“Dad, We Don’t Use Email Anymore!”

Posted on October 5, 2007 by David Gray

The headline for this post is a direct quote from my son who is 19, attending college, and responding to my inquiry, admittedly made with some pique, over his lack of timely response to my recent emails. Apparently email these days to the contemporary college set is the rough equivalent of the actual, long, hand-written letters received from parents by a previous generation on campus. How many long and timely letters were written in return?

The relevance of this to UMassOnline is enormous because it speaks to how students are communicating with one another as well as where and how and over which platforms or portals they are getting their information these days. Where are they spending their time and where are they congregating are two of the most important questions to me because if we want to reach students, we need to know where they are and how to navigate the new digital terrains. We could insist I suppose until we’re blue in the face that our students just find time to make opening their email a priority. But I’m of the belief we should accept the inevitable changes the new technologies are delivering, and meet students in places and ways that fit their contemporary preferences. Not everyone agrees, of course.

In defense of my position, however, I submit that bludgeoning students into submission to old technology isn’t smart, won’t work, and most importantly isn’t necessary if we in higher education believe it is our responsibility to continually improve the way we deliver our services. Students haven’t migrated to places like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Second Life and to technologies like instant messaging and test messaging just to aggravate parents and professors. They’ve gone there because the new technologies and platforms are quicker, better, cheaper, more inclusive, more organic, more engaging, more timely, nuanced, textured… well… they are just better.

There are two distinct challenges. One is to overcome the stereotypical response that every previous generation has had to every younger generation’s so-called fads. This is not a fad. These new technologies have created a powerful movement with staying power and potency, not only for educational institutions like UMassOnline but for corporate America, too. In this recent InformationWeek news item, for example, writer J. Nicholas Hoover notes the following:

Hinting at the potential of social networking at work, thousands of employees of Shell Oil, Procter & Gamble, and General Electric have Facebook accounts. A Facebook network of Citigroup employees–only those with Citigroup e-mail accounts can join–has 1,870 users. Procter & Gamble employees use Facebook to keep interns in touch and share information with co-workers attending company events… Further evidence of Facebook’s rise among the business card crowd: People over 24 are its fastest-growing demographic.

Facebook, by the way, founded and owned by a 23-year-old, has an estimated value today, according to this New York Times item, of somewhere between $10B and $13B.

The second challenge is to find the right way to deliver the services via the right technologies favored most by students today. For help with that, I submit we need to turn to the 14,000+ UMassOnline students currently enrolled because in this evolving, collaborative world, students believe – and I agree – that they have a say in the ongoing product development and service delivery which is of chief importance and interest to their academic aspirations and success.

To that last point, if you have a point of view, a concept, or an idea of how UMassOnline can continue to pioneer ways of bringing information, connectivity, networking, and collaboration to students today using the new technologies, please share it here.