At the Clark College Economic and Community Development campus, a circle of 12 people learned about the intersection of Tai Chi and dance, linked at the arms and stomping to the rhythm of music played over a stereo.
Down the hall, another group was learning the secrets to making the perfect barbecue sauce. Upstairs, still more people were at the center Thursday evening, learning about gardening, painting, meditation, Medicare — every subject you hadn’t realized you didn’t know, but suddenly felt the need to learn.
At the ECD’s first-ever back-to-school open house, attendees had the chance to dip their toes into a wide array of classes offered at the college’s Fisher’s Landing campus.
“Economic and community development here at Clark College is a very diverse department,” said Abby Herrera, marketing and communications manager for the center. “It has something for everybody.”
Indeed, the open house included demonstrations in painting, sourdough bread baking, yoga, Javascript and even a lesson on working with introverts and extroverts.
With the fall quarter kicking off Sept. 24, Hererra said, it was an opportunity to introduce the open house’s approximately 100 attendees to Clark College’s community offerings.
Each year, the college’s ECD serves around 10,000 people, providing some with workforce training. Unlike Clark College’s main campus in Vancouver, instruction at the ECD building isn’t for school credit. Residents and businesses of the Southwest Washington region can work with the center to tailor the classes, seminars, certificate programs and training opportunities to their specific workforce needs.
Students who want to pick up a new trade or hobby can also enroll in wellness and enrichment programs at the ECD, like the variety of recreational activities demonstrated at the open house.
Learning how to grow a home garden of unusual herbs may not arm the student with the most marketable skill in the workforce, but as Master Gardener Laura Heldreth will tell you — over a bouquet of edible, peppery nasturtium flower buds, no less — it sure does bring joy.
Some of the lessons, though, imparted skills that likely prove practical in 2018 and beyond. Lacey Faught, an instructor at the center and founder of Vancouver-based digital marketing company Spry, closed out the evening with a lecture titled “Why Things Go Viral, The Science Behind Social Media.”
According to Faught, internet traffic boils down to a calculable formula: V=(H(G x D))^e
Or, in other words, virality is equal to the presence of humor, multiplied by the product of the size of the group who has experienced something and the emotional depth of that experience, all raised to the power of exposure.
Any time humor, size, depth or exposure rise, she argues, the effect and reach of a specific campaign will ripple wider, Faught said. Immediacy also helps.
“You think about things like the teacher strike, most recently,” Faught told the classroom. “That teacher strike is impactful to everybody because of how much they’re exposed to it, that it’s happening right now, the size of the group.”
Not everyone is planning to launch a career in digital marketing. But anyone can benefit from knowledge that helps them “create more impactful messages and have better, more efficient, effective communication,” Faught said.
“I hope I can come up with a really cool tool to be able to help forecast message virality and come up with better campaigns, and that kind of thing. But for now, I hope it helps you think about messages a little bit more.”
