Please be-friend mary_randers... That is where I'll be blogging out from now on.

On the road to mediocrity
Along the way, we settle.

We settle for something not quite right, or an outfit that isn't our best look, or a job that doesn't quite maximize our talents. We settle for relationships that don't give us joy, or a website that's, "good enough."

The only way to get mediocre is one step at a time.

You don't have to settle. It's a choice you get to make every day.
[CREDIT: Seth Godin]

I got to meet my niece this past weekend. I won't share all 50 pictures taken of her sleeping from different angles, being held by different people, in different places... but, thought I'd share just one!


If you click the link, you should be able to see more... you know... only if you want to. Literally, 50 pictures of her beautiful, amazing, gorgeous, perfect self sleeping. So, don't say I didn't warn you. ;)

I haven't been required to write in some time, not truly write. I, also, have felt less "inspired" to write than in my earlier pleo days. So, when faced with an opportunity to add content to a pretty informative and what I think of a "cutting edged thinking" weblog I was more than slightly intimidated. "Am I truly good enough?" "Are my experiences in trying to cut the social media path at my institution moving quickly enough? Making enough impact?" - are all questions that definitely hit me from left and right. Needless to say, I have been faced with a few opportunities in the last few weeks that have just sort of laid in waiting because of my own insecurities. I appear to only be able to hash out what I feel are tidbit bullets of information regarding this whole social media cloud sort of hovering over all of us these days - in a good way... not in the grey skies, omninous way... what was I talking about? :)

What is completely ironic about this situation is the conversations I've been having with a family member who owns his own business - "yes you do have time, and frankly can't afford to not be present in web 2.0", or with my co-workers "yes, it's ok to let go of some control - it doesnt have to be perfect, just timely and authentic" are funny little pressures I've been putting on myself as a blogger.

So... in order to hopefully map some thoughts out and possibly out of all this verbage find a gem or two worth contributing... Here are some thoughts about social media "strategy" - about it's usefulness - about the questions it helps us answer - the problems it helps us solve - and why I'm so thankful for the edSocialMedia bootcamp I recently attended:

-We ask ourselves as institutions/businesses/individuals: "What bridges am I trying to cross?" (what is my goal? my measure of success?) At TLU, I see four important bridges:
-communication
-community
-collaboration
-carving out a niche

These aren’t exactly needs that don’t exist – in fact – as the first time you build a bridge – I see social media as the tool to allow us to truly mine these amazing tangible strengths we have as a small and connected community of learners. Our success in utilizing Social Media is two fold - 1. Letting the entire community share in what may be happening outside of one division, or one class, and therefore feel more connected and impassioned about the institution, and 2. Spreading that message to the outside community, allowing others to see that we are more than another private university – we do serve a very special niche, we do foster a unique, high impact learning environment – and by allowing the whole of our community to collaborate in social media – we then by default have told that story deeper and wider than any brochure, lecture, one conversation could hope to do.

-Before the edSocialMedia Bootcamp I had never heard of Worcester Academy, by the end, I heard conversations like: “It makes me want to go back to high school just so I can attend there” – “I’m moving my family to Massachusetts, so my kids can have this kind of learning opportunity” – “It makes me want to go back into secondary education, it makes me believe in it and the students again”. This didn’t come from a presentation about this specific academy, it came from the students of Worcester themselves, in the messages they have posted to sites like YouTube, Wordpress Blogs… to see the students in action was a powerful and authentic image, that was more powerful than a poster hanging in a counselor's office, brochure mailed to one's house, or even a presentation given at a conference by a school administrator.

-The value of TLU’s resources lies in the minds and activities of it’s community – why not crowd-source rather than outsource I message like we have been doing and paying quite highly to do for years?

-The strength of Social Media is that is allows us to put out distinct strengths into a physical show and tell. Our unique challenges can be met by the virtual nature of having a presence in Social Media. The empowering of each member of our community to “tell the TLU story” makes the message we have to tell that much more powerful.

-At TLU we have just culminated a yearlong strategic planning process into five overarching institutional goals for the next 7 years. One of those goals is to succeed at providing students with a “high-impact education experience” – to me the key to that success lies in the integration of experiences, and collaboration of in and out of classroom experiences provided to our students. The challenge of telling this story – of the journey and the end product to prospective families could not come at a better time in my opinion. To launch a goal of providing students an experience that is more than sitting in a lecture hall – has to be backed up with the telling of this story some other way than traditional print media. How better to support the experience of the university than with a high impact marketing plan to spans new media in all its formats. The other opportunity that lies there by default is that it will not be one person or one offices’ sole responsibility or charge.

-One of the things I loved about working in an admissions office was to experience the student led tours, and student panels at visit events – and hearing the students involved tell their TLU story. While TLU has some very definitive characteristics and draws, everyone had come to TLU for a distinct and unique reason… more importantly the reasons they had all stayed at TLU were just as unique and individual. The “TLU Story” is dynamic. So is social media. It allows us to create a dynamic message rather than a static one. It allows for the message to have some constants, but with the flexibility to evolve. As a community of learners – from students, to staff, to administrators, to faculty – we are a community of people who have all come to TLU from different paths, and have a really interesting culmination of backgrounds, stories, and perspectives to share. The thing I enjoyed most about the bootcamp was that it debunked some of the walls of misunderstanding that surround the buzzwords: social media, web 2.0, social networking – and showed this community that we are all empowered to share the message – and together can create this really exciting and dynamic thing. Building the bridge we have all struggled with which is – how do we truly capture the essence of TLU and share the possibility of institutional fit with more prospective students, staff, and partnerships to continue to grow, and continue to foster this diverse community with a better understanding of institutional fit?

We now have more ways than ever to answer this question. More formats than ever. We no longer have to hire a writer, graphic designer, and professional photographer from the outside to “capture this essence.” It doesn’t have to be one successful marketing campaign. The true essence of sharing a powerful message is in the diversity of voices, formats, and networks that the TLU story gets told through social media.

Today is one of those days for me. I am sitting in a conference that has me wanting to jump out of my seat and get to "work" on creating, and designing, and writing. I am going to hopefully update a bit today. Taking note of thoughts and take aways from the day.

If you'd like to check out updates, and see what social media has the power to do. The event is being updated on twitter using: #esmbootcamp.

My favorite tidbit so far?

Who can best tell the story of your organization? For years we've paid outsiders because they were the pros... the secret that social media has revealed is that the truth is - we all have the power and a better ability to do it... and for free.