We’re starting a step back. We say, if the content is crappy, it doesn’t matter what pipe you push it down (assuming, for a moment of discussion, that all pipes work the same, which they clearly don’t). So look at the content while you build / learn new pipes.

If the school forces “come to a comedian” content to someone that hates comedians, it doesn’t help to use Facebook, or text messaging, or e-mail. It’s mass marketing trucks to Manhattan, annoying waste of time for (almost) everyone.

—-
On the “meet them where they are” . . . that’s a fun conversation. I don’t believe in kicking down doors or hanging out uninvited, but I do believe in relationships in education. With the right set up, visiting a student’s “home” can be an incredibly powerful bridge.

And it’s funny that clubs were brought up as an example. Our leadership training is called Dance Floor Theory. Turns out a dance floor is a terrific metaphor for involvement, engagement, delegation, network theory and all kinds of other highfalutin concepts. Dance floors as a metaphor make it an easy and fun way to learn all of it. We don’t usually actually go to clubs, though we have and it is really fun and cements the learning experientially, but we do visit their “world” in conversation and metaphor.

The difference is that we take our values into their world. We re-label and re-frame their experiences with our values and this changes how they participate.

If we did not “visit” their world, at least in thought if not physically, we would not know how to bridge their experiences and our values.

If we don’t build this bridge, many students will never figure out the connection on their own.

I think schools have to “know” Facebook.

That’s a very long way of saying: I agree with you. Simply jumping from medium to medium or shifting content (complete with form and structure, however difficult or inappropriate) to new media without critically analyzing the properties of the new medium, the essential character and content of the intended message, and essential properties of the intended audience is foolhardy and likely damaging in many ways. This certainly is not a problem or difficulty limited to student affairs professionals.

The “how my thoughts changed” comment refers to a brief discussion held during the last session I attended. I haven’t gotten around to posting my notes from that session but I hope to do so shortly. Briefly, an attendee rebelled a bit at the standard “meet them where they’re at” line by reminding us that there are indeed places where we know students are at that we do not go (such as bars or clubs) because we know that there are important contextual and cultural lines that we can not or should not cross. That’s a very important point and one that we may lose sometimes when dealing with this new medium and these new places.

We’ve found it helps the conversation to start with a distinction between content and channel.

Content is good or not, based on quality, freshness, and most importantly for education, relevancy.

Technology is providing new channels, Social Networking, Text Msg, e-mail, RSS feed, etc. Many of the schools we talk to confuse the content with the channel – and want to shove the same poor, not targeted / irrelevant, content down the new channel, thinking the channel makes the difference. (They think, as you mentioned, that the new channel is the panacea, and this results, as Tom said, in channel burnout, where students cut off the school.)

Students tell us all the time they don’t read the school’s e-mail, because “most of it is junk.” (Sad, isn’t it, that many students see their schools as spammers?)

There’s another layer of technology needed around the content, to improve it’s speed and relevancy. This will reduce the friction in any channel, and maybe then we can get into intrinsic benefits of one channel over another for different types of information.

The current excitement and focus around the new channel(s) misses the real issue.

Relevancy, btw, is the ultimate meeting them where they are at. I think this is step one. I would love to hear how your thoughts changed on this aspect of the conversation.

With respect to the SMS “stuff” – I’m afraid that I’m very weak on wireless phone technology. Part of it is that it’s taken us Americans several years to catch up to what the rest of the world is doing in this area so I’ve felt safe relegating the technology to the back burner. I think it’s safe to say that we’ve caught up enough that I can’t do that any more and now I really do need to pay attention, locate the research, and stay current.

Thanks for the mention of Mozes! I’m sure that SMS, like almost any other medium, can be overused and diluted so it’s great to see that you’re concerned about educating folks. It seems that some people are still looking for a panacea, whether that be Facebook, SMS, or some other “new” technology, but we’ve got to help them remember that there is no such thing. There will always be a strong need for multiple media, often requiring different skill sets, approaches, etc.

As far as this blog I have a few thoughts.

- “meet [students] where they are,” We’ve said that it’s similar to a house party where the parents are gone, so if the parents come home, the kids (students) are going to move on to the next house (secondlife?). The parents have to learn how to come home and not be the elephant in the corner yelling to not drink or smoke inside.

- “send mass SMS messages to groups of students” A popular one among college students is Mozes. We actually partnered with them to do some work with colleges as they are spam free and cost nothing. Our #1 fear is for the admin to burn this channel of communication and mass text every day about some even coming up, and that’s why we educate them on proper use.

I think education on new technology is a must for every institution to keep the staff current with their students and for the students to understand effective use.

Ok till next time. Tom Krieglstein.