Social Networking
I hear about My Space and Face Book and think of it as something teens and young adults do. I will have to see if my nephews can help get one set up. I know it is the way to reach young people and organizations such as schools and churches will have to move in this direction if we are going to connect with the kids.
As far as my work with the food science programs, I'm not sure if it would be helpful. Some of the folks who take our classes don't have computers. Others who have computers don't want to bother to go online to our secure registration site to register with a credit card. When I tell them over the phone that I can't take credit card numbers over the phone but I will give them the web site, they say they will just mail a check. So if their computer use is limited, I don't think a social networking site would help us publicize our classes.
I did set up an account on LinkIn. It was confusing to get it set up. But I am not very intuitive when it comes to computers. I need step by step instructions that I can print out and follow along. I did invite two people who are already connected and invited three people who are not. Hopefully I did everything correctly.
I did find my way to the spot where University alumni have registered. For the four years I was a student, there were over 3000 listed, so it would take a long time to find people--especially those who changed their names, as you couldn't just click on a letter of the alphabet. But if you were really trying to find someone you could spend some time and see if they had joined. Oddly enough I started in the A's and found a person my husband and I know through my husband's work with the NRECA. I didn't invite Jeff as I don't know him that well, but was pretty cool to find someone I know on the first page of names.
Once again I am overwhelmed by all of this technology. I guess I will continue to add to my knowledge as I need it for work or for connecting with others in my personal life and volunteer work.