In the home stretch

Hi everyone,

It's hard to believe, but we're closing in on the home stretch for class. We will be meeting in the lab at Springfield Hall tonight to go through the basics of how the Web works.

A few other thoughts as we're wrapping the class up:

• This week's memo: A few of you have asked what I meant by "mobile platforms." What I'd like you to do is think about how you might use mobile platforms as a communication mechanism for your organization. How many people are coming to you via mobile? What types of applications might you develop for smartphones? Are there location-specific technologies that might be useful for you? Do you need to develop a text-alert strategy? How much should you devote in resources to creating a mobile strategy?
• This week's "blog": In lieu of a blog post, I'd like you to do five tweets on Twitter and digg five stories. I'd like to make sure you're comfortable with these other media as well as the Blogger platform.
• Your group presentation: Because we have several groups, the 15-minute presentation time is firm. I expect you to hit within a minute of that target. As I mentioned in the assignment sheet, these should be professionally prepared.
• Your individual papers: Most of you are tackling the media strategy for your organization or professional brand. Here's the rough structure I described in class last week with some added suggestions:
• Introduction: About a page or so to serve as an executive summary. Outline the overall mission of the strategy and your targets for measuring success.
• Addressing the new new media technologies: Be sure to consider the technologies we've discussed in class, and feel free to go beyond into others we haven't discussed in detail (Google Buzz, Foursquare, etc.). 
• Use research/polls to support points 
• Goals: What are the goals of your strategy? How will each technology help you meet those goals?
• Resources: What time/financial/human resources will be necessary to execute the strategy? How do you justify expending these resources? What type of return to you hope to get?
• Timeline: A proposed outline for execution
• Assessment: How will you gauge the success of your efforts?
• Conclusion: Summarize your overall recommendation. Don't just repeat what you've said before; this section should synthesize all of your arguments to end your case on a persuasive note.

Let me know if you have any questions.

jg