1. What has been the biggest change you’ve seen in how universities market and promote their sports programs since you started out at UConn?

The internet is biggest change. When I started at UConn in ‘93 the internet/email was in the very early stages (if we even had it all – I can’t remember ever using it at UConn in the beginning). Now, it is generally the first medium we think of when deciding how to best promote one of our games/events.

We still promote our events through traditional vehicles, but the internet is the one we think of first. It allows the most flexibility and the best opportunity to hit the most people during the course of a day.

2. How are you moving the WVU athletic department forward in terms of new methods of advertising, marketing, public relations, and measuring their effectiveness?

We are constantly looking at new ideas for our web site. Recently, we have started adding more video features to the site. We receive instant feedback with our web site via the traffic. We can see right away if something we did on there was well received. That is tougher with traditional television, radio or print advertising.

Most of measurement techniques are basic at this point. If it’s web based we look at the page views, unique users and or “click throughs” if it’s a pop up ad or something similar.

We are fortunate that we get most of our feedback about events by looking in the seats at a game. We can tell pretty quickly at a game if our promotion worked or not. I can expand more on this topic at the conference.

3. You mentioned in the last session that you’re moving ticket sales to an all electronic-based system in the near future and that you’ve experienced some resistance to that, particularly with older generations. If you could sit down with one such person, how would you explain why you’re moving these sales to online processing and why it’s a benefit to both them and you?

Great question. I still think it will take us a few years to become fully automated in this area. I think the benefits are the overall ease for the customer. No more waiting on the mail to arrive with the ticket application in there. No more writing out two different checks and sending them back. Click a couple of buttons, put your cc info in and you’re done. No filling out forms, doing the math on how much you owe. It’s all right there.

4. Which Web 2.0 / social media / new marketing applications are most exciting to you?

Facebook and MySpace I think are extremely interesting applications. It’s amazing to me how many students/people use one or the other. As I mentioned at the Charleston event, I think people have to be careful with this as well. While it can be a great marketing tool (both individually and for groups), people that post to and speak to our athletes about their image and how much one picture on their Facebook page could change the perception of them that is out there.

That said, they can be valuable promotional tools. We had interns post events on both sites this year in an effort to attract people to a soccer game, wrestling meet, etc…

5. You’ve now had the opportunity to speak at one city (Charleston) and listen to a couple of the sessions. Do you think this is the type of event marketers in West Virginia can use to their benefit?

I think these events are great. I think it is invaluable for marketing people to get out of “their world” and share ideas as often as possible. So often I think busy executives get hung up in their day to day duties and don’t have the time to think on a bigger scale. I know I do. It’s amazing how much more creative I feel after sitting in a room with a bunch of other marketing people and throwing around ideas. I think these conferences are outstanding and will only get better as they get more and more participants!

6. What do you think are the benefits of holding conferences such as Next Generation Marketing in West Virginia in cities like Morgantown and Charleston?

Both have so much to offer. Charleston is great because of the multiple ad agencies, gov’t groups and just the fact it is the capital. Morgantown because of the obvious draw of the University. But, Morgantown gives you more than just the Univ. It has been one of the few areas in West Virginia that continues to grow and thrive. Construction continues at an unbelievable pace. More and more students are coming to the Univ each year only leads to more and more growth in the business community.

Morgantown and Charleston are both vitally important to the growth of our state. I think bringing bright, energetic, talented people together (as these conferences are doing) will benefit not only the individuals, but also the cities in this state and the state as a whole!

It’s not so much Comcast’s bizarre standards of service that get me so much as the lack of competition.

But, it’s now come to light that Comcast aren’t only a bit useless but they’re also throttling bandwidth like a pair of old underpants throttles the blood flow to your important bits.

Thankfully, there’s a new group of internet vigilantes wearing their underpants on the outside of their trousers to safeguard us all against constipated speeds – the Network Neutrality Squad.

Now, some high-profile industry players including Web evangelist Vinton Cerf and Slashdot’s Keith Dawson have formed a new group, the Network Neutrality Squad, to ferret out other examples of ISPs blocking traffic.

“The project’s focus includes detection, analysis, and incident reporting of any anticompetitive, discriminatory, or other restrictive actions on the part of Internet Service Providers,” reads a statement on the new organization’s Web site, nnsquad.org.

Meanwhile, advocates including Free Press and the Consumers Union last week filed a complaint with the FCC seeking an injunction against Comcast and damages for the company’s move to interfere with traffic. “If the FCC does not immediately condemn such actions, Comcast will continue to block or filter revolutionary, socially valuable applications and content, and other broadband service providers may follow suit,” the complaint states.

Comcast’s position is that it’s just managing the flow of traffic. “We engage in reasonable network management to provide all of our customers with a good Internet experience, and we do so consistently with FCC policy,” executive vice president David L. Cohen said in a statement.

Not in my apartment you don’t, David. I’m supposed to get something like a 16mb peak/spike – you know, when I need it the most. But, as we all know, that peak comes at the very beginning until it starts to download through molasses. And don’t get me going on the extravagant downtimes in service I experience more often than is good for any man. And also don’t get me going on the weird third world wiring that has taken place in order for me to receive my third world service.

Remember – online innovation comes about better with decent internet infrastructure.

[via]

Well we might as well just go ahead and cancel our conference as Sir Elton of the John has decreed that the Internet should be closed down.

According to an article in The Sun:

He claims it is destroying good music, saying: “The internet has stopped people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff.”

“Instead they sit at home and make their own records, which is sometimes OK but it doesn’t bode well for long-term artistic vision.”

“It’s just a means to an end.”

“We’re talking about things that are going to change the world and change the way people listen to music and that’s not going to happen with people blogging on the internet.”

“I mean, get out there — communicate.”

“Hopefully the next movement in music will tear down the internet.”

“Let’s get out in the streets and march and protest instead of sitting at home and blogging.”

“I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span.”

“There’s too much technology available.”

“I’m sure, as far as music goes, it would be much more interesting than it is today.”

Elton, Elton, Elton. I’ve never particularly held you up as an ambassador of musical or hair-piece decency, but it always comes across as a little bit sad when somebody dismisses everything related to the Internet wholesale.

The fact that people can now control their own means of musical distribution, marketing and production bypassing the big recording conglomerates is the best thing that has ever happened to music. Was artistic musical vision always supposed to be measured by the yardstick of some grumpy old tart who churned out Crocodile Rock?

Elton, you probably have a place somewhere in the vast musical cannon, and it’s most probably as its damp gunpowder, but I wouldn’t dream of wishing music to be closed down for a period of five years just to see what we’d come up with instead of Elton John.

It wouldn’t be so bad if you practiced what you preached. Your whole back catalog is available for download online and you also streamed your gig at Madison Square Gardens over the Internet. This is akin to you espousing vegetarianism and calling for meat to be banned then being seen pigging out on pork chops.

So you don’t like blogging, you think modern music sucks, and your last album wasn’t exactly a hot cake. Perhaps the latter explains your bitterness towards the Internet?

I come across people like Sir Elton quite often. I don’t mean chubby, be-wigged rock behemoths whose star is fading, but people who regard the Internet as being a complete and utter waste of time, effort and space.

For example, the number of people I’ve spoken to who’ve had a Website built only for them to subsequently dismiss the Internet out of hand when they receive no leads or hits is quite a few. The debate as to who is at fault can be left for another day. Imagine writing-off cars as a mode of transport because you failed to put in any gas.

Now, you can be forgiven if you didn’t know you had to put gas in the thing, but not if it’s been well and truly explained in advance that gas was a functional prerequisite.

The whole idea behind Online Marketing: Innovations that Work is to help you not only understand you need gas, but to show you what kinds of gas there are available and how each one can impact the running of your car differently.

Sigbritt Löthberg’s home has been supplied with a blistering 40 Gigabits per second connection, many thousands of times faster than the average residential link and the first time ever that a home user has experienced such a high speed.

You can read more here about how it all came about and how she now has the capability to watch 1,500 simultaneous HD broadcasts at once and download a full HD-DVD in approximately two seconds. Heaven help us if anybody shows her how to use bittorrent.

Now you might think 40 gigabytes is a little excessive. However, it isn’t the speed that is the issue but the technology behind the speed.

The secret behind Sigbritt’s ultra-fast connection is a new modulation technique which allows data to be transferred directly between two routers up to 2,000 kilometres apart, with no intermediary transponders.

According to Karlstad Stadsnät the distance is, in theory, unlimited – there is no data loss as long as the fibre is in place.

“I want to show that there are other methods than the old fashioned ways such as copper wires and radio, which lack the possibilities that fibre has,” said Peter Löthberg, who now works at Cisco.

The whole of America is put to shame when you consider its fastest connection in Rhode Island strolls in at a very pedestrian 5.01 megabits. And we won’t go into the ramifications of West Virginia plodding along at a sedentary 1.12 megabits – the national average being 1.97. As far as other national average internet speeds go, Canada is trotting along at 7mb with Japan leading us all at 61mb [source].

The bottom line is capacity.

Granted, I’m not an expert, nor have I delved as deep as I might have done, but do you not think West Virginia, with all its rolling hills and splendid scenery, may benefit from something along the lines of the set-up in Sweden?