Have you noticed the new AUSU Voice Facebook page? If not, that’s okay, things are just getting started with it. A few people have, and if you’re one of the ones who’ve already given us a “like”, thanks! I have to admit, I don’t know what doing that actually means, but it sounds nice, right?
I’ll be honest, I’ve never quite gotten Facebook. I don’t understand calling people friends who are, at best, acquaintances, and I really don’t understand the appeal of posting the various things you do in life for others to examine, critique, cheer, or what have you. Not knocking those who do, I just don’t quite get it. And yeah, twitter’s even worse. I tend to believe that any thought I have which can be compressed into 144 characters or less is probably missing something important. But that’s just me, and I know well enough that these forms of social media are how a larger and larger number of people are keeping themselves connected to what matters to them. Which means that if I want The Voice Magazine to matter I need to make sure it’s where people can find it and remember us.
Which brings me to my second piece of news, our e-mail reminder list is now fully moved over into Mailchimp, and, wonder of wonders, the subscribe link works again! Plus, the new system allows for full color e-mails, pictures, and live-links. That’s right folks, The Voice Magazine has caught up to the last decade, future, here we come! And if you’re not already on the list, then you could be missing out, subscribe now!
In truth, though, this is a great advancement for us, and in the next few weeks, be prepared to start seeing some different things happen with The Voice Magazine as we start playing with developing a new graphical look and updating our style from what it was when the site was first built over ten years ago.
Most important this week, however, is the introductory installment of our new column, “Meeting the Minds”. A few weeks ago, I put out a call to tutors, academic experts, and faculty to please contact The Voice Magazine if they were willing to be interviewed. The response floored me, to be honest. And having interviewed a number of them already, I have to say I’m so surprised that AU isn’t already trumpeting these people to the moon and back. The amount and diversity of knowledge that AU students have available to them when they take their courses is amazing.
So I hope that you enjoy reading this first installment of “Meeting the Minds”, with new installments planned each week for the next few months, sooner or later we should have one of the people you’re already taking a course from. Maybe you’ll find out something to give you that extra edge in your assignments. If not, at least you’ve still got all the great stuff we usually have in The Voice Magazine, so enjoy while we rush headlong into the future!
