EverTrue Loves the Loomis Chaffee Spring 2012 Alumni Magazine

I recently read an article on the Loomis Chaffee site via Twitter featuring accomplished Yoga teacher and writer Rebecca Pacheco, Founder of OmGal.com.  I met Rebecca earlier this spring through her brother Reece, a fellow alumnus of Brown and TechStars and CEO of NYC-based Shelby.tv.

I loved Rebecca’s story because it was a reminder of how many alumni are able to retrace the steps of their careers back to a single point of inspiration on campus.

When I finished the article, the cover of the Spring 2012 issue of the Loomis Chaffee Alumni Magazine caught my eye.   An iPhone viewing the historic campus via augmented reality, surrounded by social network logos, emoticons, and even a couple of “LOL’s” ?!? It was almost too good to be true! Historic institutions like Loomis are at the intersection of a rapidly changing social and mobile landscape and Dan Baxter’s illustration captured that.

5 Reasons to Make Sure Your Senior Class is on LinkedIn

Recently, our team caught @edudemic tweet a great article detailing the benefits of LinkedIn for students.

After a bit of reflecting on how to get more alumni on LinkedIn, we realized that an inDay for your Senior Class could be an answer, or at least a great start! Whether you have 6,000 soon-to-be young alumni at Ohio State University or 130 seniors at Kipp Houston High School, strongly encouraging your graduating class to join LinkedIn is a simple way to align your counseling, career and alumni relations & development offices.

Here are 5 reasons you can’t let your young alumni leave campus without their diplomas – and a LinkedIn account.

1) Captive Alumni - An institution’s influence over their youngest alumni falls once they leave campus. A basic student profile on LinkedIn takes a only a few minutes to complete before walking across the stage.

2) Lifetime Connection – If you get students to engage with LinkedIn before they leave campus, they will be more inclined to maintain their profile as they advance through their academic and professional careers. This means you won’t have to worry about “lost alumni.”

3) Reunion Planning – As a bonus, get seniors to join your LinkedIn alumni group. By investing now, you can be prepared to welcome them back on campus in 5 short years.

4) Career Networking – Walk graduates through an advanced search to find fellow alumni who work in the industry they aspire to work in. Make alumni connections happen.

5) EverTrue Integration – Through our partnership with LinkedIn, EverTrue extends LinkedIn networking capabilities through mobile. Meaning, with EverTrue, your alumni have a real-time global alumni network in their pocket.

Unfiltered Feedback About Your Online Alumni Community

I just received the e-mail below from a loyal alumnus of a New England institution.  Since starting EverTrue after serving as an alumni volunteer for 5 years, I have been overwhelmed by the support we’ve received from fellow alumni who are passionate about their school.  We’ve been equally saddened by alumni frustrations with the solutions available today.  It’s important for alumni associations to deploy tools that meet alumni where they live: in a world that is increasingly mobile and social.

We’ve hidden the school name, but many alumni could insert their institution in this e-mail and not be too far off.

Coincidentally, Andy Shaindlin touched on many of these points in his Huffington Post article titled “Will the Internet Obsolete Alumni Associations?”.  His article was published within hours of the e-mail below hitting our inbox.

Ever True!
Brent

Copied and pasted below is an excerpt from the email [ ] sent, along with the name of the Director of Alumni Relations.(The benefits listed even include linking “MySpace,” a clear indicator that they are not in touch with reality.) From a sales perspective, I consider this a potential “compelling event’ for EverTrue to educate a potential customer.

Alumni Events to Watch for at SXSW

Since March 1987, South by Southwest has grown from a small music festival of fewer than 700 attendees to a dynamic party of nearly 50,000 music, film and interactive media enthusiasts.

With a combination of large crowds, warm weather, and diverse attendees, ranging from high-powered corporate executives to aspiring entrepreneurs, SXSW is an outstanding forum for alumni events.

A group of Boston-based colleges and universities and a local startup accelerator are making the most of this opportunity to convene their communities over 2,000 miles from the Original Bay Area in Austin, Texas.

Check out our list of Boston Alumni Events to Watch for at SXSW!  Is your school hosting an event we should know about?

MIT Media Lab
Details: Friday, March 9th, 5-6PM, Hilton Austin Downtown | Open to SXSW Attendees

MIT Media Lab will kick off the first afternoon of SXSW with a panel presentation, including MIT Media Lab Director and Chair of the Creative Commons, Joichi Ito. The panel is to be followed by a hands-on-workshop and, as the event description notes, “a great party, all centered around what is new and exciting in and about the Media Lab, and how the different projects and the Lab as a whole connect to the world.” As part of the event, the MIT Media Lab hopes to build a platform for “enabling digital-physical games, art and silliness – all around the theme of connecting people, and having fun.”

TechStars
Details: Friday, March 9th, 8PM – “Party Turns Awkward”, TBA | Open to SXSW Attendees

While TechStars isn’t exactly a college, this accelerator takes its alumni events seriously. On opening night, TechStars aims to make some noise and to have fun at a location still to be determined. Be prepared for a celebration of entrepreneurship and meet TechStars Boston alumni including The Tap Lab, Kinvey and EverTrue!

Digital Harvard
Details: Sunday, March 13th, 6-8PM, The Parish | Open to All Harvard Affiliates

The Harvard Alumni Association is hosting a networking event that appeals to both creative and business focused alumni. With presentations from faculty, demonstrations from thought leaders in the interactive space and plenty of networking opportunities, over 250 alumni and friends have already registered for Harvard’s inaugural SXSW gathering. Attendees will also enjoy a Harvard metaLab social game at the close of the event!

Berklee College of Music
Details: Friday, March 18th, 1PM | Friends Bar

Is music more your thing? Berklee, well known for producing some of the world’s most talented and skilled musicians, is showcasing their talent at their Sixth Annual Official SXSW Party. Be on the lookout for standout performances from high-energy rock and roll band Aloud, fiery string quartet Art Decade, and electrified psychedelic string soul band the Boston Boys.

Is there an alumni event that you are excited about at SXSW? Let us know!

Grow Your LinkedIn Alumni Group By 5PM Today

There are over 86,000 alumni groups on LinkedIn catering to traditional high school and college alumni groups, and a wide range of corporate alumni including McKinsey (7,800 members), Goldman Sachs (8,800 members) and Bain & Company (5,600 members).

Yet, most of these groups grow organically at a slow pace, and few count more than 20% of their global alumni population as members.

Over the last four years, Bowdoin College Alumni has grown to 3,100 members representing 17% of Bowdoin’s 18,000-person global alumni community. However, there are 8,500 Polar Bears on LinkedIn.

Why haven’t more than 35% of Bowdoin alumni on LinkedIn joined the group?

Bowdoin’s doing much better than most.

• 30% of Carnegie Mellon alumni on LinkedIn have joined Carnegie Mellon Alumni.
• 25% of Brown University alumni on LinkedIn have joined Brown Alumni Association.
• And while Princeton touts an industry-leading 60%+ alumni giving participation rate, only 12% of Princeton alumni on LinkedIn have joined Princeton University – Alumni Association.

Alumni LinkedIn Group Participation Rate

So what gives?

One of the challenges is that discovery of alumni groups is difficult amidst a sea of over one million LinkedIn groups.

But there is a very easy, FREE way to grow your LinkedIn group in just a few minutes. Here’s how:

Step 1 – Select Your Alumni Group

Step 6 – Watch your Group Grow!

If you try the steps above, please let us know what kind of uplift you see in your alumni group membership.

If you’re interested in learning more about how LinkedIn groups can help you engage your alumni community, please listen to the free webinar below, or send us an e-mail at marketing@evertrue.com.

Ever True!
Brent

Get Hired in 2012 – Alumni Edition

This weekend, Career Coach Ellyn Enisman was featured on CNN during a segment called “Get Hired in 2012”. It was a quick segment that reinforced common sense tactics for young alumni and experienced professionals in the midst of career searches.

Below, I have highlighted a few key points from Ellyn’s segment and offered our reaction to each:

Point #1: “The number one skill that you must have for this job market is networking skills”.

We strongly agree.  Though we would add that “this job market” could be adjusted to say “any job market”.

Point #2: “Build a contact list – your friends, your family, your relatives, including former colleagues, previous managers, teachers, et cetera”

We mostly agree.  We were surprised she didn’t mention including your alumni community as part of your network assessment.  Most schools have developed networking tools like the Tufts Career Network, Washington & Lee’s Colonnade Connections and Bowdoin College’s PolarNet.  While such systems are cited by alumni as often not being user-friendly or out of date, the data can be extremely valuable in developing a network.

In 2012, many schools are deploying mobile solutions to further enhance networking capabilities for alumni. For example, in less than eight months the Virginia Military Institute Alumni Association’s mobile app, has generated nearly 30,000 alumni profile views by extending data from Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge and NetCommunity to 18,000 “Keydet” alumni around the world.

Point #3: “Create a spreadsheet with everybody’s name, phone number and e-mail address”

We strongly disagree with Ellyn on this point.  Spreadsheets were great – in 1995!  In 2012, our recommendation would be to replace the spreadsheet with a strong professional profile on LinkedIn.

Like the print alumni directory and legacy donor database, spreadsheets are often out of date as soon as you finish updating an entry.  By connecting via social networks, profiles stay fresh and evolve as both you and your connections advance through your careers.

In addition to LinkedIn, we recommend exploring personal “CRM” tools to help make your personal contact book current and accessible.

I use both Connected and Gist.  Both integrate with Microsoft Outlook, Gmail and other popular e-mail contact systems.  Connected has a nice daily e-mail digest while Gist offers a very good mobile app.  That’s TechStars co-founder Brad Feld featured in the iTunes preview pic.

Point #4:  “Go to industry conferences. If you can’t afford to go, ask if you can volunteer”

This struck a chord with me. Shortly after founding EverTrue, I hoped to attend Venture Summit East at Harvard Business School.  The problem: the $1,250 price tag!  I contacted AlwaysOn President Marc Sternberg and offered to volunteer.  Marc accepted my offer, and for the first two days at the conference I spent several hours at the registration table.  Instead of chasing down potential advisors and investors, they came right to me!  At lunch, I sat with Boston venture-capitalist Jeff Bussgang.  Jeff introduced me to both WHERE CEO Walt Doyle and Boston.com Innovation Economy writer Scott Kirsner.

Just days later, EverTrue began working out of WHERE’s office in the North End, and Scott Kirsner profiled EverTrue’s mobile alumni app in the Globe!

Networking works.

For more tips like this, follow Ellyn on twitter @CollegetoJob and us @evertrue.  An abbreviated version of the CNN segment is viewable below.

Ever True!
Brent

Battling Young Alumni Unemployment

“It’s tough out there”.

As the class of 2007 gets underway with 5^th reunion gift campaigns across the country, we’ve been reflecting on the impact the macroeconomic roulette wheel can have on different graduating classes.

Reunion gift campaigns are never easy, but things are particularly challenging amidst 200,000 job losses in the financial sector this year alone.

Contrast this economic backdrop with graduation day five years ago and Fortune Magazine’s proclamations that “right now is about as good as it gets”.

How quickly things change.

And while the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that employment rates are slowly improving, many recent graduates, particularly those younger than 25, continue to struggle as they kick off their young careers.

This is demonstrated most starkly by the Federal Reserve’s recent announcement that 8.8% percent of students scheduled to begin repaying their loans in 2009 defaulted in 2010, versus the 4.6% percent student loan default rate in 2005.

With all of these challenges, what can your school to do to support young alumni?

70% of all jobs are found through networking. For generations, many alumni have turned to our strongest networking community: our Alma Mater.

The strength of this connection helped one of our most recent employees, Harvey Simmons, land his first startup gig at Accel-backed professional networking startup BranchOut. While he corresponded with the company’s Marketing Manager, a Boston College alumnus, their ability to share the common bond of their undergraduate experience opened the door. That alumni bond made a difference in his job search process and endured throughout his time with the organization, contributing to a great internship experience.

According to Harvey, this type of alumni interaction makes him WANT to donate to Boston College.

Here at EverTrue, nearly 80% of our team joined our company as a direct result of networking.

But alumni networking isn’t always easy. Being able to effectively approach and speak with the right people at the right time requires a certain level of skill, finesse and technology. Alumni offices can help through collaboration with your peers in Career Services.

Since his graduation, Harvey has shared that many of his peers in Boston are able to connect with fellow Eagles through their strong alumni relations office at BC.

But what about alumni who don’t move to major markets after graduation? It’s easy to quickly feel disconnected from your institution, resources and network.

Even three years ago this disadvantage would have been very hard to overcome.  There was no user-friendly way to discover alumni in my area who work at companies and industries that are of interest to me.

We’ve heard from many alumni relations professionals that it’s common to receive a call from a young alum asking for a list of “investment bankers in New York” or “lawyers in Chicago”?  We’ve also heard that it can be time consuming to query your databases to deliver the required reports back to your job-seeking graduates.

EverTrue has been working hard to pioneer location-based alumni networking.  Mobile technology offers the ability to convert a shelf of outdated print alumni directories into an incredibly powerful, intuitive alumni networking mobile app available for iOS (iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch) and Android devices, with our HTML5 mobile web app coming soon.

By working closely with the education and engineering teams at LinkedIn to deeply integrate our platform with their professional graph, EverTrue has built an unmatched alumni networking tool with accurate industry and company data that massively exceeds the quality of information stored in your legacy Harris Connect system.

We founded EverTrue because our alumni networks have made a profound impact on our lives.  We come to work every day with a commitment to support the professional growth of your graduates by blending the strong tradition of alumni networking with cutting edge mobile and social technology.

If you’d like to learn how you can help combat young alumni unemployment through our location-based alumni networking and our integration with LinkedIn, please reach out to us at info@evertrue.com.

Ever True!

Brent

Introducing the iGift – Apple’s $10,000 Matching Gift Program

Most of Apple’s big announcements have to do with new product innovations.  Yesterday,  Tim Cook shared details about Apple‘s commitment to match employee gifts to non-profits up to $10,000 per year.  This is a fantastic initiative and it seems fitting given Apple’s historical roots in education and other non-profit verticals.

We are big fans of Apple products, and announcements like this make us even bigger fans of Apple as a company.

If every employee took full advantage of this, it would generate $466 million in matching contributions!

We know that advancement teams and development officers all over the country smile upon discovering new matching gift programs.  We thought it would be fun to see which schools have the most to gain by Apple’s recent announcements.  By using LinkedIn’s “Statistics” feature, we were able to quickly see the top 5 academic institutions attended by Apple employees.

All in, it was a good day for many of the California schools that send a steady stream of candidates to Cupertino.  Best of luck to the advancement teams at San Jose State,  Stanford, Berkeley, Texas and Cal Poly.

We learned some other fun facts about Apple.  Approximately 60% of Apple’s 46,000 employees have profiles on LinkedIn.  Of the 27, 356 employees with LinkedIn profiles:

• - 43% have 10 years or less of work experience (young alumni giving!)
• - 60% attained a Bachelor’s Degree
• - 31% attained a Master’s Degree
• - They currently have 28 open jobs listed

To learn more about Apple’s employees, see the full Statistics page here.

Does your institution have alumni who work at Apple?  What are other leading matching gifts programs you’re aware of?

Ever True!

Brent

Know Your Alumni – Back to School Edition

As is the case with any business, as school leaders you need to “know your customer”.  From prospective parents to current students to alumni spanning over 60 class years, schools must effectively segment their customer to maintain what we hope will be a lifelong relationship.

As “Back to School” season gets underway, we were excited to come across a very neat video overview of the college Class of 2015, prepared by Mr. Youth.

For college alumni relations & development professionals, it’s a neat way to get to know your newest future alumni…and to start investing your time and resources accordingly.

For high school advancement teams, it’s a strong reminder that the traditional alumni magazine has to be complemented by a multi-channel alumni communications strategy that is firmly rooted in social media and mobile technology.

Mr. Youth created a white paper that we recommend you download and share with your communications team.  Key highlights include the following:

Of the 5,000 incoming students surveyed:

- 75% take and upload photos via their mobile device
- 67% access Facebook via their smartphone
- 59% visit Facebook during class
- Only 13% will subscribe to a cable TV package

How do you think about balancing tailoring your communications strategies to align with the preferences of different generations of alumni?  Are you considering utilizing mobile apps for alumni engagement and communication purposes?

For the full report from Mr. Youth, please visit this link.

Ever True!

Brent

Apple by the Numbers in 2011