Great Social Media Idea: Academic Perspectives on Snow

OK... I'm in full-blown holiday video mode. I wasn't going to post any, and now - lo and behold - I've got a list of a bunch that I think are really fun and creative and clever, so I'm going to just go ahead and randomly post a few of them between now and New Year's. My blog, my rules. Plus I'm too lazy to spend a lot of time finding things to post during the break.

First up, this cool video from University of Southern California's Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, which takes a really neat tack on a holiday video that I hadn't seen before - skip saccharine shots of campus with a Christmas carol in the background (*hangs head in shame* this is exactly the video I helped put together for UP) and instead show off your faculty's academic chops, discussing what snow means in chemistry, art, literature, psychology, etc. 

This really is a tremendous idea, because it offers a great way to showcase faculty in a way that is - sorry faculty members! - engaging instead of boring. Teachers shine when they have the opportunity to teach something, and getting them to comment on a fun topic like snow - or, projecting ahead a bit, love (Valentine's Day), luck (St. Patrick's Day), patriotism (July 4), etc. - is a great way to do some "counter programming" as it were to what every other brand out there is doing. Everyone can make a pretty Christmas video... not everyone can have expert faculty members teach you something.

And this has clearly resonated with people... almost 20,000 views in two weeks, which is pretty incredible for a video coming from one academic division, even if it is at a big university like USC.

 Great stuff, USC Dornsife!!!