The timing of this true story is almost too perfect:
John Dyer, the Web Director and Developer at Dallas Theological Seminary, has historically had to manage campus-wide notifications manually for campus-related issues (like a record snowfall!).
He would get a call at about 5:00am in the morning and then boot up the browser, FTP, and mail client to update the homepage, send out emails, and manage the flow of information.
This, of course, was not sustainable (nor enjoyable, I’m sure).
Does this resonate with any of you? Familiar with this type of scenario? Here’s what they did to fix it:
The Power (and Usefulness) of Technology:
John did some research recently and found that e2Campus.com was a perfect solution for their issues.
John signed up the organization, sent out emails to the students, and in less than 24 hours they had more nearly half of the staff and student body sign up.
This was Thursday, 3 days ago. Literally a day later they would have to use it: A record snowfall in Dallas.
Campus closed.
The Amazing New Process!
Instead of the typical mass-hysteria of such an event and the logistical nightmare that occurs, an HR person simply logged in, sent out a message which went to 700 mobile phones, 500 email addresses, 2,000 friends on Facebook, 1,800 followers on Twitter, and showed up on the DTS main site via RSS.
Amazing. Seriously amazing. Thank God for technology.
And, the best thing of course is that John got to sleep in.
Brilliant technology win. Even better was the decision to use it after the research was done. Too often, there are examples where technology was not used because or fear, budget or lack of respect for the person who had done the research.
yeah. i love how they got to use it immediately!
I accept the title ‘brilliant’
DTS actuallly had a system before but it was terrible. So when I heard they were open to change, I volunteered to help choose and implement the system. I have a far amount of trust at DTS so it wasn’t too hard to get throught, but we almost missed the chance to use it, so I’m glad I made one last push before snowmaggedon hit.
word up. you’re my hero.
Rick W. Smith handled it pretty well.
because he’s the man.
Check out this video on his blog. http://rickwsmith.com/blog/2010/02/12/the-blizzard-of-2010/
haha. yeah. i saw that.
Glad to see seminaries (at least one) being less stupid. It’s encouraging.
puahaha. john dyer is keeping it on lockdown.
A…Ma…Zing! I’ll have to check this out. If we could text and Facebook and Twitter and Email all from one location… oh man…
I just drooled on my MacBook… dang.
make sure to clean it up.