Last week, UMassOnline launched this blog. This week, from China, after an arduous journey, UMassOnline CEO David Gray posted this report, entitled 'China Via the Great Circle Route,' upon his arrival on the other side of the world. I hope I'm not the only person on the planet who finds this amazing!

Sure, the technology that shrinks distance and time is amazing. But what's incredible to me — and should be of interest to every person in higher education (and elsewhere) is that in the pre-blog era, UMassOnline might have issued a press release about David Gray's journey and its purpose. It would have taken days to write, edit and disseminate, few people would have read it, and it's likely it would have been largely ignored by the mainstream media. That would mean that no ordinary people with an interest in this would have been informed.

Now in the blog era, the UMassOnline blog community gets to hear the news immediately and straight from the first, best source. Gray landed, he posted, and seconds later people can read it, comment about it, and share it. That's amazing! 

Schools often receive media coverage when bad things happen, of course. Meanwhile, lots of the good things going on get little attention. Universities relying on the mainstream media to report their good news stories are routinely disappointed. Now organizations can go direct with their news, too. From anywhere. Anytime. I love that!

Share This

The blogosphere is ginormous. Tons of new blogs are born daily and lots drop dead, too. So why waste space here talking about yet another new blog from someone?

Well, this one, launched today, is from the leading provider of online college courses in Massachusetts and one of the biggest in the nation. Called UMassOnline, this online education consortium co-exists and operates in conjunction with all the traditional campuses within the University of Massachusetts system. A first of its kind for UMassOnline, this blog, unlike all the others Dave and I have been associated with, will  likely be more widely, actively, and vocally scrutinized by people who make their living scrutinizing things and offering their critique. Contemplating this at the start of this project gave Dave and me the heebie geebies. Dave and I aggravated our fair share of professors while in college. Dave terrorized Amherst and I led a life of academic depravity on Commonwealth Avenue.

We were wrong to feel that way. Unlike all the many blogs and bloggers we've been associated with for corporate clients, the UMassOnline faculty and staff were more interested, more receptive, more participatory, and more comfortable with the presumed risks than anyone we worked with previously. For the first time this blog effort not only had a tremendous champion in the marketing department, but it had the strong endorsement of the institution's CEO as well… and the CTO… and… it's a long list of important people.

Here's what they understand at UMassOnline that isn't that well understood in the corporate world yet: It is better to give your constituencies a place to voice their issues than to block them, go deaf, pretend no issues exist whatsoever and that everything is perfect, and to maintain total control as the authority figure in charge of everything. While a lot of companies today still fear the implications of an open conversation outside of their control and moderation, UMassOnline more easily welcomes it, wants it. Sure, there are some rules of behavior. But this is by any standard a big, bold, wide-open, global, online community. And I think we can all learn something from that.

Share This

Correspondent and blogger Greg Sterling makes some interesting observations in this piece entitled, The New Drama: Google vs. Facebook on the Search Engine Land site. In it, he gives his opinion about why, as he dscribes it, Google likely has a case of 'Facebook envy.' It's a good read.

Mr. Sterling's item was inspired in part it seems by this story by Fortune magazine writer Josh Quittner entitled "Facebook's got Google running scared," with the subhead, "Why Google is spooked by Facebook and would dearly love to squash it." This article by Mr. Quittner is a great read, too, since it introduces his concept of the Innernet versus the Internet, and he offers a bit of an insider's glimpse into the frenzy happening in the Valley right now as Google contemplates how it might best catch up.

The story is a familiar one: a newcomer sneaks up on and disrupts a giant caught napping. As Mr. Quittner notes, Google today has a market cap of about $188 billion. Facebook is privately-held and the other day I seem to remember seeing a report that their annual revenues are around $96 million. How does it happen that so big and talented a company as Google drops the ball or goes blind? Just ask Microsoft, ask Compaq, ask Digital Equipment, etc. etc. etc. Big companies have to do a lot of things start-ups don't worry about. Start-ups have nothin to lose, no base to protect, no retail investors to satisfy. I'm not justifying Google's sleeping disorder. I'm just saying there are reasons this happens again and again.

Mr. Quittner suggests maybe Google should sit this one out and, for the record, I agree. You?

Share This