March, 2008

Campus Events Professional - March, 2008 - Full Issue PDF
…

Using a Facebook Mascot Account to Boost Relations with Students and Alumni
Communicating effectively with the Millennial generation has become a big concern for universities hoping to forge and maintain a connection with a generation brought up with online communication. For Kevin Tharp, information architect at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, the connection is forged using a Facebook account “owned” by the university mascot, Joe Miner. By serving as the voice behind Joe, Tharp has learned a great deal about how students interact using this powerful tool.

Goodbye, Silent Auction: Online Auctions Provide Greater Convenience, Fundraising Potential
If “Video Killed the Radio Star” more than 25 years ago with the birth of MTV, then similarly, the online auction could be making the silent auction a thing of the past. This is the message that Jon Carson, CEO of online auction platform cMarket, has for nonprofit event planners. Auctions have long been a part of the fundraising effort,” Carson says. “Live auctions are alive and doing fine, but silent auctions are broken.”

A Fresh Look at a Traditional Day: Tips for Observing a Regular Holiday
When Cristen Porter, coordinator of community service, and Larry Williamson, director of the Black Cultural Hale Center, at Ohio State University in Columbus sat down to plan the annual observation of the Martin Luther King Day holiday, they faced a challenge common to many event planners: how to respect the tradition of a regularly occurring holiday while keeping the observation appropriate and fresh.

The Top 10 Ways to Reduce Your Email and Reclaim Your Productivity
By Marsha Egan, CPCU, PCC
We all know that email use is on the rise. Every day people at all levels of academic administration complain about the number of emails they receive, how much work it is to handle them, and how stressful just opening up the inbox is. But instead of letting excessive amounts of email control you, here are 10 sure-fire ways to manage your outgoing messages in order to reduce the numbers that come in.

Resources
Giving donors the chance to participate in and contribute to the success of a charity beyond the online gift is proving to be successful for many nonprofits. Find out how to make the most of your online fund-raising efforts with the expert advice found in People to People Fundraising: Social Networking and Web 2.0 for Charities.

Off the Deep End
By David Treber
The Office of Conferences & Events runs the campus pool for the summer. We do this mainly because it solves several problems. When the pool was under Athletics, we’d have part-time lifeguards patching together three different pool gigs. Staffing was not as reliable.