alumni futures

3 More Questions (and Answers) on Alumni Engagement

During our Higher Ed Live online discussion about alumni engagement, we answered a few questions from readers and viewers. But we didn't get to all of them. Here are answers from Charlie Melichar and Andrew Gossen to some additional comments and questions.

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Question:
How can our offices become proactive and future-thinking, versus playing catch-up (e.g., LinkedIn replacing alumni directories)?

Charlie:
Start with a clean slate. We still view problems through the lens of old solutions. Look at the news business, for example. The industry was so entrenched in papers as the delivery vehicle, they were slow to adapt to a new model to do what was ultimately most important – deliver information in the most timely way possible. We need to focus on the need, the opportunity, or the problem – and be open to changing our ways. People want a network, not a directory. People want a job, not a careers program. People want to make an impact, not a gift. How can we facilitate all of this?

Andrew:
You can’t do this unless there’s someone in your shop whose job is to pay attention to how the world is changing. They need the time to do this, and they need the experience and perspective to recognize emerging opportunities. In Cornell Alumni Affairs & Development, we ask two questions when new opportunities present themselves:

1.       Does the opportunity enable us to pursue an existing strategic goal more efficiently or effectively than we are doing now?; and

2.       Is there an emerging critical mass of alumni activity that warrants our involvement? 

Charlie’s focus on value from the user’s perspective is also essential. We aren’t employed to perpetuate ourselves and our programs; we’re employed to engage our audience. Focusing on our alumni and their evolving needs will make it much less likely that we’ll be left behind.

[Melichar: "People want a network, not a directory. People want a job, not a careers program. People want to make an impact, not a gift."]

Question:
Most donors engage without having to "be present." They send a check whenever they want. What are some non-financial analogs to this?

Charlie:
Social media is a great example of asynchronous engagement. People pick and choose the content that is meaningful them, from the sources they care about, and then do “something” with it. They like it, share it, mash it up. We need to get away from only counting engagement when it happens on our own terms (e.g., events we organize, conversations we convene) and find mutually beneficial ways to join with our constituents.

Andrew:
As Charlie suggests, it’s content. Social media. Archived video. Asynchronous games. Infographics. Memes. High-quality, on-demand engagement is a great fit with today’s highly digital lifestyle.

We could also focus on the convener role, trying to connect alumni so that they can engage with each other when it’s convenient for them, around their priorities. We make the introduction and get out of the way.

[Gossen: "Emerging platforms & techniques blur the distinction between giving and other modes of engagement – the boundaries start to collapse."]

Question:
In fundraising, should we just count donors and not worry about dollars? It's much easier to measure...

Charlie:
It depends on what you’re counting and why, but both are critical. There are engagement models that would take size of gift, whether it is a first-time gift, renewal at a higher level, and so on, as engagement measures. This underscores that there is no "one-size fits all" model. We need to tie these measures to institutional and program-level goals. That’s the way to stay relevant and nimble.

Andrew:
Emerging platforms and techniques blur the distinction between giving and other modes of engagement so thoroughly that the boundaries start to collapse. Take crowdfunding, for example. A $25 donation is definitely "giving." But receiving an almost-instant thank you from someone involved with the project is both stewardship and person-to-person engagement. The frequent, informal updates sent to donors by the project team are stewardship, but they’re also communication that fits well with culture of the social web. This may complicate measurement, but it almost certainly will better engage the donor. 

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Related articles

Online Discussion: Higher Ed Live Explores Alumni Engagement

Online Discussion: 'Higher Ed Live' Explores Alumni Engagement

Archived video of our April 2013 discussion, available on YouTube (direct link: http://youtu.be/MqVIV6P9ZG4) 

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The video embedded in this blog post is a recording of a live online discussion about measuring alumni engagement. It took place April 18, 2013, as part of Higher Ed Live, a series that explores topics across higher education.

This program included two panelists besides me, Alumni Futures advisory group members Charlie Melichar (Vanderbilt University) and Andrew Gossen (Cornell University). Using my recent blog post about The Risk in Measuring Alumni Engagement as a starting point, and guided by Ryan Catherwood of the University of Virginia, we discussed a range of topics, including using data, choosing metrics, fundraising as an alumni relations outcome, social media, and more. 

[...a free, online conversation about alumni engagement, with 
Andrew Gossen, Charlie Melichar, and me]

Your panelists are all on Twitter as well:

Andy Shaindlin (that's me) – Associate Vice President for Alumni Relations & Annual Giving, Carnegie Mellon University. Twitter: @alumnifutures

Andrew Gossen – Senior Director for Social Media Strategy, Alumni Affairs & Development, Cornell University. Twitter: @agossen

Charlie Melichar, APR – Associate Vice Chancellor, Communications, Vanderbilt University. Twitter: @melicharlie

Our moderator (also on Twitter) was Ryan Catherwood of the University of Virginia (@RyanCatherwood).

Note: I will also be addressing this general topic at the CASE Summit in San Francisco, July 14–16, 2013 (where Andrew Gossen is speaking, too!). 

 

Related articles

The Risk in Measuring Alumni Engagement

Relationship-Building Doesn't Scale

The Problem
Recently, Peter Maher of South Africa's University of the Witwatersrand made the following point in a LinkedIn discussion:

E-mail opened up a wonderful new world of alumni engagement, especially for a university...that has a significant number of alumni around the globe. However...each year I receive exponentially more email correspondence from alumni that require a personal response from me.

It's now taking up most of my time just reading and replying to emails in a considered way that deepens the relationship (rather than giving generic/glib replies). What is the best way of getting the most out of e-mail correspondence with alumni without it becoming your sole accomplishment for the day?

Peter's question illustrates something true of all forms of relationship in all contexts:

Relationship-building doesn't scale.

As the number of relationships increases, converting them into traditional, mutually beneficial outcomes becomes more difficult. Peter points out that a generic or shallow reply won't help an alumnus solve a problem or make valuable connections. But one person in his role can only support so many relationships. 

So what can one do?

[There are two obvious strategies – and one non-obvious one]

Possible Solutions
There are two obvious strategies, each of them somewhat challenging:

1. Exchange the creation of new relationships for fewer – but deeper – relationships;

or

2. Add staff to create and foster additional relationships, while supporting existing ones.

If you can document engagement opportunities lost to lack of time and attention, you can craft a business case for greater resources – new staff positions and bigger budget. But even with a good business case, for most of us, the additional funds just aren't there. Many alumni offices have had to cut staff; adding new positions is a fantasy.

This prompts me to propose a less obvious strategy:

3. Convert staff positions from traditional roles to online support and interaction roles.

What if someone in Peter's situation had 3 or 4 staff "replying to emails in a considered way that deepens the relationship"? His office could keep pace with the demand for written communication and support. This would mean changing some team members' job descriptions to reflect the increased reliance on online interaction (including email, the web, and social platforms).

[Do we spend too much time emailing our alumni – or not enough?]

In practical terms, maybe it means fewer events, less printed communication, or a more modest web presence. The payoff in return would be individualized, thoughtful, and relevant communication with alumni everywhere.

Two Final Thoughts
FIrst, alumni relations is communication. Even if they're not attending events or interacting with you in person, alumni feel engaged if they have an open line of communication with their alma mater. (More about this in a future post.) 

FInally, our communication with individuals need not solve their problems directly. We should connect them with resources that they can use to solve their own problems ("teach a man to fish..."). Acting as a relationship broker will decrease our time spent on an individual's needs, and show alumni how to use the network for future problem-solving. 

What do you think?

Too much time spent emailing with alumni? Or not enough?

How do we balance face to face interaction with the reality that we interact meaningfully with just a small fraction of our audience?

The Problem Sentence: How LinkedIn Hinders Effective Networking

Does this sound familiar?:

I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.

This is the standard message that LinkedIn created for you, so you can ask others to connect with you.

It is succinct, and universally applicable. It's also self-evident, and therefore, unhelpful. Of course I want to add you to my network – if I didn't, would I be asking you to join it?

The Problem
Those 11 words are actively preventing LinkedIn users from developing the skills they need to network more successfully.

What if you walked up to someone you encountered at a conference and (without providing any context) said, "I'd like to add you to my professional network"?

The response would probably be something along the lines of, "Why? Who are you?" And perhaps, "Is there any benefit to me?"

[Those 11 words prevent LinkedIn users
from networking more successfully]

LinkedIn created this introduction to remove an obstacle to reaching out, and to make it easier for people to connect with each other. But the most helpful thing that LinkedIn could do here would be to make it slightly harder to connect. 

How LinkedIn Can Help
Instead of pre-populating the "personal note" in the message window, LinkedIn should do two things:

1. Leave the message window empty, and
2. Prevent you from sending the invite until you've typed in your own, truly personal message.

This would help the sender learn the art of introducing oneself and one's networking goals to a desirable contact.

And it would help the recipient to understand why they are receiving the message in the first place. 

Which is more helpful and effective? This?:

"Dear Andy - Greetings from Denver. I'm seeking a position in annual giving after 6 years in student events. I notice we share mutual contacts, including your former assistant director, whom I know from grad school. I'd be grateful if we could connect via LinkedIn. In return, my own network may prove valuable as you add staff for your newly-announced capital campaign."

Or this?:

"I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn."

Duh. 

It's time for LinkedIn to make us tell each other something we don't already know.  

Focusing on ROI is Selfish

Higher ed communications leader (and Alumni Futures advisory group member) Charlie Melichar periodically speaks about social media's place in advancement. At a conference in 2010, an audience member asked Charlie about "getting more alumni to spend time with our Facebook presence." 

Charlie replied:

Don't worry so much about whether a few more people spend two minutes a day with your Facebook content. Get the people who already spend two minutes to spend a few more minutes a day. Don't focus solely on ROI. Focus on ROA – Return on Attention.

Charlie urged us to make our existing supporters' experience more rewarding, instead of only trying to attract more fans and more followers. 

At the 2012 CASE Summit, I had a moment of clarity about why this made sense. Charlie was on stage again, this time discussing technology with MIT's Sherry Turkle. She had just described how technology can isolate us from one another, hindering genuine interaction. The discussion sparked my memory of Charlie's earlier remarks, and I suddenly realized why I found his advice appealing. In a nutshell:

Measuring ROI means assessing the value we get from our investment in online engagement.

Measuring ROA focuses on the engagement's value to our audience.

You should assess whether your organization is using its resources wisely, and ROI is one way to approach that.

However, "return on attention" puts the audience first. That's a worthwhile goal for those of us trying to connect with our audience in ways that matter to them.

 

Related Link:

Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less From Each Other
by Sherry Turkle

In Which I Attend My Own Reunion

I just got off the phone with a newspaper reporter from California. She's writing an article (see SacBee.com link below) about the effect of social media on high school and college reunions. I've worked in universities for more than two decades, so I probably should have stuck to that aspect of her topic. But I talked about Facebook and high school reunions instead.

Why?

Because today I am flying to New York for the 30th reunion of my high school graduating class. 

I attended a small public high school about 20 miles from New York City. The high school itself has long since moved to a new building, and there has never been an alumni director or an alumni organization of any kind. But 30 years later my classmates and I are eager to see each other, to make up stories about how cool we were, and to check on those yearbook "superlatives" (Spoiler: "Most likely to succeed" wasn't me!).

What I told the reporter, simply, was this: My high school reunion might not be taking place if it weren't for Facebook. The popular online platform made it easy to find a place where the vast majority of class members spend time on the internet. Facebook members reached most of the non-Facebook users via email.

Despite its reunion, there's no such organization as "the Nyack High School class of '82." But there's a community of friends and acquaintances with that name. And a very small number of dedicated volunteers, over the last several months, orchestrated the weekend of official and unofficial events that form our reunion. Significantly, during the weeks before the reunion, those of us active on Facebook have shared literally thousands of messages, Likes, photos, and comments with each other. 

[Once you're friends with someone,
you want to spend time visiting with them]

Over the last few years, some have said that Facebook's rise would doom physical reunions: "I've already heard everything about this person online – what is there left to talk about when I see them?"

But many realize that they aren't learning everything about people via Facebook. They're just becoming friends (again, or for the first time). And once you're friends with someone, you want to spend time visiting with them.

Social software doesn't complicate alumni activities. Used creatively and persistently, online networks merely enable a predictable, long-standing form of human behavior: hanging out together on the weekend. 

Photo: Vintage postcard of my high school

Related Articles:

Is Facebook cutting demand for high school reunions? (sacbee.com)

Who needs a reunion? I've got Facebook (nytimes.com)

Is Facebook replacing the need for reunions? (allfacebook.com)

Is Facebook good or bad for school reunions? (cnn.com)

Do Events Have a Social Graph?

In a recent article titled The Next Big Thing, social network analyst Valdis Krebs pointed out that just as a person has a "social graph" that depicts how they connect and interact with others, a book can have a social graph too. His network map displays connections between the purchasing behaviors of individuals who bought a specific book on Amazon.com: 

Below is a network map of a very interesting new book – Too Big to Know [2B2K] by internet scholar David Weinberger. David's book is shown by the magenta node in the center of the network. Directly connected to his book are the books that Amazon mentions that customers also bought [green nodes], in addition to 2B2K. These books are probably more similar than different to 2B2K. The blue nodes are books that are 2 steps away from 2B2K, they are probably more different than 2B2K, but retain similarities also. The arrows show the direction of the majority of also-bought activity. 

His conclusion? Amazon is building an "Interests & Passions network...under the radar."

"Social Graph" of the book Too Big to Know on Amazon.com, via The Network Thinkers - Click to enlarge

It occurs to me that if a thing (like a book) can have a social graph, so can some of the "things" we use to engage alumni and donors. For example:

Events can have a social graph.

Is someone who attends a particular event more or less likely to attend certain other events? The answer could improve our target marketing for events.

Volunteerism can have a social graph.

Is someone who volunteers for a specific role more or less likely to fulfill another, specific role? The answer could improve volunteer recruitment.

[If a book can have a social graph, why can't an event?]

And directionality matters here too. For example, arrows would show which volunteer roles lead to future activities.

This is hardly a new idea. Overlay behavior onto a social graph and you're creating an interest graph. That's how several popular online services work, in a general way: Zappos, Netflix, and of course Amazon. But these sites mostly aggregate past users' behaviors to influence the next user's behavior, without those users being connected otherwise. A true "interest graph"–based system would interpret your behavior to help organizations understand why you attended that additional event, or how you felt about your volunteer experience.

Intrigued by this idea? Then see this article by Derrick Harris: The personalized web is just an interest graph away.

Do events, volunteer roles, and other engagement tools have social graphs?

If they do, should we be capturing and analyzing them?

Why – or why not? 

Related articles

• Amazon is building a social graph under the radar (thenetworkthinkers.com)
• [2b2k] Too Big to Know's network (hyperorg.com)
• Looking Beyond the Social Graph, Capsule Aims To Map the 'Experience Graph' (prweb.com)
• The personalized web is just an interest graph away (gigaom.com)

How the Internet Changed Alumni Relations Forever

I recently met Don Tapscott, a leading author and speaker on technology and innovation. He graciously invited me to contribute to the blog he writes for Huffington Post. My article there appeared on March 23, 2012, and I am including a brief excerpt below, with a link to the original article for those who would like to read the rest.

Excerpt:

Many alumni associations stubbornly cling to the idea that alumni relationships should be hosted on a .edu website. But we've grudgingly populated Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

And many of us haven't yet acknowledged that online social platforms aren't broadcast outlets. People join Facebook to share their interests, ideas and activities with friends and family, to tell stories about what matters to them. They don't join to download a PDF of the press release announcing this year's teaching awards.

[Associations cling to the idea that alumni relationships
should be hosted on a .edu website]

Communities like ours must learn to maintain slightly more modest expectations about how alumni will interact with us online.

And yet, things are changing at last. Several signs point to a more effective accommodation between alumni associations and the online ventures that have usurped their roles...

 

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To read the full article, click through to:

Will the Internet Obsolete Alumni Associations?

EdSocialMedia Summit, San Francisco

[Updated May 30, 2012: A video of my talk is now online for free viewing:

Balancing Creativity with Leadership: The Challenge of Social Media]

Next month in San Francisco I'm speaking at the EdSocialMedia Summit. The event is for "professionals involved in any way with social media in their organization." The focus is on schools, universities, and non-profits.

The sessions, along with great networking opportunities, take place during a single day:

Wednesday, April 4, 2012 

NOTE: Alumni Futures readers earn a 20% discount on registration.
The link at the bottom of this posting takes you to the registration page.

Seven presenters (including me) will examine current trends and roles for social platforms from a pretty diverse range of perspectives.

The other speakers are:

Brian Carter (author of The Like Economy: How Businesses Make Money with Facebook)

Georgy Cohen (co-founder of Meet Content)

John Hill (higher ed evangelist at LinkedIn)

Erin Swanson (marketing programs manager at Water.org)

Ian Symmonds (president & founder of Ian Symmonds & Associates)

and

Rand Fishkin (CEO and co-founder of SEOmoz)

[Alumni Futures readers get 20% off the registration fee]

Topics
Everything from viral video to inbound marketing, from integrated social fundraising campaigns to Facebook marketing, and from brand story-telling to alumni networking online.

Great Venue
Beautiful historic Fort Mason Center overlooking the Marina and San Francisco Bay.

My Talk
I'll review some recent research in experimental psychology to show why "strong leadership" doesn't usually seem compatible with innovative efforts such as social media. And I'll suggest what decision-makers can do about it to succeed. 

I hope I'll see a few Alumni Futures readers at this event next month.

Register

Register for the EdSocialMedia Summit – April 4, 2012 – San Francisco

Note: 20% discount ($40 off the regular cost of $199) is built in to this link, but you can always click "Promotional Code" on the registration page and type in: AlumniFutures

And...EdSocialMedia will donate 25% of profits to local charitable education organizations.

See you there!

 

Photo: Port of San Francisco sign by Andy Shaindlin

 

Alumni Networks: People, not Data

Recently I exchanged ideas about alumni networks with a senior advancement colleague from another university. Seeking to reconcile what associations do with what alumni need, he said:

We give alumni a directory, but what they're looking for is a network. We think the data forms a directory because that's what we know how to build. What alumni need is a web of connectivity based on common affiliation and experience as former students.

This sounded so familiar to me...then I remembered. I had quoted Brigham Young University's Keith Lue in a comment he contributed to Alumni Futures, and which I featured at the end of 2011. Keith said,

Alumni relations mistakenly focuses on who is in the database instead of why people might want to stay connected.

Two different ways of saying the same important thing:

Knowing who is in the database helps you publish a directory. Knowing what their problems are and who might help them find solutions – for that, alumni need a network.

["We focus on who is in the database instead of why people want to connect"]

Takeaways:

Your database isn't "information."
It's like Soylent Green: It's people. 

Alumni need solutions.
Connect them with people who can help solve their problems.

It sounds simple, but it's hard to execute.

However, one thing is certain: if your alumni organization can broker relationships and connect people effectively, alumni will see you as a solution. 

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Image: Soylent Green diorama by h.d. lange via Creative Commons.

Related contect from Alumni Futures

• Review: LinkedIn Alumni 
• Top 5 Alumni Futures Reader Comments of 2011
• Is Alumni Relations a Form of CRM?