If your career center is looking for ways to enhance face-to-face and electronic connections, why not try a blog? Instead of using a blog as a tool for one person to broadcast his/her thoughts on "whatever," you can use a blog as a platform to help people within your career center communicate about how they are interacting with students, faculty and each other. More and more workplace teams find that blogs offer an attractive addition to their intra-office communications. Blogs encourage collaboration, engage and motivate employees with ideas and questions, and give you a place for everyone to post additional resources. Unlike webpages, blogs are easy to set up and update. There are a number of free blog sites to guide you through the process. Believe it or not, you can set up a blog at no cost and in 30 minutes. If you have not been blogging, we encourage you to do the following:
View the sample Your Career Center BLOG that we set up to give you some ideas.
Post to the Your Career Center BLOG on one of the topics: New Information, Student Success, Keep Everyone Updated.
Read the three posts.
Click comment under the topic of your choice.
Type your response in the comment box.
Choose an identity ...on this blog you may set up an account, use a nickname, or remain anonymous.
Preview your comment and if you want to make changes click edit.
When you are satisfied with your response, click publish.
Vote on the effectiveness of a BLOG on the survey at Your Career Center BLOG.
Watch this 2 minute You Tube Video that shows you how to set up a free blog via Google.
Create your own BLOG using this site or another one that you prefer.
Share your Blog address or another of your favorite sites with us by posting it under Keep Everyone Updated post.
Using new technology tools, like BLOGS, helps us stay connected to today's students. After all, our students are building and using blogs in and out of the classroom. Being familiar with "their" tools helps us design our services and relate better to our student/customer. The University of Washington Career Center have included a Husky Career Blog as part of their services. For more information on blogs, look at the 7 Things You Should Know about BLOGs from Educause. In addition, look at Career Development Advisory Committee Blog for information and events that will interest you.
Over 175,000 new weblogs are created each day... State of Blogosphere, October 2006