Archive for the ‘Online’ Category

What’s The Big Picture?

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

nyatoday on flickr

What’s the big picture at NYA? It doesn’t take long to realize that the “Big Picture,” per se, is an illusion. Or, rather, it’s the synthesis of lots and lots of little pictures – thousands of individual stories that have played out over the 200-year history of the school. And of new stories that are happening every day. Stories that are rich and fascinating and engaging and meaningful. Stories that can be told in photographs. And sentence fragments. ;-D

The best way we can help you connect to the big picture that is an NYA education is to let you see those stories as they happen – and to let you tell those stories as they happen. Flickr is one cool medium to make this easy and fun.

Think of Flickr as a giant, multi-person photo album in the internet cloud. It’s a running (edited, thankfully) stream of what’s going on at NYA in photos taken by faculty, staff, parents and kids. It runs the gamut from classroom to community service, sports events to artworks. Take a look to see what’s going on, and then join in by sending your NYA photos to us. The address is photos@nya.org. At this time, you can only send them one at a time, and there’s a little (approval) lag between when you email and when they show up; but we’re learning to walk before we fly.

Who’s going to be first to send a photo? You?

Stay tuned, and stay connected.

Posted in For Parents, Friendships, Heroes of NYA, On Campus, Online, Social Media, Social Networks | No Comments »

Follow the Leader.

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

People are having conversations and keeping in touch in many different ways today, and Twitter is one of the fastest growing, most fascinating places to connect online. Now, you can follow your favorite school… but why?

If you were already following NYA on Twitter yesterday (9/8/09), you would have known that video of Convocation speeches was posted on YouTube shortly after the ceremony (thank you, Chris Mazzurco.) It was a beautiful morning, and the speakers were brief and moving. If you couldn’t be there, this is the next best thing. Have a look for yourself. Here’s Alex Ward making his fellow students proud:

Can you live without Twitter? Hmmm. Probably. But it is another way to stay connected to the NYA community and get a flavor for what life is like at school from day to day.

It’s pretty easy to sign up*, and then you just jump in. Listen. Find people with similar interests. Join conversations. Broaden your mind. NYA is leading the way…

*If you’d like help, leave a comment here or email walter@briggsadv.com, and I’ll send you some step-by-step instructions.

Posted in Heroes of NYA, On Campus, Online, Social Media, Videos | No Comments »

It’s a Whole New World… Welcome!

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

Welcome to blog post #1 at the NYA Website Project Blog. We’re well along in the process of redesigning nya.org, and we think you’re going to find the new site easier to use, more engaging, and a better representation of the leadership and excellence that defines our school.

There are two goals we set for the new website:

  • It should communicate the characteristics of the school that make it a unique and special institution.
  • It should work to keep community members connected to the school and to each other.

NYA has a brand… A personality… A set of attributes that make it attractive to those of us who work or study there – or choose to send our children there. That brand should be understood both explicitly and implicitly by any visitor to nya.org. Visual design, functional organization, and content are the tools we use to help make that happen.

NYA also has a community. Students, parents, alumni, faculty, staff… all connected at one time or another to one another through our relationship with the school. We’d like to help keep those connections going longer and make them stronger.

In the past couple of years, the internet has evolved dramatically into a participatory, social, conversation medium. We plan to use a number of channels like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and lots more to make nya.org a leader in the school website genre. For starters, if you click on the little orange NYA box on the twitter feed in the right-hand column, you’ll find a way to follow NYA’s updates.

We’ll be posting more details here regularly, and invite you to comment and participate. Subscribe via RSS, follow the NYA Twitter feed (twitter.com/nyatoday) or just check back often.

So, stay tuned… and be connected.

Posted in Online, Social Media, Videos | No Comments »