Colleges and the Social Web

Church of the Customer posted an interesting link the other day: students in the Vanderbuilt MBA program, literally evangelists for the school, have started a blog on their program:

This is an uncensored, unedited look at lives of a group of MBA and MSF students. We aren't some marketing project cooked up by the admissions team; we're honestly a group of people that want to share what it's like to be in the Vanderbilt MBA program.

This seems to be the ultimate research tool for prospective students, and something I wish every university I had looked at had.  What's funny is that it has the opportunity to  market the Owen Graduate School far better than any pamphlet or brochure ever could, while at the same time threatening any message the school adminstrators are trying to provide.

I suppose that's the love hate world of the social web: putting the power to message in the hands of customers produces results traditional marketing never could...but marketers lose control over the message itself.

Good thing the students running this thing love Vanderbuilt.