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Providing Better Service through Innovation and Partnerships. Leigh Gaspar, Director, Events and Volunteer Leadership Patty Patria , Manager, Technology, Deployment and Integration. Overview. Brief overview of Bentley and our Alumni Community conversion project
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Providing Better Service through Innovation and Partnerships Leigh Gaspar, Director, Events and Volunteer Leadership Patty Patria , Manager, Technology, Deployment and Integration
Overview • Brief overview of Bentley and our Alumni Community conversion project • Discuss strategic planning, relationship building, process and tools • Discuss hurdles • Discuss benefits • Q&A
Bentley Facts • Bentley is a business school that focuses on the integration of business with information technology. • We educate students to be leaders in business and related professions in a global economy and focus on analytical, technological and problem-solving strengths in business. • We enroll approximately 4,000 undergraduate, 1,250 graduate and 9 PhD students. We have almost 50,000 alumni. • Bentley College is located on 163 acres in Waltham Massachusetts, 10 miles west of Boston.
Bentley and Technology • Bentley prides itself on the use of technology inside and outside of the classroom. • We have state-of-the-art technology facilities including a Trading Room, Language Lab, Center for Marketing Technology, Library and Design and Usability Center. • Students and alumni have a high expectations that they can use the latest technology during their college experience and beyond.
Project Background • Needed to update our existing alumni community. Lacked the features and look and feel we needed to stay competitive. • Formed a cross-functional team to assess new vendors, including the Executive Director of Alumni and Development. Started with an RFP process in June 2005; signed a contract for a hosted alumni community in December 2005. • Formed a new implementation team with representatives from Alumni, Development, Advancement Services, Web Services, Marketing, and IT. Wholly redesigned the alumni web site and launched a new alumni community in about 7 months time.
Our first community… • First site launched in 1999 with Harris Connect. With rapid changes in technology, it needed a complete overhaul in 2001.
Our second community… • Second site launched with IAC in 2003. Lacked internal champion and wasn’t kept current; needed overhauling in 2005.
Our third community… • Third site launched again with Harris in 2006. • Fully integrated design with business buy-in.
New Direction for Success • IT, working with Alumni and Development, remained involved for the entire process from RFP through post implementation. • IT managed the vendor and the process, but the Alumni team chose the product with IT feedback. • IT negotiated the contract; the technology lead in Institutional Advancement reviewed the contract, and the Director of Alumni and Development signed the contract to ensure it was complete.
From the Business Perspective • For the first time, our business users took an active part in building the alumni community. • Team members were able to collaborate, thus reducing error in terms of data feeds vs. content.
Business Obstacles • Culture shift - Varying degree of technical skills among members of our team. Web- savvy members compensated for less technically oriented team members. • Lack of Measurement - No user data from previous site to direct the creation of new navigation and content. • Resource Questions - New site created increased technical work for Development/ Alumni Relations without set expectations of responsibilities moving forward.
Business Success • Greatly increased Development and Alumni ability to segment and connect with core audiences, which resulted in increased awareness, event attendance, consolidated broadcast e-mail program and updated alumni records. • User-friendly look, feel and functionality bring Bentley’s alumni community into the information age. • Greater ability to launch new programs to alumni, i.e. Alumni Weekend, Blue and Gold. • Ease of back-end reporting.
Strategic Planning • Goals were defined in the RFP stage. • Developed an implementation team comprising the Director of Events, Director of Donor Relations, Director of Marketing Communication, Director of Web Services, Director of Advancement Services, two techies and one Technology Deployment Manager. • Divided tasks and set timetable acceptable to all team members. • Entire team looked at the big picture. • Fostered entrepreneurial environment. • IT employed project leadership vs. project management.
Relationship Building • Frequent meetings fostered new relationships that did not exist before. • Tech members gained appreciation for business members and vice versa. • Free flow of ideas welcome, but meetings kept to 1.5 hours to be less onerous. • When discord occurred, team took a vote. Majority ruled.
Implementation Differentiation • Included a broader functional group in the implementation. • Decided to completely overhaul all content and images as part of site conversion. • Fostered a team structure where managers were highly encouraged to learn new technical skills and techies were expected to understand business.
Process Differentiation • If we missed a critical task, we reallocated that task to other members of the team, even if it wasn’t their specialty. • Emerging “champions” in the functional area assumed additional responsibility and ownership to ensure project success.
Tools Differentiation • Weekly conference calls and ad hoc communication with vendor to ensure their deliverables were met. • Design and Usability Center reviewed site with Alumni. • Tied our hosted site to Bentley’s CSS to keep both sites current with design changes.
Post Launch Activities • Formed an Institutional Advancement Marketing Technology Committee. • Coordinates all electronic communication and discusses the use of technology to further business goals (i.e., participation, giving). • Fosters idea sharing among different areas of the college (i.e., Career Services, Alumni, Marketing, IT).
Problems Along the Way • Desired features were slightly different from what contract allowed; required extra funding and some additional time. • Determined that we needed a full-site overhaul (navigation, content and images) after project commenced. • Marketing released a completely new web site redesign during our build process. • Staff turnover resulted in loss of technical and management members during site conversion.
Lessons Learned • Perform a full design of what site should look like before you sign a contract and incorporate the details into the contract. • If a web site project, plan for full content and image overhaul. • Assess resources dedicated to your alumni web site to evaluate staffing needs for new features before implementing.
Risks • When IT drives the project, onus falls on IT if the project fails. • Without one or two key champions in the user department, project may succeed short term, but will fail in the long run. • Without long-term relationships between IT and functional departments, success is much more difficult to achieve.
Project Bi-Products • Idea sharing has improved among departments involved in the site. • Number of registered users increased by 1,200 or 9 percent in six months time. • Event attendance improved 23 percent in six months time. • Planning initiatives for web community are based on the idea of one-stop-shopping for users. • Better controls on site allow for consistency in user experience.
Take Away Messages • Web technology needs constant updating and monitoring. • Relationship building among IT and functional departments is key. • Ongoing, cross-divisional strategic planning is important, even after a project is complete.
