What the Democratic Primaries Tell Us About Sending Kids to College

Is there a connection? I mean, beyond the "where did the candidates go to school" or the "who's got the better plan for student loans" stuff?

Yes. The future will not be televised: it's online.

Barack Obama scored what some are calling a huge upset -- in fact, I'd put it up there with the most recent Super Bowl. (18-1 has become an iconic set of numbers.) Not supposed to be on the same field with the presumptive nominee, young, inexperienced. Overmatched.

It's what Senator Obama did online to organize, recruit, keep people engaged, and stay on message -- that's where the upset really wasn't an upset.

The Democratic Nominee's camp knows what some colleges and universities know too well: it's never over, this recruiting cycle. He got the youth mobilized online and kept them energized online. Their "CRM" was constant, personalized and, above all, relevant.

Sen. Obama's strategy was ignored by all other Dems. In fact, dare I say it was ignored by all other candidates -- save for Ron Paul, a subject for another day.

And, as of today, there are close to 1 Million Fans of Obama on Facebook.

Ignore the Internet at your own peril, o college bound student, parent, and administrator.

Wired weighs in on Social Networks for the college-bound

Great post on Wired magazine that talks about the Social Networks and their use by the college-bound in a whole host of ways.

What I found most interesting is that LinkedIn is actually mentioned by Wired. Sensible, in that LinkedIn was popular with the tech types a long time ago, but Facebook (which grew up on college campuses) and MySpace (which grew up more with the high school crows) are both where the students are. And Bebo is probably more popular for students to use than LinkedIn.

(That being said, if you're a student and you want to join my LinkedIn network...oh, never mind.)

Digital Natives Going to College

More notes from Vancouver's session with the International folk:

Shaun McElroy, a counselor in Shanghai (and blogger about all things relevant to the international student here), was co-presenting a session on Web 2.0 in college admissions. One implication for BOTH sides of the audience (college/university personnel AND the counselors on the high school side): the realization that "digital natives" are by and large taking over the college-bound set.

If you're new to the terms "digital native" and "digital immigrant" -- well, they are as they sound. Digital natives have always grown up with stuff that's electronic. Digital immigrants remember putting film into cameras. Things like that.

Leading us to another possible extension of this term: "facebook natives" and "facebook immigrants."

The natives were the early adopters who HAD to have a "dot-edu" email address to use facebook (so that, ironically, they could stop reading email and JUST use facebook to communicate). The immigrants -- I'm one of them, I'll admit -- are the ones who have just recently been allowed into the facebook universe.

AND then there's those who make up fake names for themselves (more popular on mySpace than facebook)...would those be "facebook aliens?"

This college-bound set would include, then, digital natives who are, theoretically, facebook immigrants. They're trying to connect most efficiently with digital natives (who recruit for colleges) who might work for a digital immigrant.

txt me if this doesn't make sense.