1. Identify your read/writers:
- could be Birkbeck specfic or could cast the net wider to all universities - further education/evening studies students as a particular group: time poor, older, working professionals as well as students - involving alumni as well: What are alumni up to? Could help current students in finding work after studies (similar to LinkedIn). Alumni might want to use it to keep in touch with topics from their studies that interested them 2. Explore what you can a) do for them b) enable them to do: - bringing Birkbeck students together in their studies - a place for people who are as lost as we are! - a study cloud: a forum for helping with academic problems, issues, research etc. - giving people a classroom like space online to learn from and interact with other students (or teachers, graduates, alumni, or anyone interested in the subject) - a forum for encouraging discussion - praxis oriented ("Praxis is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted or practiced" - Wikipedia entry) 3. Explore how your channel can be a platform for them: What functionality will it provide? What relationships will it establish? What conversations will it set in motion? - what is my particular problem as a student? - what is it that is at the heart of good classes and good teaching? - a theory cloud: list of theorists and theories, a theory refresher for when you can't remember - list of terms - a YouTube for lectures, this exists but maybe we could help better integrate this kind of functionality - problem sharing for Birkbeck types: ex. an online network of people looking to swap baby sitting nights - regular audio or video interviews/podcasts with students - discussing what? - more than just a Wikipedia in that it encourages discussion - the example of Facebook groups, have easy to create networks, but consider not letting them oversplinter/diversify - What would Google do? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYL_Jz3XKjw&eurl=http://www.google.co.uk/reader/view/?tab=my
4. Map those read/write journeys and connections: ...
5. Explore how your channel/platform fits into the broader Live Web ecosystem: - Is there anything like this out there already? (see links section below) - should be interactive with other sites
- could be an application that can be embedded into existing social network applications 6. Bring this together into a content strategy: - interface should be very easy to use, aim for a low barrier to entry - homemade icons for the interface - should be fun and even 'sexy' - could run regular viral competitions to engage people in it, ex. "Summarize Foucault in 140 characters and win a prize" - danger of the plagiarism issue, could have a warning on the site, on the otherhand that isn't something we have to worry about, it's the universities' problem 7. Develop a marketing strategy for your new 'channel': - Could be called 'study book' - What is our unique selling point? 8. Develop a business strategy for your new 'channel'. How will it make money: - book sellers like Amazon can pay to have links to the books discussed - could sell it to universities themselves This one has quite an active forum, and is closer to where we want to go perhaps What are the new liberal arts - a Snarkmarket book project. Check out the crowd sourcing going on in the comments for this one. |
Good work so far!
Are we agreed to use this space for discussion?
I'll do a little more online research to see what else is out there over the next few days...
watch this space.... (cheesy i know)
Yeah let's chuck everything on here.
Hi all,
i'm just working on putting this into a presentation, hopefully have something by tonight!
Have attached a version of the presentation - any thoughts?