Students' Will to Lead: Emerging Technologies Group Project

Rather than a traditional firm and technology analysis, my students have opted to do an applied group project that examines how to leverage value from new, social technologies.

This agreement was brokered after a) students noting no online buzz around Clemson's "Will to Lead" capital campaign and b) a discussion about authenticity and an online web presence.  Rather than artificially creating a buzz (e.g., hiring a consulting company to orchestrate a campaign), my kids suggested that an emergent, authentic, student-led campaign might generate more attention and excitement amongst young alumni.  Through telling their stories on multiple platforms about how the Clemson experience builds leaders, my students hope to catch the attention of their peers & engage them with the capital campaign.

So, keep an eye on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Youtube, and Amen for a buzz around Clemson students and Leadership ... it'll be interested to see if the kids can create a larger voice around our capital campaign than the experts :)

We plan on using Radian6 to compare the student-driven campaign with the advancement-driven campaign ...

Here is the project:

By now, everyone should have found a team for the group project. I need all y'all to have a team representaitve send me the following by 6 PM on Wednesday:

1. Team roster
2. Platform that you'll be using (facebook, pinterest, etc.)
3. Theme of your piece of the campaign. This can be a couple of sentences. If I require clarification, I'll ask for it.

I'll provide initial feedback on the themes & platforms over Spring Break.

We will come back together the first week of April to discuss progress, challenges and goals.

The final week of the semester, each group will submit inoformation on how to access their project e.g., location on the platform ... such as twitter handle, url etc., you will also present your campaign to the class, discuss its objectives, and explain why itdid/did not realize them. You will provide in the presentation a final assessment of whether the project yielded a deeper understanding of the business value (in terms of Students' Will to Lead) of using Social Media.

Grades will be based on a) peer evaluation (20% - did you do your part?) b) faculty evaluation by moi (40% - did your demonstrate effort, thought, and an understanding of the platform? Did your group innovate? Did your group have fun? and c) class evaluation of your project evaluation (40% they will use similar heuristics as noted in point b).

If you have questions, please ping me ... I'm happy to answer them.

This project is designed to be fun, get you thinking about how to extract business value from these different social media platforms, and to help us all learn a little bit more about Studnets' Will to Lead Clemson.