Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/55680
Your Turn Social Media and the B-School Interactive digital and social media have become popular tools for busi- ness schools wanting to build their reputations, yet these tools are dual-edged swords. They can harm the school's reputation when individuals create personal sites full of information that doesn't fit the school's brand. Sometimes these errant individu- als are faculty and administrators. But most often they're students, who don't always understand that an item they post today—whether they think it's funny, helpful, or justified—might prove to be an embarrassment to their school as well as a liability to themselves down the road. Without trampling on the tenets of free speech, schools need to help students think about the impact of their social media postings. But administrators also must protect the school's brand by managing uncon- trolled social media sites. They should set clear expectations about social media, while also preparing plans of action should these expec- tations not be met. Trouble Sites Online communications most often go astray through two popular tools: ■ Social networking sites. Plenty of disasters can happen when students use sites like Face- book and Twitter. While some schools set up their own social net- working sites, particularly for stu- dents who have just been accepted, many independent Facebook and Google groups do not have any administrative oversight. Recently, two second-year students 72 BizEd MAY/JUNE 2010 at one school used a social network- ing site to comment on the quality of reading assignments and textbooks for a particular class. One of the posters said a certain book should be read only if the incoming student was having trouble falling asleep. Another recommended that new students skip purchasing the book altogether, going straight to QuickMBA.com to get the basics. Later this student even posted notes from QuickMBA— which was most likely a legal viola- tion of the site's ownership rights. Perhaps these students believed they were mentors providing the kind of advice they would offer in face-to-face chats. What's problem- atic is that they used a public forum that was accessible by outsiders. The postings could have made incoming students, or their parents, doubt the teacher's ability and judgment. They could have made recruiters wonder about the usefulness of this course— or the program. In short, these comments tainted the school's reputation. Even if these students weren't concerned about that outcome, they should be con- cerned about the extrapolation: If their school's reputation suffers, their MBA degree is devalued. ■ Blogs. Millions of people main- tain blogs, and that includes CEOs, professors, and students, many of whom don't realize how much power their words have. For example, a business student at one school wrote an unflattering blog about a year- long required project that involved outreach to a large corporation. Although her negative comments were more about the project than the company, executives were not pleased by Victoria L. Crittenden and Kate Klepper when they learned about her blog. The official company response was, "We are not sure we are prepared to risk that type of a disclosure with potentially disaffected students." Unfortunately, the program direc- tor was developing a large-scale proj- ect with two key partners—a project that was stopped in its tracks after the blogging incident. It turned out that this same stu- dent had written a previous blog post while she was actually sitting in the core finance class, despite rules against blogging in class. In another post, she noted that she comprehended very little in this finance class, but she still received a final grade of B+. This student definitely had the right to post this message, just as she had the right to share this opinion in conversation with her friends. But in this new world of social network- ing, she also must be encouraged to consider the larger implications of her blog—that it may give an undeserved negative impression to employers about the level of her skills and the quality of her education. Rules of Netiquette While the laws surrounding social media sites are still being defined, business schools need to make it clear what they expect from students using social media. The situations above might have been prevented if the schools in question had expressed expectations like these: Postings should not depict or describe potentially offensive conduct. It would seem obvious that no one should post photos of students or faculty in compromising situations, particularly at an event sponsored by the academic institu- tion. Nor should anyone blog or tweet about bad student or faculty