Student Affairs Communications Group Minutes
July 2, 2014
Attendance: Kami Hammerschmith, Brianna McNall, Kent Sumner, Michele Ribeiro,
Aaron Schultz, Dan Crouch, Lisa Hoogesteger, Leslee Mayers, Majeed Badizadegan,
Jen Still, Kate Sanders
Next meeting of the Student Affairs Communications Group will be Wednesday,
August 6, 2014, 9 a.m. -10:30 a.m., MU Council Room. Topic: hope to meet with the
new Director of Marketing and Communications for Student Affairs, but may change
as it looks like her start date is August 27.
Today
We had a discussion about the new Guidebook App. Leslee Mayers with New
Student Programs and Family Outreach (NSPFO) said the app will be available as
Oregon State Guide in the app marketplace. Currently the only guide available is the
Connect Guide.
Leslee got the Connect Guide approved, so now other guides can be approved and
added. The app is available on tablets and phones. NSPFO contracted for the service
and bulk bought 10 app credits. All 10 credits have been assigned. They would need
to re-contract to purchase more credits.
• Connect
• First year communications/advising plan
• Graduate School
• Dean of Students Emergency Information
• UHDS
• MU Student Event Guide
• MU/UHDS Food at OSU
• International student advising services
• Admissions
• Health & Wellness Guide
NSPFO paid $7,500 for the service set-up and $1,000 per credit. They are charging
departments $1,250 per guide. They have a one-year contract to try out Guidebook
and see how students use it. They will then evaluate and decide if they want to
renew the contract. The hope is if the contract is renewed the cost will go down,
because we will just need to maintain the guides and not pay the startup fees again.
There are also discounts if we decided to sign a multi-year contract.
Guidebook offers both push notifications and messaging. Push messages go to a
phone even if the app is not open, so there are a limited number of push messages
available. The phone must also have push messaging enabled. You can also have an
inbox on your guide and send messages. The user would go in and check messages.
When making updates to an guide, you can send a message about the added
feature(s) if you want. You can work on changes to your guide over a period of time
and then push all the changes when you are ready.
Guides can be built without being launched. The credit is not used until it is
launched.
Leslee has created a Google Drive with information about the Guidebook app. She
will send the link to Kent to send out for people to look at. University Marketing
created some icons for use with the app. We need to make sure the icons are used
for the same representations across the guides.
David Baker is establishing a mobile marketing strategies committee.
The calendar in the app works with Google calendar or iCalendar.
Leslee suggested keeping the size of the screen and the immediate needs of students
in mind when creating a guide. It is not meant to replace the information on a
website.
Leslee gave a demo of the interface for creating a guide. She showed the features
offered. There is a test mode that can be used to preview your guide before making
it live.
Kent will set up a time for Leslee to offer training to any staff/students who will be
creating a guide. If you would like to be included in the training, contact Kent.
Kate announced that the Alumni Center has a new Director of Marketing – Angela
McBride.
Leslee will be scheduling a meeting in August to discuss marketing of the Guidebook
app and ways to get students to download it.
Career Services has launched their new Beaver Careers for off-campus jobs. HR is
handling on-campus jobs at jobs.oregonstate.edu. The student employment link is
not up yet.
In her email announcing the meeting, Wendy Little recommended a book called
Understanding Digital Marketing by Damian Ryan and Calvin Jones. She said Chapter
10 is “Your marketing in your prospect’s pocket” about mobile marketing. Kent also
has a copy of the book.
Kent announced that North Porch Café opens in the MU on July 9. Jen passed out
chopsticks marketing the new restaurant. The East Wing of the MU opens in two
weeks. START will hold the first events in the new space.
Carolyn Boyd has been hired as the new Student Affairs Director of Communications
and Marketing. According to Susie Brubaker-Cole’s announcement, “Carolyn comes
to us from the Bay Area where she has served in university communications roles at
Holy Names University and the University of San Francisco.”
Kent and Wendy will look at whether the next meeting should be moved to include
Carolyn or if the topic should be changed. One suggestion was to hold the meeting
Leslee mentioned about marketing Guidebook during our next scheduled meeting.