Schools that haven’t thought through their social media strategies in terms of privacy and security run the risks of doing what Hotchkiss has done: publicly publishing the names of their New York City based young alumni:

Why is this bad?

Simple searches in Google or Facebook will provide copious amounts of information on these young and wealthy alumni. Here is one alumnus from the list whose contact information and full profile came up on Facebook with one simple search (name has been blocked out to protect privacy)

This is yet another reason why elite private schools must look to private social networks to market exclusive school events. Private schools have a duty to protect the ranks of their elite alums, or else face some serious issues.

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Last week the first and likely last Blackboard-compatible Facebook application launched. Named “Course Feed,: the app was created by Class Top, a Blackboard Building Block Partner. This is the description:

“CourseFeed connects you with your classmates and connects you to Blackboard®. Browse your courses, post messages to the class, share notes – all without ever leaving Facebook. CourseFeed also alerts you when your professor posts announcements, tests, or content to Blackboard. And you’ll get alerts when classmates post to the course wall and share notes.”

Aside form the fact that students do not use Facebook for anything even remotely related to academics, the major issue with the launch was an onslaught of schools demanding that their institutions be removed from the integration because,

“We don’t want any connection between [our school] and Facebook.”

Since the application relies on the ability for students to login into their school BB accounts (to synch their feeds) in order to port the information to Facebook, the chances of this application’s success is, well, limited. Developer s should note that not even Facebook itself still entertains hopes of a successful academic  adoption.

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In Blackboard’s most recent webinars they have showcased their foray into social networking, known as Scholar. Scholar is a product of the new Blackboard Beyond Initiative. PrepNY took a peak and snapped some blurry system screenshots.

Even despite the blur, it is clear that Blackboard’s offering is sub-par. Integrated into Blackboard Scholar, the new social networking system is really an enterprise wiki in disguise created by Atlassian and operating on the same Confluence wiki system used by companies such as Global Logic to manage software development – not to be the actual development. If Arlassian uses the same dated interface to add social media capabilities to Share Point 2007, users are not in for a treat.

The main issue with Blackboard’s social networking is that it is clear that they have added technology for the sake of technology. Their system lacks severely in the way of a compelling user experience and there is no reason why anyone would choose to use the proprietary social bookmarking system over Del.icio.us or the new Mr. Wong. Backboard has designed a network (or licensed one) as quickly as possible with the goal of simply pushing a press release saying they are relevant in the web 2.0 space. This is a mistake because first impressions count and a Blackboard network deployed at a school in its current state stands little chance of success.

Specifically, the interface design is just too boring (see below) and lacks any sort of compelling differentiation from the numerous other social networking options that exist. As educators and technologists, we can make all the excuses we’d like and hold out false hopes that a vibrant community around knowledge sharing will be develop. Unfortunately this is not the case. Academic collaboration is by-product of a social network designed to stimulate USE — not vice versa.

Screen Shots:

Some Links to Related Musings:

Eric Kunnen
Keith Russell
Academic Technology Blog
The Journal
California DreaminLiberal Scholar

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Blackboard, the leader in online educational software, has launched Bravo! a new program in which Blackboard users and employees explore new ideas and share information and insights. The program recently started with a series of webinars discussing:

“Two newer Web 2.0 concepts: Social bookmarking [online academic resource sharing] and social networking [online networking and grouping]”

First, social bookmarking is hardly a “newer concept.” Del.icio.us the undisputed leader in social bookmarking was started in 2003 and sold to Yahoo in 2005. The company’s founding predates Blackboard even going public. The same holds true of social networking. While the popularity of SN activity has increased in the last few years, to refer to social networking as a “newer web 2.0 concept” is simply misguided.

Blackboard also goes on to state:

“Some of you may have already heard of sites such as Facebook or del.icio.us, both of which have popularized these concepts over the last few years.”

Um, yeah. If there is an educator – in particular one who is on Blackboard’s website – who doesn’t know of Facebook, they’re so far out of the loop it’s not funny. Not only is Facebook “popular” but its valuation (pre-IPO) of $15B is 11.5x that of Blackboard (Post-IPO)! Not only that, but according to Time Magazine’s analysis of Hitwise, social networks are the most clicked-on category of sites during time spent online by Gen-Y, followed by search engines (11.6%) email (8.5%) and blogs (6.1%). Yes, social networks are a more popular destination than porn!

Bottom line is that all schools must embrace a social media strategy in order to stay relevant. Blackboard, however, is not the company to help get you there.

Tomorrow we will specifically explore Blackboard’s social network offering.

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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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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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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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Recently, Facebook decided to allow the Google search engines to index Facebook profiles. What does that mean?

Previously what someone wrote about his or herself in Facebook stayed there privately. For example, someone could not do a Google search for “John Doe, Car Racing” and pull up John Does’ Facebook profile since John had listed NASCAR as a favorite activity.

However, times have changed. Explains Facebook:

“The Public Search Listing of a profile shows the profile picture thumbnail and links to interact with a user on Facebook. People will always have to log in or register to poke, message or add someone as a friend. A user can also restrict what information shows in their public listing by going to the search privacy page. For instance, if a user does not want their profile picture to be shown, they can uncheck that box under “What people can do with my search results.”

Why is Facebook doing this? According to Mashable, Facebook needs to drive more traffic from name-based searches. While the move is undoubtedly controversial, Mark Zuckerberg’s judgment has been good in the past, with controversial changes eventually delivering gains for the site.

Still for schools and students worried about protecting their “personal brand” the move could prove to be an unwelcome change…

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Howard Rheingold, often credited with developing the first social network, has a well constructed overview of key benefits organizations can expect from implementing a social networking platform. According to Rheingold, thoughtfully planned and knowledgeably implemented online social networks enable organizations to:

- Connect people and build relationships across boundaries of geography or discipline.
- Provide an ongoing context for knowledge exchange that can be far more effective than memoranda.
- Attune everyone in the organization to each other’s needs – more people will know who knows who knows what, and will know it faster.
- Multiply intellectual capital by the power of social capital, reducing social friction and encouraging social cohesion.
- Create an ongoing, shared social space for people who are geographically dispersed.
- Amplify innovation – when groups get turned on by what they can do online, they go beyond problem-solving and start inventing together.
- Create a community memory for group deliberation and brainstorming that stimulates the capture of ideas and facilitates finding information when it is needed.
- Improve the way individuals think collectively – moving from knowledge-sharing to collective knowing.
- Turn training into a continuous process, not divorced from normal business processes.
- Attract and retain the best employees by providing access to social capital that is only available within the organization.
- Create an early warning system.
- Make sure knowledge gets to people who can act on it in time.

From the white paper: How Online Social Networks Benefit Organizations, by Lisa Kimball and Howard Rheingold

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