aSmallWorld, dubbed “Snobster” by critics, is an exclusive invitation-only network with roughly 270,000 members. It was founded by Erik Wachtmeister, a former investment banker and INSEAD graduate, and the son of a former Swedish ambassador to the United States. The following Harvard Business School case study explores the founding phase of the online social networking platform. Schools can learn a great deal from aSmallWorld and the ability of a niche social network to thrive.

Relevant Notes:

• Erik Wachtmeister built the social the network on basis of a select group of people, i.e. trust; ‘a trusted circle of friends.’ The initial demographic was successful professionals
• Initially you needed to be invited by 5 members before could join
• Started with a questionnaire about what they found most useful in a web site
• The focus has always been on community building/networking vs. information
• Success is partially due to the network’s design: for those who already had strong connections to each other

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The above video was created by Professor Michael Wesch and 200 students enrolled in ANTH 200: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, Spring 2007. It began as a brainstorming exercise, thinking about how students learn, what they need to learn for their future, and how the current educational system fits in.

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Select Minds, a company offering social networking solutions for businesses released a study in October titled, “Corporate Social Networking: Increasing the Density of Workplace. The report contains three key key findings applicable to any organization, including schools:

Companies surveyed reported that Social Networking can increase productivity by an average of 10%

Surveyed companies responded that increasing employee connections may result in productivity increases by:

• Helping employees understand where centers of expertise reside
• Connecting globally dispersed teams
• Helping employees feel more engaged and therefore more productive
• Shortening the time to discover relevant information

SelectMinds’ client companies reported that Corporate Social Networking may contribute to an increase in retention by an average of 8.8%

Those surveyed believe that employees who feel more connected with each other and with the organization are more engaged and more satisfied with their jobs and will stay longer. With the cost of turnover totaling twice an employee’s salary, retention increases have significant cost savings to an organization.

Companies reported that Corporate Social Networking can increase new business by an average of 11.7%.

Clients report that linking employees through Corporate Social Networking increases the likelihood of new deal completions. Clients also reported new business increases by linking current employees with former employees (or corporate alumni) who may refer business back into the organization through their Corporate Social Network.

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“I think technology has created the greatest productivity improvement in history over the past 20 years across every segment of our society — except in education.”

“The way technology improved productivity in every other industry is that we changed the way we did things — we changed the business process…We still do education the way we did it 500 years ago.”

“Where technology has the potential, it’s not being realized today… technology should be used more often to deliver information to students, freeing instructors to lead discussions, answer questions, and interact closely with students.”

- David Ward, the president of the American Council on Education

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In September, Andy Guess of Inside HigherEd discussed trends in web strategy and marketing for academic institutions.  One of schools’ primary needs is what Andy refers to as “the Facebooking of college Web sites,” i.e. using social media technology to create an engaging and ’social’ user experience. According to the article, schools are looking toward variations on social networking to keep in touch with students after they graduate and maintain databases to optimize fundraising.

Furthermore, schools are starting to realize that there is no all-encompassing web solution. Web strategy must leave room for future improvements. Recognizing that redesigning web sites is a multiyear, multi-step ordeal, administrators must understand that along with surface improvements, the content management systems underlying them often need to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Our Take: Finding the ‘best’ solution is more important than finding ‘a’ solution. In addressing a school’s online needs, too often the most important factor is low cost and ‘putting out fires.’ The fact is that implementing a poorly designed and un-engaging web solution can cause more harm than good. When a new website or application is launched, schools often only get one chance to impress.

Make it count.

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From the Freakonomics Blog

Can a charitable act truly be called charitable when the contributor wants or expects a reward?

In a study, Princeton economics professor Harvey Rosen and Stanford graduate student Jonathan Meer examined this question using a specific case of incentivized charity: alumni donations.

They found that the size and frequency of an alumnus’s contributions to his alma mater rise in direct correlation with his child’s age and likelihood of applying to the school. The data consisted of more than 32,488 donations given between 1983 and 2006 to an unnamed university, as well as information on the age and admissions status of each donor’s children.

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Via Forbes

…Some theorize it’s the “Tiffany Effect” that keeps private school prices so high–the idea that people associate a premium brand with a premium price. That concept would surely induce wealthy parents to take pride in spending $30,000 or more per year to send junior to an elite boarding school that has graduated the likes of John F. Kennedy (Choate) or Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Groton).

“People think that if something is priced lower it’s inferior,” says Columbia University professor Henry Levin, who has studied the private school industry.

Others point to the campus building wave of the past decade or so–a kind of arms race that has scads of private high schools showing off state-of-the-art computer labs, athletic buildings and performing arts centers. All these should be big drivers of higher costs to students’ families, but that’s not the case. Big capital projects are almost always funded by generous benefactors like businesses and wealthy alumni, meaning they have little to no effect on a school’s operating budget.

While elaborate facilities have become a must to attract families, it’s today’s higher demand for instruction in arts, human development and other extracurriculars that’s requiring increasing amounts of time and money, according to Bill Morris, head of school at Friends Academy, an elite private school in Locust Valley, N.Y…

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Phillip’s Exeter? Saint Paul’s?

Nope.

Kamehameha Schools in Honolulu has an endowment of approximately $6.8 billion. In comparison, Phillips Exeter has a ‘measly’ $1B.

The Kamehameha Schools in Honolulu, Hawaii, came about as a result of the vision of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, great-granddaughter and last royal descendant of Kamehameha the Great. Her dream was that every Hawaiian child would receive a first class education. Princess Bernice joins the ranks of other munificent benefactors who understood that a solid beginning creates a foundation for life-long achievement and growth. People like Her Royal Highness and Bill Gates, Milton Hershey and Stephen Girard and hundreds of others have made the world a better place.

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From the Wall Street Journal

“After years of worrying about how much time freshmen spend on Facebook, schools are incorporating the study of social networking, online communities and user-contributed content into new curricula on social computing. The moves, like other academic expansions into fields like videogame design, are part of an effort to keep technology studies relevant to students’ lives – and to tap subjects with entrepreneurial momentum.”

A sampling of courses at different colleges and universities that address social media:

• Designing Sociable Media, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• eCommunities: Analysis and Design of Online Interaction Environments, University of Michigan
• Online Identity, Social and Community Behavior, Rochester Institute of Technology
• Social Networks and Social Processes, Cornell University
• After Google, What? Information Management and the Academic Enterprise in a Networked Digital Age, University of California at Berkeley

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According to an editorial from Choate Rosemary Hall’s student newspaper regarding the new television show Gossip Girl:

“While the wealth and parties are realistic, they manifest themselves on the show in a much more ostentatious manner than that of the real world… The least realistic aspect of the show is the narrative blogging superimposed on the basic plot line. No one, anywhere, is that obsessed with one blog specifically directed at a certain group of people. Similarly, nobody—even in New York—spends that much time checking his or her sidekick for updates. The blog portrayed in Gossip Girl is no facebook.com: it is a genuine blogging site devoted to gossiping about a specific friend group—one phenomenon that has yet to plague the upper-east elite of non-TVLand.”

**If there is even a ‘hint’ of reality to the sex, drinking and drug infested parties portrayed on the television show, administrators and parents might want to pay a bit more attention

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