David Kamerer

Associate Professor of Communication, Loyola University Chicago

A new opportunity, a new town

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I normally don’t write about my personal life, but I’ve got exciting news to share with my friends, students and colleagues:

I’ve accepted a faculty position in the School of Communication at Loyola University Chicago, and will start there this fall.

Loyola is in the process of creating an extraordinary school of communication, and it’s my privilege to be part of it.
So what makes it special? 
The University has made a strong commitment to the program, hiring a new dean (Don Heider), a talented group of new faculty, and creating a new facility (The Clare, at 51 East Pearson in the heart of Chicago’s business district). It’s literally steps from the Water Tower, and near many of the city’s ad agencies and media outlets.

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At Loyola I’ll be able to pursue my interest in social media through a combination of teaching, research and professional practice. I’ll be working with a collegial faculty with deep academic and professional training. And I’ll be able to connect with industry professionals working at the highest levels for national accounts.
Oh, and in one of the most exciting cities in the world.
I’ll leave Wichita State with sadness. I have great affection for my colleagues and students. And I’ll miss the wonderful group of friends I’ve made through the years. So you can be sure I’ll return regularly.

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I don’t leave Wichita State lightly. But there’s no permanent position for me there. So it’s time for a new adventure. And I couldn’t have asked for a better one.

Free tools for managing your store’s web site

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My favorite store is having a sale this week, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at its web site.
 

That’s because the site just sits there. It’s little more than a business card with some pretty pictures.
The site isn’t updated because it’s a hassle to do it. If the job requires a web designer, complex software and an arcane process called FTP to send information to a server, it’s too complicated to do regularly. 
But it doesn’t have to be that way. A new kind of web site – a content management system, or CMS – makes it easy to administer from a secure dashboard. And when it’s easy, you’ll update it when you’re having a sale.
A CMS can be expensive, as a custom-designed and programmed site might be. Or it can be free, if you use an off-the-shelf or open source tool. Many companies use blogging platforms such as WordPress or Movable Type as their CMS. If you need more power or control, there are open-source tools like Joomla or Drupal. When you choose one of these, you gain support from communities of experts who provide free programming modules or visual themes.

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Choosing a CMS

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As a college professor, I work with mostly junior and senior communication students who are interested in public relations, marketing and media production. Many are in the process of migrating their work online, whether it’s for a portfolio or a client-based project.

I see a clear trend among the students. Even a year ago, there was intense interest in learning to hard-code web sites using Dreamweaver or a similar tool. Today, that doesn’t happen. The students have learned and seen the value of using a content management system, or CMS. Most use WordPress, but there is a smattering on Blogger, Tumblr, TypePad or Movable Type. Some have skills with Drupal or Joomla.

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All of these platforms have robust third-party support, whether its themes, plug-ins, widgets or community sites that answer technical questions. Most are free, and most allow you to host the content yourself if you want to.
It seems like WordPress is dominant, but a recent study of top blogs shows a plurality of leaders. 
The key point – find a CMS that you can live with, one that does 90 percent of what you want and need to do. Apply a theme, and then focus on what you do best: the content. Later on, when you want to re-skin the site, or reformat it for delivery to iPhones, or push it to your Facebook or LinkedIn account, you’ll be glad you did.
There will always be a place for hard-coded sites, but once you’ve seen the advantages of a good CMS, you’ll never go back.

Dear Twitter: please charge me $1

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quote.jpg“On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog,” goes the classic New Yorker cartoon.

Or a spammer.
Brandjacking is a growing problem online. On Twitter, both Motrin and Exxon-Mobil have had unknown individuals posing as themselves. And now, one of my favorite thought leaders in social media, Jeremiah Owyang, has been brandjacked. (Twitter has the problem under control).
This will continue because it’s easy, there’s no real penalty if you get caught, and there are lots of jerks out there, running lots of hustles.
So here’s a modest proposal: charge for the service. Like $1 a year. A buck. Seriously.
Why?
It forces each user to provide a real name and real address, which is verified when the charge is run through the credit card companies. That alone would knock down the Twitter spam, which frequently comes from one individual using multiple accounts. A credit card also ensures the holder of the account is of a certain age. When the account renews yearly, it gives people a chance to get off the service. It would give Twitter a much richer database once the service is monetized.
A buck is just a speed bump, enough to slow down the spammers and liars, minimally disrupting legitimate users. It’s a small lever that Twitter can use to protect its network.
And what would Twitter do with the money? It could make a modest donation to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or some other cause that improves the online experience.