By Arden Schuman (Iota Eta-DePaul)
Is Alpha Phi ready for the communication revolution? the answer is yes.
Fast Facts • The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-66 year old females.
During Alpha Phi’s 2010 Biennial Convention, Executive Director Linda Wells Kahangi (Zeta Delta-Iowa State) asked the question “Are we ready? Are we changing and adapting to keep up with the way our newest members communicate?”
• 1 in 8 married couples in the U.S. met online. • The mobile device will be the world’s primary Internet connection tool in 2020.
Her answer: a resounding yes.
• The average college student sends around 295 text messages per month. • 80% of companies use social media for recruiting. • 60 million status updates happen daily on Facebook. • There are more than 200,000,000
blogs.
• It took radio 38 years to reach 58 million users. It took Facebook less than a year to reach 200 million users. • If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest. • Barack Obama raised $55,000,000 in campaign funds in one month using online social networks. • Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Sweden, Israel, Switzerland, Ireland and Norway. • The computer in your cell phone today is a million times cheaper, a thousand times more powerful and about a hundred thousand times smaller than one computer at MIT in 1965.
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Alpha Phi Quarterly
fall 2010
Before 500 Convention participants, Linda unveiled Alpha Phi’s newest online developments, including a new website that allows you to set up a personal page and personalize your Alpha Phi experience, a mobile site that will let you access Alpha Phi documents on the go and locate a chapter house using your smart phone’s map function and a Facebook app that will enable you to easily connect with sisters from your chapter, city or even interest group. “But,” she continued “two challenges remain. First, the majority of our members are not collegians. We must remain thoughtful about not leaving our builders and baby boomers behind. If we move too quickly and completely, we will lose touch with some of our most valued members – who may not use technology to communicate at all, or who may just be trying e-mail or Facebook for the first time. “The second challenge is that technology is ever changing. Generation alpha, homelanders - or whatever the marketing world decides to name the generation just being born - may find Facebook and laptops to be passe’. Their world will be centered on their mobile device, which they will surely have by the time they are in grade school. Alpha Phi will truly have to come to them. And we will.”