The study identifies four ways in which women create barriers to their own success:

1. Being overly modest.
2. Not asking.
3. Blending in.
4. Remaining silent.

The article indicates that men are more likely to speak about their accomplishments more openly than women. I was speaking with a colleague about seeking promotions and he asked me was I self-promoting within the office. For a moment I had to think about the last time I consciously sought out opportunities to brag about myself. Sometimes I feel I’m so involved at work, how could anyone not realize this level of involvement. However, the article states your boss and colleagues will not know what you are capable of if you do not tell them. But we don’t want to play the martyr, now do we?

I had a supervisor that used to say, “You don’t ask, you don’t get.” The article states that some women are passed up for promotions because they do not ask for the promotion. When we job search we are told to “ask,” for the job, so it makes sense to “ask,” for the promotion. Asking for a raise or promotion will accomplish two things: 1. You will have communicated your interest and intentions the organization; and 2. Their reaction to your request will determine where you stand with the organization. Ah, but we do this for the students; it’s not about the money or the prestige.

According to the article some women would prefer to blend in and remain silent rather than stand out in meetings or at events. Blending in hinders anyone’s chances to leave a positive impression on a supervisor or colleague. I can recall times that I have sat in meetings silent because I thought what I had to contribute was not important, but I also can recall times when I have spoken from experience on a topic and inherited a project and a committee to assist. But why would the Vice President want my opinion about alternative approaches to student programming?

I realize this study grazes the subject of gender roles; women are not characteristically assertive while men are asserting at all times of the day. What are your thoughts on this topic, considering that student affairs is a heavily female-dominated field? Are women deficient when it comes to self-promotion? Do we fail to speak up for a promotion out of fear of judgment?

Carla Finklea Green is a residence hall director at Old Dominion University.

If you’ve always thought about taking the Twitter plunge in the name of professional development, we’ve got some great things in store for you this week in conjunction with the NASPATech conference in Newport, RI.

In addition to our regular Thursday #sachat this week we will feature a “special edition” chat in conjunction with our “Behind the #sachat” presentation at the conference. Please join us for an open discussion from 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm CST and feel free to recruit some new participants who may want to test the waters a bit.  In addition, for those attending NASPATech we hope you will join us at our session! Bring your laptop or mobile device and participate in #sachat while we discuss the potential that social media has to enhance networking and (free!) professional development opportunities.

Hope you will join us!

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 will know that I’m a fan of the 90-9-1 rule when it comes to community engagement, so to have a tool that really brings this rule to life is a big deal and something I’ve been waiting for. It’s not perfect yet as it seems to only track month-to-month, but I’m sure in due time, they’ll have a full data dashboard.

The actionable outcomes of having a visualization of your Fan’s engagement will be huge. You’ll be able to identify your trending leaders. You’ll be able to reward the top engaged users every month. You’ll build a game layer ontop of engagement. You’ll be able to…what else? How do you see this being valuable to your work?

SCREEN SHOTS:

Okay, I made up that word, but before our etymologist readers split for the hills, hear me out as to what it means.

When it comes to social media, I’m a data person and every month I run an analytics report to measure what’s working, what’s not working, and the overall growth of a couple Facebook Pages I help manage.

One particular Page has over 20,000 “Likes” on Facebook. A poll or link generates a ton of responses on their Page. If I post that same link on another Page that is 1/10th the size, the response rate is extremely low.

Without “perspectivizing” the data, the smaller Page would probably feel unhappy about the online engagement in comparison to the larger Page. But if we calculate the average level of online engagement per Fan (ALE), we find a different story.

The 20k Fan Page generates a .096 ALE whereas the 2k Fan Page generates a .153 ALE.

Applying an ALE score helps both big and small players really see what’s going on with their accounts.

Here’s how to calculate the ALE of your account…

1. Log into your Facebook Page Insights.
2. Change the date to the date you want to calculate.
3. On the “Overview” page scroll down to “Post Feedback” and record that number.
4. Click on the “Users” page and scroll down to “New Likes.”
5. Toggle “New Likes” to “Total” and hover over the end of the time period and record that number.
6. Divide the “Post Feedback” number by the “Total New Likes” number to determine your Page’s ALE number.

Once you’ve calculated your ALE, please share it in the comments below so we can see a community norm.

The vision of #SAYR1 is to discuss the key issues facing new professionals in student affairs and provide avenues of support from the last year of graduate school through their third year as a professional. One of the ways we will be doing this is by creating support groups of approximately three individuals who will journey through these first few years together. With the small-sized groups, you will have the benefit of a consistent and tight-knit support system without the nearly impossible task of having to coordinate the schedules of a big group (we’ve all been there!). Groups can communicate in person, through phone calls, e-mails, Google + hangouts, Skype, on Twitter, or however your group decides works best for you! The #SAYR1 Core Team will be providing discussion questions, topics, and resources to get everyone started.

#SAYR1 will provide you with a group of people you can talk to about what’s going on without trying to explain (for the 4,534th time) what it is exactly that you do again. It will give you an avenue to discuss current issues and trends in the field and how they’re impacting your work. With #SAYR1, you will have a network that will support you in trying times, celebrate your successes with you, and continually encourage you to be the best version of you. If this sounds like something you’re interested in, please visit this link and complete the form. You can join a group that’s already been started or start your own. Groups can be by functional area, year, region, or just a pure hodge podge – it’s up to you! Please feel free to contact anyone from the Core Team should you have any questions. We are all excited to get this program started and hope you are too.

#SAYR1 Core Team:

Brian Gallagher (gallagb@gmail.com) Hall Director at Southern Illinois University Carbondale

Karen Schomaker (kschomaker@gmail.com) Coordinator for Community Service at California Lutheran University

Kelley McCarthy (kmccarthy1985@yahoo.com) 2nd Year Graduate Student and Graduate Assistant for Leadership Programs  in the Office of Student Leadership and Civic Engagement at Nova Southeastern University

Melissa L. Brown (melissabrown47@gmail.com) Residence Hall Director for Moore Hall, University of North Carolina School of the Arts

Tricia Cesarino (tr.cesarino@gmail.com) Program Coordinator for Sorority and Fraternity Affairs at the University of Florida

Tracey Walterbusch (twalterbusch@gmail.com) Residential Life Coordinator at Ohio Wesleyan University

Brian Gallagher is a hall director at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

Harvard Business Review writers Linda Hill & Kent Lineback recently wrote an article titled “The Three Networks You Need.” Here’s a quick overview of each network:

- Your Operational Network – People you lean on to complete your day-to-day work within your job role.

- Your Developmental Network – People you lean on for emotional support.

- Your Strategic Network – People who work on the outskirts of your profession who dabble in the worlds that surround your own.

The article argues that operational and developmental networks happen naturally, but strategic networks don’t but are equally as important because…

“the forces that drive change in your field will probably come from outside your current world.”

Education is known for its walled gardens, but with shifting times and increasing external pressures, the need for Educators to build up their strategic network is extremely important so they can better be prepared for the outside forces that are driving change in their field. This theme has been echoed at Student Affairs conferences I attend:

We agree H.Ed. fails to use outside expertise. I'd argue further: H.Ed. doesn't repect or value outside expertise. Thoughts? #heresy #sachat

29/03/2011 11:40 am via UberSocialReplyRetweetFavorite

@MelRoc7

Melissa Rocco

It’s an honor to have so many Educators include me in their strategic network and respect my opinion and thoughts even though I don’t work day-to-day at an institution. Instead, my time is spent working on identity development, technology, social media, and online engagement with hundreds of institutions and businesses. My view, and world, are different but often very relevant to the shift happening in Education. Some value my view, others refuse to listen.

I consider many within the #SAchat community to be a part of my strategic network because they DO work day-to-day at an institution. I lean on many educators almost daily for advice and suggestions. Some of my best ideas come from people who are totally outside the work I do.

What about you? If you were to map out your strategic network, what people from what worlds would you want to include?

We’re constantly asking how we can engage with our students more. In fact, we ask it so routinely that when I hear it, part of me shudders a little.

As I look across the landscape of channels in which we push out to communicate and engage with our students (walk-in appointments, events, individual counseling sessions, workshops, infosessions, posters, TV screens, flyers, postcards, Facebook posts, Twitter feeds, Foursquare check-ins, blogs, vlogs, text messages, websites and email – lots and lots of email) I’m often left wondering: in what way are we not engaging with them?

We communicate and engage with them through pretty much every imaginable pathway, yet we still believe we’re not engaging with students and they’re not engaging with us as they should.

This brings up the next question: in what way are we expecting engagement? At what point will we believe students have engaged? Is this possible?

What do you think?

Are we over communicating with our students? Are we asking them to be too engaged? At what point will we feel we have successfully met that engagement threshold or are we truly asking the wrong question?

Nick Simonton manages the marketing and communications for Student Life and the Career Center at the University of Washington.

I started using Twitter for professional uses in mid September 2010.  I have had a Twitter account since August 2008, but never posted (not once).  Once I was introduced to the #sachat twitter world, I quickly became very interested.  I realized this is a huge gold mine of opportunity for me to use as a networking tool.  Part of this process has been working to ensure that what I put out there is:
a) authentically me
b) professionally appropriate
c) material that empowers others.

To that end, I’m conducting a Twitter Audit.  I’ve used a free service called TweetCloud to ‘generate’ several ‘tweet-clouds.’ I’m going to share four clouds that I’ve generated.
First: The whole shebang: Sept 1, 2010 – March 29, 2011.

Positive: Love, Thanks, Awesome, Student, IUPUI (current institution)
Negative: Blog, Post
I say these two are negative because I feel like they are just advertising myself.  Which is not my intention.  However, the words do speak pretty loudly; I love what I do (on my twitter feed).

Next up: My first two months of using Twitter:

Positives: Balance, Love, Housing, Positive
Negatives: ?
I’m pretty happy with this cloud.

Third cloud: the one from The Placement Exchange (TPE) & the NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education Conference:
(for those of you loyal readers, you’ve seen this image before)

First, you’ll notice this image has a lot more words in it – I ran the cloud to pull more than the top 15 words.  However, I see lots of positive in this image!  Again, I notice the bit about ‘blog’ being the largest word – I know I was ‘self-promoting’ during NASPA just a bit…..
The conference experience for me was great.  Lots of time spent meeting new people, encouraging them, and connecting individuals.  I think my cloud demonstrates this.

So- first the reflective piece about myself.  I wish my biggest words were things like ‘student’ or ‘passion’ (RIP dead kitten ala @irmapelt).  I honestly should not beat myself up about the one word ‘blog.’  Instead, I should say “wow, I’ve used this thing for lots of good!” Which is how I actually feel.  I’m really positive about using Twitter, talking about how I use it, continuing to use it, and encouraging others to engage by using Twitter.  In fact, I was part of a presentation last week for my cohort introducing them to Twitter.  I know at least two people signed up – one of them was even caught live-tweeting the #ACPA11 conference just yesterday!

After writing about 3/4ths of this post, I ran one more cloud.  Two top words:

I think that’s pretty self-explanatory.

Now, the challenge to you: Go use TweetCloud & do your own audit.  See if what you put out there is what you want others to really be seeing! Does it really share who you are?

The famous interview question: “If we were to ask your students about you, what would their top 5-10 words be about you?”

Brian Gallagher is a graduate assistant in Residence Life at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis.

While facilitating presentations and engaging in discussions around social media at this year’s NASPA conference, one theme that came up rather frequently was the use of social media as a way to build community on campus, across institutions and throughout the student affairs profession. This desire for collaboration and unity is in stark contrast to the effect of several off-hand comments I heard during these discussions. For example, some colleagues I speak to about social media will laugh off their lack of knowledge around Twitter, claiming they’re ‘too old’ or ‘not hip enough’ to engage with this ‘new fangled technology’.

If we want to continue building and sustaining what we claim to be valuable relationships amongst our colleagues and peers, we need to start talking about social media as a piece of the larger community building puzzle. Rather than viewing social media as a separate space for engagement, I choose to view it as an extension of my local student affairs community. This blog post and my Twitter account, for example, do not replace the connections I made face to face at NASPA or even in my office, but they instead help me to sustain those relationships once the conference is over or after I’ve left the office for the day. Social media, to me, is another way to interact and share–it does not take the place of in-person interactions but rather encourages conversations to continue beyond the boundaries of geographic location and time zones.

I am beginning to see the need for a shift in the way we talk about social media from a tool that discourages interaction to a new way of encouraging and fostering connections. I will admit to sometimes being the one who complains about ‘those people who are always on their phones’, especially as an extrovert who craves and enjoys social interaction. However, even those complaints done in jest only serve to further the apparent divide between those who embrace social media and those who seem more reluctant to sign up. As with anything new, the language used to describe and discuss it can often further the fear and hesitation that comes with adopting a new way of doing things. In the case of social media, we often overhear complaints about students and colleagues so wrapped up in their phones that they don’t look up long enough to engage with those around them. These complaints, often voiced as jokes about the ‘digital divide’ between the generations, seem to only push us apart rather than bring us together. If we as student affairs professionals claim community building and engagement as important values, we must begin to reframe how we discuss social media as a tool for fulfilling these goals and examine how the language we use may limit, rather than encourage, connections. The way in which we talk about social media can have a far greater impact on building our technological competency than any online tutorial.

As Thomas Earnest Hulme so eloquently describes:

“Language is by its very nature a communal thing; that is, it expresses never the exact thing but a compromise – that which is common to you, me, and everybody. “

Lisa Endersby is a Student Experience Advisor at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT).

While at the tweet up, Ed Cabellon asked me to say a couple of words about my experience. Being the introvert that I am, I reflected on that question more when I went back home and I came up with some variables as to why I thought it was a successful tweet up:

Good People + Good Food + Good Conversations + Good atmosphere = A Good Tweet Up

So there you have it. It’s really simple isn’t it? So, if you are ever try to plan a tweet up, I think those are the variables that you need to consider. The good people variable is easy. Making sure you’re at a place that can provide the other variables is easier said than done. What are some other variables to consider?

Pete Pereira (@PetePereira) is the Coordinator for Campus Activities at Texas State University-San Marcos and he’s always game for a tweet up.