Higher Ed Solo… an introduction of sorts

In my brain, this post started out pretty cheesy. Something along the lines of a birth announcement:

Ron Bronson and Tonya Oaks Smith are pleased to announce the birth of their new endeavor in higher ed – Higher Ed Solo. Weighing in at just under 8 pounds, this new site is the result of about a month’s worth of discussions, angst and a little hard work in the wee hours of the morning. Like all new children, it needs care and feeding to grow, but we’re sure you’ll help us out.

The announcement would be accompanied by the voices of angels singing and and an animated GIF of Johnny Depp doing the Futterwacken.

But that seemed a little too contrived. So, I went back the drawing board.

Ron and I met like many of us in higher ed have – virtually and then later IRL at a conference. We ended up talking later about a blog post of his on working by oneself in the higher ed business. We decided to do a thing to help people like us. Here, watch this video for a more formal introduction…

In this blog, we’ll focus on helping solo practitioners find resources and encouragement. We’re planning on engaging the community with four types of content:

• Interviews with Armies of One
• Discussions of tools, tricks, and tips of the trade
• Interviews with vendors, services who work well with Higher Ed Solos
• Discussions with those who used to work alone but now have teams

We can’t do it without you, so we’ve got other things to get you involved… to help us spread the word and bring in other ideas. We have a Twitter account – @higheredsolo – and a list at FollowEDU. Think of us as your +1 in the solo higher ed space, as we’re here to help connect people and tools with each other.

Please let us know what you think.