I recently spent a day lecturing at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At a small lunch hosted by President Jared Cohon, I met Andy Shaindlin -- the very thoughtful head of Alumni Relations & Annual Giving. After the lunch we sat down to discuss the future of the Alumni function at universities, entertaining a very provocative idea -- Will the Web Cause the Disintermediation of Alumni Associations? His views about how Alumni Associations need to transform themselves to avoid disintermediation were so stimulating that I asked him to write a blog about them. -- Don Tapscott
In 2008, I picked up a new book by the well-known author and professor Clay Shirky. The book, Here Comes Everybody, looked interesting. But the provocative sub-title is what hooked me: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.
My entire career has depended entirely on the success of a very specialized kind of organization -- an alumni association. I needed to check this out. And I quickly found what I was looking for.
On page 66, in a discussion of bloggers' relationship to traditional news media, Shirky wrote:
"[Blogs] are not merely alternate sites of publishing; they are alternatives to publishing itself..."
In mid-2008, when I read this, there was a lot of speculation as to what online social networks' long-term roles would be... I did a quick word-substitution exercise and produced the following version for my profession:
Online social networks are not merely alternate sites for alumni organizations; they are alternatives to alumni organizations themselves.
Before this, alumni relations professionals and university fundraisers had been thinking about how to recreate the features of popular social networks on our own websites:
Facebook has photos to go with members' profiles? We'll let alumni add their photo to our alumni directory!
LinkedIn lets users list past jobs? We'll add a field for "Past employment" to our alumni directory!
One problem with this approach was that we focused almost entirely on the features of our so-called online communities, instead of explaining the benefits. We were like car salesmen, telling buyers, "Our vehicles have 270 horsepower" -- instead of explaining that "you can go from zero to 60 in under 5 seconds."
Another problem was scale. Behind our ivied walls, we arrogantly believed that exclusivity was all-important. For the average alum, however, valuable though the alumni community might sometimes be, having one's many networks connect to each other was more important. Classmates, neighbors, co-workers, friends, family -- they were all on Facebook (or soon would be, it was clear). So why require yet another URL, username, password, and profile when alumni could already do it all on a single site? Or on two sites, once LinkedIn became known as "more professional" than Facebook.
So scale trumped exclusivity and alumni websites lost the battle for online community. But to this day, it's as if alumni associations still don't understand what happened. We still pay tens of thousands of dollars every year for "online community" software that alumni don't want, but that alma mater just can't bear to give up. Why?
Fast forward to 2012. Many alumni associations stubbornly cling to the idea that alumni relationships should be hosted on a .edu website. But we've grudgingly populated Facebook (Groups, then Pages), LinkedIn (individual profiles, then Groups), and Twitter (individual streams, then institutional ones).
And many of us, including some campus marketing and communications professionals, 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 because they need to download a PDF of the press release announcing this year's teaching awards.
Communities like ours (as opposed to individuals) 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 venues that have usurped their roles. For example:
Facebook comments, LinkedIn Group discussions, and tweets are the coin of the realm (plus the occasional blog post, Tumblr, or maybe -- someday -- Google+ Hangout). Our outdated bulletin boards have always been a wasteland, but we've finally stopped gazing at them expectantly.
We're becoming accustomed to small, dense networks of alumni planning and holding their own mini-reunions.
Ubiquitous, free online event software (including built-in tools on popular social sites) enables alumni to choose the date, time, format and cost of alumni events. And the volunteers can pick and choose who makes the invite list, and who is excluded.
We can sum up the outcomes of these examples just the way I interpreted Shirky's observation in 2008:
Alumni are organizing -- without alumni organizations.
This is a function of technology's influence on group behavior. Accepting this means we need no longer devote our staff time (and meager budgets) to fighting Facebook for attention. And if we're prudent, we'll use these newly liberated resources to establish our next viable role in the lives of alumni.
But what is there left to do? Alumni associations' future roles will be less authoritative and more participatory. They will be equal contributors to online conversations, not know-it-all sources of official information. There are too many channels for alumni to choose from when seeking solutions to real-life problems. We'll need to be happy serving as one source among many, and will need to adjust our expectations for online interaction accordingly.
And I'm sure we can make the transition. The question is, will we do it before we render ourselves obsolete to alumni? Because when that happens, we'll be obsolete to our institutions as well.
Andy Shaindlin has 23 years of experience in higher ed, and holds a master's degree in education. He is the founder and author of the Alumni Futures website (http://alumnifutures.com), and tweets from @alumnifutures.
I agree with Andy, just because alumni CAN oranize without us, does NOT mean we can't add value to these organizations. We can still be a conduit of meaningful connections (1 to 1 connections with the right people vs having 700 Facebook friends and 300 twitter followers). We can be more responsive to the true needs of alumni because the Internet is a constant focus group and stream of feedback. We can continue to make the case for philanthropy and tell the stor of our institutions. People still crave face to face interactions, the intenet has spawned new lingo around face to face interactions born online...see meetup, tweetup, etc.. I believe that Alumni associationscan stil be a conduit of these types of interactions.The internet is a tool that can assist our efforts in these areas and more.
If students understand the alumni association IS THEIR PROFESSIONAL network and learn how to use existing tools, like Linkedin, Facebook, etc to build relationships, they would end up showing the current generation, that the alumni association is there to help them in the transitions in their lives, help them do business with other alumni and get help finding jobs.
Unfortunately I doubt that will happen unless the president of the college takes ownership and responsibility to find a way to help all of the graduates get jobs by the time he/she awards them their diploma. Talentmarks (http://www.talentmarks.com/consulting.aspx ) works with colleges who are interested doing just that. In a day and era of rising tuition and expectations of prospective students and their parents, - it's also a good recruitment strategy.
Richard Bolles, author of "What Color Is Your Parachute" suggests, "A working alum, is a giving alum"!
I hope alumni associations figure this out too - so they don't end up being completely disintermediated and relegated to a friend raising role designed to get alumni to contribute to the ever growing needs of the college.
The report suggested alumni association find out a way they can serve alumni, and provide value to their day to day lives, so they don't always appear to be pan handling.
Unfortunately, alumni associations are driven by a charter that was developed in the "Leave it to Beaver" era when there was one phone on the wall, one TV in the house, and one car in the garage. Alumni associations never made the transition this research had suggested, and as a result they have been disintermediated as Andy suggests by Linkedin, Facebook, and tens of thousands of niche online communities that offer meaningful advice, community and connections.
There is still a chance alumni associations can become more relevant to alumni by modifying their charter/mission and focus on building networks between students and alumni. 80 percent of college students today do not have a job when the president awards them their diploma. The college could develop a new relationship with current students and alumni by forcing the alumni association and career center to work together to make sure that the minute a student arrives on campus they are connected with dozens of alumni who will mentor them, offer job shadow opportunities, internships, summer jobs and eventually jobs.
Only one more post - read on to part three (there is a 250 word limit to posts)
While I don't think the alumni association will ever go away, I do think it has lost its ability to be relevant to alumni in today's market.
My firm started building alumni online communities in 1996. Because the alumni online community was a new concept, few alumni used them. Short of checking on an old roommate, there was little reason to return. I started writing white papers, reports and blogs to offer ideas on how the alumni association could increase registrations and use of the alumni online community. Eventually, I wrote a book in 2006 (Alumni Online Engagement), offering 101 ideas on how the alumni association could use their online community to help alumni do business with each other, network and help each other get jobs, while a the same time increase participation at events, engagement, communication and yes, even contributions! (http://www.internetstrategiesgroup.com/resources.aspx)
In the book, I mentioned the Olson Zaltman Associates study, "Current and Desired Relationship with Your Undergraduate Alma Mater" that suggested alumni look to the alumni association as a paternal organization. Their research suggested alumni wanted help in the transitions in life. Help, advice, knowledge and or connections when they go through pivotal points in their lives, i.e. first job, laid off, having kids, buying a house, retirement planning etc.
PART ONE - plez read on!