Andy Shaindlin and Internet-based Alumni Relations

I’m sure that many people would consider Caltech alumni to be a perfect audience for Internet-based alumni relations. Can you calculate what percentage of your interaction with alumni happens through the Internet?

We estimate that on average we reach alumni with electronic “touches” at least 15 times as frequently as we do face-to-face. And electronic contacts outnumber those via print by about 4:1. However, it’s difficult to compare the different types of contact against each other. For example, face-to-face contact has a two-way element that is missing when someone merely receives an invitation, an email, or a publication. Face-to-face contacts generally last longer too—think about the passengers on a two-week alumni travel program. And one-on-one contacts are personal, unlike mass email for example. So there’s a trade-off between the increased frequency and sheer volume that the internet allows, versus the interactivity and depth that in-person contact provides.

As for Caltech having the perfect audience, it was certainly important in the early 1990s, when Caltech created its first alumni email system (in fact, the Alumni Association acted as a private internet provider to Caltech alumni for several years!). However, almost every audience today has ubiquitous online access. This is the “always on” society, and online services are probably as important for seminary or art school alumni as they are for graduates of a technical or research institution.

What are the most significant tools that institutions should be exploring for their Internet-based outreach to alumni?

First come the fundamentals: every shop should provide a secure, searchable directory, an events calendar, and online career resources—even if they’re merely links to services provided to alumni by the campus Career Center, or a third-party provider. And a regular e‑mail newsletter is a must, to drive traffic to your websites. 

But your question is about “exploring,” which implies testing out new tools. Some new ones are becoming “must-haves” in my opinion, but associations seem slow to implement them. For example RSS feeds from web pages that are updated often. [I blogged this.] 

Another area to explore is “user-generated content,” which creates many of the headlines about the internet today. If you haven’t explored sites like YouTube or Wikipedia, or aren’t familiar with personal blogs, you need to learn about these areas. This is not only to see how your alumni are spending their time online, but to see how the web surfers have become the providers of content, instead of remaining passive consumers. A final area to explore would be the tools that allow people to share their personal or professional networks with one another—Friendster, Facebook, Classmates, LinkedIn, Xing, and so on.

There’s a reference list here, which shows at the very least the growth in this area.

Not all of these have direct relevance to alumni networks, but if you understand how people use these sites you’ll start to get your own ideas about the features or functions that your alumni might find worthwhile.