Using old media to build new media

Nov 28, 2006

JCU92.org, an online community for my fellow class members of the Class of 1992 of John Carroll University, has quietly existed for the last three years, with just enough interest from my classmates to keep the site from withering and dying.

In anticipation of our class’s 15th reunion next June, I’ve revamped the site. But “build it and they will come” doesn’t quite work on the Web — you’ve got to get the word out. And to do that, this time I’m using a good old postcard to encourage more of my classmates to register, log in and post their news, views and memories of JCU. (This effort is costing me a couple hundred dollars, my contribution to my alma mater, as I look on it).

Speaking of memories, Malia — just like Anna when she was almost 3 — can’t seem to go to sleep at night without my retelling a story about my freshman-year whitewater rafting trip with my Dolan Hall floormates. I and three buddies enjoyed a leisurely day of floating and swimming, and just before we were to take the raft out of the river, we tipped in the rapids. I lost my favorite Greek fisherman’s cap — I’d bought it on a high school trip to Milwaukee because it reminded me of a cap my grandfather, Frank the Beachcomber, used to wear — but found my soaked rugby shirt.

The girls love that story for some reason.

Anton Zuiker ☄