Hello Europe

The folks at CASE Europe have welcomed me with open arms since arriving in London last fall. I’m happy to say I’m presenting at two events this summer:

First, at Online Management: Beyond Social Media, a daylong seminar put together by Ellie Lovell of Warwick University (follow along with #caseonline if you can’t be there in person).

And second, as part of the first ever schools programme at the CASE Europe Annual Conference, speaking with Tracy Playle of Pickle Jar Communications.

Please let me know if you’ll be in attendance, and stop by to say hello!

Social Media and the Alumni Relations Profession

What does social media mean for the modern alumni relations professional, and the future of the profession itself? Check out my piece in CASE Currents (CASE membership required) for my thoughts, along with insight from Andy Shaindlin, Andrew Gossen and Charlie Melichar.

Alumni Career Services for Schools

Last week a young alumna called me asking for help. She was looking to make a career change, and was hoping I could provide some networking resources.

We chatted for a while. She outlined the field she was interested in, showed me her resume, and described her future plans. In turn, I gave her the names of some people from our School community who I thought she should speak to (alumni, faculty, parents). I directed her to our LinkedIn group, and gave her some networking tips. At the end of our conversation, I also suggested make use of her university alumni connections, and explore their career services.

She remarked that she had tried, but found her university services lacking.

This led me to the following thought(s): do independent schools in general offer alumni career services? If not, why not? Is the assumption that a university or college alma mater will be the more likely place for a graduate to turn, and therefore it isn’t worth it to run full-fledged career services? While many alumni would think immediately of their university for alumni career networking, I wonder how many would also think of their high school connections.

I plan to explore this in a future post, and am using this one as fodder for conversation, feedback and resources. Give me your two cents in the comments. Thanks!

Changes and Other Perspectives

Living in a new place and taking on a new role means that things have changed for me both personally and professionally; changes that will likely be reflected in this space.

I’m no longer managing school-wide communications campaigns, BUT that doesn’t mean I’ve lost interest in social media and outreach tools. Far from it in fact.

It does mean, however, that I will likely start injecting other aspects of communications, engagement, outreach and relationship management into my posts here. Heck, you might even get a few, “here’s what I’ve learned about living abroad” tidbits too.

In the spirit of all that, here is one of those tidbits: when you move to a new place, you have the opportunity to meet a lot of new people. This is your big chance to stick your hand out and say, “Hi, I’m new here.” It’s networking, that thing we all talk about doing online. Making those connections up front will help you in the long run, professionally and personally. Thanks to my new friends and colleagues, I learned how to get my home internet set up quickly. I learned where I can find root beer. I even avoided certain disaster by purchasing and utilizing dishwasher salt.

Sure, those things are somewhat silly and trivial (not the internet one, though – that was vital). But those people, their knowledge and their connections will help me out in the short and long terms. And hopefully my connections and knowledge will help them as well.

New Role, New Home

I am thrilled to announce the next step in my professional life. As of Monday, October 24, I will begin a new full time position at the American School in London as Associate Director of Advancement for Alumni Relations. I have relocated from Southern California to the UK and am living in central London.

ASL is a k-12 independent school with a diverse, international alumni base. I’ll be a part of an enthusiastic advancement team, and I will be using my alumni relations and social media experience to deliver programs and services to ASL’s alumni.

I plan to continue to blog in this space, to present at conferences and workshops, and to volunteer. But for now, I’ll be spending the majority of my time getting settled and learning all I can about ASL and the UK.

Thank you all for reading, and being a part of a start of the next chapter for this blog and for me.

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