New Job, New Media?

Guess I really wasn't thinking about some of the bigger differences going.

In a meeting last week, one of the things that came up was the desire for faculty to find ways to use all these new fangled media devices to promote themselves - and hence, the U. - better.

"Consider running a blog," someone said. I snickered and tried to look aghast. But worse, they want us to do things like Facebook (Okay, I'm already there) and Twitter (which I'm less than convinced is useful for me to promote myself, and hence, the U.). I don't think I'm at the point in my career where I have profound things to say every hour. Honestly, there are days where I find myself stretching to complain in this blog.

Really, though, what I wanted to ask was: what's the model you're thinking about here? Because it seems to me a half-assed attempt to use something like this only looks bad (I was going to say makes one look like a whole ass, but isn't the phrase "half-assed" implying that a "full-assed" attempt would be the way to go? I don't know...). Is there any evidence that prospective students are using presence of a Twitter account to make their decisions? Are grant givers factoring it into their assessments on whether or not to give funding?

Because on some level it feels like that, best case, we've become convinced we need Twitter because we hear the word so much. Thoughts? Is this happening elsewhere? In particular disciplines?

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5 Responses to “New Job, New Media?”
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Notorious Ph.D. said...

Let's get all tech-meta here, with my friend J's Facebook status update this morning:

Sign of the times: "My prostate surgery went fine. I’ve been tweeting it."

And my opinion lies with that of one of J's commenters:

And that is one reason I'm not on Twitter.

Take that for what you will. I just though it was an interesting coincidence of themes.

September 15, 2009 at 9:06 PM
Brigindo said...

Our campus newsletter has asked us to share our blogs with them, if we have one. I found this strange on many levels. If they were really so tech-saavy wouldn't we have a campus blog?

I've been trying to tweet and FB but it feels like a form of small talk that I've never been able to master.

September 15, 2009 at 10:36 PM
Dr. Curmudgeon said...

Hah! These are both great reasons to think critically about Tweeting.

While I can think of some great ways to use Twitter, they don't seem to apply to me - particularly not in the professional setting. And watching a lot of feeds, what Twitter seems to do most for a professional is to expose just how much time one spends surfing the Internet.

September 18, 2009 at 11:05 PM
Anonymous said...

From my internal funding proposal, for a guest speaker, to answer the question how will this event be advertised ... I gave all the usual ways (I am impressive on this already) and then added, "and it on Facebook and Twitter."

What someone said: I shouldn't just post it in a status update, I should create a Facebook page for the series.

September 19, 2009 at 11:33 PM
dance said...

Didn't bother to comment earlier because I didn't feel like signing in, but this post may be useful for you:

http://www.profhacker.com/2009/08/24/being-yourself-online-of-usernames-and-avatars/

September 27, 2009 at 10:28 PM