Nathaniel Villegas

 
After reading Michael and Seth’s thoughts on Location-Based Services and Higher Ed and as a response to Foursquare’s new Campus Rep program outreach, a couple of ideas came to mind for colleges campuses using Foursquare to engage their students with the school. Here are my ideas from a student point-of-view.

Taking inspiration from Tony’s conference Plancast/Foursquare integration, schools should extend Foursquare check-ins beyond campus buildings and restaurants to major campus events.

  • For example, UCLA throws an annual Welcome Week where dozens of commercial vendors (Scion, Bank of America, etc.) and hundreds of campus orgs (sports clubs, interest groups, etc.) are scattered throughout campus. It would be great to see students engaged and checking-in at booths, at particular fields where booths are located, or at a performance event. This not only allows students to see where their friends are, but also allows students to see what booth or area is popular.
Promote school-run events by utilizing the gaming/competition aspect of Foursquare.

  • Very often UCLA features concerts on campus. One of the common ways to raise awareness is through encouraging students to win free tickets. As a Public Relations Director for an org I was a part of last year, I successfully used Twitter to broadcast clues for a scavenger hunt to find hidden concert tickets on campus. I think it’d be great to see the school hold a Foursquare competition seeing who can check-in at every specified location, who has the most check-ins at an advertised location, etc. Not only does this hype up the event for the students, but it’s also a great awareness tool for campus/student organizations programming the event.
Promote attendance at locations or buildings by offering freebies.

Determine how popular or relevant a location is based on measuring the amount of student check-ins.


  • With a lot of  program centers or departments on the verge of shutting down or downsizing, schools might be overlooking the importance of the threatened center to their students. One way of measuring its importance would be to see how many students actually go to and use that center. This can also be extended to other social media technologies like Twitter or Facebook. With these, colleges can scan and search for the buzz going around for a particular center or department. In short, it’s what Mike mentioned about Location-Based Services as a way to gather student data in his recent post.
Schools could control tips around campus by adding their own tips.

  • Harvard’s Foursquare account does a good job in encouraging people to explore their campus with their tips. Tips could be about secret study locations that will benefit students. Tips could be about the history of a building that the school feels visitors should know about. I think it would be great for schools to help their students discover new aspects of the campus. This is also a great opportunity for students at orientation or even on campus tours to learn interested tidbits about your school.
Expand your school’s involvement outside of campus and promote local businesses.

  •  Almost every school has a college-town surrounding the campus, and for every business, there are local businesses that the school supports. For UCLA, it’s Westwood and the restaurants and retail stores in it. I think schools should continue this relationship with social media. This can encourage prospective students to choose your school for reasons beyond academics.
Schools should collaborate with Foursquare to create specific badges for specific campus buildings or centers.


  • At school we have only one student healthcare center. An ASHE Center Health Badge with a medical cross with the center name would be very cool. Why? My answer is “why not?” Students already check-in at buildings every day. Why not make students and visitors feel special and relevant while on campus? Plus, it would be really impressive for students to see that their school is cool and social media-savvy ;).
These are only a few of my ideas. I’ll be sure to keep you all updated as time goes on. Until then, please feel free to leave a comment with your ideas and opinions.

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I haven’t even graduated yet, and I’m already received dozens of e-mail suggesting that I join my school’s alumni network–all of which I regard as spam and send to the trash. As a current student, even I know that alumni donors are extremely important being that they are a huge source of financial support. If some colleges and universities are already out of the loop when it comes to social technology and student relations, it is highly likely that they are struggling with the same thing in alumni relations.

Alumni Futures’ Andy Shaindlin has built an updated matrix of every possible use case for social technology in alumni and donor outreach. Some of the ways he suggests using the matrix are as a management checklist, for brainstorming, and to create a strategy roadmap.

Jeremiah Owyang, who originally put together the matrix, did so to help colleges and universities understand and realize their problem with social networks. When recent grads can connect with each other for free through Facebook or LinkedIn, they do not need to be a part of their school’s fee-based alumni network. With this said, I don’t think Higher Ed should lose hope. I suggest using such social technologies to get in touch with alumni, and lead them back to becoming members of your school’s alumni network.

Here are a few Use Cases from Shaindlin’s matrix that stood out for me:

  • Talk to alumni by using tools to connect you like Twitter Lists and LinkedIn Groups where you can respond when necessary and have alumni respond to you.
  • Listen to alumni by going through blogs, Twitters, Facebook Pages, etc. to gain info about what they now think of your institution and what describes their resource needs that your school may be able to provide.
  • Aggregate alumni and campus voices through something like a blog as an inexpensive way to create ongoing content and uplift existing members. Here ishow Stanford has executed it.
  • Connect alumni with students through social media groups such as Facebook Groups or a Micromobs Group. Schools should create alumni awareness in current students even before they graduate.
I beleive that these strategies are especially relevant for my upcoming generation of social technology-savvy alumni. With only one year left of my college career, it think it’s a great and natural idea for colleges to reach out to me once I graduate through the technologies I’m already using rather than through less engaging e-mails, phone calls, and letter mail (all of which I do not look forward to).

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Last week, a Reuters article reported on nationwide phenomena that in the past years have become more and more common: startups. The article’s premise is that behind this wave of entrepreneurship are recent college graduates and even current college students who, in a time of economy and high unemployment rates, are taking advantage of the “globalization of information and the advent of social media” to turn an idea into a business.

Based on my first month interning at Inigral this Summer, I’ve met enough people, attended enough events, and have experienced so much in a startup to show me just why entrepreneurship is on the rise.

My experience with InigralTo be honest, these past two weeks of my internship have been intense. I’ve walked into more than a dozen Social Media meet ups and have walked out knowing so much more about Silicon Valley and the industry than before. From writing blog posts to aggregating contact lists to providing my input in marketing strategies, I’ve genuinely learned more from these than from any other internship outside of Social Media. What I am more excited for about this summer, though, is the opportunity to learn more about marketing, learn more about startups, and learn more about what it takes to succeed in a fast-paced, dynamic environment. I’m excited to meet and become inspired by entrepreneurs who are having great progress with their products and learn their means to do so.

This summer-long event series puts on 10 events every Wednesday night here in San Francisco or in Palo Alto where guest speakers (investors, founders, etc.) talk about topics (product design, product marketing, etc) that interest and benefit us (interns). It is a fellowship program that also gives interns the opportunity to meet each other, network and learn about each other’s companies. The first event featured Jeff Clavier, Jonathan Ebinger, and Andy Fillat who discussed venture capital and raising money as an entrepreneur through the eyes of a VC. At this event, not only did interns attend, but founders of startups all across the Bay Area were there eager to have the opportunity to have questions answered by this All Star VC panel in such an intimate space.

The second event featured David Weekly, Dan Martell, Chris McCann and Myles Weissleder who spoke about how to connect with and take advantage of our time with the Silicon Valley startup community. From basic introduction techniques to following up with people you’ve met, this energetic panel unveiled the personality of the Valley with explaining what works and doesn’t work when connecting with people in the industry. The third event featured presentations by Hiten Shah and Jason Putori who spoke about their experiences and advice on product ideation, development and design. As gurus in their trade, I felt that it was an honor to hear from people who are changing the way companies’ websites and products are being designed and presented. From the events in June alone I’ve already learned more than I could imagine about having a successful startup and product…and this has only been from three out of the ten events! I’m honestly excited to hear more from founders, executives, and elites in the community.

The GenJuice Tour is a 13-city wide tour in which the event organizers Arielle Patrice Scott, Danielle Leslie, and Virgilia Singh are encouraging, mobilizing, and connecting more than a thousand young entrepreneurs across the nation to start and follow through with their projects and companies by connecting them together, providing the resources they need, and inspiring them with the talks of successful entrepreneurs. GenJuice creates a support network and environment amongst entrepreneurs and I believe this is exactly what some entrepreneurs need in order to achieve their dream. I attended their first stop in San Francisco with Tony at Justin.tv’s headquarters.

Keynote speakers included Lyle Fong and Daniel Brusilovsky as well as several small discussion leaders. What I took from Lyle’s speech was preserverence and trust in where your company is going even though you don’t exactly know where it’s going. Daniel’s talk was especially inspiring, not only because he’s a 17 year-old entreprenuer, but because of how he set up his company execs and employees to be located all over the world. This just goes to show the impact of the Web bringing people and businesses together. The small group discussions were primarily focused on topics brought up and led by attendees. Some of the topics included and which I attended were about maintaining community and keeping a 9-5 job separate from your startup.

I really liked this event because it was very personal: only two other interns, Ryan and Jesse, and George from Inigral were there along with three of our new friends from Udemy. Our lunch seminar was with Cheryl Cheng who really opened my eyes on internships in general. She spoke about how to take advantage of your time with your company by making the right connections with the right people and learning as much as you can about the company. She also spoke about how interns should be assertive and become a source for new ideas, information, and recommendations.

From all this, I’ve learned that entrepreneurship definitely should be something college graduates should look into. Whether it be for profit or non-profit, someone or some group can always break into an industry as long as it’s new and hasn’t been done before.

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Adopting social media and communicating with today’s youth has been a long-time challenge for everyone. But where does Higher Ed stand?

A longitudinal study conducted by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research has been trying to answer this question. The study, which analyzes the most recent trending of social media adoption by the admission offices of all the four-year accredited institutions in the United States, has extended its findings from 2007 by adding 2009 data. Study authors Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D., and Eric Mattson, CEO of Financial Insite Inc., found that 95% of college admissions offices use at least one form of social media in 2009; a 10% increase over 2008 and 34% growth over 2007. From just this, it looks like Higher Ed is doing just fine.

Among several key findings, the study also found exactly what the study article’s title states: “Social Media and College Admissions: Higher-Ed Beats Business in Adoption of New Tools for Third Year.” Evidence to prove this is that while 22% of Fortune 500 and 42% of Inc. 500 companies have a corporate blog, Colleges and universities have outpaced both with 51% of schools having an admissions blog in addition to using other forms of social media.

Here is a list of other key stats:

  • In 2009, 87% of admissions departments use social networking (ex. Facebook)
  • 59% of schools have a Twitter account
  • 51% of schools have a blog in addition to using other social media
  • 46% use videoblogs, 38% use message boards, 22% use podcasts and 13% use wikis
  • 91% of admissions departments feel that social media is important for recruitment strategies
  • 73% of schools monitored the Internet for buzz, posts, conversations and news about their institution
  • No significant differences were found between the use of blogs by public or private schools, or by size of undergraduate population
  • Admissions office, marketing and public relations departments mostly manage school blogs
From this we find that Higher Ed is really stepping their game up in terms of engaging with their current students in the online world. I can personally attest to these statistics as being true. As a college student, I am definitely more attracted to media that meets me where I am–online on Facebook, Twitter, etc. But more importantly, Higher Ed’s enthusiasm and eagerness to embrace these new communication tools are helping maximize recruitment power by engaging prospective students. While more and more high school and college students are communicating with their peers online, it should only be natural for colleges and universities to involve themselves in where these conversations are happening. If your college or university isn’t already taking advantage of these new tools, hopefully this report convinces you to do so.

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