Orgsync: A helpful tool for campus media

If you hold a leadership position in any Muskingum College student organization, you probably remember sittting through a two-hour monotonous orientation earlier in the month. An hour of this meeting was dedicated to Orgsync.com, a newly implemented Web program on campus designed to improve communication between campus organizations. While many rumbled and grumbled while learning the registration process via conference call, students seem to have made the transition to electronic organization registration seamlessly.

After about two weeks of "Orgsyncing," we here at the Black and Magenta are beginning to see the Web site's possible advantages. Not only could Orgsync improve communication among student organizations but it could also act as a helpful tool for campus media. As important as it is to have established effective communication among student leaders and their organizations, it is just as important to communicate with campus media. We want to know what's going on with your organization and what events you have planned in order to give each organization equal and proper representation and coverage in the newspaper.

While pondering how we could use Orgsync to make this happen, some of our editors suggested that the Editor-in-Chief, Josh Chaney, request to electronically join every organization on campus. Of course, it would be up to the organization's administrator whether they choose to accept or deny his request, but doing so would only be to the organization's disadvantage.

Many times organizations hold newsworthy events that do not get covered simply because we at the Black and Magenta are not aware of every organization's happenings. Our editors generally rely on word of mouth, press releases, facebook, mcmemos and old-fashioned e-mail for story ideas. However, if we could somehow establish a central connection to every organization on campus, we would feel much more informed as a student run newspaper and organization in our own right.

Nevertheless, we still could not guarantee coverage of every organization's events, as there are over 80 existing organizations on campus. However, we could use Orgsync to guarantee to organizations the equal opportunity of possible coverage. Orgsync could act as a marketplace of ideas, where each organization is placed on a level playing field.

The way we see it, we could use Orgsync to help each other. By establishing a central connection to all campus organizations, our content would hopefully become increasingly more diverse. In turn, more organizations would get a chance at free publicity.