Nine months ago guest blogger Andrew Gossen from Princeton University told us about "an unusual online student—alumni connection" — a game called GoCrossCampus (GXC). The multiplayer game, based on the popular board game Risk, offered some surprises.
Gossen suggested why GXC was "worth thinking about" for alumni relations. It is, he said:
an unusual opportunity for alumni and undergraduates to interact;
a powerful driver to inspire alumni to sign up for alumni e-mail forwarding;
a chance to leverage institutional rivalries to engage alumni; and
an online forum based on affinity that people actually want to use — there were 8,627 people playing the Ivy League version of GXC last December.
GXC has returned to the Ivy League and alumni offices are thinking about it too. 2,645 3,635 3,969 4,350 4,828 players had joined the free game within the first five 12 14 18 days 4 weeks of its restart this past week. I recently received the following Facebook message from my own alma mater's alumni office:
Come join the newest battle of the Ivies and show the League who’s the boss this time! GoCrossCampus is an online adaptation of Risk that pits schools against each other for territorial domination. With enough players and the right strategy, Brown can come out on top...
Join the action at http://gocrosscampus.com/g
See you there!
The message also included a link for activating an alumni forwarding address.
So GXC gives the Brown Alumni Association a chance to push its free alumni forwarding addresses and a reason alumni (like me) might actually want the address (i.e., it's required if you want to play GXC). I signed up to play the game, and to review it as a student-alumni activity (and to win the TV, the stereo system and the Wii that they're giving away).
Meanwhile, Princeton grad Andrew Gossen (who also has a Harvard degree) tells me:
I'm playing again....GXC used my Alumni Futures posting to help persuade Penn and Harvard that they're legit and worthy of promotion in Alumni Association communications — I just saw it featured in my Harvard e-newsletter.
Ironically, Princeton has so far decided not to promote gameplay to alumni. But Andrew and many other Princeton alumni will be playing anyway.
So who knows? Maybe I'll get to see Gossen crossing the Delaware.
See also: GXC's press coverage page
