my ball isn't crystal

This isn't an "I told you so" moment. I'm not like that anyway. But I do have to smile.

About two years ago, one of our brilliant associate deans (there are only two, so you have a 50/50 chance), decided to hire a marketing communications consultant to come in and review, "how we're doing with the web stuff." That's an honest-to-goodness actual quote. Of course, at the time I wondered exactly what was meant by "web stuff." I'm still not certain that this particular associate dean even understands "the web" as a tool.

Moving quickly by the stupid money that was ponied up, it took the consultant (who is actually a nice, bright, forward-thinking person) all of three days to tell us, "You guys are doing all of the basics really really well." And thank you for that validation. Now maybe I can get on with what I get paid to do professionally.

One of the consultant's parting suggestions, possibly because he had to suggest something, was for us to create a blog. "Make it a student blog, that way prospective students will see what it's like to be a student here. Maybe pay the students to post. Maybe sell ad space. There are all types of models for making money with blogs."

At the time, I'd just finished my share of Anderson, Urban, Watts, and a few other scholarly-esque texts on the power and possibility of social networks. Nowhere in my reading or observations at the time did I see anything akin to a sound revenue model. In fact, other than the long shot of selling advertising or getting into porn (which to me seemed counter to the spirit of the forum), there was no -- is no -- way to make money with a blog.

I argued against the time and cost of creating, shaping, and maintaining a UC blog. The moment and fad passed. The topic still pops up occasionally, but there is less passion and fewer quips about how so and so university is making it work for them. The word is now part of the lexicon, but that doesn't mean that the blog -- as a tool -- is any better understood by our adminstrators and decision makers.

I don't feel smug, just confident in my ability to help the organization make sound decisions about its use of technology.

Higher Education