Social Networking in the Classroom

There is a lot of debate right now within academic circles about social networking. In the K-12 world it's about allowing access and in the higher education world it's about the legal ramifications of the things that students will put up.

In my world, there's more.

I teach a course in Social Networking here at Champlain College and my challenge is, within this world of fast moving change, how do I keep up and continue to show students how Social Networking is changing how we will do business.

The first challenge, of course, is that students believe they already know everything there is to know about Social Networking. They have MySpace and Facebook. What more is there to know? A lot, actually. Consider the following sites that are changing the way we do business and connect:

• LinkedIn: You can see my LinkedIn profile here on this Blog. LinkedIn is social networking in the business world and it is having a big impact on how I connect with experts in the field, stay connected with businesspeople I know and garner internships for students!
• SixDegrees.org: This new website created by Kevin Bacon (ever played the game, sixdegrees of Bacon? I'm one degree removed because I know Kathryn Blume who met and worked with Kevin Bacon on her Lysistrata Project several years ago!) and it's goal is to use SOCIAL NETWORKING to fundraise for causes.
• MySpace.com: Yeah, I know. We all know about MySpace. But...what about the fact that they are working with eBay to create an opportunity for individuals on MySpace to sell stuff to their friends using the eBay auction engine? They are calling it PEER COMMERCE! The WSJ had an article in the paper on Thursday, Feb. 8th that addressed this along with challenges they are facing with Google and Advertising.
• YouTube: The non-profit group, Public Citizen is highlighting the dangers of new birth control pills -- using YouTube to get the word out. They are bypassing the traditional e-alerts and PSA's on TV to reach their audience. This is a new way for advocates ... and it's social networking! They've created website as well: notmypill.org.

There's more. But isn't this enough? Advocacy comes to social networking. PEER Commerce comes to social networking. Mobile is moving fast. Social networking isn't just about seeing what your friends did at their party last night. There's a lot more to it.

Well...I've got to get to class.

Getting Ready for the "Real World"

One of the challenges that I believe every professor faces in to make sure that our students understand and are ready for what is expected of them in the so-called "real world".

Here at Champlain College, in the Marketing Management class, I am working to reach that goal. Marketing Management is the final marketing course that all marketing majors must take before they graduate. It's a seminar course which in academia means more discussion based and we often sit around a room, rather than in that traditional lecture-based set up. However, this class is beyond a "seminar". It's project-based. But it is more than that too.

Students come in, meet a client and spend the rest of the semester working with that client to solve a marketing challenge.

It's hard work to break out of a structured, professor-driven environment. It's hard work for me and hard work for the students. At some point I'll write more about the power of giving up control in the classroom.

They told me yesterday that this didn't feel like a college class. I take that as a compliment. I don't want this to be a typical college class. I want it to be as close to the "real world" as possible. I want them to be ready. I want to build their confidence.

They came in yesterday with a presentation to give. They never gave it. Instead, they got the chance to re-work it and hopefully learned that brainstorming and implementation take real time, commitment and creativity. What they came out with as a starting point is exciting and I can't wait to see the final product. I hope they gained perspective on what it will really take to work with a client in the real world.

The Power of One

The semester at Champlain College is already five weeks done and here I go trying to get back into the BLOGGING scene. Yes, I'm bringing BLOGGER back. Why? For several reasons actually. First, it gets indexed faster because of the whole Google tie-in and secondly, it keeps me current on different blogging options. But...I get off topic...quickly.

One of the hallmarks of the Non-Profit and Social Marketing class that we developed here at Champlain College is what I call the "Friday Speaker Series". Throughout the semester I invite individuals who exemplify our theme of "The Power of One" to come into class and speak. This week I had the pleasure of inviting and listening to a good friend, Kathryn Blume talk about her journey as a struggling actor/environmental activist and how it has culminated into her role as an "Accidental Activist". She told us how she and another actor in New York City, in 2002 started a movement of actors and individuals in the theater around the world who produced readings of Lysistrata, the 2500 year old play where women withhold sex to stop war. They started the LYSISTRATA PROJECT on a shoe-string and had a HUGE impact. From this, Kathy's one-woman show the Accidential Activist was borne and she toured the country telling her story.

Now Kathy is back at it again with THE BOYCOTT. Here's the premise:

Inspired by the ancient Greek anti-war comedy Lysistrata, The Boycott tells the story of playwright and actor Kathryn Blume trying to fight global warming and save the word by writing the story of the First Lady of the United States, Lyssa Stratton, launching a nationwide sex strike to fight global warming and save the world.

She opened in Burlington, VT last week to two sold-out shows! Way to go Kathy!

So what does this have to do with our class at Champlain College? Tons! Students have begun to write about what they have learned from Kathy and the ability of one person to make a difference, when they feel that they can't until they have more money or more power or more fame....she has helped them to see that the power of one is real.

VOX: A new Blogging Site

So, who needs a new blogging site anyway? And for heaven's sake why would I start yet ANOTHER thing? Between my MySpace, Facebook, Linked-in, Blogger, Ejyoung.com, Faculty Website and Second Life I really don't think I have time to add in yet another one!

Um...until now.

I read about VOX at one of my favorite blog sites: Influential Interactive Marketing, and decided to check it out. I think I'm hooked. What I really like is not the social networking piece (although that really has potential), it is the user interface and the way you can pull in audio, video, books, and images. The tagging is very del.icio.us like and incorporates directly into the interface. You can also provide individual permissions on your photos, posts, whatever.

It's free.

It's easy.

With the integrated tagging feature not just on posts but on images, audio, video etc. and the fact that the books will link back directly to Amazon...it's blowing my mind.

It officially launched for public consumption on Thursday, October 26th. Through beta it has 85,000 members.

I think I'm officially on board.

Now...the question is...should I keep Blogger?

Welcome Miridawn Carpathea

The real world and the virtual world are colliding.

Several years ago I signed up for an account at this very cool online world called "There.com" It was very cool. I created an Avatar, checked out clothes, puchased a hoverboard and zoomed around the world. It was great fun. It was even really cool to consider the marketing applications. But then the Ph.D. set in and time became even more of a premium.

And then Second Life started up. And I signed up for a beta account...and time being what it was...well...didn't move forward.

Fast forward to today and the wonderful world of Second Life where we have places to shop and now even a wire news service is playing! It's been very interesting actually watching the press coverage on this one. I've seen references to Harvard in the Virtual World -- see their course in "Law in the Court of Public Opinion", and places to shop in the real world for "stuff" for your avatar in the virtual world (just Google "shopping in second life" and see what pops up). So I've decided to jump back in...check it out. Go back into that virtual world. Of course it's happening at the same time that the New York Times does a story on Reuters joining in Second Life, media outlets such as CNet not only cover Sun Microsystems and IBM going into Second Life but also have their own virtual presence -- AND these big-name companies get to buy their real names to have in the virtual space!

So this leaves me wondering how things are evolving in Second Life...hence I have created Miridawn Carpathea. Right now she kinda looks like the real me. And I'm in the process of rediscovering this virtual world with a whole bunch of other people. At the same time.

Remember the days of the early computer, when you'd start a loading process then go eat dinner and come back to the computer to play the game or run the program? Well my goodness. Here we go AGAIN!

In between trying to create my avatar and figure out how to move around in Second Life, I'm writing this blog, eating my dinner, petting my cats...well you get the idea.

The potential is quite interesting actually but limited by lack of bandwidth and as is always the case when the media starta fire-storm and the company isn't ready...Second Life is dismally unprepared so things are very very sssssssslllllloooooooooowwwwwww........

Be that as it may, the marketing opportunities and the economic ramifications are fascinating. We talked about this in our Internship class today and it was a very interesting discussion. Students didn't know anything about it and many of them found it to be well...a bit on the disturbing side. "Why would anyone want to spend their time in that?" was the overall reaction.

The chance to be whomever or whatever you want to be? The ability to learn about other things without taking risk? hmmm....for me, if I only had the time!!

GooTube and Social Media Optimization

So Google has purchased YouTube. It's the next in a string of interesting acquisitions that include Rubert Murdock purchasing MySpace and Yahoo! buying up Facebook. Of course what makes it even more interesting is the way that all of these sites are linked together! Check out this article from Media Bulletin where they discuss the "talks" that are now going on between MySpace and Google around the use of YouTube. With all the linking from MySpace to YouTube there's a lot of traffic at stake.

They reference the battle for the youth market. Hmmm...anyone looking at the recent stats on MySpace's demographic? According to eMarketer, MySpace is going GREY!! Ok..I must take offense to that one, given the fact that I am 39 and the numbers show that MySpace is appealing to more 35 year-olds. Gee whiz folks...when did that become GREY?? Over 51% of MySpace visitors were 35 and older in August. Teens dropped from 24% to 11%! Well I do have my own theory on this one. I think it's all the parents checking up on their kids MySpace pages! FINALLY!! They do note that it's not quanity...but quality of the visit that should count and in that the kids are making up for their lower numbers in a lot more time spent! So where are the kids going now? It seems that Xanga.com is reaching that market...Xanga is a blogging space and a networking space and a...dessert topping...a floor wax....

On to other things...very quickly as the time is running out before I turn into a pumpkin. So I'm teaching this Online Visibility Class and already my title is out of date! Although the topic is right on the money it would seem. A look around the web at a series of blogs brought up one that I'll be reading often Influential Internet Marketing. In the blog, Rohit Bhargava, an internet marketing professional with Olgivy PR highlights some of the most cutting edge and exciting innovations in online PR. What I'm calling Online Visibilty he's now calling SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMIZATION. Actually makes sense. Wikipedia has a definition. There's even a voting option for it at CHANGE THIS!

Do I buy it? Yep I do. The more I look at how the web is creating a set of networks that allow us to go beyond the typical media channel and actually allow our customers to enage with the brand, how it enables tighter niche marketing and how technology is creating opportunities that we never saw before (check out the whole Second Life thing on Bhargava's blog this week!), the more I'm convinced that the power of PR and Marketing is expanding in ways that many aren't even thinking of.

Now just try being a professor and keeping up with all of that!

Hmmm...Shakespeare is looking very very good to me.

Politics Online and Manna from Heaven

It's an amazing thing, actually. Needing examples of ETHICAL issues for my internet marketing course this past Tuesday, I racked my brain trying to come up with something that would be interesting, engagine and thought provoking -- and have SOMETHING to do with the Internet! Tuesday morning as I drove to work, I was getting worried. I still had nothing and class was at 9:30 a.m.!

I shouldn't have worried. Like Manna from Heaven the news broke on VPR as I drove in...

Many thanks to Martha Rainville and most especially her enterprising staff member who decided to enhance her campaign website with "borrowed" text from other locations. Locations such as HILLARY CLINTON's website! Get the scoop here at Peter Freyne's Inside Track blog. Even more interesting is on Tuesday morning when we looked at Martha's website -- well, let's just say that they made a bad situation even worse! They had pulled the site down because, well most of it was plagairized, which may have seemed like the right thing to do at the time...however at the same time they did that most of the local press had picked up the story and run it. Of course that means people were hitting the site and getting two failed image loads and a hastily typed message that the site would be back up soon. Missed opportunity to post a response or their news release on this issue and to take back some control. By the way...it's still down but at least there's an image there now! But still NO PR response at all. Tsk Tsk Tsk

So what are the implications for Republican Candidate Rainville just FIVE SHORT weeks away from the election? Students in my class really hit the nail on the head -- not only does it make someone wonder about the candidate's integrity (if she hasn't written her own policies and provided the content to the web folks, what is up with that?), but if they aren't able to handle the PR required for a situation like this and put up a response (frankly it would take but a few minutes longer to post!), how will they respond to other issues as well?

Of course there is the further interesting implication that the person who "broke" the story was a BLOGGER doing comparisons. See the Burlington Free Press article.

Naturally as we spoke of ethics and online issues students brought up Rep. Foley -- is that TOM or MARK, by the way? Yep, dems wrote a response and got the two mixed up. Tom Foley former speaker of the house and Democrat who retired in 1995 (ok, was not re-elected) vs. Mark Foley. Sigh. Same last name, but HARDLY interchangeable. So what does this have to do with ethics on the web? Um...get your facts straight people before you publish stuff!

Getting Started

The semester at Champlain is in full-swing! Five weeks into it and mid-term presentations are looming in one class, interns are scrambling in another and tomorrow I launch a new five week course in Online Visibility! Somewhere in all of this I'm grading and trying to keep my head above water while at the same time keep up to date with all the innovations that keep on happening! I'm experimenting with FEEDBURNER but to do that had to breath new life into an old blog...so deleted the old one and am now making a commitment to keeping this one up and fresh.