As the semester winds down and the holidays are upon us, I’m sure you are taking some time to reflect on the past semester and plan for the next one. We at OrgSync are doing the same. The fall 2008 semester was a very exciting one for OrgSync.

We attended eight conferences: ASGA National in Washington, D.C., TCCIL in Austin, NACA Mid-Atlantic in Lancaster, PA, NASPA Western Regional in Long Beach, CA, ASGA Southwest in Dallas, NASPA Region 1 in Cape Cod, MA, ILA National in Los Angeles, and AFA Annual Meeting in Denver. We have enjoyed attending these conferences and sharing in the professional development and networking with various associations. It’s always a great feeling when folks approach our booth because they have heard so many wonderful things about OrgSync. We genuinely appreciate the associations’ willingness to let us participate and we love working with and building strong relationships with all of the folks on the conference committees.

We have also developed new relationships with 11 campuses: Bowling Green State University (OH), California State University- Bakersfield, Fort Valley State University (GA), Glenville State College (WV), Northeastern Illinois University, Ohio Wesleyan University, University of Texas at Austin- College of Natural Sciences, University of Texas at Austin- McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Dallas, University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire, and Victor Valley College (CA). We are so excited to have the opportunity to work with amazing professionals from so many different campuses.

It is our goal to build and maintain very strong relationships with all of our clients across the country. In an effort to achieve this, we have developed a Client Services team, being led by a higher education veteran, who speaks the student affairs language and works with our campuses to achieve effective implementation and adoption of OrgSync. One of our main initiatives continuing into 2009 is to help campuses with implementation by offering on-site training. We visited five different campuses for on-site training this semester: Dixie State College, North Carolina State University, Owens Community College, Sacramento State University, and University of San Francisco. The on-site training has been extremely successful and has helped the OrgSync adoption rate by getting more students and departments across campus using OrgSync to meet their specific needs.

We also began hosting regular webinars this semester and will continue this in the months to come. We hold these webinars to stay connected with our schools and present relevant OrgSync updates, to educate our clients with important changes and news in the higher education community, and to listen to questions and feedback from our users. This also provides administrators a chance to network with each other and also to have an opportunity for sharing best practices for OrgSync. Corey Seemiller, from the University of Arizona, presented a webinar on the LINX leadership program, which is hosted on the OrgSync platform, while Frank Lojko, from Dixie State College, presented about how to use OrgSync for assessment. We will continue the professional webinar series in the spring, and also start a webinar series for student leaders. We are interesting in your ideas for interesting topics and presenters, so please contact us with comments, ideas and suggestions.

In addition to these exciting events, we have added several new members to our growing team. These team members all possess various talents and interests that add a whole new dimension to our organization. We are very proud of our many accomplishments over the fall semester and are looking forward to continuing to grow and expand over the spring semester and for many semesters to come. Look for many new exciting updates this spring from your friends here at OrgSync.

Happy New Year!

This past Thursday, the OrgSync crew was invited to the Bobby Bones Show Christmas Party.  The party was put on by the 96.7 Kiss FM Morning Show and was held in downtown Austin at Vicci, benefiting Toys for Tots.  Special guests included Brandy, Kevin Rudolf, Lesley Roy, White Tie Affair, and Shontelle!  We got to meet Bobby Bones, Lunchbox, Amy and Carlos and saw some great performances.  The boys even got a picture with the lady santas!  The party was a lot of fun and benefitted a great cause.  We can’t wait to go back next year!

The past few years we have seen the price of everything go up across the campus.  Higher priced parking, tuition, and even purchasing a soda requires a small loan.  And then there is the standard overpriced necessity…the textbook.  Flat World Knowledge is hoping to change that.

Our books are open for instructors to mix, mash, and make their own. Our books are the hub of a social learning network where students learn from the book and each other.

What are other ways we can use technology on campus to save money, while enhancing the college experience, and foster an environment for learning?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81zVcWcfAcU&hl=en&fs=1]

This past week, the OrgSync conference team attended the Association of Fraternity Advisors’ (AFA) Annual Meeting in Denver. We received a report the day before the conference letting us know that it was almost 70 degrees in Denver, but that was definitely not the case when we arrived. On our first night, we had 6 inches of snow, which was a big change from what we’re used to!

This was my fourth year attending the AFA Annual Meeting, but my first as an associate member, and OrgSync’s second year as a company. It was definitely exciting to see so many old friends and to make new ones! We always love to see our partner schools and to hear the many great OrgSync success stories they share with us. We were also able to show several campus administrators and national fraternity and sorority representatives and officers the many benefits of OrgSync in the Exhibit Hall.

On Friday night, OrgSync sponsored the ACPA reception, partnering with our friend Darren Pierre from the University of San Francisco. We were happy to meet some ACPA members before the conference in Washington, D.C. this spring! We were also able to attend the CampuSpeak 10^th Anniversary celebration. We were very privileged to help celebrate this achievement with a company that has contributed so much to college campuses and organizations.

We look forward to next year’s Annual Meeting and we hope to continue our partnership with the association for many years to come!

Recently, OrgSync has had the opportunity to conduct on-site trainings at North Carolina State University and Owens Community College in Toledo, OH. We always enjoy on-site visits because we get to finally meet clients face-to-face after hours of phone conversations.

There are 2 key things I learned during these on-site trainings that I would like to share with our OrgSync community:

1. On-site training is key to adoption. Many students were content with using their facebook groups or listserves, and the really ambitious students tried to build a mini version of OrgSync on their website. After every session, students came up to us excited about using OrgSync and shared how a specific module was going to make their life easier. If the schools just told the students to use OrgSync without any support or training, the adoption would be much slower, and they would not have a clear understanding of how OrgSync can benefit them. Within a week of each training, user accounts have tripled on the respective campuses and continue to grow.

2. The students are going to follow the administrators’ lead. NC State does a great of using the umbrella portal. They have created a form for club registration, and have added campus wide polls and discussions on the forum to solicit student feedback. They require all presidents to create a profile and join a presidentʼs portal to improve communication by giving them a one-stop-shop for updates from the Student Life office.

I am looking forward to monitoring the user growths of these campuses, and continuing working with all of our clients to ensure strong adoption rates and excellent customer service. I look forward to returning to Owens in the spring for a follow-up training. We love our schools and the opportunities to visit and meet the students and administrators who are using OrgSync.