Alumni outputs and outcomes

Is it time to refocus our alumni energy?    

Dear Friends,  

Welcome to a new streamlined Alumni Friday! I am travelling to Toronto today for my own Alumni Reunion. I started thinking: How can we measure engagement success? I re-listened Brite Ideas podcast guest Nik Miller on alumni engagement metrics hosted by my friend Sandra Rincón. He said  something we all know: alumni engagement metrics often measure how busy we are as alumni-facing professionals – events, attendance – what if we measured alumni experience instead?  

Your challenge this week:  

Alumni-facing professionals: Consider the key outcomes – not just outputs!- for an event or initiative. How do you want alumni to feel? Check out these infographics linked to my academic articles to get some inspiration! How can alumni leaders be the connectors – linking constructs- to allow the outputs to become outcomes? For example, at my upcoming reunion, instead of a generic alumni social event on Friday night, we are organising an authentic student-inspired 80s/90s pub- as alumni volunteers, we are leading the event vision, making all the nostalgia pieces fit together!

Students and alumni: When I attended the Constructor University Alumni Day as the keynote last week, I was impressed by the engagement of students and alumni, especially their willingness to network with each other. Identify an alumni event (or campus event!) and consider what you hope to get from the event: meet alumni with careers in a field of interest, connect with the event speaker(s), gain new knowledge. Write this down before the event and reflect on how you feel about the event afterwards!

Yours with alumni positive energy,

Maria  

Photo: Constructing the future... of alumni engagement! Here’s to my latest keynote in Germany last week – always open to energizing you next alumni event – hit reply and we can discuss soon!