I want to teach a college course on building communities

I have a new goal.

I don’t have a time-frame, nor a target college or university but I know that I’d like to teach a college course on building communities. I have the curriculum laid out in my head.

I would require each student to nurture and grow their online community AND use various social media platforms to promote it and garner interest in the site. They’d have to pitch five ideas for a niche community and I would approve two, giving them the final say.  They’d be graded on how well they engage, how often they contribute, how well they grow the community and how they communicate within it.

This course could be in the Communications or Journalism department. Heck, it could even be in the Business Department. It doesn’t really matter where it lives because it is an essential skill.

We should not assume the Gen Y’ers know how to do this because they spend a great deal of time in the social media space. They are focused on other things and I’m talking about something entirely different.

I believe wholeheartedly that a decent track record of building communities will open a lot of doors. There are going to be MANY companies late to the game and they’ll need people who know how to build successful online communities. I read a post today about confidence, that sealed the deal for me and I now believe that I can pull this off.

I haven’t pitched this to anyone yet, but I will. I’m in the Raleigh area, where there are tons of great schools, but with the internet I can do it for anyone.

Who knew how handy that Distance Education course I took through Penn State’s World Campus a few semesters back would affect me?

So here it is. A distance education course on The Fundamentals of Building Communities. That’s it. That is what I want to do.  Now, I will formalize it and start looking for opportunities.

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