Congratulations to the winner of the first Alumni Futures Innovation Award:
R. Todd Erkel of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA)!
Todd received the random word "Doctor" to produce this winning entry:
"Every major college and university should appoint a Web doctor assigned to screen for and diagnose those conditions plaguing so many higher education websites:
- Transposition navigationitis: instability of critical navigation elements that suddenly change position and function from one site level to the next.
- Enlargement of the messagus deanus: elevation of senior administrator's welcome to dangerously high word counts.
- Supernumerary of the micrositus: abandonment of singular .edu site in favor of multiple, less search engine friendly microsites.
- Photographus prolapse: drooping down or abnormal bulging of photographic elements with associated symptoms (eye fatigue, dizziness, dyspnea, or palpitations).
- Ossification home pagetitus: gradual hardening of news and events items, originally meant as temporary updates, into permanent, space robbing home page features."
Todd hit the nail on the head with his concise, creative and funny contest submission. As he points out, too often we accept the decisions of "experts" on web development without considering the obvious problems that any average site visitor would point out. Someone with a fresh eye and a caring bedside manner could talk us through the worst of our online symptoms and help to heal what ails us.
To some extent, Todd's proposal has each of the hallmarks I mentioned in the contest announcement:
- Hasn't yet been thoroughly tried or tested in higher ed administration;
- Challenges standard assumptions and practices in our professions;
- Could be implemented at many kinds of institutions – or better yet, could happen across many or even all institutions.
- Is so cool, so clever or so simple that we won't believe we haven't thought of it.
Honorable Mention goes to
Nora Gubins of York University (Ontario, Canada)
and
Kevin Wesley of the University of Rochester (New York, USA).
In an upcoming posting I'll share their contest entries.
All of the submissions represented great efforts to think clearly about new ways of doing things, and show the kind of brainstorming and creativity that higher education needs to continually adapt and improve.
Thank you to everyone who participated.
For his winning entry Todd receives:
- Six months of Premium Services from the JibberJobber career site;
- A download of the CASE webinar Students Today, Alumni Forever: Developing Lifelong Relationships With Our Alumni-in-Residence
- His choice of one of three higher ed books; and
- The one-of-a-kind Innovation Award badge (shown above) to put on his blog, his Facebook profile, his personal web page or anyplace he wants it.
Congratulations to Todd! Tune in next January for the 2009 contest.
