You come upon glass double doors. They seem inviting enough and you enter. To your left, a staircase that takes you back where you came from. To your right, a long hallway. It seems to be the proper direction. It looks appealing, accommodating, safe. It’s where you want to be. So, you turn right.
Not long down the hallway your first choice arrives. Heading straight takes you back outside, but you aren’t ready for that yet. Through the glass windows you can see the world and watch it change, but it’s not your time to jump into the fray. You veer slightly to the left and continue down the hall.
This means you’re committed now. The path is long, but you barely notice as door after door pass you by. You’re sucked in. You keep your head up, focused on where the hallway ends. It all feels right; the decision to follow the path has an ease to it, as if you’ve been here before.
Finally you see what appears to be the end of the hallway. There are far less people around you than before, and many are exiting here. But as you get closer, you discover that this is merely a false ending; another short dogleg in the journey that just added another chapter.
The new part of the hallway is different in some ways, but it still carries the qualities that led you to take the right turn in the first place. New is good, especially when it’s tempered with similarities. The hall takes a little dip down, then works its way up a slope. It ends, this time for real, at an apex.
Sure, you can stay at the end of the hallway. There’s plenty to do. It’s familiar and pleasant. But those double doors to the outside look so much more inviting than they did when you had the option to leave before. In an instant you’ve decided, and a journey rife with false endings, slight changes and an unexpected length begins to close around you.
Deep breath. Open the door. Leave the hallway. It’s time.
Today is my last day as multimedia content specialist at Ithaca College. On Saturday, I will move to New York City. On Monday, I begin my new position as community manager at Huge, Inc. Exit one door, enter another. It’s been an absolute pleasure, and I can’t wait for what’s next.
Here we go again. The Arrested Development episode in question is “Afternoon Delight”, which was the sixth episode of season two. I’m sorry. Today’s lessons are more about the community of social media than actual best practices.
Invest in Learning
Buster was supposed to be at boot camp, but instead found himself at an arcade near the Banana Stand with a hundred dollar bill and time to burn. It only made sense that he would turn the bill into 400 quarters and become the master of the arcade’s crane machine.
Later in the episode, this came in handy as Gob was stuck in a banana suit in the banana stand. Buster heard Gob’s cries, noticed a nearby crane, and sprang into action. It was a heartwarming moment of brother-saving-brother until Buster realized he never learned how to actually put things down other than totally drop them. So that sucked for Gob.
Hey. Hi. Hello. Sup.
February’s #ICsocial chat is on the books for Wednesday, February 20, at 5 pm. The topic: #HigherEd uses for ephemeral apps. (Yeah, that’s right. We’re gonna talk about SnapChat. #WeirdTwitter here we come!)
Some businesses have begun trying to use apps like SnapChat and Poke as marketing tools. Is this smart? Can they be effective tools for #HigherEd? Why won’t people use Poke even though it’s nicer? And more.
Anyone is invited to participate in the chat. It will last approximately an hour, with questions moderated by @rcengelsman (me) on Twitter.
So add it to your calendars and get ready. We’ll see you in two weeks.
You can see a recap of January’s chat about teaching social media here.
I have hundreds of DVD cases stacked somewhere back in Pennsylvania. Almost all of them are real, but there do happen to be some that aren’t. The fake cases are full-sized and accompanied by photocopied covers slipped into the plastic lining. They’re the first few seasons of Family Guy, and I got them from my friend Steve. He passed away late this afternoon, after battling cancer. I found out around 5:15, swallowed hard, finished a meeting, came home. It’s still sinking in.
Looks like we’re gonna make this a thing, so you know, sorry in advance. These notes are specific to the episode that aired in the US on January 27, 2013, and in the UK some six months earlier for some really stupid reason. Probably Definitely some spoilers in here.
Oh, Downton, you continue to slay me (and your own characters). Here are this week’s lessons about social media strategy that we can learn from Downton Abbey:
Look, this is gonna happen whether you like it or not. The Bachelor episode in question aired on January 21, but if you’ve ever seen the show you should be fine.
When I speak to others about social media, it’s a constant struggle to find even-footing. No one’s experience or viewpoint is the same, which is fantastic, except for the fact that it also leaves us with fewer points of reference to help guide conversation. I thought a well-known TV show could be the key to unraveling that difficulty. Then this happened. I’m so sorry.
Here are this week’s lessons about social media strategy that we can learn from The Bachelor:
It’s always a pleasure to convene on the internet and discuss things in short bursts of words, so with that in mind, I convened the second #ICsocial chat yesterday afternoon. The chat is an attempt to link my student social media team with industry professionals and alumni, as well as discuss topics of the day in a relaxed environment.
This week’s topic was Teaching Social Media, and conversations discussed the age at which someone should be taught social media, who should do the teaching, and more. It was fun!
I’m looking to do a chat a month during the course of the spring, so keep your eyes peeled for more!
Read on for a full recap…
Hey. Hi. Hello. Sup.
When we held our first #ICsocial chat back in November, I promised there’d be more. So here we are. The next #ICsocial chat on Twitter will be Wednesday, January 9, at 4 PM.
Like last time, I’ll be providing questions from my personal Twitter account, but unlike last time, my student social media team is on break and we won’t all be in the same room, making this a purely online chat.
Also, I’ve chosen a more specific theme this time: Teaching Social Media. Who should teach social media? When should kids learn about it? Who is responsible for promoting social media literacy? If it’s a school, where does social media fit in the curriculum? We’ll be talking about all of this, and more.
I hope you can join us. It’s super easy! Just follow the hashtag #ICsocial and you’ll see my questions and the answers of others. I’m really excited to talk about this, and I hope you are, too.
For now, here are a few recent articles that may serve as a primer:
Should schools offer social media etiquette classes?
Why school can’t teach you social media
Should middle schools teach students proper social media use?
Want to suggest a question? Comment here or shoot me a tweet. I’ll see you on Wednesday!
My great-great-great grandfather is considered by some to be the man that saved the entire Civil War for the Union army. On July 2, 1863, with forces dwindling and ammunition low, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain ordered his men to fix bayonets and charge down Little Round Top toward the approaching Confederate troops. They were, literally, at the extreme left flank of the entire army, and losing the high ground would ensure a collapse of the Union’s ranks, as well as open a road that could be used to march straight to Washington, DC. So, faced with no options, Chamberlain charged; down a hill, to a Medal of Honor, and into history.
Months later, after the full scope of Gettysburg’s toll had begun to be recognized, President Lincoln sat through a two-hour oration by Edward Everett before delivering his own, ten sentence charge.
“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced,” he said. “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”
On Friday, 20 children lost their lives, for what appears to be no other reason than living. They were fighting no war, engaged in no battle, and cloaked in an innocence that we cherish, especially in this season of love, and of peace. We also lost six of their classroom heroes. Together, they’ve left us with a great task and charged us to resolve that they have not died in vain.
Days later, at the end of an agonizing weekend exacerbated by 24-hour news and a quest for understanding, President Obama listened intently to others pray and offer their words of hope. At one point, he mouthed the opening words to Psalm 23, eyes fixed on the clergy before him. The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul…
Then, he rose.
The other day, I was looking at the change in reach the Ithaca College page has seen since Facebook announced they were throttling organic reach. Our page—thanks to the timing of a viral success—had largely avoided the drop I was hearing about from others. But no more. Where we once reached about 50% of our fans in an average post, we now reached less than a third. I screengrabbed the data and presented it to my student social media team at our weekly meeting, followed by a slide that had only two words:
Well, shit.