Futuristic Alumni Management Software – What It will be Like..

Managing an alumni association is a complex task these days. Physical endeavours are rapidly being replaced by computerized procedures. The most common tasks being assigned to computers these days are maintaining –

•    Member lists segregated year and discipline wise
•    Region wise mailing lists for newsletters and event notification
•    Periodical updating of lists, member profiles and employment information and
•    Managing communications like mails, emails and SMS

Over the years the process of alumni management has become too complicated. They are today the principal point for exchanging ideas, discussing a wide range of national/international issues, employment, families and deciding career related issues.

Typical software like spread sheets, database managers and document programs are not adequate considering the vast amount of data that has to be handled. What is needed is dedicated alumni software that will perform most functions intuitively. It has to be user friendly so that even those who are not experts at using computers can benefit from it.

Here is what futuristic software for managing alumni will be expected to have –

•    Handle videos and audio file
•    Be cloud use compatible
•    Receive email communication
•    Send automated email to members
•    Chat, forum  and blog post features
•    Likeability with social media like Facebook and LinkedIn
•    Group discussion features
•    Abuse prevention management abilities
•    SMS integration for effective management
•    Newsletter creation features…and others

Software for managing alumni association will be ideal if they are capable of being used for disseminating information and for organizing guest lectures. In addition they should also be capable of creating a large repository of knowledge base in the form of essays, news clips, and more.

Top Five Reasons - Why you should probably join an Alumni Online Community

Have you been recommended by your friends to join an Alumni Online Community? Do you have any questions? Well, we’d like to say, joining an Alumni Association can be really fun and interesting. Given below are a few good reasons why you should probably join an Alumni group:

Networking: An Alumni Association can help you stay connected with friends and colleagues who are members in the same group. Just register yourself in the group and enjoy a range of benefits. Discuss about your academic projects with classmates, get some useful suggestions from your seniors, ask questions to teachers, or plan a reunion with your old buddies.

News: Get instant updates on the recent developments and activities taking place in your institution including news, events, celebrations, and much more.

Creativity: There is no better way to improve one’s creativity than sharing or exchanging ideas. Each member in the group might have a unique idea. By staying hooked on to the Alumni online community, you get to pick the brains of the leaders and experienced faculties in your profession. This way, it helps improve your creativity and enhance your knowledge.

Leadership: Join an Alumni online association and utilize your leadership skills to motivate juniors and volunteers. Encourage them to take part in various events and cultural activities organized by your Alumni Association.

Pride: Being a part of an Alumni Association is a truly a matter of pride. This online community is one place where you can learn about your organization’s achievements and celebrate it with your fellow members. That’s definitely a matter of pride.

VIBURNIX - Alumni Engagement

Alumni engagement is clearly an emerging trend across Universities, Institutes, Colleges and Schools in India. We as the pioneers in the field of Alumni relations believe that your Alumni office should be at the core function of your organization. In the global environment, it is imperative to bring together the alumni of your institute to harness the power of Alumni relations while building your Brand.

With a sharp focus on providing innovative, affordable and scalable solutions for Educational Institutions, our software product ‘Viburnix’ (www.viburnix.com) has taken the lead in this area.

Some of our prestigious clients include Faculty of Management Studies (University of Delhi), Birla Institute of Management Technology, Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, IIT Delhi Department of Management Studies, Harvard Business School (OPM39) and IIM Ahmedabad.

The elegantly designed alumni portal can be integrated with your existing website infrastructure requiring minimal change management. This amazingly flexible system will offer a look and feel that suits the identity of the institution and helps build a powerful brand image.

For Further Details, please contact Ms. Aanchal Mehra – Program Director at aanchal.mehra@saviance.com, Phone No. : +91-9899762265.

VIburnix Certified Alumni Adminstrator Program

We are happy to extend an invitation to you for an exclusive Viburnix Certified Alumni Administrator Program on December 8th Saturday, 2012 at Gurgaon.

This Program helps Alumni Administrators and Alumni Cordinators to increase their competitive edge while demonstrating their commitment to advancing their professionalism and interests in the field of Alumni Relations. Additionally, this certification program provides you with access to many resources and benefits, such as the membership on the Alumni Leadership Community Portal and online training updates. Explore the benefits of certification—and start your journey to attaining the dream of gathering your alumni-flock under the wings of your brand Alma Mater! For more info visit : www.Viburnix.com

Top Management Institutes prefer Saviance’s Viburnix as Alumni Network Solution

Strengthening bonds with alumni results in more and more referrals to your institute, but this alumni management can be costly and time-consuming effort. Understanding the significance of alumni network management, Saviance Technologies brings its flagship product – Viburnix for institutes that wish to leverage their Alumni Network. Viburnix – alumni management software offers the most critical features that your alumni need to be in constant contact with one another, and presents to you a platform to communicate key information to them. This alumni system helps you create value for your institute as well as for your alumni community online.

Social networking, alumni database and donations are amongst some of the numerous benefits that Viburnix has to offer. Some of our successful implementations of Alumni relationship management solution in the past include: Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH), Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), The Harvard Club of India, The Global Wharton India Mentoring Network and The British School to name a few. To highlight: Our recent client acquisition includes Premier Management Institutes of India.

All of these institutes had the same yet a unique goal when they came to us and that was, ‘A comprehensive alumni portal to reach out to their entire past and current student community and engage them with the current updates and happenings at their Alma mater.’ We provided all of our clients with many Social Networking features like Blogs, Discussions, Photo Galleries and Events. We created an Alumni Portal design as per their requirements using our Alumni Product – Viburnix. The successful implementation resulted in substantial benefits for both the alumni and the institute.

Many more such success stories have made Viburnix the best solution when it comes to “alumni” and any association with it. 

Alumni Associations: Leveraging Intangible Assets

Saviance Technologies has announced its next Alumni Leadership MasterClass to be held on 23rd August, 2012. This class focuses on various topics that will help the attendees set up an alumni office for their institution and successfully run its operations. The most important thing that these associations must remember is that alumni of an institution are always ready to give back to their almamater but all they need is a right channel to contribute. Taking this into consideration one of the topics to be covered in the MasterClass will showcase how alumni associations can harness the power of “Social media”, as a channel of engagement.

This blog briefly highlights how various Universities/Institutions are engaging their alumni using social media. There have been various studies and surveys conducted in the past and following are some of the common conclusions drawn, when it came to Universities and use of social media for alumni engagement.

•    Connecting and Collaborating with students
•    Reaching alumni where they are
•    Providing mediums and channels for information distribution
•    Alumni generated content
•    Guiding and helping alumni get jobs
•    Marketing Alumni Associations
•    Fundraising

Ever evolving Technology has definitely changed the way how communicate and social media is one-stop-shop for alumni association that help them connect, communicate and collaborate with their alumni.

I think that we honor ourselves by honoring our past - Viburnix

We are the creators of our own destinies! Having said that I would like to also mention the fact that no matter whom we are or what we do, we will always have traces of our friends imbibed into us.
Now arises the critical question. How on Earth do you keep a track on all your friends’ life events! The monotonous life we lead today has forced us to stop and think back about all those carefree school and college days. Reliving those precious moments is now not only a dream but a hard and kicking reality.

Viburnix is the one stop answer to all your queries. You get to cherish all those moments via this platform. This is a cost efficient way to remain in touch with our batch mates. And for the corporate officials it is probably the easiest way to be in touch with their illustrious alumnae. 
Viburnix – alumni community offers a wide range of opportunities. It includes an advanced alumni directory, you could even participate in discussions, post articles just in the same manner you could do at school and college. Requesting for guest lectures, asking for mentorship, posting for jobs, collaborating with alumni chapters, organizing an event, updating contact information, sharing pictures and many more. The most famous features of this alumni software are the Facebook Connect.

“Viburnix gives schools, colleges, universities and corporate a unified communication and collaboration platform.

It enables them to leverage their national and international reputation to create a climate of engagement and benefaction necessary to building a vibrant alumni community while building their brand identity.”

For further consultation you are welcome to visit the website http://www.viburnix.com/

Objectives of an Alumni Network

An alumni network can be simply referred to as a group of the alumni of an institute or an organization. Alumni networks are generally informal and the members of the network manage it themselves. The main purpose of the network is to help the members to make and renew contacts with each other for personal as well as professional reasons.

An alumni network maybe organized on the basis of a region, on the basis of a discipline or faculty or on the basis of similar interests that alumni members share. Whatever be the basis of organization, there are several objectives that all alumni network have.

One of the major objectives of such a network is alumni engagement. The networks aim at enabling the alumni to stay in touch with each other and their institute. This ensures that the alumni members actively participate in the group activities for the benefit of the network as well as the institute. By using this network, the alumni members can look to their institute for continuing professional education whenever necessary. It also helps the members to share views and needs and also organize social and professional activities for the institute. The alumni members can also offer voluntary assistance to the ongoing events of the institute via the network.

The networks which are formed using Viburnix fulfill all the above said objectives and enable the members to stay connected.

Alumni Club: Strengthening School Ties

The Alma Mater benefits its students in many ways and makes them successful in life. Students who want to give back to their Alma Mater can do so by creating an alumni club. An alumni club is an organization of the former students of the institution; typically those who have graduated from the institute. This type of an association acts as a bridge between the old and the present students of the institution.

Forming such a club requires active participation and support from the alumni as well as the present students of the institute. The members of the club must be enthusiastic and willing to work for the success of the club.

Such a club once formed works for the benefit of the institute and its students. Many times, job opportunities, donations and sponsorships are possible through such clubs that help the alumni to connect with the institute and the present students. This type of an organization can also carry out certain activities for the institute like publishing magazines and newsletters, organizing social events, raising funds and supporting new alumni etc. In addition, the club can also help alumni members to form new friendships, alumni network and even helps them to develop business relationships. This way the club benefits the alumni members, the current students and the institute.

Viburnix- the Alumni Software allows alumni members to form clubs and associations so that they can actively participate to further their Alma Mater in the best possible manner.

Alumni Leadership Masterclass now in New Delhi and Noida

Saviance Technologies, an IT Software and Services company partners with Delhi Management Association (DMA) for India’s first ever masterclass on alumni relations ‘Alumni Leadership Masterclass’. This masterclass is scheduled to be held on 7th and 8th December 2011, in New Delhi and Noida respectively.

This masterclass is an initiative by Saviance to enable educational institutes to understand the importance of engaging the alumni groups across the globe for mutual benefits. This partnership ensures that Saviance reaches out to its target audience effectively and works together with DMA, to empower institutes establish their alumni office in an organized and pro-active manner.
The Alumni Leadership Masterclass programme will begin with a session on the Basics of Alumni Relations by Mr. Joseph John, Advisor – South India & Sri Lanka, Saviance Technologies and Graduate of CASE Alumni Relations, Institute, INSEAD, Singapore will focus predominantly on the importance of alumni relations and what should be considered by an institute to reach out to their alumni network.

He will also emphasize on effective ways to plan future engagement with alumni by maintaining an updated database. Furthermore, sessions by Mr. Subhashish Bharuka, Manager – Corporate Communications & Graduate of CASE Alumni Relations Institute, INSEAD, Singapore will help the participants understand that Alumni engagement involves more than just database management and fund raising; it is a lifelong process for an institute to grow its brand over many years by engaging with its alumni. Besides, there will also be discussions on bridging the gaps between the alumni, current students and staff in order to strengthen ties among each other and channelizing the alumni interaction efficiently.

Alumni Association – 4 steps to start!

Alumni Associations are formed with certain goals to cater to, many times the goals are similar for various associations: To support the achievement of the University’s goals by providing leadership and backing to alumni association that demonstrates the mutually-beneficial engagement for Alumni, the alma mater and the association. In this blog we share some tips with these associations as to how they can build relationships with their alumni.

There are four basic steps to building an alumni association strategy to achieve the goal:

1. Reach Out. To get alumni to reconnect with university, first you have to find them.

2. Reconnect. To get alumni to become involved with the association, you must offer them easy ways and mediums for doing so. For some alumni, the ability to learn the latest about their alma mater in their communities will be enough to interest them to reconnect.

3. Manage Information. From a purely logistical standpoint, you have to track alumni who reconnect. Data management will be a key for long-term success.

4. Build and Sustain Relationships. It is really important to keep alumni involved and engaged once they have reconnected. There should be continuous dialog between the alumni and the alma mater or between alumni and alumni.

After these steps what next? Sky is the limit! There are number of creative ways to empower alumni, whether it is making them mentors, asking them for career advice or inviting them for events. These are couple of strategies that can be useful for start-up associations.

Alumni Relationship Development Program

Saviance Technologies focuses on all aspects of international alumni relations. We aim to assist Alumni Offices setting up a new Alumni Association / Alumni Office, as well as those who wish to develop an existing Programme, by sharing the ideas and knowledge of University members with experience and interest in this field. Keeping in mind alumni development, Saviance has come up with its own alumni software – Viburnix.

Designed specifically to manage alumni development and advancement activity, Viburnix – Alumni Software can help you nurture and control important relationships, reinforce alumni communications, and broaden your constituent reach. This software allows alumni associations to network with alumni more efficiently; identify and generate lists of their relationships; generate and track personalized communication; and follow through with prospects to turn pledges into donations.

Generate the best possible platform for exchange of business strategies, allowing members to network with their peers. Gain insight into your fund-raising progress with in-depth reporting that lets you analyse your results. And, because the module of event organization is part of Saviance’s proprietary web event management software, organizing of events becomes seamless activity. From managing constituent relationships to processing gifts, Viburnix – alumni association system gives you the tools you need to achieve all of your University’s advancement goals.

Alumni Leadership Masterclass in December 2011!

Third Alumni Leadership Masterclass by Saviance Technologies is in association with Delhi Management Association. This masterclass is scheduled for Wednesday 7^th December, 2011 @ DMA – DLF Conference Hall, India Habitat Center, Lodi Road, New Delhi. The fees for this event is Rs. 1,000/- only per delegate. This unique masterclass aims at providing alumni associations with descriptive sessions on managing the alumni, engaging with alumnus, planning alumni engagement activities and benefiting from technology in communicating with global alumni of an institute. The focus of this masterclass is to effectively highlight the benefits of leveraging & engaging with an institute’s alumnus on a day-to-day basis.

The faculties for the sessions are experienced professionals, who are graduates of an Alumni Relations Institute organized in Singapore. They have an in-depth understanding of handling alumni office as well as supporting the technological needs of the office. The sessions of the class provide a holistic view on building a strong and influential alumni network by running a fully functional alumni office in an institute.

The Alumni masterclass is for anyone involved with alumni relationship activities, whether Alumni officers / faculty facing challenges in engaging their alumni on a routine basis; or university / College / School faculty planning an Alumni Association in the near future; alumni relations staff who would like to maximize their relationship with the alumnus but are facing challenges in engaging them actively.

For registrations, & details please contact:

Tanya Bhatnagar, Programme Executive

Delhi Management Association, dmadelhi@sify.com / +91-11-2646-9552

Aditi Sharma, Business Development Executive

Saviance Technologies, aditi@saviance.com / +91-98-7147-6971

NOTE: Registration fee can be paid through online payment gateway available on the registration page on http://www.saviance.com/events  or a cheque in favour of Delhi Management Association.

Benefits of alumni engagement

In today’s global scenario, development and alumni relations activities are a very important part in the life and future of universities. An alumni association draws the strategy to seek, ‘To establish, build and maintain positive relationships between alumni and the university, and within the alumni association, in order to generate good will, develop institute’s repute, and encourage all alumni to give in whatever way they can to reinforce the future well-being of their alma mater. Reinforcing the growth of an active alumni association proves to be mutually-beneficial, both to the University and to alumni.

Alumni have the capacity to:

• Highlight the strengths of the university and reflect its commitment to excellence in education, research and lifelong learning;
• Be brand ambassadors, thereby inspiring and counseling others who wish to be a part of the university.
• Help each other and current students through networking, organizing guest lectures, mentoring and friendship;
• Assist each other and current students by sharing with them Job Opportunities / Career options.
• Foster global relationships to help promote networking opportunities.
• Contribute significant financial support to their alma mater.

 

It is important to understand that a successful alumni engagement strategy depends critically on having a strong body of alumni engaged with and committed to their alma mater.

Alumni involvement in Alumni Association

Alumni are one of the most vital stake holders of a university. They are a part of it for life. Hence, it is important for the universities to maintain an ongoing relationship with alumni, and seek their participation in achieving excellence. Alumnus are often interested to play their role of assisting alumni association not just because the improved brand name of the university helps them in their career, but also because they have memories and feel emotionally connected to the place. One reason for non-involvement or non-engagement of alumni is that they not aware of the ways in which they can be of help to their alma mater. There are many ways alumni can provide meaningful service and active involvement in the Alumni Association.

So here are a couple of strategies and ways in which alumni can get involved with alumni associations, to build mutually beneficial relationship. Alumni are the best brand ambassadors of a university; they can share their experiences with prospective students. They can provide career guidance and share opportunities with alumni associations to help career development and management of existing students and other alumnus. Alumni network helps entrepreneurial alumni build their businesses while strengthening alumni involvement with the University. Alumni can also get involved with events and activities on-campus.

Alumni Masterclass 2011 - Pune

Second Alumni Leadership Masterclass by Saviance Technologies was organized at Le Meridien, Pune; on 12th October 2011. Some of the key participant institutes of the event included Dr. D.Y.Patil Institute of Management Studies, Pune; Armed Forces Medical College, Pune; Fergusson College, Pune; Indira Group of Institutes; Indira School of Business Studies; Institute of Management Development & Research; Symbiosis Centre for Management & Human Resource Development & Vishwakarma Institute of Management.

The focus of this Masterclass was to effectively highlight the benefits of leveraging & engaging with their institute’s alumnus on a day-to-day basis. The objectives of this masterclass comprised of providing descriptive sessions on managing the alumni, engaging with alumnus, planning alumni engagement activities and benefiting from technology in communicating with global alumni of an institute. Interactive sessions by faculties who are graduates of an Alumni Relations Institute organized in Singapore and who have an in-depth understanding of handling alumni office as well as supporting the technological needs of the office. The faculty tried to explicate on how to better utilize the existing relationship with alumnus and how to engage them actively on a regular basis. The sessions also helped participants gain a holistic view on building a strong and influential alumni network by running a fully functional alumni office in an institute. 

We would give details about the session details in our next blog posting.

Engaging Aumni Oline through Social Media

Our vision is to encourage alumni online to share a lifelong commitment, pride and passion for their alma mater. We build up solutions that act as catalyst for building a vigorous alumni network and a lifelong relationship among alumni associations and its constituents, including students and graduates, and for supporting the University’s mission globally.
We understand the 3 C’s of winning Alumni Online Relations – Communicate, Connect & Cultivate.  By communicate, we refer to information that is conveyed professionally and is consistently shared. The communication should be timely as too much information at one go also irritates the readers. Alumni are always interested in the happenings and news of alma mater. Communication also means recognizing outstanding efforts of alumni volunteers who assist in mentoring programs, donations or guest lectures.
We help alumni association connect to their alumni by helping them to maintain current contact information and other detailed records of alumni and their batchmates. The real interest of alumni lies in staying connected with their classmates, and social networking features of our product prove to be a ‘winner’ here. We act as a medium and translate technology advances to make it easy for alumni associations to stay connected with its members, as well as allow alums to be connected to each other.
We recognize that every event, each communication is probability to further reinforce relationships. We assist associations to cultivate a feeling of belongingness amongst its alumni with event management. Our designed product helps provide opportunities for contribution and support of alumni.

Technology, Alumni Associations and Batchmates

In technology arena, many institutes that approach us have a baseline of service available but not adequately maintained and updated. Their alumni have turned to other resources for networking and communications. More robust and scalable solutions have become available for helping alumnus maintain connections with the University and with each other, and the Institute and the Alumni Association should work together to harness the capabilities now available in the technology marketplace.

This area offers a number of opportunities to the Universities to reinforce their relations with their alumnus. Some of them include:

• Improved alumni reach, improved alumni engagement: As we use technology to build online alumni relationships and communities, we will promote stronger and deeper alumni loyalty.
• Advanced information about alumni: Via technology, the University would be able to capture alumni interests. It also provides a platform for alumnus to give back to their alma mater by participating in mentor programs.
• More effective communication: Technology provides a cost-effective medium for coordinated, targeted, and high-impact communication with alumni.
• Valued services: Collaborative Platform provides alumni with valued services such as news about alma mater, opportunities to maintain ties with old and new batchmates, and networking for career and business.
• Increased ROI
• Better brand management

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Social Media Integration and Alumni Associations

Various alumni associations are leveraging social media to strengthen the bonds between the alumni; and between the alma mater and its alumnus. This has been possible with the sudden rise, in the options for digital communications tools that are available in the market. These tools provide a base for collaborating, connecting and communicating with the alums. At the same time, social media is the most cost-effective and effective way to reach out to alumnae. Some of the major social media integration seen in the alumni sites is discussed in this blog.

Realizing the opportunity, many associations have started designing portals for its members; that provide them one window access to various options for connecting and communicating with each other. There has been an increase in the number of tools used for initiating conversations with its users. This is done with the integration of tools for discussion boards, forums, notes etc. Aggregation tools are used for blogs that add to the content of the site as well as it gives a chance to the members to contribute. Event management tools are used to facilitate events for members.

The opportunities are great for alumni association, these same tools that risk their existence can be used to increase user base, cut costs, and a wealth of content being created by their own members.

Journey to Viburnix – Alumni Portal

A recent alumni study reveals that 83% of members prefer to be contacted about general alumni matters via interactive methods such as email, social networks, and alumni websites & blogs. So alumni association, who want to keep a tap on their pool of alumnae should learn to harness the power of social media to engage them.

Many of our clients had the system of e-newsletters in place when they approached us; and based on the success of it they wanted a more comprehensive online community solution that would allow them to reach large numbers of alumni efficiently. There were also a number of other internal objectives, which comprised of re-engaging lost or disengaged alumni, combining existing online services (here there was e-newsletter), and implementing an easy online fundraising component.

Our development team was also pressured from a number of external factors; it included a great rise in the e-communications-based model. Members of alumni association now expected e-communications and online communities. They required tools that were Web-based with advanced e-mail and directory components, and they had to possess knowledge sharing forum, blog, and content management capability. They also had to be affordable.

With our consistent efforts, we were able to meet many of the challenges, discovered new opportunities and alumni engagement with Viburnix.