AIESEC UK Alumni AssociationCommunication Working Group

4th September 2008

Dan Cunningham & Carl Petrou

Communication

…if it’s going to be, it’s up to us!

Our Purpose

• Investigate and determine:

– How to effectively communication to our members

– How to gather and share data on members

– How to maintain information on our members

• Develop and maintain:

– A way to connect and re-connect with one another

Discussion:

What do we want/need from our communication platform(s)?

What do we need from our communication platform(s)?

1. Membership DatabaseKeeping an up-to-date database of all members

2. Working Group CommunicationsCollaboration, discussion, sharing documents, publicising activities and minutes

3. Newsletter / AnnouncementsFrom the Association / AIESEC – ideally with ability to send to a subset of users (e.g. London, recent graduates, job-seekers, etc.)

4. Events ManagementCalendar of events and activities, sending invites and reminders

5. Social networking(Re-)connecting users based on social connections

6. Professional networkingFinding professional contacts, job opportunities, etc.

7. External Web SitePublicising the activities of the association

Some Key Principles

• Keep it simple!

• Good Quality CommunicationConcise, clear, prompt, wide audience

• Democratic CommunicationEveryone should feel they have a voice and can add their input

• Don’t re-invent the wheelWe will favour the use of pre-existing tools over creating our own custom systems

• Non-exclusionaryWherever possible, people shouldn’t have to sign up for new on-line systems or social networks.

• Future-proofingIt will be possible to back-up, store copies offline or export communications from whatever systems we use so that we can easily migrate to new systems that are put in place.

What do we need from our communication platform(s)?

Currently using

1. Membership DatabaseKeeping an up-to-date database of all members + e-mail list of 149 alumni

2. Working Group CommunicationsCollaboration, discussion, sharing documents, publicising activities and minutes

3. Newsletter / AnnouncementsFrom the Association / AIESEC – ideally with ability to send to a subset of users (e.g. London, recent graduates, job-seekers, etc.)

4. Events ManagementCalendar of events and activities, sending invites and reminders

5. Social networking(Re-)connecting users based on social connections

6. Professional networkingFinding professional contacts, job opportunities, etc. nothing?

7. External Web SitePublicising the activities of the association

Our Proposal - WildApricot

Our Proposal

1. Membership DatabaseKeeping an up-to-date database of all members

2. Working Group CommunicationsCollaboration, discussion, sharing documents, publicising activities and minutes

3. Newsletter / AnnouncementsFrom the Association / AIESEC – ideally with ability to send to a subset of users (e.g. London, recent graduates, job-seekers, etc.)

4. Events ManagementCalendar of events and activities, sending invites and reminders +

5. Social networking(Re-)connecting users based on social connections +

6. Professional networkingFinding professional contacts, job opportunities, etc. +

7. External Web SitePublicising the activities of the association

A powerful web-based membership database and website system

Membership Application and Payment

Detailed User Profiles

Fully Searchable Members Database

Send HTML e-mails to any subset of members

Discussion Forums

Web Page Editing

Events Management

Pricing

Number of members Monthly Price = Annual Price

250 £12.50 £150.00

500 £25.00 £300.00

2000 £50.00 £600.00

• With 100+ members, that’s only between 30p and £1.50 per member per year!

• Not bad for access to a very powerful and easy-to-use communication and networking platform– (that doesn’t require anyone with technical skills to spend time re-

inventing the wheel!)

• (up to 50 members (1 admin) is free so we can test it out)

Our Proposal – WildApricot

+

– One integrated system for everything

– Very comprehensive searchable members database with rich profiles and custom fields – added value for alumni in terms of networking

– Ability to send e-mails / newsletters to subsets of users based on any search criteria (e.g. city, sector, membership level)

– No technical skills required by anybody

-

– New system

– Requires small membership fee

Discussion…

Appendices and Background Research

Contender 1: Facebook

Contender 1: Facebook

Key group features:– Members list– Group messages – Event invitations and reminders– Discussion boards

+– Unbeatable for viral marketing of events, attracting new alumni,

etc!– Already have 369+ members on our groups

-– Not everyone is on it (or wants to be!)

(especially older alumni)– E-mail list cannot be exported

Contender 2: LinkedIn

Contender 2: LinkedIn

Key group features:– Members list– Creates loose connection between members (so that

fellow members show up in LinkedIn people searches)

– Discussions (very basic)+

– Very popular and good for professional networking– Very rich user profiles (complete career history,

recommendations, etc.)-

– Each member needs to be approved

Contender 3: Google Group

Contender 3: Google Group

Key group features:– Fully-featured mailing list– Members list which can be exported

+– Anyone can send e-mails to the list– Members list can be exported

-– No way to send e-mails to a subset of the list (well,

we could set up several different groups and have people join those they are interested in)

Contender 4: Google Site

Contender 4: Google Site

Key group features:– Collaborative web editing (like a wiki, really easy)

• Collaborators can subscribe to site / page updates

– Integration with Google Calendar and Google Docs

+– Very easy and non-technical to edit web pages– Visible to the world– Great for a limited size group of editors

-– No fully-featured membership database– Each user needs to be manually added– Cannot be used to send e-mails / announcements– No access control / private members section

Proposal 1 – The Combo

Proposal 1 – The Combo

1. Membership DatabaseKeeping an up-to-date database of all members

2. Working Group CommunicationsCollaboration, discussion, sharing documents, publicising activities and minutes

3. Newsletter / AnnouncementsFrom the Association / AIESEC – ideally with ability to send to a subset of users (e.g. London, recent graduates, job-seekers, etc.)

4. Events ManagementCalendar of events and activities, sending invites and reminders

5. Social networking(Re-)connecting users based on social connections

6. Professional networkingFinding professional contacts, job opportunities, etc.

7. External Web SitePublicising the activities of the association

Proposal 1 – The Combo

+– Uses existing tools

that people are familiar and happy with

– Completely free

-– Wouldn’t have a

comprehensive membership database, just a basic list of names and e-mail addresses

– People might get confused

Proposal 1b – The Combo with basic PHP members database

Proposal 1b – The Combo with PHP

1. Membership DatabaseKeeping an up-to-date database of all members

2. Working Group CommunicationsCollaboration, discussion, sharing documents, publicising activities and minutes

3. Newsletter / AnnouncementsFrom the Association / AIESEC – ideally with ability to send to a subset of users (e.g. London, recent graduates, job-seekers, etc.)

4. Events ManagementCalendar of events and activities, sending invites and reminders

5. Social networking(Re-)connecting users based on social connections

6. Professional networkingFinding professional contacts, job opportunities, etc.

7. External Web SitePublicising the activities of the association

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Proposal 1b – The Combo with basic PHP members database

+– Almost free (perhaps

£2-3 per month for decent hosting)

– Comprehensive searchable membership database

– Can send e-mails to subsets of members

-– Lots of technical work

to set this up

– Reinventing the wheel

– Another system for people to sign up to

– People might still get confused by several systems being used

Communication Platforms – A comparison

Proposal 1 Proposal 1b Proposal 2

(per member per year) 0p < 30p 30p - £1.50

+ • Existing tools that people are happy using• Completely free

• Almost free• Comprehensive searchable members database• Can e-mail subsets of users

• One System• Comprehensive searchable members database• Can e-mail subsets of users• No technical skills needed

- • No comprehensive members database• People might get confused

• New system• Lots of technical work• Reinventing the wheel• People might get confused

• New system• Cost

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