Orgsync Blog

The OrgSync team traveled to Seattle to join over 3,000 campus administrators for the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators Conference (NASPA) March 7-11. We spent most of our time at the Convention Center talking with campus professionals, both educating them on the benefits of OrgSync, and learning what support and services they need to help their students succeed and make their jobs easier. We always enjoy engaging in conversations with both current and potential OrgSync users to learn about how we can improve OrgSync to help them even more.

We were disappointed that we were unable to visit the famous Space Needle, even though we could see it from our hotel. We did have a chance to get out and enjoy some of the sites, such as Pike Place Market and a very good local seafood restaurant on the Puget Sound, Anthony’s Pier 66.

We look forward to joining our friends again in Chicago next year for NASPA 2010! In the meantime, the OrgSync team will travel to Washington, D.C. for ACPA (booth #311) and Anaheim, CA for ACUI (booth #614) in the coming weeks. Hope to see you at the OrgSync booth!

Last week, Eric and I (Jami Darden) traveled to the great state of New York to visit one of our newest clients, St. John’s University in Jamaica, Queens. St. John’s boasts an undergraduate population of nearly 15,000 students from 42 states, Puerto Rico, District of Columbia, U.S. Virgin Islands and 91 foreign countries. Among its notable alumni are leaders in virtually every industry, including business, medicine, politics, education, professional athletics, journalism, and entertainment. Needless to say, we are delighted to welcome this distinguished institution to the OrgSync family!

Many thanks go out to everyone on campus who not only worked tirelessly over the last several months to make OrgSync a reality for St. John’s student organizations, but also for their efforts arranging the on-site training sessions. We want to especially thank Dana Lezama, president of Student Government, Inc., who spear-headed this effort and was an exceptional host! Also, Frank Jerome, Business Analyst for the Office of Student Affairs, who is working with OrgSync support to create a single sign on solution which will make it convenient for St. John’s students to access OrgSync and their student organizations via “St. John’s Central”.

During our two-day visit, Eric and I conducted 12, 90 minute training sessions where we were able to meet with approximately 140 student leaders. We were also thrilled to share the news of our new strategic partnership with PayPal and are looking forward to providing a comprehensive budgeting and e-commerce solution to all of our clients. Eric was even able to meet with Barbara Duffy who manages all of the budget requests and fund allocations for student organizations at St. John’s, and she has provided us with lots of insight that will help guide the development of our new, more robust treasury module.

We were also very pleased to learn that all student organizations at St. John’s are required to complete a certain number of community service hours in order to be recognized on campus and receive funding from the university. It was quite rewarding to see students’ reactions as we showed them how OrgSync can be used to track their involvement in service events and programs. Their reporting process will now be streamlined and simplified! I definitely saw a sparkle in their eye as they realized that they finally have a way to quantify how their organizations are contributing to the culture of their campus and the surrounding community. We at OrgSync, of course, share their commitment to community service and service learning and will continue to work with our clients to showcase these types of efforts. Stay tuned to future blog posts and check back on our website to learn more about the “GIVE Act” recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.

Coming from a higher education background, I truly enjoyed interacting with all of the students and staff members at St. John’s. Their energy and commitment to a vibrant campus life is very refreshing and has reminded me of why I got into the business of working with student leaders. I can’t wait for our next on-site training. After a snowy Friday morning in New York, however, I was pleased to return to sunny skies and mid-eighty temperatures in Texas!

OrgSync’s first year at the SXSW Interactive Festival was a great success! We met many people interested in advancing technology in Higher Ed. Many shared our goal to accelerate student success through out of classroom involvement and innovative service learning. We also met many companies interested in partnering to help spread our services.

Saturday was an exciting day, OrgSync CEO, Eric Fortenberry and Jeff Jackson, Director of Client Services and Leadership Development, were interviewed by Texas State professor Cindy Royal. They told the “OrgSync Story” and went on to discuss how our online hosted tools will help universities communicate better with their students and help students get engaged on campus. The interview can be seen here.

The Festival’s opening remarks were made by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. He emphasized the importance of a strong company culture and always working to make the customer service experience the best it can be. It was very interesting to see how similar the Zappos company culture and core values are to ours at OrgSync. We both understand the importance of customer service, flexibility and innovation to revolutionize our customer experience.

It was very exciting to meet some of the nation’s most innovative and successful entrepreneurs. Team OrgSync had the pleasure of meeting Kevin Rose, co-founder of Digg and Alex Albrecht co-host of Diggnation. As well as many other great entrepreneurs such as Pete Cashmore, founder of Mashable, blogger Robert Scoble, and venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki.

Later that day, Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht hosted Diggnation live from Stubbs BBQ. The OrgSync Team got to watch the show from the VIP balcony alongside other entrepreneurs mentioned in Sarah Lacey’s book, Once You’re Lucky, Twice Your Good; a company favorite!

Even more exciting was meeting John Schuman, Senior Worldwide Evangelist and Megan Stewart, Director Worldwide Higher Education for Adobe Systems. We discussed how we work with student organizations’ webmasters and how we’re interested in figuring out how to partner with Adobe so we can further provide student webmasters with the tools and experience they need to succeed.

One of the discussions held on Sunday consisted of a Higher Ed Panel focused on the challenges of the web in higher education. The panel discusses small budgets, and the generation gap between faculty and students as hindering the advancement of technology in the Higher Ed community. We were very pleased to see such a large audience working to bring advancements in technology to the classroom. Many agreed that students need to get involved more outside of the classroom to complement their academic studies and accelerate their success. We also tried to advance these discussions by sponsoring the 3rd annual SXSW Higher Ed MeetUp/ TweetUp at Buffalo Billiard’s.

Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed attending and exhibiting at SXSW and are already excited about next year’s Interactive Festival.

OrgSync is excited to sponsor the 3rd Annual Higher Ed MeetUp/TweetUp on Sunday night from 6:00-10:00pm at Buffalo Billiard’s on 6th & Brazo’s. Catch up with your colleagues in the education field and meet new friends at this great networking event.

If you get lost call Jeff at 512-970-6585

Map to Buffalo

Also be sure and attend Brad J Ward and Dylan Wilbank’s panel on the “The Web In Higher Education: What’s Different?” this year at SXSWi.

The 22nd Annual South by Southwest Music & Media Festival has begun! The OrgSync team will be exhibiting at the SXSW Interactive Festival this weekend at the Austin Convention Center. SXSW Interactive celebrates the best minds and the brightest personalities of emerging technologies. We will be at booth #710 on the fourth floor of the convention center in the Trade Show on Saturday & Sunday 12-6, and Monday 12-4. Please stop by our booth if you are planning to be at SXSW!

OrgSync will also be sponsoring the 3rd Annual Higher Ed MeetUp/TweetUp on Sunday night from 6:00-10:00pm at Buffalo Billiard’s on 6th & Brazo’s. Catch up with your colleagues in the education field and meet new friends at this great networking event. Also be sure and attend Brad J Ward and Dylan Wilbank’s panel on the “The Web In Higher Education: What’s Different?” this year at SXSWi.

We hope to see you at our SXSWi booth, The Higher Ed MeetUp/TweetUp and/or the panel discussion!

This is the first part of a multi-part blog series on social media and higher education. I realize when discussing social media, individuals come to the conversation from many different backgrounds. Some are early adopters and are self-proclaimed “social media gurus”; others may be familiar with the platforms but not the uses and benefits, while even others have no concept of the term. What we would like to do over the next few weeks is explore some basic terms and useful social media platforms and discuss how they can be effectively used by colleges and universities.

Before we go too far, let’s take a step back and answer the question of the day: What is social media? There are many different definitions for social media depending on who you ask, so for the purposes of these posts we are going to define social media as a method to communicate, build connections, connect with groups of people, and share knowledge using a variety of online tools and platforms. Social media allows you to create your digital identity with which you can use to interact with more people than you could touch in the course of your day!

I like to compare social media to a cocktail party to simplify things. Similarly, at a cocktail party you meet new people, get reacquainted with old friends, maybe learn something new, and of course have fun! And just like at a cocktail party, inappropriate actions hurt your chances of all of the above.

In the upcoming posts we will discuss a few social media tools including the newest tool Twitter, the social networking giant Facebook, the professional networking giant LinkedIn, the importance of blogging and everyone’s favorite, YouTube. More importantly, we will dig into each platform to discuss how higher ed can benefit from these strangely named tools and challenge you to get started with a set of easy to follow steps.

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OrgSync has just launched its very own Facebook Connect application. OrgSync hopes by offering this application to their user that their services will be more accessible and further integrated into student’s lives. The OrgSync Facebook Connect feature allows users to log into OrgSync using their Facebook username and password.

What are the benefits of this you may ask? Well for starters, with the dozens of online community memberships you have, using this Facebook Connect application to log in to OrgSync means students have one less username and password to remember. More importantly, this application will help students increase awareness for their organization, assist in the marketing of events and increase member participation, thus adding value to the overall initiative of increasing student involvement on campus.

With the OrgSync Facebook Connect application students who are part of an organization will have the option of publishing desired information about their organization’s activity into their Facebook news feed. This is just one way OrgSync hopes to assist student leaders with their communication efforts among their members and prospective members. For example, when a member Joins (”RSVP”) an event on OrgSync they will have the option to also publish it into their Facebook news feed, maximizing the organization’s efforts in promoting their event.

There will be many new Facebook Connect features implemented over the next several months. To find more information about the OrgSync Facebook Connect go here and look for updates within your OrgSync user portal. If you have any suggestions or questions about our Facebook Connect feature feel free to contact us at Facebook@OrgSync.com.

The Creator of OrgSync’s Facebook Connect:

Clifton King, a software developer for OrgSync and a Computer Science student at the University of Texas at Austin, implemented Facebook Connect into OrgSync, through a Facebook API that he created in Ruby. This is the first large scale integration on a Rails platform with Facebook Connect and we are very excited to provide the additional benefits to our users!

As an educator, the following video clip really resonated with me. Technology has advanced greatly since I was in school, but uses of technology in the classroom have not advanced that quickly. We may have transitioned from overheads to PowerPoints and from VHS to DVD, but the essence of the classroom is still the same; rows of students listening to an expert lecture creating isolation between student and teacher and student to student. Not a conducive learning environment for collaboration!

Kaplan University has run a series of commercials, and is basing their teaching model on the principal of “attend our online classes anytime, anywhere, 24/7.” Take a class at home, on your lunch break, or on the train during your morning commute. Thinking about what all my iPhone can do, it’s not a huge leap to image Kaplan creating an online class application.

Don’t get me wrong I do not want to do away with the “traditional” university model, but where is the classroom innovation? If we truly want students to learn, then why do we not teach them in a manner or style that is conducive to learning? Well I think Uncle Phil says it best in the new Kaplan commercial. “I think it is time for the University to start adapting to you rather than you adapting to it” and my favorite line “[It is time] To learn how you learn so we can teach you better.”

What are your thoughts? How could your University adapt better? What would an ideal learning classroom look like for your campus?

In an effort to continue to build strong relationships with our campuses, OrgSync announces its new Campus Liaison Internship Program.  Through the program, participants will gain valuable experience about how to use social media for marketing, as well as presentation, event planning, leadership, and communication skills.  We are very excited to offer this valuable experience to the student leaders on our campuses!

The goal of the Campus Liaison Internship program is for college students on OrgSync campuses to utilize social media to create visibly active communities, while ensuring that every campus gets the most out of the OrgSync experience. The students will work closely with OrgSync’s Client Services team to design campaigns on their campuses to increase awareness and get more students involved with OrgSync.  We believe that every student should benefit from the many features of OrgSync, and our Campus Liaisons will help us achieve this.

Candidates must complete an application in order to be considered for the program, and our top performers will qualify for all-expenses-paid trips to OrgSync headquarters in Austin, TX each semester!  Applicants should be creative, innovative, active leaders on an OrgSync campus with a strong willingness to learn about social media and marketing.

If you are interested in learning more, please see the Campus Liaison Internship Program details on our website, or contact Leanna Laskey.