As students begin to arrive back on campus, we know that many of our new campus partners are preparing to launch OrgSync this spring. To explain how OrgSync can benefit your students, we created this short interactive video. Students are the catalyst that makes OrgSync a success on every campus we work with, and we encourage you to share this with your students to help spread the word about OrgSync across campus.

Thanks to our designer, Jeff Jurica, for the hard-work and creativity on this project. Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

We wanted to take this time to share with you a new update to the Organization Registration creation process that went into effect last night. The changes will not affect the students’ experience with the organization registration process and will only be visible for umbrella administrators. All of the functionality will remain the same; it is only the layout and design of the page that has changed.

We took these steps to hopefully clarify the organization registration setup process.

1. First Time Registrations — this is where you will enable/disable the registration process for the students.
2. Renewals & Profile Approval — this is where you will enable the renewals and set the date for the the renewal process to start.
3. Notified Admins — this is where you will select which admin(s) are notified when a registration form is turned in.
4. Public Profile Fields — this is where you will select the registration elements that are used to create the public profile for the organization.

We hope that you will enjoy these changes and that they will help make setting up the registration process more intuitive. Please contact your Campus Consultant if you have any questions or feedback, and have a wonderful day!

Colleges and universities invest a great deal of money and resources in support of co-curricular activities in an effort to foster student engagement. With budget cuts happening across campus, it is more necessary than ever to assess if student involvement actually enhances student success.

OrgSync’ers in front of our booth!

To educate campuses on how the data collected in OrgSync can be used to assess the impact of student involvement on overall student success, we attended the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (“SACSCOC”) Annual Meeting last week. When we asked the attendees how they were measuring out-of-the-classroom learning outcomes, the response we received over and over again was “We can’t.” Of course, the OrgSync team immediately responded, “Yes, it can be done!”

Campuses can compare pre- and post-program assessments to see rates of student growth and development, revaluate programs and services based on feedback, and establish a benchmark to measure annual change and development. The outcomes of these analyses will help campuses continuously improve institutional and departmental strategic initiatives and align learning outcomes to the institution’s mission and values.

During the conference, we showcased how California State University at Sacramento (“Sac State”) leveraged the involvement data found in OrgSync to show measurable results linking student involvement to increased academic performance and higher retention rates across various student cohorts including underrepresented minorities, transfer students, commuter students and other non-traditional students. The results of the study found that no matter what the starting point was for students coming onto campus, student involvement had a positive impact on graduation and retention rates. By proving that students were learning and developing in their co-curricular programs, the Office of Student Organizations and Leadership at Sac State received the support and funding needed to help its programs flourish.

It is very fulfilling to know that we have been able to help those who work with students not only drive student engagement, but turn it into measureable data that can be leveraged for further funding and resources.

I invite conversation about how, together, we can reach this goal.

Its has been an exciting few weeks for us as conference season is winding down for the Fall and the holidays quickly approaching. Exactly a week after Thanksgiving, Cayce and I attended The Association of Boarding Schools (TABS) Annual Conference in Boston. This was OrgSync’s first opportunity to attend TABS, so it was a great learning experience for us and the perfect opportunity to network and create new relationships.

Cayce at our booth!

During the conference, we had many great conversations with Directors and Administrators from various private and boarding schools to learn about their specific needs. The OrgSync booth was a big hit as always (although Cayce claims this is due to his charm, but we’ll let you decide that). Conversations focused on how OrgSync can help these schools go paperless and streamline their operations and how OrgSync can be used to plan co-curricular and weekend activities that keep their students engaged and involved.

In addition, we attended several sessions, two of which were open forum discussions focusing on Residential Life and Technology in boarding schools. We were all ears as we engaged in these discussions with Directors of these departments and learned a great deal from the experts themselves.

Lobster & Clam Chowda. Yum!

In reflection, Boston is an incredible city to host a conference and the conversations we had were invaluable as we begin to work with more and more independent and boarding schools across the country. Of course, no trip to Boston would be complete without some New England clam “chowda’” and some variation of Maine Lobster. Overall it was a fantastic experience and we’re already looking forward to seeing everyone again next year.

If you’d like to learn more about how OrgSync can benefit your private or boarding school, take a look at our handout below or download your copy here.

In an effort to bring the American economy out of economic crisis, President Obama unveiled his proposed American Jobs Act in September of this year. Simply put, the American Jobs Act is meant to stimulate the economy by putting more people, such as veterans and teachers, back to work by creating more jobs in the United States. The following is a brief overview of the Act, which can be found on the WhiteHouse.gov website:

“The American people understand that the economic crisis and the deep recession weren’t created overnight and won’t be solved overnight. The economic security of the middle class has been under attack for decades. That’s why President Obama believes we need to do more than just recover from this economic crisis – we need to rebuild the economy the American way, based on balance, fairness, and the same set of rules for everyone from Wall Street to Main Street. We can work together to create the jobs of the future by helping small business entrepreneurs, by investing in education, and by making things the world buys. The President understands that to restore an American economy that’s built to last we cannot afford to outsource American jobs and encourage reckless financial deals that put middle class security at risk. To create jobs, the President unveiled the American Jobs Act – nearly all of which is made up of ideas that have been supported by both Democrats and Republicans, and that Congress should pass right away to get the economy moving now. The purpose of the American Jobs Act is simple: put more people back to work and put more money in the pockets of working Americans. And it would do so without adding a dime to the deficit.”

OrgSync supports the American Jobs Act for the following reasons:

Payroll Tax Cuts

The President’s plan would provide an enormous boost to our ability to continue to add new members to the OrgSync team as well as provide additional compensation to our current hard-working staff. As we continue to grow, it’s critical for us to provide the same premium support and customer service that our campus partners have grown accustomed to and believe is a major differentiator. This will provide us the opportunity to acquire additional team members in every department.

Incentive to Hire Veterans

We have several veterans on our team, including an Iraq War veteran in a Senior Leadership role. Cayce Stone, who is our Sr. VP of Business Development, is the driving force behind our passionate team of sales professionals dedicated to making OrgSync a standard in Higher Education. We fully realize the discipline and leadership that veterans bring to the job, and the provisions of the Act will only enhance our incentive to hire veterans in the future.

Reduce Regulatory Burdens

OrgSync appreciates the provisions that reduce regulatory burdens on small businesses, particularly as it relates to raising funds for growth capital. The plan will seek to change ways the government does business with small businesses, allowing for increased opportunity for OrgSync to expand and service more clients.

Patent Reform

This is especially important to OrgSync as a small technology company. We are put at a distinct disadvantage against large corporations who have millions of dollars to pursue patents. We believe many software patents are overly broad and often vague and threatening to small company innovation.

Investments in Education and Teachers

Education (higher education, community colleges, and secondary education) is at the core of our business and is our passion. We believe that out-of-classroom learning is key to student retention and graduation rates. OrgSync facilitates and encourages students to be actively involved both on campus and in their communities as they prepare to enter the workforce as well rounded individuals. In fact, the American Jobs Act will help support nearly 400,000 education related jobs, and help to modernize 35,000 public school buildings and community college campuses in the United States.

Please join us today, by signing your name to the American Jobs Act petition on the their website.

Today’s guest post is from our good friend and OrgSync Rockstar Jingshen Zhao. Jingshen is an Accounting sophomore at the University of Texas at Austin, where he introduced a new chapter of the Learn To Be Foundation. He trained his chapter to take advantage of OrgSync, and actively advocates the effective use of OrgSync among other student organizations at UT Austin as well as the other Learn To Be chapters he helped to create at UT Dallas, Syracuse, Cornell, Northwestern and Harvard. To learn more about Jingshen, visit his ePortfolio.

It has been an exciting couple of weeks since Eric Fortenberry, CEO of OrgSync, was nominated to the Empact100 List of the successful business owners under the age of 30, and subsequently honored at the White House on November 17th. We at the University of Texas at Austin look up to Eric and the OrgSync story as one of the most inspirational examples of entrepreneurship. I wish more business leaders have the same infectious commitment to give back their time and money to stimulate innovation in their communities.

Eric and I before the screening of Waiting for Superman

Eric and his team built OrgSync out of the frustrations from running a student organization at UT Austin. They worked with the UT McCombs School of Business to develop the most helpful tools for student leaders. Less than five years after he graduated from McCombs, Eric has already started giving back. This March, he guest lectured more than 30 UT students on bootstrapping and management information systems. Before we had a chance to breathe, he was on campus again soon after to help the Texas Exes finalize their most prestigious scholarships, and even signed himself up as a mentor for our pioneering 1SemesterStartup program. When May rolled around, he was back in town to celebrate the success of our organizations by sponsoring and attending movie screenings, chatting with our Student Body President, and shuttling young education reform enthusiasts to and back from a lecture and book signing by Wendy Kopp, Founder and CEO of Teach For America.

Learn To Be in Texas!

But can you imagine having someone so awe-inspiring as your mentor? He talked me through my personal rough patches, let me into his life and aspirations, introduced me to work with the OrgSync team over the summer, and entertained one crazy idea after another. In freshman year I had started a Texas chapter of a California-based children’s charity called Learn To Be, and Eric has been nothing short of an unwavering, ever present source of courage as we went from 20 members to more than 250 in less than a year. Having offered more than 4,000 free online tutoring sessions for underprivileged kids in 2010, we are on our way to a projected total of more than 9,000 sessions this year. OrgSync’s ability to scale widely and quickly to acquire more than 200 institutional partners showed us the way to replicating our student organization chapter model to 30+ colleges and universities including: Harvard University, Cornell University, Northwestern University, and Penn, all while using OrgSync as a central recruitment, management and community exchange interface.

One of the most important lessons from Eric, however, is the necessity to focus on school work and making the most out of the educational experiences right at our doorsteps. This “don’t fade from school” attitude led me to find Hoot.me, another promising Longhorn startup that makes use of Facebook to facilitate online study groups. For a limited time, you can even support my nonprofit – the Learn To Be Foundation, by joining Hoot with this special link: http://hoot.me/join/ltb and get some studying done during final exams.

I’m very thankful for everything Eric has taught me thus far, and can’t wait to see what the future holds for Eric and his team.

The week before Thanksgiving, I had the opportunity to join four other OrgSync Rockstars in San Diego for the NASPA Western Regional Conference (#naspawr11) at the Hard Rock Hotel. This was my first experience as a NASPA conference attendee, and let me tell you I couldn’t have been more excited about the opportunity to attend. With the theme of “Anthology,” this year’s conference focused on providing attendees “a diverse collection of practices, priorities and values, grounded in the learning of yesterday and today, and committed to the promotion of student learning and success today and tomorrow.” In addition to the theme, the planning committee didn’t print any programs in an effort to promote sustainability and the green initiative.

Aimee with Alex (left) & Andrew (right)

During the conference, I had the opportunity to attend a number of sessions and listen to a variety of topics ranging from social media, personal branding, entrepreneurship, and assessment. On the opening day of the conference, Richard Setterson, Ph. D, from Oregon State University, shared his fascinating findings from his research and published book, “Not Quite Adults – Why 20-Somethings Are Choosing a Slower Path to Adulthood, and Why It’s Good for Everyone.” Take a look at the tweets and conversations during Mr. Setterson’s keynote presentation here.

That same day, I was able to catch our good friend, Eric Stoller, and listen in on his sessions about introductory and advanced social media practices. Because of my responsibility as OrgSync’s social media evangelist, I was thrilled to finally meet Eric in person and to hear how Student Affairs professionals and departments are utilizing social media to connect with their students and build their personal brands.

While exhibiting, the marketing team was able to meet our long-time campus partner Aimee Shattuck, Director of Student Activities and Leadership, from Portland State University. It was exciting to hear how OrgSync has completely transformed her department, allowing her and her staff to spend less time on paper work and more on student success and development programs.

Mobros!

On Friday, I was able to listen to Garret Westlake, Director of Disability Resources at Arizona State University – Polytechnic Campus, share his amazing initiative to promote entrepreneurship amongst students with disabilities. This presentation really hit home for me, because of the entrepreneurship culture at OrgSync and our understanding of what entrepreneurs can do to make this world a better place. Afterwards, I attended Sandra Mahoney’s and Serjio Acevedo’s presentation on “Nurturing a Culture of Assessment, ” from the University of the Pacific. Serjio’s contagious passion for Multicultural Affairs and teaching assessment filled the room as we were able to participate in a mock behavioral based interview and learn how the University of the Pacific assesses their programs and initiatives. We also meet up with a couple Mobros from Pacific!

User Meeting at NASPA Western!

The final day was really exciting, especially for us in marketing, because we were able to hold a user meeting. The following NASPA Western region rockstars joined us early Saturday morning: Boise State University, Long Beach Community College, Portland State University, University of California – Los Angeles, University of California – Santa Barbara, and University of Washington at Bothell. After eating a delicious breakfast, our campus partners had the opportunity to share OrgSync best practices, provide development feedback, ask questions about their implementation, and discuss techniques to market OrgSync to students. Overall, the conversation was very lively, which made the trip an even more success.

This year’s NASPA Western Regional Conference set the record for number of attendees at any regional NASPA conference. But, I believe what made the conference even stronger was the backchannel. The buzz about NASPA Western was very lively on Twitter and you could tell attendees were enjoying the conversations both in person and online. Take a look at this snapshot from #NASPAwr11.

We’re already getting excited and preparing for next year’s NASPA Western in Honolulu, Hawaii! See you next year!

Every year, the OrgSync team has a lot of fun celebrating the holidays. As an OrgSync tradition, this past Sunday, we held our annual OrgSync Thanksgiving celebration. Our annual potluck dinner allowed us to share the things each team member is thankful for and reminisce about the exciting year we’ve had. This year, we have plenty to be thankful for, including our noticeable and highly discussed Movember moustaches. For those who are unfamiliar with this phenomenon, Movember is a worldwide charity event that raises awareness and funding for men’s health research, specifically for prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men. Hints why all the OrgSync men have distinguished “mos” on their faces. If you haven’t already, please take a look at this great cause, and make a donation today!

We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and we can’t thank you enough for being a loyal reader and OrgSync rockstar!

Last week five members of the OrgSync Team traveled to New Orleans, Louisiana for NODAC – The National Orientation Directors Association Annual Conference. With a theme of “Le Renouveau,” this year’s conference focused on a sense of community and revitalization to the spirit and soul – an appropriate theme for such a resilient and lively city. Since this year’s conference was scheduled during Halloween, we were fortunate to experience NOLA when it was particularly vibrant.

OrgSync and NODA share a partnership and we were excited to take on our second year hosting their conference registration process. Leanna Laskey & Cayce Stone met with NODA leadership during the conference to reflect on the past year and discuss future endeavors. We will continue to work with NODA in the Spring as we gear up for regional conference registrations.

Leanna and I with Nicky Damania from CSU- Pueblo

During the conference we also spent a lot of time in the exhibit hall. We were able to meet and greet TONS of our Campus Partners, as well as answer the questions of interested prospective campuses. We handed out countless OrgSync ribbons, sunglasses, and “Campus Partner” & “I <3 OrgSync” buttons to visitors at our booth!

On our last day of the conference, Leanna and I presented to about 35 OrgSync Campus Partners and prospective colleges for our educational session titled Technology for Orientation: Tools to Help you Throughout the Year. The presentation focused on the major milestones an orientation director encounters throughout the entire school year, not just the three summer months. We highlighted several of our Campus Partners who are successfully managing their New Student Programs through OrgSync such as Colorado State University @ Pueblo, Saint Francis University, Muskingum University, and Loras College to name a few. We had an amazing audience participation from our OrgSync campuses and fielded some great questions from our session attendees.

We truly value our relationship with NODA and look forward to the national conference each year. Attending NODAC gives us such a great opportunity to learn more about different programs, orientation professional’s needs, and how our Campus Partners are utilizing OrgSync. We’re already getting excited for next year in Las Vegas!!