Allison Furkey Shares Why She is Returning to Converge 2015

This October at Converge 2015 our focus is to bring the best and brightest together to revolutionize higher education. In this post, Content Marketing Intern, Mikayla Wilson, asks returning attendee, Allison Furkey, what influenced her decision to attend Converge 2015 after attending Converge 2014 last fall. Read on to find out more.

Name: Allison Furkey

Job Title: Communications Manager

Institution: Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst

MW: Tell us a little bit more about yourself and your role at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

AF: I am the Communications Manager in the Marketing & Communications office at the Isenberg School of Management – the business school at UMass Amherst. We are a very small team of 5, so I basically touch almost all school communications in some way – in both the digital and traditional realms. I manage the school’s social media accounts, video productions, email marketing, design projects, and oversee the creation of promotional and advertising materials with our freelance designers and sometimes our external advertising agency FORGE Worldwide. I also have strategic oversight of all our content, how we should be creating it and where the content should live within our owned (and sometimes paid) media. I do all of this under the guidance of our Chief Marketing Officer.

MW: You attended Converge 2014, what inspired you to sign up for Converge 2015?

AF: Converge was the first marketing conference I attended that catered specifically to higher ed marketers. I feel like this made a big difference in my experience. It’s one thing to get some really fantastic ideas and inspiration from big, flashy brands with a ton of resources, and another to come back to a higher ed environment and realistically be able to put those ideas into practice. I found that being among people who have the same goals and challenges was really great and I left with inspiration for ideas that I could actually see us being able to implement. This, along with what looks like another fantastic lineup (and location!) for 2015, is what made me decide to come back for year two.

MW: What was one of your key takeaways from Converge 2014 that you’ve been able to use at UMass Amherst?

AF: A takeaway I received from the Inbound Marketing session (which seems to be the one session I attended that I unfortunately did not write down the name of the presenter) was the idea that content should really be developed keeping in mind the most important questions your prospective audience wants answered. This way it helps your SEO and lets your audience find you organically through Google searches. We’ve been talking more and more about having blogs for certain programs or people at our school and this advice will definitely be part of the content strategy for those.

MW: What are you most looking forward to at Converge 2015?

AF: Honestly, I’m probably most looking forward to networking and meeting more people from other universities. I think sharing our stories and hearing how we’ve dealt with challenges is invaluable. As for conference sessions, I’m really interested in the Content Strategy talks as this is increasingly becoming more a part of my job.

MW: We look forward to seeing you in New Orleans, Allison!