Don't Sweat It

Don't Sweat it, there is a solution to every problem. Everything will work out.

You will mess up and when you do, learn from it and move on. If everything was perfect, you'd never learn.

Ask questions, if you don't ask you'll never know.

D's Get Degrees

When I was in college, a number of my peers lived by the slogan “D’s get to degrees”.  Most of the time they weren’t being serious, but it’s alarming that there is truth in such a silly statement.

Just because we sat in our seat in the classroom for three hours a week, took notes and were able score higher than 65% on exams, we somehow were experts in Finance or History or Marketing, etc. Oh, and expected to be ready to enter the workforce--skilled and well prepared.

It’s time to move forward, a time for students to be evaluated on what they know, not how much time they’ve spent in a class. NY Times columnist Tom Friedman, quoting historian Walter Russell Mead, “Institutions of higher learning must move from a model of “time served” to a model of “stuff learned".” 

Best Practices for Social Media

I recently read an article on SocialMediaToday.com titled “The 5 Pillars of Social Media: There is no Box!” The article identified and expanded on “five pillars” of social media strategy:

1. Listen, Search, Walk a “Daily in the Life” of your Customers
2. Rethink Your Vision, Mission and Purpose
3. Define Your Brand Persona
4. Develop Social Business Strategy
5. Build and Invest in your Community

For any industry, it is important to follow these Five Pillars when implementing your Social Media Strategy. However, in the world of Higher Education, I feel that number five, Build and Invest in your Community, might be the most important.  On any physical campus or online university students want to feel connected, have their ideas heard and connect with other members of the campus community whether it be students, faculty or staff.  Social Media Today explains that “Community is much more than belonging to something; it's about doing something together that makes belonging matter.” Institutes of Higher Learning can use social media as a way to establish community with their students, faculty and staff. On Twitter, the use of Hash tags can connect people; with twitter, the university responding to the needs of students and highlighting positive events on campus can bring the community together.  Google+ takes it even further by allowing you to create your own community to connect with others all over the world to discuss anything; the community is your own to create.

(Personally? More people need to get on Google+.)

http://socialmediatoday.com/briansolis/1249946/5-pillars-new-media-strategy-there-no-box