About

Tim Nekritz is director of web communication and associate director of public affairs at SUNY Oswego. His official and unofficial responsibilities include serving as chief content editor for oswego.edu, de facto social media officer and director of the Oswego History Project.

Tim’s one marketable skill is writing (he fakes the rest). He published his first “newspaper” at age four, with its lead expose titled Granny Schoonmaker named ‘Idiot of the Year.’ When his grandmother did not kill him but instead praised the article, Tim learned his first lesson in content generation: You just never know what readers will like. His interest in journalism followed him into his studies, and he served as editor-in-chief of the award-winning SUNY Brockport Stylus. Professionally, Tim won journalism awards, wrote a weekly music column and climbed to the lonely perch of city editor for the community daily Oswego Palladium-Times.

He departed The Palladium-Times to go back to school, literally. By some clerical error, Tim was hired at SUNY Oswego but that seems to have worked out more or less OK. His day-to-day responsibilities include writing stories, creating Web content and features, training Web writers, surviving media relations, making bad coffee, serving on too many committees and (mainly) performing other duties as assigned.

Tim launched his first (laughably primitive) Web site in 1997. He has blogged since 1999, and the WordPress version of InsideTimsHead is his sixth blog (he’s since added a seventh). His educational Web 2.0 initiatives include launching SUNY Oswego Student Blogs, creating the college’s official Facebook Fans page and establishing Oswego’s Twitter presence. He works with student interns and volunteers to make Oswego’s social media presence rich, robust and responsive. Tim also teaches Media Copywriting, recently redefined to include plentiful Web and new media components.

Tim was somehow named Web representative to the SUNYCUAD board of directors, which involves some social-media initiatives and occasionally breaking its Web site. Even more mysteriously, he’s occasionally asked to discuss writing for the Web and social media,  even doing so for legitimate conferences such as HighEdWeb and SIMTech and the otherwise credible Higher Ed Experts Webinar series.

Earning a master’s in history from SUNY Oswego in 2005, Tim is currently deep (too deep?) into the Oswego History Project, which includes writing a new book in time for the college’s 2011 sesquicentennial, coordinating an oral history compilation and establishing a broad range of related resources. Previously, he wrote Oswego’s Public Library: A History, a book tracing the history of the longest-operating library building in New York state.

In his rare spare time, Tim writes poetry, essays and music (he has pedestrian skills with several instruments and sings a mean karaoke version of Oklahoma!). He enjoys reading, mountaineering, kayaking, discovering new music, trivia and (more or less) running (on what’s left of his knees). The avid sports fan is faculty mentor for Oswego’s women’s hockey team. Tim lives in Oswego and tries to keep his cats, Fiona and Coco, fat and happy.