2
FOOTBALL KICKOFF As part of Duke Appreciation, faculty and staff are invited to attend the Sept. 5 season opener. Complete football trivia now for prizes.
NEWS YOU CAN USE
6 ::
7
WANNA DJ? Faculty and staff comprise a quarter of the volunteer disc jockey staff at WXDU, Duke’s radio station.
Vo l u m e 4 , I s s u e 5
SUSTAINABLE DUKE The new addition to Duke Forest includes a stretch of New Hope Creek, a source of drinking water for Triangle residents.
::
August 2009
Illustration by Barbara Puccio, Blackwell Interactive
STAFF AND FACULTY ACROSS DUKE USE SOCIAL NETWORKS TO CONNECT AND CONVERSE hink of her as Duke’s official tweeter. we have to remember that all of this is taking place in the open. A little bit of caution goes a long way.” With more than 8,200 Facebook fans and 400 Twitter followers, Users 35 and older now comprise more than half the user population Andrea Fereshteh is the face behind Duke’s growing presence on two for both Facebook and Twitter, leading to an explosion of social networking social networks that are changing how staff and faculty work, interact and in the workplace. Usage is especially prevalent among share information. higher-ed employees, as universities scramble to keep Fereshteh, who administers the up with tech-savvy prospective recruits and young university’s Facebook fan page and Duke News Twitter account with colleagues in I feel alumni. Once seen as an idle pastime, social networks can Duke’s Office of News and Communications, like also enhance productivity and teambuilding in the sends status updates and 140-character I’m doing my workplace, experts say. Still, there’s a learning curve to “tweets” about the university’s latest news. managing the intermeshing of personal and When she covered Duke’s 2009 job better by professional lives online. commencement, one follower tweeted from utilizing these “Communicating and sharing personal China to thank her. new technologies information online has gone mainstream,” said Fred “Thanks for the commencement tweets,” the message read. “Loved reading them and and keeping up Stutzman, a researcher who studies social media in the School of Information and Library Science at the Oprah quotes from train en route to Beijing. with new ways of communicating.” University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Social CONGRATS new Duke alumni.” — Andrea Fereshteh networks are opening up a whole new world of “There’s someone on the other side of the information that wasn’t available before because people Senior Writer world, and she felt like she was part of Office of News and Communications weren’t participating. That may lead to information Duke,” Fereshteh said. “That’s the whole overload, but it also may lead to smart connections.” point of why we’re doing this.” Duke employees are making those connections. Like Fereshteh, staff and faculty in Library and IT staff began using Twitter about two years ago as a departments across Duke – from the Nasher Museum and Center for virtual “in/out” board to cut down on e-mail but still keep colleagues Instructional Technology to the Alumni Association and Fuqua School of posted. With shrinking travel budgets in tough economic times, those Business – are using social networks to connect and converse in new ways, employees find Twitter increasingly useful to keep up with conferences and sharing information nuggets about everything from printer outages to the network with colleagues at other universities. latest research on citizen journalism. Shawn Miller, a consultant in Duke’s Center for Instructional Dozens of departments have joined online conversations on Facebook Technology, uses Twitter to follow and chat with leading researchers who and Twitter, and activity is on the rise, said Michael J. Schoenfeld, the study Web 2.0 technologies. university’s vice president for public affairs and government relations. “There’s a lot of information out there,” Miller said, “but with Twitter, “There is a huge value to being an active participant in social media: because the posts are so short, you don’t have to invest as much time to connect with professional networks, to find out quickly what’s keeping up with the latest academic research.” happening at other places, to put together ad-hoc groups or meetings,” Stephen Toback, a senior IT manager in Duke’s Office of Information Schoenfeld said. “The more we exchange and share information, the Technology, has found that casual, personal interaction on social networks better off we’ll be, as an institution and as individuals. At the same time, help deepen workplace relationships and improve teamwork.
T
“
Join the Facebook fan page for the Working@Duke publication at hr.duke.edu/workingatduke
2009, 2008, 2007 Gold Medal, Internal Periodical Staff Writing 2009, 2007 Bronze Medal, Print Internal Audience Tabloids/Newsletters
>> See SOCIAL NETWORKS, PAGE 5
This paper consists of 30% recycled post-consumer fiber. Please recycle after reading.