02.22.10 | posted by Joe Hice |

Web2.0 presentation

Met with students at the kick off to Communications Week today.  Had a good discussion around social media; it’s advantages and disadvantages.

As suspcted, only two students in the audience were not on Facebook. More were not on Twitter, but that’s not a surprise. Stats show that Twitter is a mid-30s phenom.  The biggest surprise is iPhone usage.  Few students have an iPhone and fewer still think the iPad will be necessary on campus.   The feeling is that if you have a laptop, and almost everyone does, why to you need an iPad.  Time will tell.  I think the iPad will revolutionize the way we communicate, but then I’m not a student.  Who knows.

Anyway, it has been a very busy day so I’m going to just post my powerpoint presentation here (8MB) for your review…and comment.  Don’t let the opening mislead you.  I intentionally try to make people uncomfortable with the Web and the “don’t tase me bro” video does a great job of doing that.  It still chokes me up 18 months later.  If you haven’t seen it, please watch.  It demonstrates the dark side of social media.  Eight million page views in 24 hours!

Passion Rules!

87 of 100

11.14.09 | posted by Joe Hice |

Russian spam attack, again

The HiceSchool Blog is under attack by Russian spammers.  Fifteen messages today from .ru addresses.  So, do I merely delete or classify them as spam.  My experience has been that when you classify as spam, they just change one letter or number and come at ya again.

This kind of thing almost put the Gator Grotto out of business back when I was blogging for UF.  Unfortunately, after I left Gainesville there was no one left to manage the Grotto so it closed anyhow.  Too bad.  This social media stuff can be a very effective tool in building the network and talking to each other.

10.22.09 | posted by Joe Hice |

Is Body Mass Index an appropriate measure

From The Bulletin Editor.

In our Oct. 8 issue, we ran an article on changes to the State Health Plan that may reduce coverage for people who smoke or have a high body mass index, and in our Oct. 15 issue we ran the first round of letters from faculty and staff members responding to the changes. This week the conversation continues with more letters from Bulletin readers. Next week, we’ll continue our examination of this topic with a look at a wellness program developed by employees in the College of Natural Resources. And in subsequent weeks we’ll attempt to get answers to more of the questions raised in your letters.
More on BMI

BMI idex has to take into consideration bone density for some groups of people. It paints a broad stroke when that is not considered. Higher bone density means more weight or muscle.

Sakinah S Abdal-Rafi
Infrastructure, Systems & Operations
Legislature Unable to Manage Plan

Governance of the State Health Plan should be insulated from the corrupting influences of political control to the maximum possible extent. The legislature has proven itself unable both to manage the plan effectively and to resist business groups’ influence to hamstring the plan with favorable subsidies. We have a situation where employee benefits are cut to fund unnecessary fee increases to medical providers. North Carolina’s ability to compete for employees has been severely damaged by the legislature’s poor management of the State Health Plan.

Barry Eriksen
Office of Information Technology
Yo-Yo Dieting Harder Than Maintaining Weight

I would also like to voice my concerns over the BMI insurance changes. My family physician says I am perfectly healthy at my weight. Most people yo-yo diet which is much harder on your body that maintaining your weight. I know many skinny individuals who run marathons who have high blood pressure and heart attacks. So I’m not sure how they determine that it causes more health care costs to everyone. I can see the smoking part. But are they going to reduce coverage for everyone who has any kind of health issue (for example, cancer, diabetes, etc.). This seems extremely unfair to me and will surely not draw in good employees as state insurance is one of the main reasons many people stay with extension. I am quite upset with these upcoming changes.

(more…)

10.22.09 | posted by Joe Hice |

State COMM Revisited

Here’s the draft outline for a slightly more directed NC State Communications Network (on the jump page). I need everyone’s input to help make this work for everyone on campus. If not everyone, at least for the largest number of people then. Please pay close attention to the committee recommendations in light of the strategic planning process we’re about to embark upon. Like I said, much of the unit planning has already been done by the communicators at the college- and unit-level and our goal will be to create a university-wide “master plan” if you will. The college and unit plans will play directly into the master plan.

I’m also interested in your feedback on the Sevier workbook around Integrated Marketing. There’s another CASE book we’re looking into as well. Let me know if you have the “perfect” solution for this. In any case, I think it’s important that we all talk the same talk so a workbook like this will help us frame our work in terms and phrases we’re all familiar with.

So, please review the plan — and comment — by clicking on the “Read more” tag at the bottom of this post.

All for now.

20 of 100
(more…)

10.22.09 | posted by Joe Hice |

Testing testing

HiceSchool is now automatically connecting to Twitter and Facebook…I think