If you lead, manage or teach at a major university and you're still not blogging, either just as yourself or on behalf of the institution, you're missing out on some of the most fun you can have with your clothes on.

Not to mention it is the cheapest, fastest, and most effective means of communicating with an audience you crave… people who are looking for you online.

Look, for example, at what I found. This link takes you to a blog offered by the Randolph Community College Library. Library? As in hard copy books and periodicals? Yep. Scroll down the page and to the right in the sidebar you'll see they have enlisted seven staff contributors. Examine for a second some of the recent posts such as the one entitled, "Top Ten Web Tools for College Students."  Do you think this sort of thing means anything to current and would be students in North Carolina where Randolph Community College is located? Do you think that this sort of online interactive conversational "community" effort might distinguish and differentiate an institution like Randolph Community College over competitive schools in that region? Absolutely.

Here's their standard website, by the way.

I suppose f you're with a prestigious Ivy League college or at a university with a national reputation, it's tempting to dismiss this sort of thing. You might think, "That may be fine for a small regional community college about which few people are aware, but it's not for us." As noted earlier this week, however, organizations within Harvard University offer blogs.

Do you know, for example, that a fully-functioning, customized blog template can be built in about a week… all using OpenSource software that is free?  Do you know that a blog embedded in your static, traditional website can deliver Search Engine Optimization benefits that will significantly boost overall traffic better than almost anything else you can do?

Blogs are also a 24×7x52 platform for instantaneous communication. Information about, and rapid reaction to, major events or a crisis can get out as fast as it is written. If you are being ignored or criticized by the local establishment press, a blog is your own newspaper… your own viewspaper.

Randolph Community College at 629 Industrial Park Avenue in Asheboro, North Carolina, may be just a small, regional school. But a lot of people could take a lesson from how this 'community' college is living up to its name in more ways than one.

Share This