May 5, 2011

Your online presence is not yet welcomed here

Posted by Dr. Laura Guertin

I read this article with great fascination.  It is from the Chronicle of Higher Education and was included in the daily Wired Campus announcements that I receive via email.

A College Unfriends its Social-Networking President (LINK)

At first, I didn’t understand the title.  I thought it was some student club called the Social Networking Club that got rid of its president.  Wow, was I surprised to realize this was the president of the Rhode Island School of Design!  He’s on Twitter (@johnmaeda) and YouTube, but not on the “most popular” list with his faculty and students.

I encourage you to read the article for yourself, but here is my takeaway – when coming into a new community, a physical community dominated by face-to-face interactions and communications, don’t lose site of the immediate importance to build relationships face-to-face.  There seems to have been too much of an emphasis on the online community BEFORE getting established on the campus.  It will be interesting to see if John Maeda changes his online communication patterns and/or the online campus presence.