[Editors] MIT Editors' Club Minutes, March 2010

Thu Mar 11 11:04:22 EST 2010

Just a quick note that the correct spelling for the training site mentioned below is lynda.com<http://lynda.com>, not linda.com<http://linda.com>.

lynda.com<http://lynda.com> covers everything from social media to Drupal to Adobe and Microsoft programs -- and much more. You can sample some of the tutorials for free. The site offers monthly and annual subscriptions. I've watched many of the tutorials for Final Cut Pro and have found them invaluable.

Regards,
Robyn

On Mar 11, 2010, at 10:50 AM, Elizabeth A Thomson thomson at MIT.EDU<mailto:thomson at MIT.EDU> wrote:

MIT EDITORS' CLUB

*Meeting Notes from March 8, 2010*

I think it's way cool how, even without an agenda for these meetings, this group easily segues from one interesting and typically helpful topic to another.....

Melanie Miller of Chemical Engineering started us off by mentioning that the ChemE Facebook page now has 183 "fans." Melanie explained that the page, which you can see at http://www.facebook.com/MITChemEng, essentially reflects what she puts on the Chemical Engineering home page. After the meeting, I took a peek at the page, and was struck by: 1) the cool, repeating photo of the department's home building (66), and 2) the fact that Melanie seems to regularly update the page, so it doesn't get stale.

As you know, however, for Facebook and Twitter it's helpful to be able to condense urls for a given story you're linking to. Which brought up:

*Bit.ly*

This is an app  (I think :) that conveniently shortens mega-long urls into much shorter versions. Plus, according to Melanie and others at this meeting who use it, bit.ly will tell you how many shortened urls you've created, AND how many click-throughs each has received. Bit.ly got us talking a bit more about Twitter, which led to:

*Hootsuite*

Robyn Fizz of IS&T noted that her department launched a Twitter feed on March 8, timed to coincide with the March meeting of this group (NOT! But I like to have fun with these minutes). Anyway, five IS&T colleagues contribute to this feed, a feat that sounds like it could be an administrative nightmare--if not for Hootsuite. This is an app that coordinates multiple postings to a given Twitter feed. Lisa Damtoft of Medical uses the program for that department's Twitter feed; that's how Robyn found out about it. Which brings us to:

*TweetDeck*

This is a cool app that I personally find useful as a one-stop-shopping site for the Twitter and Facebook feeds I subscribe to. Among other services, it has a kind of "bit.ly" built in----I can paste in a long url for an interesting article, and with one click TweetDeck will shorten it.

But but but.....for many of us, the ultimate goal is to use these technologies to better communicate with alumni. What are the best ways to do so? What works? And for that, several people suggested consulting:

*Maggie, Nancy, Liv, and Amy*

...of the communications staff for the Alumni Association. You can check out their work at the Alumni Association site, http://alum.mit.edu/ (click on the Social Media button). It seemed to many of us that these folks really understand Social Media and are constantly using it to reach out to alumni. I just walked down the hall to ask Nancy (DuVergne Smith) if she would mind being a point-person for those of you with any burning questions about the Alumni Association's approach---she graciously agreed, and can be reached at <ndsmith at MIT.EDU<mailto:ndsmith at MIT.EDU>>. Plus, she said that she and her colleagues would love to talk about what they do in more detail with this group....so watch your e-mail for a future Editors' Club meeting on this topic.

But but but......what if tweets, druples, dreamweavers, bitlys and the like are all still a tad over your head? Where can you go to learn about these and other basic techy topics?

*Good Techy Resources*

Robyn mentioned that a great place to start is Linda.com<http://Linda.com>. She noted that many of the tutorials through the site cost money, but she's found that it's been very helpful. Similarly, try searching for a given topic--say "color correction for video"--on YouTube. When Robyn does so, she usually finds something--for free--though it may not be of the best quality.

Someone else mentioned that the IS&T site itself is a great resource (http://ist.mit.edu/), with lots of links to basic help on web posting and editing of a page, etc.

*THANK YOU*

A big Thank You to Melanie Miller of the Department of Chemical Engineering for hosting this meeting in Building 66.

*Next Meetings*

The next meetings of MIT Editors' Club are as follows. Meetings are always from 12-1, and folks are encouraged to bring a lunch.

Wednesday, April 7, 38-466
THANKS to Patsy Sampson of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Tuesday, May 11, W98-302
THANKS to all of you willing to hoof it up to Resource Development.

Elizabeth

=========================
Elizabeth A. Thomson
Associate Director of Communications
MIT Resource Development
Office of Communications
600 Memorial Dr., W98-300
617-258-5563, 857-756-9457
<thomson at mit.edu<mailto:thomson at mit.edu>>, giving.mit.edu<http://giving.mit.edu>
=========================

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Robyn Fizz
News Coordinator
MIT Information Services and Technology (IS&T)
ist.mit.edu/news<http://ist.mit.edu/news>
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Fax:  617 258-6875

Important! Do not give out your passwords!
IS&T will *never* ask for passwords or other personal information via email.

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