* Educommunicators are interested in sharing best practices and exploring ways to effectively use new media

* Email is still the most effective way to communicate

* Finding the right message remains our primary challenge in our daily practice

* We're looking for ongoing information on the issues and tools affecting our jobs

The primary question, now, if what do we do with these results?  How do we use these findings to help build a better online community, a place where marketing and communications professionals in the education community can find real value and can make a real contribution?  These are questions I and the Educommunicators board have been wrangling with for the past week or so.

Based on these findings and the insights individual Educommunicator members have provided me over the past few months, Educommunicators is committed to moving forward the following goals in 2009:

* Establishing an email list (or a Google group) that allow us to easily circulate information across the group and encourage our hundreds of members across the nation to share and contribute on topics and issues important to them

* Collecting best practices.  Now is the time to send along your case studies, your stories, and your experiences so we can begin collecting a database for all to learn from.

* Strengthening relationships with other organizations, particularly NSPRA and EWA, to help supplement the services and information they are providing their members

* Providing primers and tools on effectively using new media, conducting media relations, and enhancing community relations as part of our jobs

One of the first steps will be to take the contact info for all of those engaged through Facebook, LinkedIn, and other sources and combine them into one comprehensive e-mailing list.  If you know of others who should be on that list, please share their contact information.

As you know, Educommunicators is a social networking experiment.  Its success depends on the involvement and interaction of our members.  We need you to participate.  We need you to share.  We need you to be part of the solution.  Over the next month, we will build the email list to begin this discussion.  In the meantime, please send along your case studies, examples of good work, campaigns, websites, and anything else you think members will benefit from.  It will then fall to the Educommunicators board to ensure they are properly shared and used to build a foundation for improving our craft and improving our industry.

Email anything and everything to info@educommunicators.com.  And if you'd like to take more of an active role (more active than providing your individual insights) we can use your talents.  Just offer them up.