Social Networking

I saw this ad on TV for the first time last night.  I found it rather thought provoking.  I am not suggesting that everything he says is correct or relevant to UMW, but T think the ideas he presents are interesting.

I don’t mean to rain on the parade, but I figure that it’s better to get these kinds of thoughts out sooner rather than later.  From our conversations last meeting, I’m not sure if “social networking” is the proper term for the kinds of initiatives we are discussing.  Certainly, there is a social networking component, but I think the term orients our discussion in an unindended way.  For example, when the University Relations folks arrived at the first meeting, we thought we were going to be discussing how UMW could be using Facebook better.  That is definitely not what we are talking about, but with our current name, I fear that we will need a disclaimer to that effect at the beginning of each discussion.

From what I took away from our last meeting, it seems that we want to use technology to make communication at UMW better.  Better channels for official announcements, better mechanisms for community feedback, better means of collaboration between students and faculty, longer timeframes of contact with students.  If social networking is part of these solutions, awesome.  If there are solutions that don’t normally fit that term, I would hate for them to remain unexplored because of unintended assumptions about the group’s purpose.

What would be a better name?  Not exactly sure.  How about Internal Communications?  That might be more boring than Social Networking, but better capture the scope of our work.  Anyone have better ideas?  Thoughts on this issue?  I’d love to hear them.

This blog will serve as a space to post about and comment upon issues facing the Social Networking committee. There is a tutorial to take you through signing-up for this blog so that you can post here. Additionally, if you have any questions or suggestions feel free to try out the comments below.

Credit: Will Lion’s “Students and Social Networks”