For the last few weeks the UToledo social team has been following around our campus tour guides with a video camera, asking them to show us around their favorite spots on or off campus. Well, it didn’t start like that, really. If we’re being honest, we just wanted to record them telling us why they love UT – but then we filmed Marshall:

We followed him through the CPA, a building he knows better than most, met some people he’s become close to and got some great comments from him when he thought we weren’t filming anymore. All in all, it turned out to be a much more authentic look at the life of one of our students than we anticipated – so, like any successful hollywood movie trying to turn itself into a franchise, we did it about 30 more times.

We’re hoping the series will serve a few purposes:

1. Entertain you. Our tour guides are energetic and have great personalities – they’re fun people.
2. Show off our campus. It’s beautiful and full of life, gorgeous landscaping, and interesting architecture.
3. Introduce you to some of our many great students. There are a lot of people here we can be proud of, after all.
4. Be a point of connection for prospective students to life at UT and help them feel like they too can belong to our family.
5. Turn into a profitable line of related merchandise, action figures, fast-food kid’s toys… that sort of thing.

Over the next several months, we’ll be “releasing” these profiles of our campus tour guides on myUT and other web pages, our various Facebook groups and Twitter profiles, and in some physical spots across campus.

To kick it off, we’ve posted Joy’s video this week. She took us to Centennial Mall on a gorgeous day last month and brought her friend Carl along, who got so excited he pooped on her. Check it out below (or on myUT) and post in the comments what YOUR favorite place on campus or in Toledo is.

We’ll be picking a few non-tour guide students to give free UT swag and follow around to some locations we haven’t been, so let us know!

Christopher Ankney is UT’s former New Media Specialist and a graduate of the College of Arts and Sciences. As one of those annoying early adopters of new technologies and an avid social media user, Christopher is always encouraging others to use their fingers more and talk to people less. He will use this space to share and investigate what people are saying about UT on the social web. In the spirit of embracing social media, new technologies and the end of online privacy, why not follow him on Twitter: @chrisankney
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 25th, 2012 at 10:13 am and is filed under Uncategorized.
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