Mark Greenfield

I’ve just returned from a long, wonderful day at the 2009 Ride For Roswell.  I was both a participant and an “embedded reporter” using social media to cover the event as it happened. ( see UB to Embed Twitter Reporters at Roswell Ride )

I learned a lot today about using social media to cover an event like this. While I process those thoughts, let me share with you the following video that I shot while riding in the peloton as it reached the finish line at UB, always one of the highlights of the Ride:

My friend and colleague Brad Ward has uncovered a scheme on Facebook that all colleges and universities should be aware of.  Please read There’s something going down on Facebook. Pay attention and participate in the ongoing conversation and research.

On November 11,  I will be teaching a webinar for Higher Ed Experts as part of the “Social Networks MBA” series. The objective of this series is to help you decide if your institution should launch its own private niche social networking website, and how to nurture and develop a thriving online community around your own social networking website.

My webinar is called “Besides and Beyond Facebook: Do’s and Don’t’s for your niche social network” and will borrow many of the concepts from my “Long Tail of Social Networks” workshop. I will explore how niche social networks can meet business objectives and best practices for getting your network off the ground.  In addition, I will share my experiences with launching several niche networks, showing both what did and did not work.

Niche Social Networks are growing exponentially.  On Ning alone there are now over 450,000 sites. Chris Anderson described it best in his blog post Social Networking is a feature, not a destination when he says:

As I think about the current Facebook craze and the notion of it as an all-encompassing platform, sucking in functionality from other sites across the board, I find myself skeptical. With my Long Tail hat on, I think that one-size-fits-all will fail in social networking, just as it has everywhere else (which is why I like Ning, which suppresses its own brand for the sake of those of the microsites it hosts. See this post for more on that.).

Instead, I think focused sites that serve niche communities will extract the best lessons from Facebook and MySpace and offer better social networking tools to the communities they already have. I’m sure huge and generic social networking destinations will continue to do well, but I’m placing my bet on the biggest impact coming when social networking becomes a standard feature on all good sites, bringing community to the granular level where it always works best.

Descriptions of the other two webinars that are part of this series and registertion information is available at the Higher Ed Experts site. If you have any specific topics or questions you would like to see addressed during the webinar, please let me know.

eduWeb is now less than a week away.  Brad Ward and I are teaching a workshop called Join the Conversation: Social Media in Higher Education where we will be providing an in depth look at how higher educational institutions can leverage the full power and potential of social media.

We are using a wiki to compile a list of colleges and universities using social media and we  would like your help creating this list.  Please visit http://higheredsocialmedia2.pbwiki.com/ .  The invite key is located at the top of the page.

Thanks in advance for your help.  I hope to see many of you at the workshop.

The uwebd social site hit another milestone today with the addition of the 700th member. Activity on the site continues to grow at a steady rate. There are now 36 groups, 18 videos, and 256 discussions in the main forum. Over the past month, we’ve had 4,608 visits, 19,953 page views, and visits from 80 countries

Ning has been in the news recently as well. The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) recently highlighted Ning in the “7 Things You Should Know About…” series These briefs focus on a single technology and describes what it is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning. (see 7 things you should know about Ning)

The cover story for the May 2008 issue Fast Company magazine is Ning’s Infinite Ambition. The article focuses on Ning’s business model and provides a nice overview of the history of the company. IMHO, Ning will be a major player on the web. Niche social networks are the future and Ning is a great platform to allow people to connect and coolaborate.

This June I will be giving several presentations at a conference hosted by Innovative Educators called Increasing Enrollment and Retention via Technology: Blending High Tech and High Touch. Here is the conference overview:

Using technology is essential in attracting students to your institution and creating an atmosphere that cultivates success. Some feel that when incorporating technology you lose the personal touch that makes institutions memorable. However, high tech and high touch do not have to be mutually exclusive. Knowing how to use technology to target the individual needs of students is the key to successful implementation.

As students move to the web for information and more and more services are provided online, combining high tech and high touch becomes imperative. One of my main messages at the conference will be the value of Web 2.0 tools in achieving this goal. For me, Web 2.0 is the social web. Web 2.0 is about connecting people. It’s about conversation. It’s about building and sustaining relationships.

I’m really looking forward to this conference. There are many great speakers from a wide variety of backgrounds and the program covers many interesting topics. Hopefully I will see you there.