NACADA National Conference & Twitter

NACADA is on Twitter

More than 30 attendees at the NACADA National Conference in San Antonio utilized the #nacada09 hashtag to maintain an active back channel. Check out the full list of NACADA 09 twitterers from this year’s conference at the NACADA Tech Seminar site.

My guess is that this was about 30 more people on Twitter than at last year’s event. Hopefully, the use of Twitter will continue at next year’s conference in Orlando. I would have liked to have seen a few more presentations on Slideshare as I was not able to attend the conference. However, the back channel conversations were quite good considering that this was the first time that this has happened at a NACADA Conference.

Sustaining social media strategies

Twitter birds by Chris Wallace

I was checking out the Twittersphere the other day via TweetDeck when I noticed a rather edgy tweet by Brad J Ward:

How sustainable is your social web strategy? 4 tweets since June from @elginspartans. Just some food for thought. via @bradjward

Brad’s tweet got me thinking about how I approach the Twitter accounts that I manage for OSU’s College of Health and Human Sciences. We have two accounts: HHS Advising and OSU HHS. My personal Twitter account, @ericstoller, is not affiliated with the HHS accounts. I keep everything separate during the work day with the help of CoTweet. If I am on vacation, out sick, etc., our web team can access CoTweet and post on the HHS Twitter accounts. Our social media strategy in HHS is not predicated upon the social media following of any one individual. It’s a team effort. It’s an organizational strategy that will (hopefully) continue regardless of individual personnel ebb and flow.

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NACADA ’09 Conference hashtag

NACADA is using Twitter in San Antonio to connect with virtual followers

One of the most successful components of the NACADA Technology Seminar was the use of Twitter amongst the seminar attendees. Every tweet for the event was tagged with this hashtag: #nacadatech09. The hashtag allowed us to aggregate all tagged tweets into the NACADA Tech website via a widget from monitter.com.

This year, due to a multitude of financial issues, a lot of NACADA members will most likely not be able to attend the NACADA Annual Conference in San Antonio, Texas.

The following hashtag has been “created” to enable non-attendees the opportunity to virtually follow the action in San Antonio: #nacada09

How can you participate as either a NACADA Annual Conference Tweeter or as a virtual follower?

NACADA Tweeters:

  • Step 1: Sign up for a Twitter account.
  • Step 2: Take your laptop or web-ready cellphone to San Antonio and hope that WiFi is available.
  • Step 3: Post updates on Twitter about the conference: session pointers, take-aways, best practices, key issues, etc.
  • Step 4: In every 140 character post, include “#nacada09” (without quotes and a space in front of and after the tag)

Virtual followers:

Student Affairs Practitioners and Twitter

Student Affairs is on Twitter
Tweet, tweet, tweet: Student Affairs is on Twitter
A microblogging phenomenon known as Twitter has recently rocketed into popular consciousness. In existence for 3 years, Twitter is not exactly the newest social networking site. However, it was in 2009 that Twitter’s mainstream notoriety occurred. Twitter users in Iran produced thousands of microblog posts informing the world of post-election protests. Ashton Kutcher and CNN held a contest to see which of their popular accounts could garner the most followers. Oprah and Ellen began tweeting this year. Even President Obama utilized Twitter as part of a successful election communications strategy. Twitter provides a content platform that can be used for personal tweets, organizing, event updates, networking, content syndication and research.

What does Twitter have to do with Student Affairs and its practitioners?
The answer to how Twitter is relevant to Student Affairs practitioners is stunningly simple: communication. Hundreds of higher education institutions, senior leaders within those organizations, and social media savvy faculty/staff/students are posting 140 character microblog updates to Twitter on a daily basis. Twitter provides a conduit for a wide variety of communication-based applications that Student Affairs professionals can utilize.

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Google Wave

Google has a new app called “Wave.” It’s billed as communication and collaboration tool. I would say that it’s probably going to be the tool of choice in the next 5 years for anyone who uses Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, WordPress, any IM Client, etc. If Google Wave catches on, Zuckerberg will wish that he’d sold Facebook when he had the chance.

Google Wave
Microsoft is the “new” IBM. They just don’t know it yet. Sorry Redmond.

Oregon State University Social Media Directory

Oregon State University has a new social media directory page. Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube and WordPress are the primary communication mediums for OSU’s social media presence. I’m sure this list will continue to grow as more and more departments engage in social media implementations.

Facebook pages and groups

Flickr photo feeds

Twitter Feeds

YouTube

Other Social Media, Video and Audio Sites

OSU Bloggers

Wikis

via the OSU Dialog blog

Student Affairs Technology: To Boldly Go

Student Affairs Technology: To Boldly Go

“They should have explained the basic concepts at the beginning (e.g.: podcasts, blogs, wikis, etc.).”

“Be less technical.”

“Helping me to boldly go where I’ve never been before.”

One of these statements is not like the other two. I’m sure you can guess which one gives me hope as a student affairs techie that we as a profession have not lost our willingness to learn, to explore and to stay positive about new technologies. This article represents a call to action for student affairs practitioners. The microblogging site, Twitter, has a feature that lets you “nudge” someone that you are following. This is me providing a gentle nudge to my fellow higher education administrators. I hope that you nudge me back. Let’s push the envelope. Let’s shift our professional paradigms. Let’s make technology (and learning about new technologies) a part of our daily practices.

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Bloglines is offline

Bloglines is temporarily down

It is moments like this when I contemplate using an RSS client instead of a web-based service like Bloglines. “Bloglines is down temporarily. We will be back shortly.” They have been offline for quite a while now. Bloglines is not yet at the same level of unavailability as Twitter, but my RSS feeds are far more important to me than my tweets. Bloglines’ “Twister on drugs” background image is fun to look at, but only for a couple reloads.

Web 2.0 footprint

Recently, the head space that I am devoting to various Web 2.0 sites and applications has begun to feel quite cumbersome. I decided to create a post on my “Web 2.0 footprint.” My usage of each of these sites ebbs and flows. This list represents Web 2.0 services that I use at least once per month. Without further ado, here is a list in no particular order (with links to my personal profiles) of the Web 2.0 sites and services that I currently engage with on the interwebs:

Wordpress.org
WordPress.org: It runs my blog. I’ve tried Blogger and heard a lot about Movable Type, but WordPress has my blogging heart in its php basket.

Twitter
Twitter: I’m still not sure what it’s good for ;-). My virtual journal consists of my blog, my live journal account and my twitter account. Sometimes I just need a few words in the Twitterspace to get something out of my head.

LiveJournal
LiveJournal: Everything that does not get posted on my blog or on Twitter is posted on my LiveJournal account. Private groups get treated to spectacular rants and it serves as a space for me and my local friends to share all sorts of thoughts and feelings.

Flickr
Flickr: Only a few of the gigabytes of photographs that I have taken are on my Flickr account. I really need to upload more when I get some spare time.

Facebook
Facebook: I use Facebook on a daily basis. It’s a great place to connect with friends. It enables me to stay connected with a lot more people than I probably would be able to in the “real” world. Facebook isn’t perfect, but in my opinion, it is the only show in town for my social networking needs.

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