered for me while I was out. Some of my colleagues picked up the Fitbit this year — maybe I’ll dust mine off as I get back into my exercise routine in 2015.
— Bill McLaughlin, Director of Account Services and Web Development
The Lively Show is a podcast that focuses, like a laser, on living with intention. It’s perfect for millennials looking to add clarity and focus to their daily lives.
— Kylie Stanley Larson, Quality Assurance Manager
Recommended to me by someone who always gives me good advice, I’m going to start using 1Password. I can’t submit this for the Productivity category because getting my passwords in order is still a goal. In 2015, I’ll be using 1Password.
— Susan T. Evans, Senior Director for Strategy
People will laugh because I’m way late to the party on this one… but I finally had a chance to watch through the entire series of “The West Wing.” Hint: It’s better than whatever you’re currently watching today.
— Fran Zablocki, Strategist
Through Print Studio you can order posters, calendars, magnets, framed prints, etc. of your Instagram photos. As a travel enthusiast, I amassed quite a few photos from around the world and I wanted to have an easier way to display them. I ordered a poster of 150 of my favorite ‘grams for myself and even ordered a poster for the mStoner St. Louis office using our Instagram account!
— Cassi Greenlee, Marketing & Business Coordinator