Chairs, Stairs, and Garbage Cans: Your Partners in Student Engagement
I recently keynoted at the ACUI Region 6 conference in Florida. For those unfamiliar, ACUI stands for Association of College Unions International. ACUI people are in charge of the physical student union space on campus. This can mean anything from hosting student events, to furniture, to vacuum cleaners. At larger schools, they often run entirely […]
Getting Over Yourself to Influence this Generation
Part of the intense facilitation/speaking training that I acquired through my three years working with QLN, was a deeper understand of their core tenets. Two tenets that still stick heavily with me today in the work I do with training staff, faculty, and administration on leveraging social media for increased student engagement are called, “The […]
Stop Marketing and Start Engaging
Yesterday I spent some time at Carnegie Mellon University visiting a former Swift Kick intern. As we walked through their beautiful University Center, I noticed many campus clubs with tables set up trying to solicit students to join their group. Every table was covered with reading material and a bowl of candy to entice students […]
Say Something Nice [BLENDER EVENT]
Improve Everywhere is known for creating scenes, which is probably why we love so much of what they create. In their latest scene, they strapped a megaphone to a podium and placed it in the middle of Union Square in NYC with a sign that read, “Say Something Nice.” Imagine if your campus created a […]
CoolTool: Booshaka – Discover Your Facebook Page SuperFans
NAME: Booshaka URL: http://www.booshaka.com WHAT IT DOES: Attaches a point-scoring system to the activity of your Facebook Fans to help you discover your Top Fans through an engagement dashboard. MY TAKE: Long time readers of the Swift Kick blog will know that I talk about the 90-9-1 rule** often when it comes to community engagement, […]
The Why Behind FREE HUGS
In our Dance Floor Theory™ program, we divide member engagement within a community into six different stages… Technically it’s seven, but that’s another story for another time. We call these six stages The Engagement Pyramid™. Each stage is defined by a different set of characteristics for an individual. Fully engaged members display different characteristics than […]
Laying Tracks for Motivated Trains
Three quick stories, one important point. Story #1: Last week, before my soccer match, I watched a little league softball game on the field next to us. Surrounding the field was a collection of parents multitasking between the game, their blackberries, and babysitting their, even younger, offspring. One parent in particular was having a hard […]
Anything is Fun as Long as You have Two Things
SuperCamp is a 10 day academic and life skills program that happens throughout the summer for various ages. I worked mostly with the high school students. As you’d expect, no high school student wants to spend 10 days of their summer learning about speed reading, memory tricks, and positive thinking. Most would much rather be […]
Millennials and Email: A Telling Sign [IMAGE]
Facebook status update from my 18 year old cousin.
New Red Rover Feature: Get Your Follow On
Earlier this month, Tom wrote about the difference between communities based on weak ties and those built on stronger, face-to-face interactions. The strong-tie groups have a longevity that comes from the real-world relationships between members, while groups that are based on weak ties can form easily, but dissolve just as quickly if the members don’t […]