Then later on:

Sample outreach activities

This section lists a sample outreach activity that we hope to start with. This can be used as a template for any further outreach activities.

University Students and Lecturers

These two groups are listed together as a single item as contacting students and their teachers should ideally be done in tandem. Similar mechanisms will be used to contact each group, their goals being much the same (acquire, or teach skills needed to get a job). The outreach program spec will look something like this:

• Name of outreach activity: University outreach

• Target groups for outreach: Primary targets University students and University lecturers. Secondary targets Parents and University administrators. Activity can be run in multiple territories, depending on how many personnel we have available.

• Personnel required: For each territory and each project cycle, we need a project leader to manage the project and do part of the work, we need two to three admins to do tasks such as sending out e-mails, writing promotional copy and logistics, and we need a few presenters to agree to do face to face meetings/guest lectures/open days

• Activity cycle: Each round of the project to run for one year, in each territory

• Goals and Success criteria (per territory, per year):

  • Get 15 universities to adopt and promote OWEA-approved resources as further reading and recommended texts on their web-related courses
  • Organise 10 WE Rock events at universities/local businesses
  • Get 3 universities to start teaching a OWEA-approved degree course on web design/development, or at least improve what they currently have significantly
  • Get 10 students and 5 industry professionals to act as local evangelists, helping to promote web standards education in their local area
  • Forge 5 links between universities and several local web development companies so the companies can provide advice, sample questions and suchlike, and the universities can provide students for internships
  • Get 10 universities to improve their web sites so they follow web standards and best practices
  • Get 10 universities to roll out a choice of standards-compliant browsers on their networks (many university networks are still stuck on IE 6/IE 7)

• Outreach methods to employ:

  • E-mail/twitter/phone/message boards for contact and outreach
  • Guest lectures
  • WE Rock tour/tour kit
  • Press packs
  • Advocate packs/rewards
  • Train the trainers
  • Internship/recruitment program
  • Press interviews - TV, radio, online, newspaper
  • Testimonials

• Basic message abstract: One major goal of any university is to teach students the skills they need to get a job in their area of specialisation. In the field of web design and development this often does not happen successfully; many universities do not teach web development skills that are compliant with best practices, hence there is a shortage of skilled graduates coming into the web industry. There are many reasons for this, and it is not just the fault of the educators or the industry. We would like to help you make your web-related courses the best they can be. We are a group of web industry and education professionals, and can offer you all the materials you need to run a complete web design program, and offer a flawless set of web resources. Our resources provide all your students could ever need for background reading and learning materials. We also offer other services such as hooking you up with local companies for internships and offering guest lectures. We'd love to organise a meeting with you to talk about what we can offer your university.

• Plan of action for carrying out this outreach

  1. Choose territories to carry out the outreach activity in. Territories should be of a sensible size to manage for a small team, for example the UK, East Ukraine, or Atlanta.
  Put together a team to carry out the outreach activity for each territory
  2. Research universities and local web companies to be involved in the outreach. About 30-50 of each would be a good number to start with. This should be done in about 2 weeks. Of course, if you already have lecturer or student representatives from those universities, that makes things easier
  3. Contact each one of these with an appropriate introductory mail or phone call that is polite, concise, and to the point. Try to make your point of contact as appropriate as possible, e.g., the head of the computer science or interactive media faculty, or the creative director of a company. This should be done in about one month.
  4. When each one gets back to you, give them more information and try to arrange a meeting, online or face to face. Also ask them for details of local student representatives or employees that might want to act as local evangelists.
  5. For the ones that don't reply, try them up to a maximum of three times, perhaps employing different tactics each time. If they still don't get back, give up and move on.
  6. When you have about 15 universities interested in hosting WE Rock events promoting best practices, take the next steps to get the resources into their courses, and sort out the logistics for the events***
  7. When you have about 15 local companies interested in acting as advisors or internship places, take the next steps to forge the links with local universities.
  8. When you have about 10 students and 10 industry professionals interested in local evangelism, go through what it takes, and roll out evangelism packs.
  9. When organizing the WE Rock events, don't just invite people from those universities, invite people from all surrounding universities, companies, and schools. Invite local politicians and media. Make a big deal out of it, sell it to the university as getting them more publicity, as well as raising the profile of OWEA.
  10. Talk to the universities about getting better browsers into their labs, and and improving their web sites. Offer them free consultancy advice.
  11. After the events are over, keep in contact with the universities, to encourage and support them to keep up the good work. Collect testimonials/quotes, etc. to use for future outreach/marketing activities

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