THE CLOUD OVER HIGHER ED

Who came up with the term “cloud”? We hope it’s short-lived shorthand. The trend that has a long life ahead is the continued march toward Internet-based data management and web-served technology solutions.

The cloud has already impacted the way colleges manage inquiry and applications via third-party servers. New tools are allowing institutions to expand to cradle-to-grave “customer” relationship management (CRM).

The market demands sophisticated, seamless solutions. But sophisticated solutions take skilled resources to implement. Are you partly cloudy or are there thunderstorms in your future?

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Who’s the mayor of your student union? Do you have the Newbie badge yet?

Lost? If you had a GPS-enabled mobile device, you’d never be lost again.

While location-based social networks like Foursquare, Facebook Places and Gowalla — where visitors can “check in” to broadcast their locations — still have relatively low adoption rates, the implementation of geolocation functionality using the built-in GPS in mobile phones is taking off.

Colleges are implementing tours that provide context based on location, like Wolfwalk at North Carolina State University, and are letting students (or even alums) “check in” to events with rewards to incentivize attendance or participation. Other institutions such as Duke University have developed mobile-specific versions of their websites, providing content and functionality of most interest to those on the go.

TOUCH ME, BABY

What are you doing to prepare for the tablet onslaught?!

According to this report and info graphic from Fast Company, the tablet is ready to take over, with 14 percent of online shoppers planning to purchase an iPad in the next five months.

Dead magazines like Gourmet can be reborn (BTW, favorite quote from that article: “We closed the magazine last fall, but we did not close the brand.” LOL! Marketing lives forever!), and Martha Stewart has already brought her empire to market on this platform.

Adobe’s Creative Suite 5 comes with built-in tools for creating tablet-friendly interactive PDFs. How can your lead publications come to life when touched?

We’ve got to stop writing now and start working on that iPad project.

That’s it for our 2011 forecast.

Click here for the entire article.

Huge thanks to my AD Patricia Quinn