Communication Works!

Welcome

The inaugural edition of Communication Works!, features a brand new look and approach to e-newsletters. Earlier this year, faculty and staff sat down with alumnus Matt Highsmith ('82) to talk about improving delivery of our e-news. Matt is the founder of TailoredMail and one of his specialties is helping companies do just that. We listened carefully to Matt — he knows what he is talking about. The result is a shorter, more thoughtful, less cluttered news piece designed with our busy alumni in mind. We hope you enjoy reading. Please stay tuned for more editions.

Celebrating 150 years of excellence

This is a big year for the University of Washington: we are celebrating our 150th year of education. It’s remarkable: through several wars, the gaining of statehood in 1889, economic depressions and elevations, two World’s Fairs, annual salmon runs and apple seasons, and the launching of one epic idea after another, the UW has been a constant presence in this region. We are rightly proud of this, and the university has many plans for sesquicentennial celebration this 2011-12 academic year. In the Department of Communication, we plan to highlight on our website 12 of our alumni who were selected in 2008 as part of the UW’s “Wondrous 100 Alums” by Columns Magazine. Read more.

Highsmith ('82) starts email company

Matt Highsmith (BA, 1982) had a successful marketing portfolio from companies such as Procter & Gamble and Apple before he began working at Intermind in 1995. The company specialized in “push technology,” a term Highsmith coined himself during an interview with Wired magazine. But in 1997, during the dot-com bubble, Intermind fell and this former captain of the UW golf team decided to work for himself. Today, Highsmith is the founder of TailoredMail, a cloud-based email marketing business that employs 26 people. Read more.

UW Communication alumni at helm of AWC

When Tina Christiansen (BA, 1988) decided to start her own business in 2005, she found the support of the Association for Women in Communications critical to her success. Today, the alumna is president of the Seattle chapter and, along with a committed board, six of whom are UW Communication alumnae, she plans on refreshing communication efforts and increasing membership. Read more.

Study: Tech not always an improvement

When Assistant Professor Gina Neff visited her first construction site, she realized she needed a makeover for that environment. “I was wearing open-toed shoes and I suddenly was very conscious that I was wearing absolutely the wrong thing,” she said. Three years later, Neff and her co-authors have visited multiple construction sites to learn how teams collaborate using building information management software. Their findings are published in the Engineering Project Organization Journal. Read more.