We are delighted to announce that the Konnect Alumni Conference is at capacity and we will have a full house of attendees and speakers next Friday in Iveagh House.
Continue reading “Konnect Alumni Conference – One week to go…”
Our guest blogger this week is Kingsley Aikins. Kingsley has worked with over 20 countries helping develop their Diaspora strategies, including the 4 leading countries of Ireland, India Israel and China. Prior to setting up Diaspora Matters he worked for the Ireland Funds for 21 years based in Sydney, Boston and Dublin.
When I got into this field, I didn’t know what the word diaspora meant. I thought it was something you took two of with a headache. The word actually has Greek origins, ‘dia’ meaning over and ‘speiro’ meaning scattering. The word was traditionally associated with the Jews and Israel, but in recent years the notion of diaspora has gone mainstream. In 1990, there were 150 million people living in a country other than the one they were born in. Today, that number is over 240 million people. Every country possesses, in varying degrees, ‘Diaspora Capital’ which is made up of flows of people, knowledge and finance.
So, obviously, I believe Diaspora Matters. The information age is over and we now live in the networked age. In this new world the measurement of power is connectedness. So, connecting matters, too and for Universities, colleges, schools and institutions it really matters. An interesting way to look at this field is to change our vocabulary and to refer to Universities having Diasporas and countries having alumni. The same principles of networking apply to both.
I’m really excited about the Konnect Alumni conference taking place this November in Dublin. The initiative shown by KonnectAgain, a small Irish company less than a year old, in organising this world class conference, bringing world leaders in alumni relations and technology together is fantastic. Four young people from Ireland are trying to bring this discipline into the 21st century, and I know they have a huge future.
KonnectAgain understands the importance of networking, and they apply the concept, using technology to engage alumni with content that is relevant. For me, networking is the most important skill in business. It is not taught at University, and I’m not sure why. Networking is all about building long-term sustainable relationships. Networking is about being world class listeners. There is a problem in the world we live in; people only listen to prepare what they want to say next, rather than to hear what the other person is saying. This, I believe is the crux of the problem with alumni relations, and why it performs so poorly. Less than 1% of graduates donate back to Irish institutions. In the United States, where alumni relations is perceived to be successful, it is still only at 10%.
Alumni relations departments need to become world class listeners. They need to hear what their alumni are doing. They need to know where in the world they are. They need to know what interests they have. They need to know how influential they are. If alumni relations departments listen, and understand their alumni, they will network better. They will connect better, and ultimately build a long term sustainable relationship.
KonnectAgain understands the importance of engagement and the importance of networking. The conference they are holding next month is an example of this. Where else can alumni directors from Ireland meet and network with alumni directors from Stanford and Durham? The industry needs rejuvenation. KonnectAgain is facilitating the first step. They are building a global network of alumni relations professionals. They are bringing them together in one room to discuss the future of the industry. It is now up to you, to build a long term sustainable relationship with that network.
If you want to learn from the best, improve your alumni relations and be part of this global network, I’d suggest you get a ticket!
I look forward to meeting with you on November 14th.
K
We are delighted to announce that KonnectAgain has been named as semi-finalists in a whopping 5 categories at the 2014 Web Awards!
KonnectAgain is shortlisted for the Best New Web App, the Best Website of a Startup, the Best SME Website, the Most Beautiful Website and the Most Innovative Website.
A huge thanks to all the judges with the tough job of trawling through thousands of Irish websites! We’re delighted and really looking forward to the finalists being announced next week – fingers crossed!
Today we are highlighting three amazing societies between the UK and Ireland. All three are steeped in awards and have a great story to tell.
1. UCC Entrepreneurial and Social Society
The UCC Entrepreneurial & Social society was founded by Sam Fitzpatrick in 2008. What started off as a group of likeminded people getting together on a regular basis, has now grown into UCC’s largest student society. We run a range of events every year to cover both the social side of things, and entrepreneurship – so that includes talks from high calibre Entrepreneurs as well as some fresh, innovative and fun Social events.
E&S is committed to bringing the top entrepreneurs in Ireland to visit UCC and share their stories of success with the students. Some highlights in the society’s past year include Bill Cullen, Joe.ie’s Niall McGarry, Sean Gallagher, Lovin Dublin’s Niall Harbison and more.
Last year we launched the inaugural Irish Student’s Startup Weekend which saw teams comprised of students nationwide, commit to developing a business from scratch over 3 days! We held a successful innov8 week with prominent Irish leaders sharing their story, as well as travelling up to Dublin for the electrifying WebSummit event, getting the chance to speak with world renowned entrepreneurs.
But like everyone, E&S also has a fun (Social) side. In the past few years we have hosted some hugely successful events like the UCC Winter Break (which went to Amsterdam last year), The Iron Stomach Competition, themed club nights in Cork’s top nightclubs, and stand-up comedy acts such as Bernard O’Shea. E&S parties hard, and this year will be bigger and better than ever with a large number of secret events over the course of the year in store!
It’s great to see people that were involved with E&S in the past to go on and work on amazing projects. From LinkedIn, to founding their own startup, E&S provides a solid base to set up your future success. We recognise the power of Alumni relations, and it’s great to be able to reach out to people that have been in your spot before and take on their advice and just get to know them in general!
So check out our site at http://www.ucceands.com and add us on Facebook. Make sure you join in on the fun and party your way to being a billionaire.
And don’t forget – No Risk, No Reward
2. DCU Media Production Society
Dublin City University Media Production Society (DCU MPS) is one of DCU’s oldest societies. 30 years ago, the society was established to create and develop media in all its forms. This has come to include video, radio, graphic design, web design and many more over the years. With brief lulls in its existence over the past 30 years, today it is one DCU’s largest and most successful societies.
Over the past 5 years it has won 2 BICS awards, 2 Best Society in DCU awards, Best DCU Event, Best DCU Marketing and others.
As this is an important year in the society’s history, we are very keen to look back at the history of the society and at our alumni. So far we have made contact with several of the founders, some of whom are running things at a top level in RTE and other organisations. Trying to discover where we came from has become an important goal for the coming year and hopefully we can achieve this.
3. Enactus Manchester
Enactus Manchester is a growing volunteering society made up of university students who aim to improve the lives of those in need both here in the UK and internationally through entrepreneurship. Our projects use practical business solutions to tackle real-life problems that hinder communities.
Not only do we invest in local projects, but we have also had tremendous success in our international efforts within Ghana through empowering women to build social enterprises to improve the quality of life in the area.
Enactus offers students the opportunity to develop leadership, teamwork and communication skills. For some, it offers the opportunity to apply their academic skills to real-life scenarios, for others it provides the unique opportunity to gain practical business skills that they would not otherwise obtain from their degree.
All of our student volunteers are ambitious and committed to their personal development and improving the livelihoods of hundreds in the process.
Speak Up!
peak Up runs English lessons with the aim of tackling one of Manchester’s main issues, social isolation of immigrants.
Manchester has more than double the national average of people who do not speak English as their first language. This inability to speak English and their lack of confidence to try has deeply affected their quality of life.
Recognizing this problem, we engaged in a collaborative effort with Gorton Mount, a local primary school to organize lessons for parents. All our volunteers undergo training by the university’s language centre and Teach First. We are currently in the process of expanding to a second school in Manchester.
Spot Finance
Over half of our young people are in debt and see a credit card or overdraft as a way of extending their spending power. We want to educate our young people to equip them with the financial knowledge and skills they need to make the right financial decisions and provide them options in the current economic climate.
Through our SPOT Finance project, we target 16-18 year olds in the local community to teach them how to manage their personal finances. Through workshops we teach students topics such as: Interest and Savings, Budgeting and How to set up a Business. This year we held a total of 8 workshops across 2 schools in the Greater Manchester area, reaching between 40 and 45 students.
Boost Consulting
£730 million in funding has been cut in the voluntary sector since 2011 and an additional £1 billion is to be cut by 2018. With limited resources social organizations faced great difficulties in running their activities.
Boost is a social consultancy group specialising in business and marketing strategies as well as IT solutions. Currently we have 45 student consultants working with 8 different organizations.
The consultancy process begins by matching students and university alumni to organisations relative to their strengths and experiences. We work closely with our clients to ensure that they understood the solutions and that knowledge is being transferred sustainably. Feedback and evaluation is continuous throughout and we have had a great deal of success. Particularly with ‘Healthy Me Healthy Communities’ an organisation running health related activities for schools, councils and local communities, which made a turnover of £75,000 with help from our students.
Hope Givers
There is a large inequality in Ghana between the North and the South, the North has poverty levels in the region of 70% and the overall average for the country is 29%.
We met Linda in the small Northern town of Biniba. She was an aspiring social entrepreneur but lacked the skills to build her Shea butter making business. Through training sessions our students have taught Linda key business skills and concepts to help her move forward. We have also provided her with a micro-finance loan of £2000, fundraised by our society, to provide the women with the machinery and materials needed to make the Shea butter.
The next stage of the project is moving into marketing and selling the product for a profit with the hopes of providing the women with a sustainable income and improving the quality of life of them and their families.
Upcoming Projects
We are at the early stages of collaborating with a team of Manchester alumni currently working in Malawi building schools, using cheaper building technology.
We are also setting up our own commercial project to ensure a sustainable income for the society.
The Enactus year ends with the overall competition beginning Nationally and ending at Enactus World Cup. Teams present the progress of their projects to a panel of judges who determine which teams had the most impact improving the quality of life and standard of living of their beneficiaries. This competitive process creates a ‘best-practice’ sharing environment and is aimed at fostering a healthy spirit of competition. When we compete to change lives, we all win.
E
ngineers Without Borders UCL (EWB-UCL) is the university chapter of EWB UK- an organisation which aims to promote human development through the use of engineering and appropriate technology. The UCL branch was formed in the 2010-11 academic year, and has since grown continuously in terms of both members and projects. In addition to hosting international development events the society now has a portfolio of member-led projects, through which teams of students work collaboratively with NGO partners and a London-based professional network of engineers to facilitate change in the developing world.
As a society we believe that by following the principles of EWB, students at UCL – both in engineering and otherwise – can not only further their own understanding of international development to the benefit of their own careers, but also make a real difference to communities in the developing world. To do so, we have been developing and implementing co-design methodologies in our projects with the intention of promoting local capacity for change, and developing in a sustainable and responsible manner.
In 2013-14, the society had 150 members, 23 of whom were involved with five international projects in Brazil, Ethiopia, Kenya and Mexico.
In Brazil, an EWB-UCL team has been working alongside local NGO Veracidade for two years to develop a prototype aquaponics system which recycles nutrients and water to produce both fish and crops for local communities in a sustainable manner. Over the coming years, the team will continue to monitor the success of the prototype, and assist Veracidade with the scaling up of the technology to further communities in Brazil.
The project team in Ethiopia was formed in 2013-14 and has been working with the Ethiopian Centre for Disability and Development (ECDD) to improve water and sanitation at a school for the blind. The team will be continuing this work over the coming academic year with members of the professional network at Mott MacDonald with the aim of presenting designs for a new toilet block at the school to the Regional Education Bureau. As of the 2013-14, the society has had two teams working with communities to facilitate improvement to water and sanitation in Kenya. Our partnerships with Muungano Support Trust and Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor focus mostly on re-developing slums and informal settlements through the provision of sanitation facilities, along with promoting various sanitation solutions to the communities with limited or no access to these basic services.
In Mexico, a team has been working with local NGO IRRI-Mexico to engage communities in the operation and maintenance of several rainwater harvesting systems. In 2014-15 a team will continue to maintain these systems as well as assessing the potential for their expansion into further communities in the region.
In addition to the continuation of these projects the society is currently engaging with NGOs and industry partners with the view to establishing further collaborative work with communities in the Philippines, Mozambique, India, and Peru. In our constant striving for improvement the society seeks to increasingly draw upon the extensive professional network in order to produce work of a quality which meets the standards of the industry. Importantly, we are also seeking to diversify membership beyond the engineering programmes – with these inter-disciplinary teams comes new perspectives which can not only benefit the student members, but also produce a better development process for communities. As a university society, forming a stronger connection with our alumni would be an extremely valuable resource for a number of reasons. This could provide us with the opportunity to update former members and otherwise on the progress of our society, and the exciting projects we are undertaking. We are also always seeking a greater knowledge base from which to draw and improve the work that we do – we feel that our alumni could be a valuable resource in this sense. Finally, as a charity any fundraising ideas or resources which could be offered by our alumni would be hugely beneficial to the society, and therefore this connection could be crucial in the continuation of expansion of our work in the developing world.
We’re kicking off Alumni Week and featuring some of Ireland and the UK’s best college societies over the next five days!
To start, we have three top notch societies from Irish Universities:
1. Enactus DCU
What is Enactus? – A community of student, academic and business leaders committed to using the power of entrepreneurial action to transform lives and shape a better more sustainable world.
Enactus DCU is one of the most successful Enactus societies in the country. The society has won the Enactus Ireland national competition for the past 2 years running, and Enactus DCU has represented Ireland and DCU at the Enactus World Cup in Cancun and Washington.
The current chair of Enactus DCU is due to travel to Beijing this year to represent her society at the Enactus World Cup 2014.
Enactus DCU currently runs 3 social enterprises and intends on starting a further 2 more over the coming year. The society runs HeadstARTS, exposing the arts to those with intellectual disabilities, Footsteps, a training programme and employment agency for the disabled and a Groovy fair-trade Afro-Irish men’s accessory and clothing line.
The society has ambitions for the coming year to double it’s membership and starting a further 2 social enterprises. Enactus DCU realises the value of it’s alumni and last year, the society funded their recruitment at clubs and societies day from Alumni donations.
2. UCC Hope Foundation Society
The Hope Foundation society was created in 2011 with the help of Shane McCarthy (BIS 4) who was the first Auditor. Even though the Hope Foundation is a very well known charity, The Hope Foundation Society was the first and still, the only society as of now to represent the Hope Foundation charity at a college level.
The society strives to get students involved in the Society and show how their work can improve the standard of living for the children in Kolkata.
This year the Hope Foundation Society has a number of events in the mix. One of the major events UCC Hope Foundation are looking forward to is the UCC Apprentice. An event which involved the co-operation of the E&S Society and the Hope Foundation Society. Teams of at least 4 have 24 hours to sell as many Butlers Chocolate bars to companies to raise funds in aid of the Hope Foundation. Last year was huge success with over €9000 been collected thanks to 16 teams.
UCC Hope Foundation thinks it is very important for societies to be in contact with alumni. There are many people out there who would like to support charities. The Hope Foundation definitely comes under this bracket. Their sponsorship and support would be greatly appreciated. The work that the Hope Foundation does with the children of Kolkata in India is amazing and should not be underestimated. The results of their work are seen on the faces of the children in Kolkata, who get a better way of life thanks to the work of the Hope Foundation.
3. The Enterprise Society – DCU
The Enterprise Society (Esoc) was set up in 2010 by an ambitious group of students eager to make a change on their campus. With the idea of ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’, the society introduced events on a scale never before seen on university campuses.
In its first year, the society became DCU’s biggest and didn’t disappoint from there; introducing entrepreneurial competitions such as DCU’s Apprentice and Dragons’ Den, as well as top class guest speakers. This ambitious bunch also reached new heights in their social events; introducing what remains DCU’s biggest social event: The Business & Enterprise Ball, as well as many other sell out events throughout the academic year.
Today, Esoc is still pushing boundaries with some of the biggest student events in Ireland. We have great speakers and mentors lined up for our entrepreneurial events – recognised individuals on a national level, our B&E Ball is ever-growing with the ethos of ‘bigger and better’, and our latest charity event, The DCU Beg Borrow Steal is captivating audiences nationwide. Keep an eye out for the Beg Borrow Steal in November when 20 teams of 2 will race from DCU to Edinburgh via 4 UK checkpoints with no money – simply relying on the kindness of strangers!
An influential past member of your society?
Our founder, Max Rantz-McDonald played a massive role in the society’s success. He instilled the motivation and ambition in Esoc’s first committee in 2010 and now, 4 years later, that ambition is still flowing – even though only one of us has met him personally!
Why we’re trying to Connect.
Our huge catalogue of events provide great memories and opportunities for the students of DCU, but we don’t want to settle. We’re always looking out for experienced people who can help us in any way possible. They could be our next guest speaker, they might like to offer advice or they might like to support with sponsorship – everything helps!
Jayne and Helen travelled back to San Francisco last week acquiring more exciting customers and securing further investment. During their trip we were delighted to see KonnectAgain featuring a lot in the Irish media.
Siliconrepublic featured KonnectAgain as their Tech start-up of the week last week. Check out the article here.
Head Honcho Jayne was named as one of ‘The 30 under 30 shaping Ireland’s future’ in the Sunday Independent where they described her as “a consummate networker and the brains behind KonnectAgain, a software system which helps universities to connect with and keep track of alumni with fundraising in mind. “
Jayne featured alongside some of Ireland’s top young entrepreneurs including John & Patrick Collison, Paul Kenny and Patrick Leddy. “It’s really exciting to feature as one of the 30 most influential young people in Irish business today” said Jayne, Co-founder and CEO of KonnectAgain.
For the company, this coverage is really exciting and encouraging as we continue to move fast acquiring new customers and finalising the platform for launch in the coming weeks.
Following up on sales leads and investors who we met in June as part of Enterprise Ireland’s Access Silicon Valley programme, Jayne and Helen travelled back to San Francisco last week. We are delighted to announce that KonnectAgain has acquired more exciting US customers and secured further investment from US investors from this latest trip!
Our expansion into the US is moving fast, with the possibility of a US sales office opening before the end of the year – stay tuned!
Over the past six months we have spent the majority of our time researching and learning from the top universities in the world and figuring out exactly what it is that differentiates them from the rest when it comes to alumni relations.
We wanted to understand why everyone knows about the Harvard alumni and why Stanford brings in hundreds of millions in donations every year. What exactly is it that they do that is different to everyone else.
That difference or secret ingredient that we found they had over the rest is ENGAGEMENT.
The very best universities create and establish strong foundations with their alumni that are built not just on their relationship with the college but on interests and topics that are relevant to each individual alumnus. Think about it, would you be more likely to engage and donate back to your university if they provided you with interesting content that you can view where you want and when you want.
It comes down to a simple concept explained below by Gary Vaynerchuk. Sometimes you have to see the bigger picture, don’t lead with an ask, in this case a donation. Instead if you can provide something of value for alumni, be it an event or interesting content, build up that relationship and then ask for donations, and your results will more likely be far greater. That is the best way to get the attention of your audience and create an engaged community of alumni.
After conducting research for the last 6 months we now have a greater understanding of the global university sector, some fantastic mentors and most importantly an understanding of the different trends in alumni relations. What we have learned has helped us implement and tailor our platform to give alumni officers the best software to help engage their alumni and manage them effectively to ensure both sides get the most from the relationship.
We want to help foster and improve the alumni culture in Ireland and we feel that sharing this information with Irish universities will help improve that engagement.
Here at KonnectAgain we have decided to host a conference that is solely dedicated to discussing the differences in alumni relations around the world. Topics will include what are the major challenges and different solutions, the future trends of alumni relations and how do we maximize our return on our investment in alumni.
We want to give all alumni officers attending the opportunity to learn from industry leaders and other alumni officers experiences. It is an opportunity to have conversations and share insights with a large number of people with the same goals. We will facilitate those discussions and help you take how you manage your alumni to the next level.
For more information visit www.konnectagain.com to request a demo or more information.
Our guest blogger this week is Connor Murphy, Founder of DataHug. DataHug works with companies internal contacts, emails, and relationships with clients and leverages that data to find the best way to connect and engage people. Here’s his two cents on alumni..
Let’s be honest, nobody’s dream job is to work at McKinsey or any of these “large firms” for that matter. They want to be Ex-McKinsey, let me explain why…
For most, McKinsey is the vehicle to getting somewhere else in your career. Yes you want to enjoy the journey but smart, ambitious and talented people also want to ensure that the journey helps them get to somewhere even better (or at least increase their odds of getting to where they want to go when they have figured it out). However both sides can see huge benefits from this if they are willing to look at it from an opportunist’s perspective.
The process generally goes as follows, first, McKinsey has access to some of the best new talent available when they graduate, which they can hire and help develop for a number of years while utilising their fresh perspective on the problems they face. While some do stay others then move on to be entrepreneurs, managers in top technology firms or very senior positions in the largest companies in the world.
So why do graduates choose McKinsey when a lot of previous graduates have moved on? How do McKinsey use this to their advantage? And what are the parallels between what they do and alumni management?
McKinsey have a fantastic alumni management system that monitors everyone from the very first day they become a new employee right until the end of their career, wherever they end up. They understand that sometimes they are a stepping stone to other things but instead of seeing it as a loss to the company, they celebrate the success of their alumni as they progress throughout their career, and emphasize how McKinsey helped get them there.
They have an amazing ability to brand these successes as products of their own ‘graduate academy’, something which many new graduates see. When ambitious people are looking at how they can climb the ladder they tend to look at the paths of people who are already in positions of success and attempt to mimic those paths as routes to their own success.
Some of McKinsey’s successful alumni include: Wolfgang Bernhard (Chairman of Volkswagen), Henrique De Castro (Former Google Exececutive & Chief Operating Officer at Yahoo), Bernard T. Ferrari ( Dean of Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School) and James McNerney (Chairman and CEO of Boeing), see here for a full list.
The above means that McKinsey have an already captive audience of the top graduates looking to apply for positions in the company, ensuring they have a huge competitive advantage over other companies when it comes to recruiting graduates. Thus always ensuring that they always have one of the most skilled and successful workforces worldwide.
There can be huge parallels between what McKinsey and alumni officers do if they take the same approach to managing their alumni. Managing your alumni from the outset will help you build a rapport with students before they even leave, making it easier to engage them once they have left. Like at McKinsey, alumni officers should, where possible, celebrate the success of their alumni with them as it’s helps build very strong relationships. If you can manage your alumni the way McKinsey do, not only do you guarantee yourself a much more engaged alumni base but you also increase the demand and calibre of people applying to your institution. You too can create a captive audience of excellentnsecond level students if you promote the success stories of your past.
You can’t judge a company or university on their current employees or students. The best place to learn about the culture, values and impact an organisation or institution has had is to look at their outputs, i.e. their alumni. KonnectAgain can be hugely beneficial in helping you build this picture as it gives you the most accurate and insightful picture of what an organisation’s alumni population looks like. It helps you engage, manage and understand this valuable cohort so you can maximise both the benefits you give and get in return. As they say, history is the greatest predictor of the future…
KonnectAgain 