Eric Stoller's blog

In about a week’s time, I’ll be heading out to New Orleans to give a featured talk at the ACUHO-I Annual Conference & Exposition (ACE). In addition to speaking, I’m also meeting with ACE attendees as the “social media expert-in-residence” for the conference. I’m really looking forward to connecting with so many fantastic professionals. Here’s the description of my talk:

“We’ve Always Been Social (Media)”

Our communications and marketing tools evolve on a continual basis. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have become mainstays in our communications strategies. Learn how you can use the “big 3” to enhance your marketing endeavors, create opportunities for engagement, implement a content-based social strategy, and build measurable/sustainable connections.

I’m thrilled to announce that I will be giving the closing keynote at the NASPA Western Regional Conference in San Diego. The title of my talk is “Taking Strategies to Practice: Student Affairs and Social Media“:

We “get” Facebook. Some of us are even on Twitter. Do you YouTube? So what’s next? How do we create community and connections using social media? Student Affairs practitioners are developing amazing ways to use social media to enhance their practice and reach their strategic goals. Let’s tweet, update, and create!

I’m excited to announce that I will be leading two “unsessions” at the 2011 NASPA Conference. I’ll be facilitating two separate conversations. The first unsession will focus primarily on Twitter best-practices for professional development as well as how to use Twitter to connect with students. The second unsession is for folks who are ready to have a conversation about advanced social media tactics, strategies, and implementations. See you in Philly!

Twitter 202: Beyond #hashtags, @lists, and RTweets

Tuesday, March 15
9:30 AM – 10:15 AM
115 – B – Convention Center

Although only recently picked up by the general population, Twitter is now commonplace for individuals wanting to get breaking news. But Twitter is more than finding out what people are eating or the latest gossip. Attendees of this unsession should come prepared to share how they utilize Twitter in their professional development, as well as best practices for connecting with students. Please note, attendees of this unsession will benefit most if they already have a basic understanding of Twitter.

Social Media: Advanced uses, tips, and strategies for SA Pros

Tuesday, March 15
2:00 PM – 2:45 PM
115 – B – Convention Center

Social Media sessions have been highlights of student affairs conferences for several years. It’s now time to talk about how we have been using the tools in strategic ways to communicate and create connections with our students. This unsession will be a facilitated conversation for members of the community to share their social media best practices and advanced techniques for using social media to enhance their professional “tech-deavors”. Be ready to chat, share, and learn about advanced uses of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube…a.k.a. “The Big 3.”

In addition to the two social media unsessions that I’m leading, there are two other must-attend sessions:

Social Media, Enriched Professional Development and the Future of Student Affairs

Coordinating Presenter: Mamta Accapadi
Monday, March 14
9:30 AM – 10:15 AM
115 – B – Convention Center
Social Media is not just a way to reconnect with friends from your past or share what’s going on in your day in less than 140 characters. Social media, especially with regards to professional development, is also a fantastic way to connect with colleagues and delve deeper into conversations. Attend this session, facilitated by author of the Leadership Exchange article Integrating Technology into your Daily Routine, to discuss ways to enhance your professional development capacity here in Philadelphia and beyond.

Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, Film (YouTube): Facilitating familiarity through social media

Coordinating Presenter: Nathan Victoria
Monday, March 14
3:45 PM – 4:30 PM
115 – B – Convention Center
A little more than five years ago, all of the social media channels listed above did not exist. Now, these channels are used constantly to form connections and market to our student bodies. Attend this unsession to share your best practices around these social media channels, as well as have conversations about challenges you are facing.

I talk about NACAS a lot. Having given invited talks at both the NACAS West and NACAS East Regional Conferences, I can say without hesitation that this is one of my favorite higher education associations.

NACAS is the “one stop connection for information, insight and opportunity for auxiliary service professionals.”

What is “College Auxiliary Services”?

Also known as “Ancillary” or “Non-Academic Campus Support Services”, these services may include any of the following…

I will be actively engaged at the upcoming NACAS Annual Conference – November 6 – 10. In addition to giving a super session talk on “Using Social Media to Create Connections,” I will also be facilitating 18 social media consultation sessions. My participation at the conference is sponsored by the fantastic folks at Sodexo Education. The consultation sessions will take place at Club Sodexo…wifi, dry erase boards, coffee, strategy and social media. It’s going to be awesome!

Feel free to follow @NACAStweets for official tweets from NACAS. The NACAS 2010 Conference hashtag is #nacas10.

On Friday I will be giving the opening keynote at the PACURH 2010 Conference in Ashland, Oregon. The conference is hosted by Southern Oregon University. If you’ve never been to Ashland, you really need to go for a visit. It’s one of my favorite places in Oregon. I’ll be talking with students about how they can utilize social media in the context of personal/professional learning and leadership.

According to the PACURH 2010 Facebook page, more than 400 students have registered for the conference.

PACURH is the Pacific Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls which is part of NACURH:

NACURH is considered to be the largest student run organization in the world. It is completely student run, in all of the national and regional positions. It brings together over 400 schools from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Qatar. NACURH promotes living on campus as an integral part of the college experience, and strives to provide resources to help member schools create the ultimate residence hall environment and experience.

Living on campus was one of my favorite collegiate experiences…so many amazing memories, lasting friendships, and meaningful learning moments.

About a week ago, I had the opportunity to co-present at the ACPA National Convention with Kenn Elmore, John Battaglino and Teri Bump. Fortunately for the four of us, we were able to secure a larger room as our session had about 60 people in attendance.

We didn’t give out handouts at our session. Our keynote slides had images on them and only a word or two. I’ve received emails from folks who attended, as well as from people who were following via the #ACPA10 Twitter backchannel, requesting a copy of our slides. While we were sans paper at our session, we were certainly not without a lot of bits of information.

Our session was titled “Wise and Connected – Demystifying Social Media for SSAOs and Directors.” We had 2 screens/lcd projectors running simultaneously during the session. On one screen was our keynote slideshow…we combined our slides like Voltron just moments before our session. On the other screen was a live stream (via wifi) of everything that was being said via Twitter using the #ACPA10 and #ACPASSAO hashtags. (Note that the ACPASSAO hashtag provided ample fodder for attendees). We even used clickers from Turning Technologies (these were the same clickers that were used at the opening of the convention). Overall, it was a very high tech, high touch session.

We live streamed all of the Twitter commentary using Twitterfall. Twitterfall has an amazing “presentation mode” that is perfect for the live streaming of tweets. The streaming screen provided probably the funniest moment (for me at least) of our session when @ACPAConvention tried to distract me! It should be noted that I did not look down, not even once. However, one of us did use a 4 letter word at one point during our session.

A lot of people wanted the link for the “Leadership Video.” I’ve dubbed said video as “Who wants to watch EDS dance on a hill?”. I wasn’t really the “lone nut” in this video, but I like to think that I could have been:

A terrific leader in Student Affairs who is utilizing social media is Kenn Elmore, Dean of Students at Boston University. If you have not yet visited the Dean of Students website at BU, please check it out. The site is a wonderful example of how social media can be integrated into a higher ed student affairs site. The folks at BU use Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Blogs.

Did you know that you can get a lot out of Twitter without ever posting? Twitter can be a great resource for news, events and general information.

Here’s a terrific primer on “Twitter 101″ from the makers of Twitter.

Once you become an avid Twitter user, you may find that the functionality at Twitter.com doesn’t give you enough options. For “power twittering,” I would recommend that you use TweetDeck. TweetDeck is a free application that will become a staple in your Twitter diet. They even make a version of TweetDeck for the iPhone. What’s that you say? Don’t have an iPhone? Never fear, if you are a Blackberry user, I would recommend trying UberTwitter. You can even use Twitter using standard text messages via any mobile phone.

When I started talking about RSS, I noticed that folks went into an acronym sleep. For more information on RSS, Social Media, Twitter and a host of other online things, please check out Common Craft. The Common Craft videos break down complicated concepts into easily digestible informational videos.

One of my favorite uses of social media that we did not have a chance to talk about is #SAChat:

We talked a little bit about Facebook too…we packed a lot of info, entertainment, and education in our hour and fifteen. I can’t wait to do it again.

Last year I participated in the NACADA Technology Seminar. This year, the NACADA Technology Seminar will be offered in conjunction with 3 NACADA Regional Conferences. I’ll be leading the technology seminar at the Region 8 conference in Seattle. Laura Pasquini, University of North Texas and Clay Schwenn, University of Washington, will also be facilitating sessions during the 2 day event.

The NACADA Region 8 Conference Technology Seminar will be a hands on, interactive advising technology experience with a focus on utilizing the latest web-based technologies including: Blogs, Wikis, Twitter, Facebook Pages, RSS/Content Re-purposing, MS Outlook Enhancements, Web Statistics/Assessment, Online Surveys/Forms, Web Video/Audio and Social Bookmarking. In addition to learning how to use these tools, attendees will be given the tools to implement an academic advising oriented social media communications planning framework.

This seminar is for advisors who identify as having an intermediate to advanced comfort level with technology. Participants will be expected to bring a wi-fi capable laptop. This seminar is for advisors who want to go beyond signing up for a Facebook profile and boldly go forward with expanding their technology implementations/expertise.

I will be giving the keynote speech for the Oklahoma ACademic ADvising Association (OACADA) Fall Conference in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma next month. The conference theme is “Using Technology to Navigate Student Success” and I think that it provides a terrific continuation to the academic advising technology conversations that came out of the NACADA Technology Seminar. In addition to the keynote address, I will be facilitating a question and answer session in the afternoon.

I’m one of 4 faculty members for the upcoming NACADA Technology Seminar in Clearwater, Florida. The seminar is geared toward academic advisors with varying technology skills. We’re expecting about 200 attendees at “NACADA Tech”. This should be a paradigm-changing event. We hope to have wi-fi access for all participants during our sessions. This sounds simple, but it turns out that free, in-session internet access is fairly rare in student affairs / academic affairs conferences. We want to ensure that participants have a hands-on experience with a lot of back channel conversations/connections.

I’ll be facilitating three sessions:
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