I read with a smile this morning Karine Joly’s words revisiting the Mansfield Unviersity podcast effort and the reason behind the post: Getting to some real experiences with podcasting. (Note that Dennis has some great ideas for marketing your podcast.) Meanwhile, I was busy doing my own sleuth work, emailing Charlie Melichar and Tim O’Keeffe at Colgate University to catch up about their Colgate Conversations podcast, which I had first noticed back in February. I think it’s a great idea to revisit some of these efforts and explore successes and lessons learned.

Charlie had quite a few things to say about our recent thread on podcasting, and so it made sense to find out what Colgate is up to. My questions delve into the making-of, and I think you’ll find the answers to be helpful as you begin thinking about your own programming.

I’m not surprised to see that tracking is a challenge. Tim indicates approximately 1200 regular subscribers. Based on my experiences with other podcasts, I would posit a multiple of that in non-subscriber downloads in the period of a month. It is important to note that this is something of a general university podcast, and not exclusively admissions focused.

Below are excerpts from Tim’s response to my questions.

Who’s listening to your podcast?

The number of regular subscribers to our podcast series has doubled since we launched Colgate Conversations. We find it’s difficult to track (iTunes dropped its tracking capability after podcasting exploded) but by looking at the log files we estimate 1,200 regular subscribers. Again, a rough estimate and not a huge number, but we feel this is an important piece of our communications effort that will play a bigger and bigger role in the future. It’s a great way to highlight members of our campus community.

How do you decide who will be interviewed on the shows?

The Office of Public Relations and Communications holds a weekly news meeting. We talk about what’s going on around campus, which alumni might be returning to campus for an event, and what our students and faculty members are working on. Great ideas stem from this meeting. For example, we talked about Joe Castiglione, Class of 1968, coming to campus for a book signing. He has been the longtime radio voice of the Boston Red Sox and was in our area to attend an event at the Baseball Hall of Fame, which is just an hour away.

I messaged him and told him I’d love to talk about baseball, ballparks, his beginnings as a deejay with the Colgate radio station, WRCU, etc. We had a terrific interview (and I got to try on his Red Sox World Series ring).

Who creates the shows, and what kind of effort is involved?

This has been a terrific collaborative effort involving Colgate Information Technology Services and the communications office. Rich Grant and Ray Nardelli from IT worked out the iTunes logistics, bought the equipment, and use GarageBand software to clean up the audio and get it ready for uploading. I research our guests to prepare for the interview, which I conduct and one of them will record. I’ll write a short story on our homepage introducing the latest episode and then update our podcasting page.

You’ve recently done a show via Skype [free Internet phone]. Tell me a little bit about that.

I use the blogging software provided by TypePad at Six Apart, and it turns out that a 1990 alumnus, Michael Sippey, is an executive with that firm. I noticed he had done some Skypecasts for TypePad and it’s something we were eager to explore. Michael has been writing online about technology since 1995, and we had a great interview that touched on blogs, social networking, video on the web, and other things Internet.

We’re excited about the options that Skype provides us.

Any questions for Tim and team?

And a final question: Who would like to do a podcast episode about this thread?

University of Florida’s business school is taking a shot at podcasting. “Tuesdays with Tosi” is available in both audio and video format. The first episode came out 12/5.

What are podcasts, anyway? Have you been to a party lately where someone didn’t mention the term podcast? I haven’t, but maybe I’m going to the wrong parties!

To ‘cast or not to ‘cast. It seems to be a much hotter topic than it deserves to be these days. Here’s how it boils down. Are you producing media for the web: Yes/No. If you check the Yes box, why not create an RSS feed for it? If you check the No box, why aren’t you?

Finally to the purpose of this post: Here I provide a rather lengthy take on Morgan’s take on someone else’e take on podcasting in admissions.

What are your thoughts?

UPDATE: Kevin Guidry at Mistakengoal.com poses questions as to the utility of podcasts in the world of student affairs . Any takers?

Macquarie University has a new multimedia site (reviewed nicely at Animatty.com) called MQtv.

There is a lot to praise about this effort, and Animatty.com has covered the points well. Individual pages are easy to read - lots of white space. The videos, based on multi-camera shoots, are crisp and nicely produced - far better than the fare you see on YouTube these days. The range of content should make the PR department’s job easier far as it illustrates the gamut academic and research achievements.

I guess in general I find it a bit too “multi-media” oriented (is that an outdated term, or is it just me?), which is to say, too focused on the media itself, while — perhaps — in need of ways to help new audiences access the content. I would love to see them add RSS feeds for videos and mp3s, perhaps organized into topical channels so that people could subscribe based on individual interests, e.g. Admissions, Athletics, Business Management. More and more journalists are finding story ideas via RSS - so why not make it easy for them? (Regular readers of this blog know that how insistent I am; if I can’t add your site to my RSS reader, chances are I won’t visit it again!) From an SEO perspective, I would also suggest unique HTML page titles and URLs containing keywords found in the content of the page. Google and other search engines sometimes treat pages with the same page titles as the same page - even if the URL is different - meaning the site won’t be as well represented in search engines as it could be.

Anyway, this is, of course, just my 2 U.S. cents on improving a site that’s very much headed in the right direction and will serve its audience well, to be sure. I’ve already enjoyed a number of the videos and mp3s. This is very much the kind of diverse, pointed, and quality content we’ll begin seeing from universities globe-wide. If you’re a university PR director interested in some of these new forms, this is a site to study in depth.

(Via Animatty.com)

Click on the image below to play video (Quicktime, 18MB, 2:04).

Matthew Winkel from The College of New Jersey wore a number of different hats at this year’s EduWeb conference. He was making podcasts, filling in for presenters, and hosting his own sessions. I was lucky to get a few minutes with him. I asked him what’s going with RSS at TCNJ, and how the College is planning to roll out podcasting. They’re toying with the idea of doing a podcast interview series with professors and others on campus.

Matthew was a participant in this year’s HigherEd BlogCon, where he presented on Student To-Do List RSS feeds.

Note: I tried to present this video to you through YouTube, but the audio wasn’t properly sync’d in the Flash movie. If anyone knows why this happens, please let me know!

I had a great time as part of a panel on podcasting at the recent GMAC conference in San Francisco. Peter Johnson, my outstanding co-panelist for the session and a director at U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, was kind enough to share a few remarks on camera. I asked him what surprised him most about their podcasting efforts. He described how he went from skeptic to believer in podcasting, and how podcasting can complement existing communications channels when it comes to recruiting and admissions.

The Haas School launched podcasts in 2005 aimed at providing advice for students applying and information about financial aid and career services options. They’ve been updating their episodes as information changes during the year.

- Lenoir-Rhyne College has an RSS news feed

- University of Ulster has a podcast page and RSS feed. The podcast covers “the life and work of the University, its staff, students, partners and visitors.”

- Society for New Communications Research today announced an awards program for excellence in the use of new communications models and solutions. There is a category for an academic award. Why not consider nominating a project you think is particularly outstanding or innovative? (Disclosure: I’m a Research Fellow with the Society.)

It will be fun to participate in and record our weekly open Skypecast on new media in higher education from my hotel room in San Fran. Dimitri Glazkov has kindly offered to be discussion leader. He’ll be walking us through the wild new world of microformats and what they might mean to universities.

Right after that, I head downstairs at the St. Francis to talk to a group at the GMAC annual conference about podcasting in admissions. Pete Johnson from Berkeley is my panel partner. It will be great to hear from Pete about his adventures in podcasting at the Haas School. I’m really excited about it, as GMAC has graciously given permission to post materials from the presentation, as well as the screencast. Tomorrow we may be creating the first-ever screencast from a GMAC conference.

Along with Pete Johnson from UC Berkeley Haas School (who do an admissions podcast), I’ll be part of a panel on podcasting at the GMAC annual conference June 16.

I thought this was coming. Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz are going live via Skypecast on June 1, so that listeners can join in the conversation. I wonder if they’re planning to run their shows this way on a regular basis, or whether this is a one-time opportunity.