ITK@ERASMUS

„The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.”

Sydney J. Harris

Lugupeetud lugeja, järgneva kirjatüki lugemisel avaneb Sulle tõsieluline ning kärpimata ülevaade ühe tehnosuhtleja välispraktikast Slovakkias. Kuidas wifi levib mägedes ning milliste vägitegudega siis täpsemalt hakkama saadi?

Pidulikuks alustuseks üks korralik gurmeelik isutekitaja ehk „Tehnosuhtleja – kes see on?” Teame, et igaühele meeldib oma mätast kõige rohkem kaitsta. Tõeline tehnosuhtleja ei ole siinkohal erand. Võtan kohe appi IT Kolledži esiründaja Antti Andreimanni, kes 13. mail 2010 ruumis 314, käis välja järgneva toetava mõttekäigu: „Ärge kunagi laske koodikirjutajaid ning müügimehi kokku, mitte kunagi!” Lühidalt ja konkreetselt nagu esiründajale kohaselt, võttis Andreimann kokku kes peaks tekkinud tühimiku täitma – tehnosuhtleja!

Vahva praktika Slovakkias on mustal ning valgel ja aeg on tulemusi jagada! Kuna minu praktika toimus veidike ebatraditsioonilises keskkonnas siis sellest lähtuvalt olid tekkinud tööülessanded ning  probleemid kraad teistsugused. Kõlab küll jube keeruliselt kuid minu praktikakoht oli ülikoolis – Žilina University. Töökaaslasteks õppejõud ning doktoratuuri tudengid. Põhitööna tegelesin „Crises management” (KKM) osakonna  veebilehekülje arendamisega. Sisu, disain, kasutajamugavus, SEO ja muud kellad-viled. Hoopis ekstravagantsem kuid mitte põhitöö oli tudengitele suunatud tegevus. Näituseks sain privileegi korraldada loengusarja millega pidin katma midagi huvitavat nii auditooriumile kui endale. Rääkisin teemadest milles olin nii kala vees ning samuti asjadest milles pidin eelnevalt kõvasti sukelduma – et oleks millest, selg sirge, rääkida. Seda edevust ja esitlust sai nüüd kõvasti selgemaks! Öeldakse, et parim viis õppimiseks on õpetamine ise – pagana õigus!

Räägime reaalsusest ning päris kogemustest siis. Nagu algselt mainitud on tegemist tehnosuhtleja praktikaga mis välistab karmid koodikirjutamised ning kompileerimismaratonid. Kõlab küll jube eneseirooniliselt kuid mida rohkem ITK koolipingis sai studeeritud seda selgemaks sai tõsiasi, et tehnosuhtluse kõige olulisemat tahku ei ole võimalik ainult teooriat õppides omandada. Kuidas ei saa, mis see siis on?

Nimetus  „tehnosuhtlus” peidab endas hulgaliselt põnevaid tahke millest üks olulisem, minu isklikust vaatevinklist, on kohanemisvõime. Mõistame ilmselt kõik, et see tähendab harjumist teatud keskkonnaga. Keskkond on aga jube lai mõiste, räägime konkreetsemalt. Laiendaksin seda definitsiooni tehnosuhtleja seisukohast ning uueks seletuseks oleks, et kohanemisvõime on oskus valida õige otsus hoolimata järgnevatest faktoritest: tundmatud olukorrad, harjumatud  iseloomud, ootamatud ülesanded, pidevalt korduvad arusaaamatused, 404, jne. Siinkohal ei hoia end tagasi ja annan ühe värvika näite.

Koosolek. Üks edukas ettevõtmine koos kohaliku tudengiga on valmis. Uus kodulehekülg sai lõpuks paigaldatud, õppejõud said uhked personaalsed ligipääsud ning aeg oli pidulikult presenteerida, kuidas seda kasutama peaks. Akadeemiline õhkkond ja väike närv sees nagu ikka. Viis minutit enne koosolekut saabub mulle sõnum kohalikult tudengilt, kes teatab enda mitte-tulemisest…

Võiks öelda, et ikka juhtub ja mis see üks presentatsioon siis ikka on. Täiesti nõus! Lisades aga ajalise faktori – viis minutit,  saame hoopis huvitavama dimensiooni ning võiksime siinkohal kõik mõtiskleda oma viimase presentatsiooni ettevalmistamise ajakulule?  Just taolised ootamatused  tööülesannetes, persoonides ning olukordades olid mõnusalt karastavad! See oligi  ju üks põhjusi, miks  teekond Slovakkiasse sai võetud, et ennast karastada; võtta igast olukorrast maksimaalne; ammutada uusi kogemusi ja tulla siis tagasi ja jagada!

Olen äärmiselt tänulik, et eelpool mainitud karastavad ja väärtuslikud situatsioonid saatsid mind praktikal ning ITK`s omandatud teooria leidis rohkelt rakendust. Tehnosuhtluse üks olulisemaid tahke, kohanemisvõime, sai ilusti kinnitust!

Jutt jutuks, pildid leiad:

saaretalu.com

Adding some fresh  spice about the:

work…issues…progress

&

sweet candy… for the special reader who can read all the entry up to the end!

Now get some fresh coffee and start the journey in my blackboard with sexy tag`s like:  SEO,FB,VD. If you are thinking to have a deep diving into the terms – then guess again! Amazing google research still excists, and that`s why  I`m giving my overview what useful I found out examining those terms which can beuseful for every .com

SearchEngineOptimization How google searchengine works?

How to optimize your website?

There are lot`s of step-by-step tutorials available, but best in biz is seomoz.org – guys with customers like ebay,Sun,Disney, Siemens,Yahoo,Microsoft… and the list goes oooooon!

Every two years, SEOmoz surveys top SEO experts in the field worldwide on their opinions of the algorithmic elements that comprise search engine rankings. This year features contributors from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, the Ukraine, the Dominican Republic and many more.

After web-search/brainstorming/discussion in office and advice from the Netmarketer, Ludo Jambrich(The Bosss) the to do list looks like this:

• Directing in/outgoing links should contain keywords(keyword focused)
• Increase content relavant outgoing links
• Increase variaty/theme of outgoing links
• Keyword to site title
• Add meta desciption
• Clear folder names
• Important keywords first
• Remove 404 links

Ok, now my site looks awsome, what`s next?

Considering the facts that:

• most popular  social media site is FB facebook.com
• more than 25% Slovak people have their account
• and more than 55% of them are between age 18 to 27(students-target for university)

The next step is starting the journey in facebook. Only facebook? Haven`t heard about blog?

Yes-yes…but this project agenda has the most extreme low-cost budget and has to be  low-time-taking solution. Although some PhD`s have their blog/web-site which can be used as a alternative and  additional. And starting the facebook rally, our team wants to have a great kick-off start!!!

VD

By videooo! Last week I made a survey about finding ideas/contacts/clever minded people.

Results:  Video should be oriented to (new)students to attract with perspective views from alumni about commenting how/why the university/department was useful. Amazing team to capture the scene is builtup(but new memebers/ideas welcomed) and the video should be ready as soon as possible!

… Back to SEO

Well imagine you have done the steps and now waiting the meeting with boss to evaluate whats done you might need the following tools to show EXACTLY what is hot or not or what is the impact:

Google analytics

• How many people are coming to your site?
• Where are they coming from?
• How long do they stay on your site?
• Are they finding what they are looking for?
• How active are they on the site?
• How often are they coming back?

www.fornongeeks.com/google-analytics/why-google-analytics-are-essential-to-running-an-effective-website

Google Webmasters tool

• Top keywords by through your .com is founded in google
• Links to your site
• Crawl errors(404,timed out, unreachable..)

google webmaster

And the candy  is here : )

Problems

How to get effective feedback from the busy office? Why people are so busy all the time? World changing projects? Everybody looks so serious on the corridor and rushing? Whyyyyyy?

Exactly those questions followed me for a long time and to move on with the project I needed to get my answers!

Step one – get into office&stay in the office!

To see the REAL problems why everybody claims to be busy-bees I went to the most busiest office to mark down what they are doing. Results? I seriously consider that computer have turned humans into robots. People say they are working from 8 to 17 just sitting behind computer. I say it is impossible whatever is your job. Brain needs changes from time to time to see effective answers/solutions for random problems. Sometimes you just need to see the whole picture to solve the missing part of puzzle. People in the office are stuck only into doing ONE TASK at a time. Nothing bad in that, but doing one thing during day/week causes stress alarm at least in my head. Of course people from the office I “tested” took some brakes to refresh. How? SMOKING or  FACEBOOK!

Yes ladies and gents. People from my office does that, probalby from your office as well, and even YOU will check your social-media account in the next 45 minutes!

Step two – Survey!

To move on with the web-page I needed to collect the opinions from the faculty to see problems and get the picture what are their expectations. As regarding to step one I knew it is impossible to get into office and get some effective feedback by formal talk. Smoking corner? Fortunately(unfortuantely?) I`m not smoking and can not stand this smell for a long time, but If I was – my office would be in the smoking-corner with a tag “FREE starbucks coffee”. My projects would be fullfilled with comments and half of my work would be done by colleagues without they even realize it!

So another option –  facebook- make survey in this environment? Sounds great, but some important suit&tie wearing guys from the office have not accounts in this site! So I knew it`s not worth to knock the doors and start english conversation with all the people and no point doing it in facebook only. So finaly I decided to use the simpliest tool – internet survey. So far nobody have asked feedback in a form of web-survey in this faculty. As it was kind of beta-release, prototype feeling to send out the e-mails to fill the survey I was surprised to have all the  responses in a very short time. Dakujem!

Step 3 The meeting

What meeting? After sending out the surveys meeting for web-page was arranged to discuss the results and consider changes. The meeting was for lecturers, university workers and the athomsphere was opened to explain their point of view how to turn web-page into a tool to provide better education. I holded back my suggestions for SEO and considered more about visual and structure logic suggestions. Notes from my ppt:

• Change faculty page with same interface(design) as University mainpage.
• There is no link to KKM web in english department page!
• Is the .pdf document right way to introduce KKM faculty????
• NEW KKM logo(arrange competition for students in slovakia/zilina/in university?)
• Sign-uppossibility to recieve news about KKM to my e-mail account.
• Remove building images from web(or replace with better ones)
• Online Poll – possibility to ask questions from web-page visitors?

In general it was nice to see people giving their point of view and comments about the web, although it was kind of wierd to sit behind the big round meetingtable with all the important guys. Why? Well… I`m working and communcating here with english only but to get at least some feedback I demanded to do this meeting in slovak language to get real answers for REAL problems. Although I only understood the comments in my poor-beginner-slovak lanuage level, but it was a one of the greatest experiences! What do I mean? Imagine yourself in the middle of group who are sooo into discussing some topic and you have no idea what they are realy talking about. All the serious faces and all I got was to read body languages at those moments. Any results? Some guys don`t care much about this web-page – some young Ph.D`s for example. No comment, no discussion.  But I`m satisfied with results in general and most of suggestions was taken to solve out, except logo – it claimed to be new logo already. No comments for that …

Step 4

Me and my weekly friday meeting with Klucka to evaluate  schedule what has been done and what`s next. We agreed to develop the story about the facebook and making a group/page into facebook for Crises management. I prepared for the following questions which Klucka obviously will ask from me:

Why facebook?

Facts speak for themselves –  data of facebook which is collected by facebakers.com – great site for FB statistic to get real overview about what is happening. I did short calculation comparing North-America with Slovakia in the question “How many percent of population have FB accountin your country?”

Calculation:

in United States 308million people with 111,6million FB accounts = 26,6% of  population have FB account

in Slovakia 5,4million people with 1,4million FB accounts = 38,5% of population have FB acount

The following graph is showing user growth in Slovakia during last 3 months:

To be sure if the “target group” is amoung of the users, another graph:

Graphs show that target group – young people who sould be the most willing to study in university is the majority in facebook in Slovakia. We know where we are standing now!

Step – not another one!Brainstorm!

Another important questions to be solved out before making crises management FB user/group/page:

• Why people should be interested? (interesting content!)
• Who is responsible ?
• Interactive! (video for kick-off start should be made)
• connected with  alumni people

This step is just going to be stepped starting from the next week. Thank you for reading this 1000 words!

The following is background research about the best universities based on:

Top 10 Universities (Shanghai-Times)

Times Ranking

Webometric`s Ranking

Which channels are in use, the most interesting (dark-pink) is Michigan University with the widest array of  communication channels  and useful according to survey made in Tartu University last summer 2009.

Usualy people who start commenting their work got fired. What you think, after reading this entry my boss will fire me?

This is about real-life, experiences, skills what`s happening and highly influenced the new-web project’

Great punch to balls! 10 points!

From day zero it has been coming up issues in different topics.

Contracts – one of the fundamental contracts was cancelled which was a huge bump for the motivation for me.  Fortunately this was not critical contract and hopefully situation will be solved out. The biggest surprise in this story is the fact about lacking communication in the student-leadership-oriented-high-hopes organization like Aiesec. TN cancelled and no progress about what`s next. On last meeting some members ASKED ME what will now hapen, what I`m going to do?  I`m sorry guys but if  I got this signal I almost fell to floor(from 3 to 1).  Aiesec is fresh paint for me,  just been involved 2-3 months, listening their short-terms is like chinese for me, LC,MC,EP;TN,EXPS,ODD, bla bla bla… so last moves from my side was taking contact with Aiesec in Estonia to ask the regulation for the situation I`m in.Finaly got my to-do list and back on the road!

Another one… (5. points)

Yep guys, we are still talking about communication. It`s everywhere. It`s technical, it`s social,it`s beautiful,it`s dangerous,it `s  exciting!

One of the biggest surprise for me was few days ago founding myself  stuck in question “realy?” I got this jaw-dropping effect in the middle of the meeting. My boss Josef Klucka one of the most competend is the marketing. Sure he is the one of the leading scientist and on of the highest authority in the university, but conversation with him showed me how new is the web-marketing.  It`s something which reminds him basic-blinking-commercials and annoying pop-ups. But due to social media this field has been blooming and growing faster than Chuck Norris can jump!  The term web-marketing was not much known 5 YEARS AGO. People who have finished the marketing sepciality more than 3 years ago haven`t got probalby no academic/theoretical lectures about social media, SEO, social media as marketing tool, how to measure campaign …. and this list goes seriously ooon and ooon!! Of course every marketing guy and salesman THINKS he/she is the top of the business and can get the “what`s hot or not” from  the news or just following what others are doing(twitter,FB,blogs). But it`s doesn`t give much a professional touch, or does it!  Wh`t  yhaA thinking cowboys?

It`s just too many companies about EXACTLY SAME agenda – everybody tells me to get your business to facebook, start the blog, use twitter, linkedIn,youtube, blog.

Nice consulatation and amzaing tools(brands). But the majority doesn`t have enough experiences for example how to manage negative  impact due to “something”. It`s usualy 2-4 guys(girls)comapny and first they say they list of channels(free, 0.- cost, everybody can use it) you should use, then they ask you to use google analytics(free, 0.- cost, everybody can use it)  and after the meeting they charge your pants off beacause you (or your company) is too lazy to take a short tour about web-media on your own! They are selling air, another bubble guys!

SO WHAT`S THE POINT?

This is just a freaking oowsome example how EVERYTHING involved with technology, IT is growing/developing faster&faster. There will be always something new to learn – DOESN`T MATTER WHAT`S YOU SPECIALITY! Old-times when people went to university studied hard and left with Cum Laude diploma and got a nice job for rest of life – this is NOT working anymore. Constant refreshing is the mainstream.!Every company want`s you to know the latest trends(or even predict next trends). If  it`s doing something faster/more efficent/cutting costs it`s interesting! And that`s exactly what IT is doing! Will do!

So where is the useful point?

There is no such thing as universal truth or one way to solve everything. There are always different persons+oppinions+solutions! Based on my experiences the best way to motivate myself is doing different things do realize how everything is connected or how different people think(or what are the real problems). This gets you out of box and improves like sudoku/cube solving!

What I do?

I take photos – best way which involves exploring,excitment, refreshing – endless opportunities!

Classical music – best way to imagine everything (you can create your own world)

Eat lemon – just eat it, no food-stress after!

Discuss it! – the best way to see are you on the right way or not! If you think your CV stinks – ask help from your friends- let them comment. If you want to know what should be done better in you web – ask it form friends. New project idea? – ASK!. Not sure about the solution – ASK!

ASK! oppinion from your friends, family , relatives and choose the people who are realy good and sharp with criticism – they are closest to you and give TRUE feedback.

The following scheme is a brief analyze for the OLD web. Page has devided into sections and got numbers from 1-to 5

1. No title!

To be honest it is quite difficult to find a page which does not have a title. CODE RED!!!!

2. Header is so … green.

Header reminds circuitboard from 90`s (or even 80`s). Although we are not talking only the look, we are trying to show that this university has developed, updated and is the best on the field!

3. Menu

Simple  and quite non-informative like standing in the kebab line, but realy fancying royal lunch.

In the menu another most annoying this is .pdf  It is not library to download the projects.

Epic fail! menu has 5 links and 2 of 5 is “Development”. Hey guys wake uuuuup!!! Development indeed! Plus empty links, reading .pdf instead of web-page. Another suggestion – contact and employees to one page!

4.  Main content

Another fashion crime commited – viva la soviet building (and cars) with a nice picture! Question like : “What is the point of the web-page; for who is it oriented; how can it be useful(for different targegroups)

5. Viva las Zilina

Well.. ladies and gents – this one you have to click to see what is going on – interactive road-runner text! You can guess 3 times what I think about that.( I remember from Antti Andreimann quote who promised to cancel our connections with his subject if he founds out any students uses this Las vegas styles. )

Yesterday I got a positive feedback from Tartu University about their experiences in interactive channels like twitter/facebook. So far there is no negative feedaback – rather positive! Quick pop-in to community shows the amount of question raised by foreign students. It is easier to comment/ask from facebook.com than surfing on poor through all the page to find some information e-mail address. GO-GO!

Special thanks to Tartu University, Inga Külmoja – International Communication Specialist!

No guys it`s not! supermarket  promotion, this is a tag which is(should be) written to  every Web 2.0 page generation!

Generation of pages where users – we – have interactive possibilities(freedom?) to create the content by ourselves!

what is web 1.0? 2.0?

Effective overview for busy people here

Now you know what is this  about? Good! To beat competitors and start your trip to the moon you need some guys like this

But before you launch you should know one things …  socialmedia is fun and new niche, but it is also tool which has never been used before  as such a mainstream channel for marketing. So basically you will have a gorgeous trip to moon, but nobody can promise 100% that your journey will have a happy end. You might even get lost in the universe, or you might find a new planet to land and start your own business evolution.

With a fresh update some fancy numbers from previous week

(code was finaly added)

Interesting statistic numbers from the board:

213  visitors (one week)

Most time are spending French people in the page: AVG 24 min!!!

Comparing to AVG Slovak person: 41sec.

100% direct traffic

↑↓

Shows greatly how much(or less) has made before in terms of marketing.

100% windows

Well I`m sure Mr. G. Bill will not read this blog, and I seriously hope to see some other(free) OS in the graph

Marvellous quote:

“Few, if any, educational institutes teach the art of proper digital communication. Most of us have simply made up an impromptu strategy and crossed our fingers in the hopes that disaster doesn’t strike. With a bit of help from our friends in the fields of psychology and information technology, we can apply the age-old intuitions of face-to-face conversation to whatever advances in technology come our way.”

from mashable.com

Computers still crashing …

ER.404 still exists!

US. Soldiers used FB to catch Saddam!

What`s the big noise about FB anyway ?  Dig out, click here!

Good reading, nice facts! …  now tight up your boots refill coffee  and join a short walk in my work.

The following weeks and months and next updates in here will be mostly about the project “New web”

Hold on… UPDATE!  it just got a hot headline :

“Effective web marketing for Faculty of  Special Engineering Crisis Management webpage in University of Zilina”

Soo… go to IT department and let the guys work with that!?

There`s nothing like that in Special Engineering Faculty. This is a kind of unlimited project:  no time, no budget, no content, no overview of ACTUAL problems,  no map for the missing part of the great puzzle.

Any goals?

Get out from “jaba-da-ba-duu” Web.1.0 B.G(Before Google) timezone and  upgrade to Web 2.0 period.

Spread the big news about the new .sk for Special Engineering students/teachers.

Collecting valuable data before update and after coming to the light period with Google Analytics.

25% more attetintion due to using social media, web marketing .

Search engine optimization (SEO).

That means great opportunity !?

That`s better than Avatar unlimited experience in 3D  for shure  ;)

New skills

New experiences

New point of view  : )

And what makes me THE person for that job?

There`s no kind of deep academic educational background or diplomas on the wall with certificates from me to do that certain  web-marketing project.

But there has been great help from:  overview from Linnar Viik classes, marketing conferences, following marketing blogs, groups, podcasts and soon charging knowldge on the meeting with a local firm oriented to web-marketing(contact made, hopefully cofirm the date  soon)

This project certainly will not end in the Superbowl commercial block with BANNED status for nudity.  It will not be a revolution, but unique in Zilina University Special Engineering Faculty.

It will be small, but effiecent social media oriented project !

Sounds interesting?

Would like to join?

Tips & tricks?

Any help and instructions are more than welcomed!

So far the big guard and help for me  is done by  the man who has been to the moon in terms of  the IT world:

He is working in 4 different universities, has experience with japanese,french,english,german…

Nominated as THE best lecturer in Information of  Technology College 2007  Spring

ENORMOUS competence in academic and workfield.

Ladies and gents, let me present my advisor/leader:

Ph. D Kaido Kikkas!

http://www.kakupesa.net/