Alumni Leadership Conference Recap (part two)

To figure out what we're talking about, go to Part One.


As promised, this is the post detailing the breakout sessions featured at the 2011 Alumni Leadership Conference.  TJA Members decided to split up and each attend a different session so that everything would be covered adequately.

Parliamentarian Janine attended the session entitled "Personalizing Communications in the Internet Era", which featured four panelists: 

• Dr. Mitchell Lew (President-Elect, USC Alumni Association and Past President, USC Asian Pacific Alumni Association)
• Suzzanna Martinez (VP of Communications, USC Alumni Club of Colorado)
• Meribeth Farmer (Regional Board Chair, USC Alumni Clubs of the Bay Area, Past President, USC Alumni Club of the East Bay)
• Cheryl Collier (Senior Director, Alumni Communications and Marketing of the USC Alumni Association)

The panelists talked mainly about utilizing techniques such as e-newsletters, website enhancement and signature events to increase awareness of their clubs, which then translated into higher membership and attendance.

Highly stressed was the person-to-person aspect of the clubs- meeting and thanking each and every person that attended an event, phone calls and personal emails.  This face-to-face contact was also mentioned as important to gain sponsorship from companies.  Beth Garrett also touched on this during her presentation at the beginning of the conference.

Finally, a string of links were handed out to enhance our online resources:

http://alumni.usc.edu - Fight On!line, the USC online community

http://alumni.usc.edu/groups/us - US Regional Clubs

http://alumni.usc.edu/graphicresources - online repository of template, samples and logos

http://alumnigroups.usc.edu/harris - online Harris training materials

http://alumni.usc.edu/news/newsletters.html - enhanced USConnection

And from our President, Ashley, the following:

I attended the "Sustaining Success" workshop led by Rick Culley.  It was an interesting, engaging session that I really enjoyed!  Mr. Culley provides consulting services in Leadership Development, Strategic Planning and Executive Coaching, and shared some of his collective expertise with the audience.

His number one tip for sustaining success, was to be strategic, and have a big picture view of your organization.  This should include a vision, mission and goals, as vision is what inspires people.  He also emphasized some qualities of effective leaders, which includes having integrity, first and foremost. A leader is someone who has followers, and once you are a leader, you must also focus on developing the people who work with and for you.

We concluded the session with some great networking tips called the "three cards".  The three cards are comprised of the Greeting, Business and Playing cards.  When in a networking situation, you should lead with your Greeting card (who you are), follow with the Business card (what you do) and then the Playing card (why you are there, what you have to offer).  The audience practiced these tips, and it really worked!

Overall it was a very engaging and informative discussion led by a dynamic USC alumnus.