Toluu

shawn farner

*feeding* the social media obsession

Social media U? Not here.October 6

Riddle me this - how does a university celebrate a successful alumnus like Chad Hurley (a founder of YouTube), yet remain completely ignorant as to why he was successful in the first place?

I don’t have the answer, though I wish I did.

A quick scan through IUP’s Marketing course schedule reveals that the university does not offer an Internet Marketing course.  A similar search through the Communications Media department shows one course called “Internet and Media”, though the course description leads me to believe that they’ve just now discovered those wonderful “web page” doohickies.  Hardly reassuring.

More troubling to me is the lack of early adopters on campus.  There are four or five students on Twitter (including myself and two friends I recruited) and one IT guy.  Not a single professor is on Twitter.  The university has no official presence on the service, either.  I won’t even talk about FriendFeed or any of the other lesser-known social networks.  

I’m left with this question - what on earth are the students learning about regarding the internet in Marketing and

More on our “smoke-free” campusSeptember 25

A few minutes ago, I received this email from Helen Kennedy, our university’s Associate Vice President for Human Resources.

To All University Employees and IUP Students

On Sept. 12, you received my communication on the Pennsylvania Clean Indoor Air Act. PASSHE is required to be in compliance with this law and has taken the position that smoking is prohibited on all 14 PASSHE campuses, both indoor and outdoor, (including the regional campuses) and the Dixon Center. PASSHE’s interpretation of the law is that “educational facilities” where smoking is prohibited, includes the entire campus. IUP will adhere to both the law and PASSHE’s position.

The Department of Health is responsible for enforcement. Information can be obtained from the Pennsylvania Department of Health at www.dsf.health.state.pa.us or by calling the Clean Indoor Air Helpline at 1-877-835-9535.

The Human Resources website has been updated with additional information about this issue. It includes information for employees and students who may wish to transition to a tobacco-free life style. This information is available at www.iup.edu/humanresources (click on policies; then click on smoking).

More information about on-campus programming for tobacco cessation is available through IUP’s Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs Program in the Center for Health and Well-Being (724-357-1265).

Helen Kennedy

Associate Vice President for Human Resources

The IUP Yammer ExperimentSeptember 16

 

Have an IUP email address? Want to play with a new web app? Here’s your chance.

Go to Yammer.com and create an account using your IUP email address. For identification purposes, it’s probably best to use the address that contains your first and middle initials followed by your last name (ex. s.m.farner@iup.edu). Once your account is created, you’ll automatically be added to the IUP.edu network.

What you’ll find is a site much like the popular microblogging service Twitter. The difference? It’s only for people on your network. Yammer recently won best startup at TechCrunch50, an event where new startups show off the service or web site they’ve created.

Play around with it and let me know what you think. I can see this having TONS of potential uses on a college campus.  It could serve as a student-powered information machine or as an outlet for people to talk about whatever they want.  Just as Twitter has, in multiple instances, been the first source of breaking news such as earthquakes and other natural disasters, Yammer could be the fastest way to spread news to 15,000+ stude

The last semesterAugust 27

Well, here I am.

Life has been crazy the past few weeks.  I dealt with the passing of my great grandmother, I said goodbye to the wonderful people at Ritter Insurance Marketing and I made my way to Indiana, Pennsylvania.  I was an Orientation Leader for this year’s Welcome Weekend - we moved in over a thousand new freshmen Saturday morning and afternoon.  We also entertained 2,000+ students at the student union building on Saturday night.

Now that the pace seems to have slowed down, I’m finally starting to settle in.  In the next three to four months, this blog will probably cover very little about Central Pennsylvania.  From a social media standpoint, these will be the last few months in which I view the topic through student goggles.  There is, however, the possibility for something very cool.  As most know, I graduate this December (God willing) and will then venture out into the “real world”.  I would love to work in social media.  What better way to chronicle the trials and tribulations involved in a job search than with this blog?

I would also like to do a lot more video this semester. It seems as though funny things happen when I don’t have my Flip with me.  I saw a cop speed down the road and swerve around a car to pull over a cyclist yesterday.  Things like that need to be recorded on video.

I suppose that’s all for now.  I’ll eventually get back into posting regularly now that I’m here and growing used to my

Are you being someone else on your blog?August 5

A friend and I were reminiscing about the good old days of Xanga - a blog/journal hosting service that we used (along with many of our friends) to chronicle our lives and our thoughts.  As we moved from high school to college, our Xangas started to become less and less frequently updated until, finally, we stopped updating them altogether.

Since then, I’ve moved on to a more serious type of blogging.  I’ve started to write about the fields that interest me and have used my blog as more of a branding tool than as a place to talk about my life.  My hilarious (and sometimes R-rated) rants have been replaced by posts about Twitter and my thoughts about social media.

Lately, I’ve been asking myself - is this me?  Is this what I really want to talk about?  Would I use these words?

I’m finding out more and more that the answer has to be yes, at least here.  Shawn Farner can be found inside the domain name.  Shawn Farner can be found in the blog itself.  All of my social networking accounts, most of which have a link to this blog, have Shawn Farner as the user name.  There is no escaping the fact that this blog now belongs to Professional Shawn. Consider Professional Shawn an alter-ego of sorts, like Clark Kent is for Superman (except not as super).  As long as thi