Oregon State launched a movie contest asking students to submit a 1-2 minute video expressing their gratitude to donors for their generosity. The grand prize is an iPad, but in my opinion everyone is a winner: the students for their creativity and heart-felt messages, the donors for their life-changing gift, and OSU for creating a win-win situation. Check out the winning video and get ready to be moved. (Sorry about the bad pun at the end; I couldn’t help myself.)

Jeff Papa, President

A month or so ago I was flying home to SC and forgot my book, so I picked up Delta’s Sky Magazine and I came across this article about crowdsourcing. I immediately started thinking of ways that our clients could use this tool, and I brought the magazine back to DC to share with the team at our next retreat (it isn’t stealing, they want you to take them!).

I did some background research on crowdsourcing, and it isn’t as new of a technology as i thought. I guess I am behind on the times. It has even been applied in the world of higher ed.

Crowdsourcing is a mass collaboration enabled by web technology. It is a way to include the masses to get opinions on just about anything from product design to brand campaigns… to the design of a new bus station at Universty of Utah. 

The term was coined by Jeff Howe in a 2006 article in Wired.

 ”Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.”

Since te term was coined in 2006, there has been a explosion of different sites using the technique to accomplish a multitude of different tasks. It is inexpensive and in theory it seems like a great way to reach more people… my only question is how? Are you only reaching people who are tech saavy enough to have accounts on these sites? How can you harness this idea on your campus?  Think of the possibilities… and please email me (meredith@simpsonscarborough.com) if your campus has used this technology. I am just beginning to learn about it and I am dying to see more of it in action!

These are the articles I read. Definitely worth reading…

http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2010/03/01/Putting-the-IT-in-Crowdsourcing.aspx

http://msp.imirus.com/Mpowered/imirus.jsp?volume=ds10&issue=2&page=72

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html

–Meredith

From Tufts, to Johns Hopkins, to Ithaca College, check out The 50 Social Media Innovators in Higher Ed. These schools were recently recognized by collegesurfing.com for having “active Twitter feeds, fan-packed Facebook pages, creative YouTube videos, and compelling blogs” that capture the attention of their target audiences and promote their school in a compelling and technologically up-to-date way.

Congratulations!

- Jeff Papa