Virginia’s Community Colleges and some outstanding partners took a chance last night in making a big announcement.

It was so significant that it had some traditional media reporters asking, “Where’s the press release?”

The thing is, you see, there was no press release.  And there was no press conference – a move some may consider blasphemous for an old fashioned government agency.

Instead, we began a conversation and we did it through social media, which is based on the premise of eternal conversation.

The Announcement:

Virginia’s Community Colleges, the Virginia State Department of Education (VDOE), the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), the Virginia 529 College Savings Plan and the Education Credit and Management Corporation are joining forces for the biggest collaboration in Virginia’s history of public education.

They are joining together to build the next generation of the Virginia Education Wizard.

What does it all mean?

The partnership means that every student will get a personalized education plan beginning in the seventh grade and that plan will help them help them break through the myths, mysteries, red tape and barriers that can make the process of going to college unnecessarily difficult.

Students will be able to work on that plan with their parents, guidance counselors and career coaches on the Wizard – a tool that more than 125,000 people have visited since it launched last March.

Why make the announcment on social media?

What makes the Wizard’s story so interesting is that through the Wizard, these partners are smartly using technology to help educate children, who are growing up on technology.

“For these youngsters, technology is not an option.  It’s a necessity,” said Patricia I. Wright, superintendent of the Virginia Department of Education.

What better way to announce a technology meant for techno-savvy students than to make use of some of that technology ourselves?

Under the masterful moderating of John Sarvay, we sat the partners down for a meal at Morton’s Steakhouse in RIchmond’s Shockoe Slip, and had a conversation about public education and how it can better serve Virginia students and families.

Sarvay even quipped that he was taken back to see government employees actually focused on providing better service to the people who are paying the bills.

But the conversation didn’t end there.  It was recorded and will soon be published – perhaps in whole, perhaps in parts, on the Wizard’s Facebook page.

And the conversation was tweeted live on Twitter (you can find it by searching “#steakchat” on Twitter), where people took part from around the state and, in some cases, around the country.

(Special thanks to the Social Media Club who gave our event a lot of attention.)

The interviews we video taped at the event will be used to produce a web video documentary about the collaboration and what the partners are hoping to accomplish through it.

What did we learn from the experience?

Aside from the fact that the food at Morton’s is rather tasty, we learned that this might just be the evolution of the news conference.

While it is always a challenge to engage the traditional media, who are simply burdened with more leads and stories to follow than they have good people in their newsroom, we were able to engage with newsrooms and reporters for this event.  (A special thanks to NBC 12 photojournalist Dwight Nixon, who covered the announcement)

And we were able to share a conversation with virtually anyone about the paradigm-shifting accomplishments that are being made through this partnership and the Wizard tool.

While we consider the evening a great success, we know that its benefits will continue to be felt as more and more people take part in the conversation.

And it’s a fair bet that this won’t be the last time we work through this new and exciting format.

Posted by Jeffrey Kraus.