Starting weblogs at universities.
Here's how you get weblogs started at a university like Harvard or Dartmouth. First, know that universities thrive on having their experts visible outside the university. Not just publishing in academic journals, which most alumni don't read, but being called in as experts on radio talk shows, esp NPR. That's how you reach into their wallets, show them why they should be proud of their alma mater. That gets the money flowing.
So how do you get your professors on the radar, as acknowledged experts who can communicate to everyday people? With a weblog of course. And then realize that I need experts to turn to just like the radio guys do. So there's lots of value in staking out the still largely virgin territory of expertise flowing through weblogs. This was one of the key epiphanies at the dinner we had last night. But that's not all.
Dartmouth is in a special position to flow information to and from the rest of the world about the New Hampshire primary. Student volunteers (aka interns) can train the people to use the software, and read what they write and find the nuggets for the rest of us. At least one big professional news organization, a TV network, has bitten, after my Crimson op-ed. They might trivialize the NH weblogs, maybe they won't -- but we can use a great university "on the ground" at ground zero of the US electoral process early next year.
[Scripting News]
