Many of you will have seen IBM’s Sandy Carter presenting her Social Business Coffee Break series of videos on YouTube.  The series provides a good run through of Social Business concepts and case studies in the form of short sharp presentations that can be easily viewed whilst enjoying a beverage of your choice.  If you haven’t now might be a good chance to catch up some of the recent ones in advance of IBM Connect.
I did want to pick one of the videos out.  This one references Social Business use in higher education – within universities, colleges, schools and amongst their alumni:
Collaboration Matters has always has a great relationship with higher education institutions, including Cardiff University (mentioned in the video – situated in Wales rather than Canada), City University and a number of others.  Social Business in general, and IBM Connections specifically, is taking a firm hold in this area – staff and students stand to gain significantly from greater sharing of content, building of closer relationships based on trust and common interests and the ability to be present whether on campus or on a mobile device.
The next step is to start to network these great institutions together using Social Business techniques to manage research and collaborative projects – this process has already begun and we predict great acceleration in this area during 2013.
Lastly, there is a great need to enhance and manage the student lifecycle – the relationship with prospective students whilst they are considering their education options, through joining the institution and their ongoing studies, then on into post-graduate research and finally into alumni status.  Right now many institutions treat each of these populations as individual and distinct groups, with little continuity or transition of data or relationships from one stage to another.  Our partnership with Social Student is tackling this issue head-on, building a fantastic set of solutions and services to aid those in higher education to deliver innovative social tools to students, faculty and staff, aiding learning and engagement at every step.
If you haven’t heard about Social Student and their work in the HE sector, try get along to session SW501 ‘Social Learning – Redefine Education: Cardiff University and Birmingham Metropolitan College’ at IBM Connect (Tuesday, 10-11am, Swan Egret).  I’ll definitely be there!
