Cadets research social media at Facebook headquarters

  • Published
  • By Jennifer Green-Lanchoney
  • U.S. Air Force Academy Office of Research
U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. --  Editor's note: This is the first story in a three-part series on the Air Force Academy's Cadet Summer Research Program. Each summer, through the CSRP, more than 100 cadets spend several weeks at private and public research facilities around the world where they apply their classroom knowledge to a variety of military research topics. This year, cadets visited the Facebook campus in California; Sandia Laboratories in New Mexico and WalMart headquarters in Arkansas.  

Two cadets spent several weeks with Facebook employees in California this summer to research how the social media giant creates an innovative workplace and to bring their ideas back to the Air Force Academy through the Cadet Summer Research Program.

Cadets 1st Class Adam Marcinkowski and Genevieve Clemens arrived at the Facebook Campus in Menlo Park May 27. Clemens worked in Facebook's Content Operations Department, while Marcinkowski went to work in the company's Search Bar department to analyze the company's search function.

"We made a list of positive adjectives you'd want a customer to think after visiting your website," Marcinkowski said. "We prioritized our top three (adjectives) to begin a comparative analysis. Using those parameters, I worked on putting an attractive, user-friendly spin on Facebook's search function."  

Marcinkowski said he and Clemens were impressed with the expertise of the Facebook staff and how their offices are designed to promote open communication.
"There isn't a single cubicle at Facebook," he said. "It's really easy to walk by someone and have a conversation about a new idea that just came up because of this encounter."

The cadets used what they learned during their summer research to fine-tune the social media guide they co-authored, "Social Media Guide for Air Force Senior Leaders."

"In terms of content, we'd be crazy not to gather as much input and information as possible from the company," Marcinkowski said. "We were sharing coffee with top experts, quite literally learning from the best-of-the-best. We borrowed methods from the company's leading strategic communication experts. Facebook has marketing and design down to a science so it would be a disservice to the purpose of the guide not to learn from their expert techniques."

Marcinkowski said the goal of the social media guide is to improve a service members' understanding of strategic communication.

"This is incredibly important in 2015, when the world's principal aggressors are using social media as a weapon," he said. "In the social media battlespace, we are not as prepared as we should be but by becoming more adept at using social media, we can get a glimpse into the enemy's playbook."

Marcinkowski said social media is a powerful communication tool.

"It helps leaders broadcast their messages and their individual leadership styles to a wide audience," he said. "The intended audience for the guide is senior leaders, yet the guide is not Air Force or rank-centric. Any Airman or service member can use the guide to learn how to best use social media."

If Marcinkowski had his way, the Academy would send cadets to every major innovator in Silicon Valley.

"We have to send our cadets back," he said. "We would be failing ourselves as an institution if we do not. The U.S. is ranked the most innovative country in the world, thanks to the Silicon Valley. We have this amazing explosion of innovation happening right here and the opportunity to tap into it. The secretary of defense has called for a partnership between the military and Silicon Valley, and our CSRP is an example of this partnership at work."

The CSRP provides an opportunity for cadets to apply knowledge from the classroom to real-world programs across the country, said the Academy's associate dean for research, Lt. Col. Mark Reimann.

"Research is an important part of what we do here at the Academy, and CSRP helps us collaborate with programs across the nation in federal laboratories, universities and in private sector companies," he said. "We try to tailor our research opportunities to individual interests and better prepare our cadets to apply this knowledge upon graduation."

Marcinkowski is a Political Science major assigned to Cadet Squadron 04. Clemens is a Foreign Area major assigned to Cadet Squadron 30.