Tuesday, March 03, 2015, 2:30 PM – 3:15 PM (PST)


IGNITE SESSIONS


Moderated By:
Ashok Sarathy, Innovations in Testing Program Chair
Rachel Schoenig, Innovations in Testing Program Vice Chair


IGNITE 1: Social Networks and Credential Sharing – Enabling and Leveraging Social Sharing as a Marketing Channel


Practice Area Division(s): Certification/Licensure
Topic: Business Strategy and Operations

This presentation is about how organizations can enable social sharing of their credentials and leverage them as marketing channels.

So much of our identities are shared online, yet most of our credentials are still stored as paper, hidden away in folders. There are still no good ways for learners to share their credentials in a verified manner socially. Traditionally, credentials are “illiquid” - they are owned by the issuing organizations and cannot be used easily by the learner to promote themselves or to discover opportunities.

This presentation explores a new perspective on credentials and social sharing. We present tools and methods that allow learners to own and collect their credentials, and to showcase them on social networks in a compelling way. We discuss different designs and online representations of credentials, and how to effectively showcase them without compromising the learner’s private information yet also enabling legitimate requests (such as from a prospective employer or admissions office) for more detailed information.

On the credential issuer side, most organizations still do not know how to leverage social networks as marketing channels. Often, the best promoters of an organization’s credentials and brand are their earners. How does an organization encourage their learners to share their credentials and amplify their reach? We discuss different methods that organizations can use for branding, marketing and acquiring users by leveraging the credential earner’s social shares. We show examples of how credentials could be showcased in a beautiful and verified manner on popular social networks like Linkedin or on professional services sites like Care.com or ZocDoc.

PRESENTERS:
Eugene Woo, Parchment
Sarah Kiley, Parchment