I was referred to as a, “Jedi Web Geek” in a post one of my friends wrote last night. Let me explain.
My friend, Dennis, is the Public Relations Director for Mansfield University. I’ve know Dennis off an on for years, since my dad works with him pretty regularly. When I was at my last job, Dennis’ office called saying they needed help with some web work that was giving them fits. Dennis offered to pay me, but I asked for a signed copy of his novel, The Perfect Song, instead.
Afterwards, as I was getting ready to leave, I decided I would “pitch” to Dennis what I thought was a crazy notion – maybe the University should start podcasting. Podcasting was getting big at that point, and I thought it could be a cool idea and possibly be a way to spark some (relatively) cheap buzz for Mansfield.
To my surprise, Dennis mentioned that he had already been thinking about the idea. I think we spent the rest of the conversation talking about “geek” stuff – what was going on with podcasting, Google, the web in general, etc.
Today the Mansfield University Podcast has loads of episodes about all sorts of different topics, and has even gained national notoriety.
Ever since our first meeting, I have become (still becoming I would say) the Jedi Web Geek, helping Dennis along the way of the web. That name suggests that I know all or something like that, and that is far from the truth, but I like to help and share my knowledge where I can, especially to people like Dennis, who are so interested in learning whatever they can.
I can’t really even begin to express how much I enjoy my time spent with Dennis, learning about marketing, talk about the latest tech news, talking about life, etc. It truly has been great.
If you’re interested in what the meetings of a Jedi Web Geek and a PR Director are like, check out Dennis’ new blog, The Higher Ed Marketing Blog.
In light of reading Dennis’ latest post, I hope to start a series of posts with some Search Engine Optimization tips. Search Engine Optimization is basically the process of making changes to your web site (in my opinion) for the benefit of not only search engines (to help you rank higher on Google, for instance) but also for the benefit of users. There is definitely way more to it than that, but I hope to share some basic tips that should be useful.
Stay tuned…