January 2010 Archives

Browsing Google Reader at the blogs that I follow, I noticed a new post from Andy Shaindlin's Alumni Futures blog titled: 2010 Alumni Relations Issues for the Year Ahead.  As alumni relations is what I do here for the Leeds School of Business, I figured it would be beneficial to see what Mr. Shaindlin had to say. His main points asked how alumni relations professionals can continue to be relevant and useful and meaningful to our alumni in the face of changing times and advanced technology. With the proliferation of social media and peoples' ability to organize into groups through online tools - do they still need and want us to do that for them? With the extensive reach of Google, Facebook and the white pages online, do alumni still need our help finding and connecting with other alumni?

Andy suggests the answers are yes, and I tend to agree. In this day and age, our alumni EXPECT that we have a presence in these new online spaces and they WANT to be a part of the School's official fan page, group, etc. on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

And we are happy to have them.

But this major shift in how we communicate with our alumni was not obvious or immediate. Many universities and schools had and still have online communities exclusively for their alumni (including CU's Forever Buffs Network and Leeds' LeedsLink). However, as the space of social media has developed, we've come to learn that exclusivity is not always where it's at. For instance, we have been posting job openings to LeedsLink thinking our alumni would find this as an exclusive benefit and visit the site in order to see what jobs were listed. However, my director and I met yesterday with our Career Connections staff to discuss using LinkedIn instead of LeedsLink to post jobs. The group consensus was to find alumni where they already are and to make our LinkedIn group more relevant and dynamic by giving people what they want - opportunities for jobs. Instead of assuming alumni would want to take the extra step to look for jobs on LeedLink, we recognize that we should provide value to them in the space that they already inhabit, LinkedIn.

As this is a brand new change to how we operate, we don't yet know how it'll go, however, I'm optimistic that it will be well received. Exclusivity is sacrificed as alumni could easily forward and share the job posting with whomever they please in their various networks, however, that is the way the world works these days and who are we, alumni relations staff, to stop them!

For a complete list of how you can connect to the Leeds School using social media, including Linkedin, please visit: www.leeds.colorado.edu/socialnetworking

 

I am absolutely thrilled to announce that the Leeds School is a sponsor of Ignite Boulder 8 (#Igneight Boulder, if you will) on February 10 at the Boulder Theater. You can learn more by visiting the web site for Ignite Boulder. If you haven't been, you may be asking "What the heck is Ignite Boulder?"

I love this question.

Why? I get excited. Words fail me. I blather on like a kid hyped up on candy and the promise of a new puppy. It's one of those experiences people annoy you with by saying "You *just* have to be there to know what it's like." Ignite Boulder describes itself as "a night of presentations with a twist." More on that here. If you ask me, it's a twist like a rollercoaster of ROTFLMAOs brought to you by pithy presenters armed with a microphone, an unrelenting Power Point slideshow, and hopefully enough brass to deliver cheeky yet educational information on topics that makes you go "huh!" to the usually sold-out, 750-seat auditorium. Past topics included "Food Porn: Behind the Lens" by photographer Jen Yu, "How to Jump Off a Cliff" by climber Steph Davis and "Reward and Risk" by extreme adventure videographer Michael Brown. You can catch all the past presentations here. I also love that Ignite Boulder relies solely on word of mouth and social media avenues to sell out the Boulder Theater, in addition to pre- and post- events. Impressive, no? 

The Leeds School wanted to get involved this time around because it seemed like we already were well-represented at past Ignite Boulder events: One of our faculty, Pete McGraw, presented on the tongue-in-cheek topic  "From Wrong to Funny," (research on humor) and we saw in the seats a few familiar faces of faculty, staff, alumni (past presenter and predictor of the pow Joel Gratz, for example) and students hobnobbing with the best and brightest minds of Boulder.  

I've only attended two Ignite Boulder events so far (they occur every two months) and despite being a rather behind-the-scenes kind of gal, I always leave Ignite Boulder dreaming about possible topics that lil' ole me could present because I do indeed catch the spark that is Ignite Boulder. I feel like the crowd wants you to succeed, or least they support you as you flounder gloriously in your speech or the timing of unforgiving slides. I have a theory that presenting at Ignite Boulder is kind of like karaoke: you just gotta find your song/topic and then rock the hell out of it. Which we plan to do as a sponsor of what is becoming a must-attend event in the Boulder community. Got a great idea of how we can do that? Let us know! And stay tuned for more about our sponsorship of #Igneight Boulder ...  

...... in the meantime, buy your tickets here (only $10, yo) and vote for the presenters you'd like to see here.