Mark Greenfield

The game has fundamentally changed. A seismic shift is underway. The social web is here. Dialogue has replaced monologue. The conversation is the message. Communities dominate brands. It’s time to join the conversation.

So how should colleges and universities leverage the full potential of this new paradigm? It’s time to think about creating a new position - the CMO. No, not a Chief Marketing Officer, but a Community Management Officer.

Nathan Gilliatt, the principal at Social Target LLC created an excellent overview of the responsibilities for what he calls social media relations (SMR). He sees SMR “as an interdisciplinary specialty that spans marketing, technology, and Internet culture—three components of any successful strategy for engaging social media.” Here are his summary of the responsibilities:

1. Coordinate the development and implementation of social media engagement strategy and policies, including blogging policy, formal blogger relations programs and social media monitoring programs.
   1. Maintain domain knowledge in social media. Be a resource for others who need to understand new services and their potential impact on the business.
   2. Maintain awareness of company’s activities in social media and contacts for the various activities.
   3. Be an advocate for the understanding of social media and how they affect the company’s marketing and communications activities.
   4. Engage the company’s IT organization to coordinate IT resources and policies with social media strategy.
2. Train functional groups (such as marketing, communications, and HR) on the technology and culture of social media as it relates to their roles.
3. Coordinate company’s tactical response to social media issues.
   1. Consult with internal groups on appropriate responses to social media issues. Advise on the likely response of online communities to the company’s plan.
   2. Coordinate company response to social media crises; track engagement by appropriate groups (internal and external).
4. Serve as the primary contact for external service providers and vendors who support the monitoring of, and engagement with social media.

So I ask - does anyone know of a college or university who has created the position of CMO, Online Community Organizer, or Director of Social Media Relations? Does the above job description need to be altered for higher ed? How would this position relate to the web team?

I predict these positions will be hitting higher ed shortly. I think this would be an exciting job and I can see this as a logical next step in my career.

Recommended Books

• Cluetrain Manefesto
• Communities Dominate Brands
• Join the Conversation
• Meatball Sundae
• Naked Conversations
• Now is Gone

Additional Resources

• Jobs of the future, #1: Online Community Organizer (Seth Godin)
• Defining social media relations (Nathan Gilliatt)
• Understanding the Community/Evangelist Role (Jeremiah Owyang)
• Community Manager Catagory (from Jeremiah Owyang’s Blog)
• Who Can Be a Community Evangelist (Christopher Salazar)
• The emerging role: Community Manager

I had the opportunity today to return to the classroom and teach a graduate level Anthropology class on Culture Change. I was asked by the professor to get students to think about how this new technological communication might be altering the nature of social relationships, and the very essence of society itself.

The lecture was an abridged version of my “Born to Be Wired: Technology, Communication and the Millennial Generation” presentation. I didn’t need to spend as much time explaining emerging technology to a group of graduate students. Instead we looked more at overall implications of the communications revolution and the sociological changes.

Last week there was a great post on the Freakonomics blog asking Is Myspace Good for Society? Leading thinkers were asked “Has social networking technology (blog-friendly phones, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) made us better or worse off as a society, either from an economic, psychological, or sociological perspective?” They had some interesting answers.

My favorite resource on the use and impact of social networking is Danah Boyd. Her thoughts were included in the Freakonomics post and I provided this link to this Discover Magazine video interview with her as well.

During the lecture we discussed the work of Marshall McLuhan. If you are not familiar with his work, you definitely need to check him out. He was way ahead of his time. I’ve often thought about what he would think about the Internet and Web 2.0.

I concluded my lecture by summing up my take on the best way to approach the use of communications technologies. I created a slide of the album cover of Radiohead’s OK Computer and quoted lyrics from the song “The Tourist”, which includes the line “hey man, slow down, slow down, idiot, slow down, slow down.” I think we need to carefully manage our time online, learn to slow down, and occasionally unplug - something easier said than done.

I’m sitting in my hotel room in Atlantic City finalizing the presentation I’m giving in the Admissions Track at the Middle States Regional Forum tomorrow. The title is “Connecting with Students: New Technologies” and it has two main themes. The first is that “it’s the end of the web as they know it” - that students use the web in a much different fashion than they do. The second theme is that traditional marketing and public relations is dead.

One of the articles I’ll reference is Fear and Loathing in Web 2.0 from Currents magazine. Not only is this a great article, but it’s one of my all-time favorite titles. (I had an interesting night with Hunter Thompson back in the day, but that’s a story for another time and place.) At the conclusion of the article is one of my favorite quotes - “the conversation is the message”.

I’m looking forward to returning to Atlantic City this summer to give the keynote speech at the 2008 eduWeb Conference. This is my first visit to Atlantic City and it is a great place for a summer conference. Hopefully I’ll see you there.

As I travel giving presentations, I consistently hear positive feedback about my book recommendations. People are always anxious to see what I’ve been reading and how it relates to higher education web development. So I’ve decided to open a bookstore utilizing Amazon’s astore affiliate program.

Here are some things you should know about the store:

• The URL for the bookstore is http://astore.amazon.com/markagreenfie-20
• I will only list books that I have read and recommend.  Most of what I read these days takes the “50,000 foot view” of the impact and future of the web.  You won’t find books on the day-to-day creation of web sites.  There are plenty of other resources out there for these.
• For sending customers to Amazon, I will recieve a modest referral fee (approximately 4%). Any revenue I generate from the bookstore will be reinvested into my web site and presentations.
• Purchasing a book from my bookstore replicates the experience from buying directly from Amazon. The books are the same price, the security is the same,  the process is the same, etc.
• If you purchase anything it is completely anonymous. I will have no details of who you are or anything about your amazon account
• If you end up purchasing other items from Amazon after starting out at my bookstore, I may get a referral fee for those as well.

For future reference, I have created a link at the top margin in the left column of my site. There is a link to the bookstore along with an image of my latest featured book. I also plan on making book reviews a regular feature of my site.

As we move from monologue to dialog, we are going to need some new rules. While much of the focus is on how companies and institutions such as colleges and universities need to behave on the social web, the customer needs to behave in an ethical manner as well. I came across this Company-Customer Pact which helps define this behavior. Companies and customers need an online environment that supports open, authentic communication and a mutual responsibility to make it work.

Learn more about the pact at http://ccpact.pbwiki.com.

With the introduction of BlogHighEd, many of you may not know much about me. So on Matt’s suggestion, allow me to formally introduce myself:

My name is Mark Greenfield and I am located in Buffalo, NY. I work full time as Director of Web Services at the University at Buffalo. In addition, I work as a consultant assisting organizations in developing strategies that leverage the full potential of emerging web technologies. I also frequently give speeches and presentations at a wide range of higher education conferences and meetings. Here is a list of my upcoming speeches and presentations, along with a link to my full biography.

I was recently asked by a conference organizer to sum up who I am and what I do in 10 seconds, a tag line of sorts. My answer was that I am interested in “shifting paradigms in the age of exponential change”. Whether it’s higher education in general of web development in particular, our basic assumptions may no longer be applicable and need to be continually re-examined.

A couple other things about me not in my biography:

• I am still a competitive tennis player and participate in USTA league play
• I am the proud owner of a rescued German Shepherd/Siberian Husky. See Rafe’s story from an earlier post
• I am an avid music fan who continually wonders what has happened to rock music over the past few years. After a long layoff, I am back using last.fm
• I am the proud parent of a millennial-aged daughter who never ceases to amaze and inspire me. (Yes - I am definitely a helicopter parent.)

I’m looking forward to sharing my thoughts and learning from the collective intelligence of the higher ed web community. If you see me at a conference, be sure to say hello.

As I sat watching the results of Super Tuesday last night, I was reminded of one of my favorite books on the Internet and the power of Web 2.0. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Democracy, The Interent, and the Overthrow of Everything) was written by Joe Trippi, the campaign manager for Howard Dean’s presidential run in 2004. My favorite part of the book are his Seven Inviolable, Irrefutable, Ingenious Things Your Business or Institution or Candidate Can Do in the Age of the Internet That Might Keep You from Getting Your A** Kicked But Then Again Might Not:

1. Be First - There is very little about the Internet that is proprietary. I could start a bookstore tomorrow and do everything Amazon does. And you know what? Amazon would still beat me like a dirty rug. … The first everything has a head start in building community. (Rule 1.a: If you’re not going to be the first mover, you’d better be a hell of a lot better.)
2. Keep it moving - Do not be static. The Internet is a liquid medium. It’s amazing how many companies spend $100 million on TV advertising while their $64,000-a-year “web division” consists of the CEO’s twenty-two-year-old Nintendo geek nephew updating the site with a new press release once a month. Don’t let your site be wall paper. Your Internet presence should be an organic, flowing, daily dialogue with your customers.
3. Use an Authentic Voice - The Internet is not a place for safe, vetted corporate communications. We’re not morons. When we get an e-mail from the president of the company, we know it wasn’t really written by him. People would rather get a real e-mail from a real guy in the real mailroom than a phony one from the CEO. Have real people write real stuff.
4. Tell the Truth - The Internet has an inherent transparency. A strong Internet presence is a way to open the doors of the company. But if you invite people in, you’d better be prepared to have them look in the medicine cabinet.
5. Build a community - Create a commons, a town square, a place where people can come together and talk… Get people involved! This is not top-down, one-to-many anymore. The Internet is side-to-side, up-and-down, many-to-many. Use it that way. It’s the dialog, stupid.
6. Cede Control - Once you invite people in, they’re going to want to do more. I know this violates everything you were taught in school, but you have to let go of the old command and control style of business. Let the edges blur between customer and company.
7. Believe Again - The days of condescension toward customers and citizens are over. Democracy is based on the principle that if we give citizens control over their common future, they will choose the best path. The same is true for consumers.

All of this is very applicable to higher ed. I recommend reading the book. Depending on your politics, you will immediately love it or hate it. I suggest putting politics aside and focus on the use of technology.

BlogHighEd is a great new site for higher education web professionals. The site was created by Matt Herzbergerand Brad Ward and aggregates the best of higher education blogs. I’ve always benefited from the wisdom of the higher ed web crowd and this site will aggregate this knowledge in a very usable and useful format. This will be a great resource for the higher ed web community.

As we prepare for higher ed web development to get flattened, what is the one thing that can not be outsourced? The answer comes from my colleague Diane Kubarek from Cornell. When I posed this questioned to her during lunch at HighEdWebDev 2007, her immediate answer was institutional knowledge. Knowing the culture of the institution, how things get done, who to go to to solve specific problems, and building relationships around campus are the value that a web professional working on campus brings.