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:

Tuesday, June 9, 2009
1:00 pm - 3:00 PM (Eastern)
Originating from the 2009 Penn State Web Conference

HashTag  #smsummit

Come join me at this virtual summit as we explore the challenges and opportunities of social media in higher education. The format will be much different than a typical workshop. Following the principles of an unconference, we will leverage the wisdom of the crowd in an open environment where everyone’s participation is encouraged.

In addition to those attending in person  we will be using Adobe Connect to stream the event live and allow our virtual attendees to participate in the proceedings.  The URL for the summit is http://breeze.psu.edu/psuwebsms.

Update, June 8: You will need to create a “Friends of Penn State Account” and then login in order to participate.  Instructions are available from the main Social Media Summit page at https://breeze.psu.edu/psuwebsms

We will also be utilizing social media to create a backchannel to let people from across the globe participate virtually. For those of you who want to participate on Twitter, delicious, Flickr, etc., the hashtag for the event is #smsummit

Discussion topics will be chosen by participants.  To facilitate conversation both before and after the summit, I have created a group at the uwebd site (http://cuwebd.ning.com/group/socialmediasummit)

I have added an instance for the Social Media Summit at the Harvard’s Live Question Tool:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/questions/smsummit

Please submit your questions and vote and reply to existing questions. I plan on using the information gathered to drive our live discussion on June 9.

I would like to extend a special thanks to Patti Fantaske and the other conference organizers at Penn State for allowing me to push the envelope.  I was also like to thank Mark Heckel and the technical support staff for the hard work that will go into making the summit available virtually.

I look forward to an interesting afternoon.  Hope to see you there.

(Comments for this post have been turned off.  The discussion will take place at http://cuwebd.ning.com/group/socialmediasummit)

I came across this great SlideShare presentation today by Graeme Wood on the future of social media. It covers a wide range of topics at a high level and references the thoughts and ideas of people like Gorden Moore, Kevin Kelly, Chris Anderson, Tomi Ahonen, and Seth Godin.  Be sure to view the slides and read the accompanying text.

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.

The uwebd social site hit a major milestone yesterday with the addition of the 1000th member. As of this morning, there are 1005 members,  47 groups, 27 videos, and 379 discussions in the main forum.  Over the past month, we’ve had 5,718 visits, 25,022 page views, and visits from 104 countries.

I would like to extend my thanks to all the members, especially those whom have taken the time to contribute. I encourage everyone involved with higher ed websites to not only join, but to participate as well. Again, the site is located at cuwebd.ning.com. You can visit my page on the site at cuwebd.ning.com/profile/Mark.

I have had discussions with many people about how to improve the site.  Over the next few weeks I’ll be starting discussion at the site on how best to move forward.  I look forward to the continued growth of this site and hope it becomes a valuable resource for the higher ed web community.

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.