It’s nice for us to connect with school newspaper reporters during our on-site trainings. It allows the message of the training to go out beyond just those who attended.
Colby Stream of the Boise State Arbiter wrote a follow-up** to our Myspace/Facebook training at their school. Colby did a great job in capturing many of the main points. We often forget to mention these articles, so here’s a full reprint. Thanks, Colby!
It’s all about harnessing the power of the Internet. More specifically, the networking capabilities of the Internet.
Tom Krieglstein, co-founder of Swift Kick, gave a lecture last Tuesday sponsored by the Boise State Student Programs Board (SPB), which discussed how students can use MySpace, Facebook and other online resources to make job-seeking and money-making an easier task.
According to Krieglstein, the Internet creates a megaphone effect. This means that everything a person does on the Internet can be potentially spread everywhere, all over the world.
Krieglstein describes it as living in a glass house.
“Everyone’s looking in to see what you’re doing,” he said.
This can be good or bad, depending on what you’re showing the world.
Krieglstein pointed out that 60 percent of employers now search the Internet to find out more information about potential job candidates. Pictures, comments and blogs are up for grabs for these employers to see.
One mission of Swift Kick is to help students portray the image these people find desirable.
“The good behavior is what you want amplified out,” Krieglstein said.
The company was co-founded about four years ago by Krieglstein and his partner, Kevin Prentiss. They were both in business at the time and felt like the businesses they were with only wanted to make money. After meeting each other, Krieglstein and Prentiss decided to start Swift Kick.
Today the company is totally virtual; it has no physical location. The team doesn’t even live together. They are spread all over the United States in places like Chicago and San Francisco.
But why target college students?
“The strength of America depends on its educational system,” Krieglstein said.
The mission of the company is not just to help students portray a positive image. It’s also to help students increase their engagement on and off campus.
“College is the one time in your life when you should try as much as possible,” Krieglstein said. Only then can a student fail and still have safeguards, he explained.
Krieglstein is the perfect model of an ambitious student. In college, he set up a text book selling business which generated around $1.5 million in sales in a single year. He also won a speaking competition, which opened up his eyes to the money-making opportunities in speaking.
Today, he travels all over the United States giving lectures. At other times, he goes to conferences for student leaders. It is at these conferences that schools hire the company.
One such conference is where Boise State SPB got wind of the company.
“We get a nice little taste of what they’re about,” Jill Krenecki, director of Student Programs Board, said about the conference.
SPB hoped that the lecture would help to “solve the problem of student apathy,” Krenecki said.
The Myspace/Facebook lecture is just one of many events SPB brings to the Boise State campus. Other events include movies, shown every Thursday night at 7 p.m. in the Student Union Building, and the Rock Star 101 concerts. But SPB doesn’t want to make up all the events by itself.
“We’re always open for suggestions,” Krenecki said, stressing that student involvement is critical to the success of SPB events.
Any students who wish to submit ideas can visit SPB’s Myspace page by searching “BSU SPB.”
