€¦ · our students and staff, but we did beat ou! regardless of the high level of output this...
TRANSCRIPT
Dear Board Members, The fall semester is cruising along with only six weeks left of classes! Recently, I have had the chance to work closely with our incoming students and see the bold transition as training has been conducted, products created and feedback given in all areas for encouragement and growth. October has been very challenging with all the demands on our students and staff, but we did beat OU! Regardless of the high level of output this time of year, I am enthused with the staff and student’s creativity, positive attitudes and the ability to bring fun to work everyday. We appreciate your involvement and it has been great seeing so many of you at our many events. Since our last meeting four weeks ago… The advertising department has been working hard to produce great events this fall, which bundles our media packages and draws advertisers to multiple products. They offer customized pricing and media plans to maximize our advertisers reach. This approach has proved useful in securing longer campaigns. Although print sales continue to lag in the national market, the advertising department is keeping focused on new sales opportunities with social media advertising and a new collaboration with the newsroom to maximize communication and new sales initiatives. CJ has been dynamite in leading the advertising team to achieve sales goals and adjust sales strategy as the market and consumers change with ever-evolving technology. Curt Yowell has just crossed the one-year marker with TSM and has been instrumental in launching many new student-driven digital initiatives that you will read about in his board report. I am grateful to work with our passionate and dedicated staff. Everyone has been putting in many hours overtime, while working under a tremendous amount of pressure to provide an educational environment and push growth and evolution of TSM. All of the staff work smart and hard to bring success to TSM and to our students. I hope the board recognizes and acknowledges the staff's role. Specifically, Lori Hamilton accepted a new position within Institutional Equity, and her absence has taken a toll on all us. I know it was a hard decision for her and a good career move, but the position Lori held within TSM was very unique since it was a consolidation of three full-time positions into one. I will continue to review functions and duties within the departments to assess staffing. Amidst all of the flurry of tending to business functions, communicating with alumni, managing the operations and preparation for this meeting, I quickly assembled a hiring committee to fill the position. I am excited to announce that Chad Barnes will be joining our team soon. He comes to us with corporate and University experience, which will be a great addition to our team to ensure we are following University policy and procedures while tending to all aspects of the business office, support of the Director's office, budget management, monthly financial reports and overall support of the organization. It is a big position to fill, and I am very happy to introduce everyone to Chad in the beginning of November. He is also very passionate about college media and how we provide the many experiences to students for their future careers.
1
It was just a year ago that we were wrapping up the consulting process with the Greenlight's Organization, and this year we took a different direction by taking the initiative to utilize resources available within the College of Communication. We partnered with the Department of Advertising and Public Relations to serve as the subject of the Advanced Media Planning class taught by Senior Lecturer Lisa Dobias, who is a former TSM Board member. Students in the class were grouped into advertising agencies tasked with researching different aspects of TSM and providing analysis on how TSM can improve consumption of its student-generated content and develop new, easy-to-implement revenue ideas. The final presentations were conducted the evening of Friday, October 18, 2013 with several staff and students from TSM present. I would like to personally thank Professor Dobias and board member Mary Dunn. The teams had great ideas and everyone brought a lot of energy, creativity and passion. The data and ideas will assist as in discussion and planning for the 2014/2015 budget. In addition to all of the daily duties and accomplishments mentioned in this report, I was able to organize and meet with all the board members to discuss our year-ending financial reports. Although the small meeting sessions take an enormous amount of time and planning, I received great feedback from these sessions. I was able to answer questions directly in explaining our market, products and structure, while highlighting our challenges and opportunities. We’ve discussed last year and we have a budget plan in place for 2013/2014. However, I would like to continue pushing the board and students to discuss possible changes to our model. Soon, I will be coming to board for direction on budget planning for 2014/2015 and the board and students must be willing to try new things and make important decisions that will forever impact the future of our organization. We have to acknowledge our realities with the tough economic climate, changes to technology and our key demographic. I encourage everyone to keep the mission of the educational experience at the forefront, and I am confident that we have the best and brightest talent within our board, staff and student leadership to create solutions. Hook 'em! Jalah Goette Interim Director Texas Student Media The University of Texas Work: (512) 471-3851 [email protected]
2
Advertising Department TSM Board Meeting: 10/25/2013 The advertising and creative department did a great job working together to get the campaign buy for the Student Affairs Job & Volunteer Fair completed. The investment of time from staff was substantial and we are very happy to see it successfully completed. I would like to thank all of those who have been involved with this process, from the student staff who helped prep the thousands of handouts, Daniel Hublein for coordinating all efforts to ensure deliverables were in place for the event, Lindsey Hollingsworth for her contributions throughout this event planning process and for being a crucial part of the committee overall. And finally, thank you to the Division of Student Affairs and their departments who invested their time and resources within Texas Student Media. This was a substantial media campaign and we appreciate the support. This was not only a recruiting event, but also a marketing and branding opportunity. All Texas Student Media departments participated in this event with the exception of The Daily Texan. We have had two guest speakers come visit and meet with the advertising team: Senior Lecturer, Lisa Dobias and Media Consultant/Alum, Kathryn Abbas. They provided their prospective regarding the industry, planning for the future and graduation. We greatly appreciate the time they spent engaging the team and their continued investment in Texas Student Media. Lisa Dobias and Mary Dunn have worked diligently with their Media teams who presented to the Texas Student Media staff last Friday evening. TSM staff provided information that was requested to help with the project. There were many different aspects of each media agency group that were on point and we are thankful to the winning team as the data provided is quite substantial and able to be used going forward. The advertising team participated in the annual Communication Job & Internship Fair, which not only allows our team to recruit new staff, but it is also a great networking opportunity for our students. There were a variety of companies who participated in the event. Ted Sniderman and Rohan Needel did a great job drafting mass emails to students for sales recruitment, implemented a redesign on initial screening applications and conducted many interviews for future positions within our team. Michael Gammon has done a great job getting his staff together and conducted his orientation for the Longhorn Life team. Midterm evaluations for interns have been successfully completed and upcoming evaluations for work-study and student staff assessments are up for review. Staff attended Diversity Training, hosted by Ryan Miller, Associate Director of Campus Diversity and Strategic Initiatives. Many topics were covered and the audience discussed controversial Daily Texan ads that had previously run. Those participating in the discussion that were vocal about their opposition to the ads were directed to advertise within The Daily Texan to raise awareness and make their opinions regarding those ads known. We have not received any advertising requests as of yet. The Creative department layout was redesigned to allow for a more functional process when greeting guests within their areas. Thanks to: Frank Serpas, Daniel Hublein and Michael Gammon for working together to achieve the new more productive layout. The Creative team also toured the Austin American-Statesman facility. They were taken on a tour and introduced to the process of how the statesman prints our Daily Texan and special edition papers allowing for a good understanding of the process from start to finish. Thank you to Frank Serpas for coordinating this for the staff. The advertising team is currently gathering research on Austin's fashion market and getting ready for the spring Fashion Alley event. Our client appreciation event will be held on November 7th to get clients secured for our 2014 Housing Fair, which will be held on February 19th. Come support Texas Student Media at the Kickoff Countdown Tailgate party on the corner of MLK & Brazos!
Hook'em & Sell'em!!!
CJ Salgado Advertising Adviser
3
17-‐Oct-‐13 Equipment that had been stored away in anticipation of being used in a remote broadcasting unit fulfilled its purpose during a successful test on October 11 (see picture below). Thanks in large part to Ian Reese’s initiative, this TSTV/KVRX joint broadcast sent standard-‐definition video and audio to HSM from the Bowie H.S. vs. Austin H.S. football game at Burger Stadium, proving the viability of using 4G technology to transmit a signal from a remote location. The prognosis for this particular use of the equipment is uncertain (AISD rules limit the degree to which high school football content can be televised; the large block of time required preempts a sizable chunk of KVRX programming), but many other applications exist, including live news updates and concert broadcasts.
Representatives from the Austin American-‐Statesman’s production department visited TSM on September 25 to meet with Texan staffers and the Creative Services department. They gave tips on how to ensure proper ink levels for photos and reviewed prepress procedures. TSM has proven to be a popular destination for First-‐year Interest Groups: four FIGs have toured HSM so far this semester. Representatives from the media units encouraged the new UT students to take part in what TSM has to offer. Frank Serpas III TSM Operations Manager
4
October 2013
Curt Yowell, Digital Manager Texas Student Media The University of Texas at Austin In fall 2012 I was brought on at Texas Student Media in order to work with students and staff to create a narrative of our challenges, needs, and opportunities in the digital and web realm. One year later, Texas Student Media has come a long way in attempts to meet these digital demands. The most important development is the transition to University of Texas Information Technology Services (ITS) servers and web development support. The student leadership has done an excellent job of expressing their concerns, desires, and solutions for moving website design and development forward at Texas Student Media. I want to thank everyone for their input throughout this past year. The new approach to website infrastructure is part of a digital and web strategy that speaks directly to our mission. TSM will utilize the resources available on campus by forming a working relationship with UT's ITS department. The relationship will help the students learn and work in Drupal website development. Further, the students at TSM drive web design and development. The new direction provides stability in terms of the web servers and website development, adds to the educational experience at TSM, and is cost-‐effective as the servers are provided at cost and web development is done by the students with support by Drupal experts. The students are becoming familiar with development environment (or test environment) setup as part of this new structure. The dev environment will allow the students to develop website features and experiment with new ideas. Email and social media are two areas where we are starting to see benefits of cross-‐platform integration. Over the last year the daily email list has increased in size by 900% thanks in part to the addition of social giveaways. The goal is to utilize the positive experiences in social giveaways to drive advertising sales around digital ads and lead generation. In conducting the social giveaways, the students have increased their social media following and increased the number of subscribers to the daily email. We will continue to find ways to utilize email and social media for student learning and to feature the work of the students at TSM.
5
Currently, there are a myriad of web and digital projects underway at TSM. “DT Delta” is a website redesign project led by The Daily Texan student tech team. The student tech leadership is working closely with the students in advertising to ensure the redesign will offer advertising opportunities attractive for clients. The Texas Student TV site is being upgrading to Drupal 7, a necessary step to implement much-‐needed design and feature upgrades. As part of the upgrade, Texas Student TV is working on integrating a JW Ads video player that will allow for ads. They are also working on a new layout for the website’s homepage. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) optimization is an ongoing project across media properties’ websites. Students are working to utilize keyword searches and best practices in web content production to ensure the websites receive traffic from search engines. The initial discussions in a planning phase for the redesign of TSM’s website has started. We will work to get input from a variety of stakeholders to ensure the TSM website serves the needs of a multifaceted organization. Improvements for the KVRX website homepage were planned by the last student web developer in spring 2013. The goal is to pick up where this project was left off and begin to roll out improvements such as featuring more blog content on the homepage. The Travesty is working on adding the back catalog of issues in PDF format to their website. The student staff of the Cactus Yearbook is assessing the publication’s website needs. They are exploring options to provide visually appealing web design and options for an online market place. Finally, we are working on an assessment of the next steps for The Daily Texan archives. University of Texas digital librarians are working with us to provide an overview of the scope of work to digitize the back catalogue of The Daily Texan.
6
TSM Board Report
October, 2013
Michael Brick, Editorial Adviser
At The Daily Texan, the students are hard at work on DT Delta, the centerpiece of our effort to reinvent the paper for the digital age. It’s long overdue, but bold enough to make up for lost time.
Thanks to the generous support of the Department of Computer Science, we’ve recruited more than twenty students to work in the basement on new technology initiatives, including app development, social media strategy and tech news coverage. Most crucially, we’re overhauling our web site with a focus on a mobile-friendly user interface. For that piece, we’ve also acquired an invaluable resource: Dr. Shayamal Mitra’s web development class is devoting the entire semester to producing iterations of the project, essentially providing a form of curated open-source development with expert supervision. In the newsroom, AME Kelsey McKinney and Technical Director Hayley Fick are making sure the best ideas come together to create a worthy platform for the excellent student journalism of the future. They’ve set up a project management system to make sure we’re setting and meeting deadlines.
But even without the new site, The Daily Texan staff is proving that our journalism can succeed online. Compared to the same period last year, page views for the prior two months are up 35 percent, unique visitors are up 52 percent and the bounce rate (how quickly visitors leave) has declined by five percent. Best of all, the average time spent on the page has increased 25 percent, indicating that viewers are sticking around long enough to read a whole article or watch a whole video.
There’s only one plausible explanation: The students have been producing great journalism. One of the longest average page views clocked in at seven minutes for Life of Bevo, a charming behind the scenes look at the university’s mascot by Christine Ayala. Produced in collaboration with multimedia editor Alec Wyman and photographer Zach Strain, the piece got a jumpstart
7
from a very smartly executed promo listicle deployed over the weekend to grab the attention of football readers. By the next Saturday, our reporter and our video footage were being featured prominently in a pre-game segment on the Longhorn Network.
Of course, it’s not all cute and cuddly. The intrepid Bobby Blanchard has produced hard-hitting examinations of the university’s financial ties to campus housing developers and worker treatment. And beat reporter Alberto Long started the semester off strong with a major scoop on a series of racially charged balloon attacks, beating beat local and national media outlets. He’s followed up with relentless coverage of campus law enforcement.
Meanwhile, Chris Hummer’s columns have kept our readers on the pulse of the football coach’s lion-in-winter phase. In the arts department, Sarah-Grace Sweeney’s ACL coverage has engaged readers with some of our finest writing. After meetings with Texas Student Media’s advertising department, every section spent four weeks producing recurrent features to hook both readers and advertisers. Our design director, Jack Mitts worked overtime to create elegant (and consistent) logos. And maybe I’m getting soft, but I think this image by Jonathan Garza might be the best shot ever taken in the storied history of the Daily Texan Photo Department.
At TSTV, we’ve started bringing in professional guests to critique the station’s news coverage. In a new collaboration with KVRX, Ian Reese and Cameron Kubena have joined forces to produce coverage of high school football. The project is promising, partly because of the synergy, but also because it points one potential way for both stations make appeal to a new audience outside the campus. The project has been made possible by Ian’s relentless pursuit of opportunities to finance new equipment for remote broadcasting. That capacity will significantly expand TSTV’s ability to cover events of campus and citywide interest.
8
Hello Board Members! Cactus has continued to have a productive fall semester, tabling on West Mall to sell shirts and recruit, gaining over 250 ‘likes’ on our Facebook Page to surpass a total of 900 likes, redesigning our website to be easier to use and nicer to look at, expanding our online content, and continuing our new system of full staff meetings with writers and photographers to improve communication and accountability. This month, we participated in the Great Texas Showcase at Parents Weekend, offering the book at a discounted price of $55. With parents much more likely to purchase their student a yearbook than the student is, this was a prime selling opportunity for us. We also took part in the job fair to recruit more writers and photographers, as well as to replace our Academics & Organization Editor, who had to quit due to time constraints. In a couple weeks, we will be running a marketing initiative during Halloween that involves taking and selling Polaroid photos of UT students downtown on Halloween. This will help us make some extra money, promote our book, and gather content for a related spread. Finally, Cactus just submitted the 2013 yearbook to the CSPA competition and already has received widespread praise for its design and content. We’re looking forward to what we hope will be another Gold Crown to add to our collection! Looking ahead to November, we are happy to announce that we will be holding our Fall and Spring photo studios in the FAC along the very public glass wall by the West Mall. This is good news for us as usually we have photo studio in the HSM conference room, a building and room few students know about and are unwilling to go to because it’s out of their way. We are hoping that the central, familiar, and public location of the FAC will boost the number of students who have their photos taken for the book, and thus also boost our book sales. We will be holding an event to kick off our photo studio that will offer books at a discounted price, shirts and posters for sale, and hopefully a performance by a local band. In addition, Cactus is working with the Dean of Students office to find the best ways to advertise photo studio in a new, inventive way. Throughout the fall, my staffers have each taken on 5-10 student organizations to reach out to about group photos, positions on staff, and other events. This grassroots effort will help us achieve our goal of reconnecting with the student body and spreading awareness of our product. Although we have yet to hear any news regarding the RFP for a publishing company, we have continued to push forward as usual with our work. I broke out the pages of our book a couple weeks ago, and we have started assembling content on the spreads. This year’s book is shaping up to be another great addition to the archives! Stay Prickly! Jaclyn Cactus Yearbook, Editor-in-Chief
9
The Daily Texan Managing Editor’s Board Report
October 25, 2013
Dear Texas Student Media Board of Trustees: I hope you all are doing wonderfully since the last meeting. I plan to do an oral board report today, so below is my outline for that:
• Online strategy o Provide up-‐to-‐date analytics numbers o Developing metrics outside of pageviews and visitors
• Website development o Launching DT∆ o Switch to ITS Server o Cultural change: Preparing for the new website
§ Online Exclusive Content, publishing schedules, etc. • Page counts and recurring content
o Page count reductions o Launching recurring content
§ Working with advertising § Two weeks of 10 pages, two weeks of 8 pages
• In the works o Discussion with department heads and general staff on financial health of TSM o Comics Insert o TSTV
• The things that get lost in these discussions: great work o Coverage of ACL, OU, festival month, o Fork stabbing, CapMetro, post office, government shutdown, shared services, SG
stipends, DeLoss Dodds o Staff travels to Ames, Fort Worth, Waco, Dallas o Special ventures: EMS, buildings o Presentation in the paper and online: Go Elisabeth and Kelsey!
If this format does not work or if the board still prefers I put in a full written report, I would be happy to do that. Please let me know if you have any questions, as I would be honored to receive your feedback. Thank you for your time, Shabab Siddiqui
10
To The TSM Board, KVRX has been moving through this semester quickly but diligently. Our schedule has encountered very few problems and we have been holding training sessions at a more consistent rate than ever before. Over the past two months, we have trained around 40 new DJs. Our rate of recruitment has been strong throughout the semester, and meeting attendance is at an all-time high. Our current projects for revenue have included planning our Pledge Drive Benefit, which is scheduled for the end of February. This is the time to really be planning for this event, as it is one of the most important times in the KVRX year. In addition, reaching out to these businesses early in the process allows us to cultivate relationships that can turn into underwriting spots or continued sponsorship from them throughout the year. Our goal is to have a solid base of supporters by the end of this semester so we can start the Spring Semester strong. We are also considering implementing a membership system with our donations that would create a support system and stronger relationship between KVRX and our listenership. Our partnership with other TSM entities has been growing as well. Our linking with the Daily Texan to increase the variety of content within their Life and Arts section has been going strong, including increased coverage of the Austin City Limits Festival. We are currently working out the final details of a live, on-sight broadcast of Local Live at the Holy Mountain venue, which will be a joint production between TSTV and KVRX. This is a great opportunity to increase our broadcasting potential while linking it to our events. We believe this will increase our listenership, recruitment, and future advertising. We are also partnering with Maria’s Taco Express to hold a KVRX show at their restaurant. This is a good opportunity for us to partner with an underwriter to increase our own events and their visibility as a KVRX supporter. We hope these types of events can continue to happen, as they are a great way to partner with these underwriters and continue to increase our visibility throughout Austin. Last, but perhaps most exciting, is our new initiatives concerning the KVRX website. With a new home for our servers and new opportunities for website maintenance and experimentation, we are looking to implement a completely new layout for our website. This is an exciting opportunity because it would still be using the same framework of the already existing website, but basically change it’s convenience and navigability for visitors. We believe this will increase the visibility of our website content, and as such increase interest in creating that content on the part of our volunteers. We are currently searching for people interested in website design to help us meet these goals. We look forward to progressing in theses areas and improving our radio content and listener base throughout. Joe Aragon KVRX Station Manager
11
Ian Reese Texas Student TV Board Report: Oct 18, 2013 Many good developments have been taking place at Texas Student TV over the past month. We have made strides both technically and in negotiations with potential clients. Below are a few points/events that I’d like to highlight:
§ We have successfully carried out our first live remote telecast that took place Friday October 11th at Burger Stadium (AISD) in Southwest Austin. We went on the air live from location for approximately 30-40 minutes to cover both a Pre-Game and Halftime show report for the Bowie vs Austin high school football game. The entire game was simulcast live on both 91.7FM and TSTV with an audio component only. With this concept proven to work, I have applied to receive funds from Communication Council to help finance further technological development.
§ We have received yet another generous equipment donation from the College of Communication Tech Services Dept. We now have 4 new CFL based lighting fixtures that are ideal for low power, on location lighting situations (like remote broadcasting).
§ Texas Student TV is now Tech Services’ go-to department for productions that take place
in College of Communication classrooms. This means that we are the first point of contact for any professor or department that needs to hire students out to run technical equipment for events and guest lecturers. So far we have five productions because of this new connection.
§ Texas Student TV is working with RTF professor Ben Bays to test and develop ‘virtual audience’ performances with bands that come in to Local Live. This is a system that would allow viewers to login online and join a performance space as an avatar that can interact with the band by posting comments to a message board. The band can view these comments as they live update and can see all of the avatars by viewing a screen in front of them. Still in its development stages, this project will allow producers and bands at Local Live (and other music shows) to connect with an online audience and give them a unique experience that would separate Local Live from any other music show in the city.
§ Texas NewsWatch, a news program produced by the School of Journalism, and Texas Student TV have, with the help of Technology Services, developed a more efficient way to transfer footage across the plaza to air on TSTV 29.1 during our hour on Channel Austin. Texas NewsWatch now transfers an HD show file to our station rather than recording onto a MiniDV tape and transmitting their show in SD. This development has made file sharing between the two studios almost seamless.
§ Classes for new TSTV volunteers finished up two weeks ago and went very well for both
new volunteers and the instructors. This year, we were able to route all of class registration through TXShop, an online payment system for UT, which took a massive load off the business office. In past years, students would have to sign up and pay in person for any TSTV training courses. Now this can all be done online and we can generate a more accurate record of who has taken which training courses.
12
§ We are beginning a series of focused refresher courses that we will offer to our volunteers over the period of a few months. These courses will build upon basic level training that they received when they first joined this organization. These courses are essential for students committed to this profession so that they learn good habits and techniques early and are better prepared for future jobs.
§ We have increased the capacity of our editing lab to 10 machines from the original 5. This also provides volunteers with more up to date, readily available resources for editing and show production.
Overall I have seen an increase in production quality and time commitment across the board
for most of our shows. We have new volunteers excited to begin work and develop shows of their own as well as veteran volunteers who are up to the task to train, educate, and ultimately make this station a better place to work (and live, for some of us).
_______________________ Ian Reese Station Manager Texas Student TV 713-444-7373 [email protected]
13