june 2–3, 2015 executive summaries library/hbs/components... · 2015-09-28 · round 1 and early...

Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College.

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R I E SJ u n e 2 – 3 , 2 0 1 5

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C O P Y R I G H T © P R E S I D E N T & F E L L O W S O F H A R V A R D C O L L E G E

SESSIONS

UPDATE FROM HBS CLUBS & ASSOCIATIONS TEAM PAGE 3

BREAKOUT WORKING GROUPS – EVENTS PAGE 8

BREAKOUT WORKING GROUPS – SPONSORSHIP PAGE 11

QUICKFIRE UPDATES FROM SCHOOL UNITS PAGE 13

U.S. COMPETITIVENESS PROJECT IN ACTION: SKILLS GAP INITIATIVE OF HBS CLUB OF NY PAGE 18

THE ART OF NEGOTIATION: HOW TO IMPROVISE AGREEMENT IN A CHAOTIC WORLD PAGE 23

TEDX PRESENTATIONS AND PANEL DISCUSSION PAGE 26

MEMBERSHIP & MARKETING: YOUNG ALUMNI FOCUS PAGE 30

ACTION ITEMS FOR ALUMNI CLUBS PAGE 35



OVERVIEW

HBS alumni volunteers have developed an extensive global network of geographic clubs and global shared in-terest groups, which add value to the HBS community in multiple ways. The clubs’ efforts are supported by the HBS Alumni Clubs & Associations Team through vol-unteer management, infrastructure support, and scalable programming.

In the area of infrastructure support, an exciting new initia-tive is underway. The HBS Clubs Team will be migrating clubs from the current AlumniMagnet technology plat-form to a new platform, iModules. The new platform will allow HBS to achieve its vision for the clubs and comple-ment HBS’s alumni-focused strategies. Clubs will enjoy enhanced functionality and administrative ease, improved integration with HBS systems, a better end-user experi-ence, and a more modern design that is consistent with HBS branding.

CONTEXT

Members of the Alumni Clubs & Associations Team pro-vided an overview and shared plans for the year ahead.

WELCOME: KATIE MARTIN GRISSINO, Senior Director, Alumni Programs

PRESENTERS: MARY-HELEN BLACK, Director, Alumni Clubs and Associations

KRISTIN CARY, Assistant Director for Technology

SANDRA GENERE, Assistant Director for Programs

ALAINA FLAHERTY, Staff Assistant

UPDATE FROM HBS CLUBS & ASSOCIATIONS TEAM



KEY TAKEAWAYS

The HBS Clubs Team supports the growing network of alumni clubs.

The global network of HBS alumni clubs has continued to expand over the past year. There are now 108 clubs around the world, comprising 96 geographic and 13 shared interest groups. The newest addition, the Harvard Club of Switzerland joined a few days before the Club Leadership Conference (too late to get onto Figure 1). Two other recent additions are the HBS Club of Singapore and the HBS Aerospace Alumni Group. The global clubs network engages more than 700 volunteers.

The HBS Clubs Team exists to serve these clubs by pro-viding support in three critical areas:

• High-touch volunteer management

• Infrastructure support

• Scalable programming

The mission of the Clubs Team’s is building connections and relationships, both among alumni and between the School and alumni. The Team’s mission statement is:

Through high-touch volunteer management, infra-structure support, and scalable programming, the Clubs Team seeks to provide opportunities via the global alumni clubs network to create, foster, and strengthen connections between alumni, and with HBS, while extending the mission of the School.

The Clubs Oversight Committee is composed of five members of the Alumni Board, most who have a long and deep engagement with HBS clubs. The Oversight Committee provides the Clubs Team with guidance on matters of strategic importance, such as changes to the Operating Guidelines, and advises on significant gover-nance issues and new club applications.

Figure 1. HBS alumni clubs span the globe

The Team’s volunteer management efforts center on connecting club officers with the Team and other clubs, to facilitate sharing of best practices.

The Clubs Team helps clubs connect with each other through:

• In-person programs. Events convening club officers include the Club Leadership Conference at HBS in June and Club Leadership Meetings held biannually at loca-tions in Europe or Asia-Pacific (on an alternating basis).

• Virtual forums. Additionally, clubs share best practices virtually via the quarterly Club Connections Calls and the bimonthly Club Connections e-Newsletter.

• Reporting. Each year the Clubs Team collects data from all clubs through an Annual Registration Survey. Clubs are strongly encouraged to complete and return the survey to keep the Team’s records accurate. This year, the response rate (79 out of 106 HBS clubs) was good considering that the survey is not send to Harvard Club affiliates. The Team is looking at streamlining the survey, as some data need not be collected every year. Additionally, ad-hoc surveys are distributed to clubs as needed.

“We count on club leaders to complete the survey, and keep us up to date on membership, programs and ini-tiatives—the survey is a pulse check on the health of the club.”

—Mary-Helen Black

Recordings or summaries of the above events are available on Officers’ Portal, www.officersportal.hbs.org.

Through scalable programming, the Clubs Team strengthens ties within the extended HBS community.

The Clubs Team offers a range of programs designed to connect alumni with members of the HBS community, including faculty, students, and fellow alumni. Team members discussed four such initiatives:

THE FACULTY SPEAKER SERIES

This Series is the most popular program offered; club de-mand for visits from faculty is high. Club events designed around a professor’s visit draw wide audiences, increasing alumni engagement and connection to HBS. As such, they

http://www.officersportal.hbs.org



KEY TAKEAWAYS

are a high priority. Dean Noria regularly reminds faculty of the importance of engaging with the alumni clubs.

“The Faculty Series Program is the most popular pro-gram we offer to the clubs. The most common question I get is, ‘How can I get a faculty member in front of my membership?’”

—Sandra Genere

From a process perspective, clubs can make faculty visit requests any time of year but are encouraged to do make a focused effort to submit requests in August/September and January, just before professors are surveyed on their up-coming travel plans (Figure 2). Clubs submit their requests via Officers’ Portal, where process details and guidelines are readily available. Clubs identify their top five topical areas; no guarantees can be made that requested professors will be available. The Clubs Team works strategically and diligently to match clubs’ requests with professors. In fis-cal 2015, 62 faculty speaker events have been confirmed (there were 61 in FY14). A handful of professors are al-ready are scheduled for FY16.

Inevitably, some professors fail to return the survey. If a club learns that a professor will be in its area but has not been informed by the Clubs Team, it is because the Team did not have knowledge of the professor’s plans. In such a situation, please reach out to Sandra Genere, who will try to arrange a visit.

Figure 2. The best months to get faculty speaker requests submitted are August and January

August & January

Club presidents are encouraged to submit faculty visit requests.

September & January

Faculty are encouraged by Senior Associate Deans for External Relations to fill out the biannual Faculty Engagement Survey.

Faculty assistants are thanked by the Clubs Team for their help in getting the survey completed

October & February

With both requests and survey information in hand, the Clubs Team makes matches.

YOUNG ALUMNI PROGRAMS

The Clubs Team recognizes the importance of exposing HBS students to alumni club activities so they join alumni clubs after graduation. Three programs in particular help

facilitate connections with clubs throughout a student’s HBS life cycle:

• Admit Outreach. Clubs welcome newly admitted students from their areas, and the local HBS alumni network is a resource during the decision process. Names of admit-ted students are shared with clubs in early January for Round 1 and early April for Round 2. During spring 2015, 62 clubs contacted 651 admits from 50 countries.

“Every year, we hear great things about [the Admit Outreach Program]. The admits love hearing from all of you, and it just takes an email or a phone call”

—Sandra Genere

• Summer Interns. Clubs are provided with lists of HBS students on summer internships in their area and are encouraged to invite these students to club events. Introducing a current HBS student to the local alumni club fosters student/alumni engagement, strengthening people’s networks. The student may even become a future club member.

• Bridges Program. This new program is a required three-day course for all graduating students. It exposes them to all of the resources available as alumni and helps them transition from students to alumni. This program pro-vides an opportunity for the Clubs Team to present to students the array of opportunities available through the alumni clubs network.

ALUMNI NEW VENTURE COMPETITION (aNVC)

This initiative was launched in 2010 in partnership with the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship. It is an opportunity for alumni to showcase their entrepreneurial spirit. Any alumni launching a new business or social en-terprise may enter. This year’s contest saw 163 entries, up 16% from 2014, and involved more than 3,000 alumni in some capacity (entrants, judges, coordinators, etc.).

One winning venture is selected from each of 14 regions of the world. The final three global winners are awarded $25,000 and a chance to present a 90-second pitch at the New Venture Competition Final and Forum on campus in April. The contest winners this year included Eve & Tribe (Africa region) for Greatest Impact, BollyX Fitness (Northeastern U.S.) for Most Innovative, and StreetShares (Mid-Atlantic U.S.) for Best Investment.



KEY TAKEAWAYS

GLOBAL NETWORKING NIGHT (GNN)

GNN unites alumni for a networking night in multiple locations worldwide. GNN raises awareness of the global HBS alumni clubs network and provides a fun way for alumni to network locally. This year 61 alumni clubs par-ticipated, up 25% over last year. The Clubs Team provides marketing and event materials. Many clubs use GNN as a kickoff event for their programming year, as a way to attract younger alumni, or as a membership recruitment effort.This year, GNN will be held on October 21st.

Infrastructure support to clubs will be improved by a major IT platform transition.

In December 2013, the Clubs Team launched a compre-hensive evaluation of IT vendors in the alumni club space. After vendor demonstrations, proposals, and calls to ven-dor references, iModules was selected in December 2014 to replace the current AlumniMagnet platform.

The iModules solution will allow the School and Clubs Team to achieve its vision for the alumni clubs’ websites, modernizing their look and feel, as well as provide im-proved administrative and reporting interfaces. The clubs’ IT systems will be integrated with HBS’s systems for more seamless navigation and improved data.

“iModules will allow us to achieve our vision for alumni clubs and will complement HBS’s alumni-focused tech-nology strategies.”

—Kristin Cary

The advantages of iModules’ implementation are numerous:

• Increased ease of the end-user experience

• Modern design, consistent with the HBS brand

• A mobile-ready experience

• Integration with HBS systems so alumni have just one profile

• Seamless navigation between HBS and clubs

• Compatible with a wider variety of affordable gateway providers

• Increased ease of the administrative interface

• Enhanced and targeted messaging functionality, includ-ing easy setup of automated newsletters, automated re-minders, and customized registration confirmations.

• Club and event marketing and promotion tools

• Improved data and reporting for clubs and HBS

Figure 3. Alumni homepages and event pages will be integrated with HBS systems

The Clubs Team is moving all clubs from AlumniMagnet to an interim solution on June 30. From there, clubs will be migrated to iModule over FY16. Clubs will be priori-tized based on such things as whether they conduct ecom-merce (a complicating factor).



KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Clubs Team is committed to making the transi-tion as smooth as possible for clubs. The Clubs Team is working closely with HBS Information Technology, External Relations, Information Technology, and Alumni Marketing & Communications, and will hire a team of content migrators and other specialists to assist with the transition. The clubs will have opportunities to customize aspects of their sites. The responsibilities for clubs during the migration process:

• Supply domain register account information; i.e., the company that hosts the club’s domain.

• Return onboarding documentation, supplying answers to questions to build the club’s new site.

• Sign off on all required documents, to ensure clarity.

• Have administrators participate in approximately 15 hours of mandatory training (video and documents), which will be required for access to the new system.



OVERVIEW

Club officers participated in breakout groups on the topics of events, membership, sponsorship, and succession plan-ning & governance. Afterwards, each group spent a few minutes giving an overview of their discussions.

BREAKOUT WORKING GROUPS – EVENTS



KEY TAKEAWAYS

Alumni clubs around the world are having success attract-ing alumni to programs, using a variety of models tailored to their particular club and the audience they are seeking to attract.

• What is popular with members can differ dramatically by region. The culture of a region sometimes plays a big role in what types of events members like best. For example, cultural events (e.g., the symphony, opera, art museums) are very popular among Southern Florida’s older mem-bership but do not draw a crowd in Pittsburgh, even though half of that club’s members represent pre-1980 classes. (“We’re Steelers people, you know,” quipped Bill Slivka, club president.) Pittsburgh also has little luck with Global Networking Night (GNN), drawing barely 10 people. In Northern California, purely social events do not go over as well as learning-focused ones. The Austin club does well with family-friendly and commu-nity-focused events.

• Age also plays a big role in what members like. Shanghai is a predominantly young club, and its most popular events reflect the interests of young, energetic busi-ness people. The Entrepreneurship Forum always sells out its 90–100 seats. That club also has a very popular Mentorship Dinner Series, a low-key evening of 8–10 members from post-2000 classes having dinner with a speaker from a pre-2000 class. Younger alumni love networking events like GNN. The Arizona club holds monthly networking nights, like “mini-GNNs.” The club keeps the time and place constant each month, so it is an easy event to hold; people just know to show up, with no need for reminders.

• Events that provide a behind-the-scenes peek at an organiza-tion’s operations are popular. For instance, several clubs mentioned that factory tours are popular with members. The Arizona club had an interesting tour of an Amazon distribution center. Austin members have enjoyed behind-the-scenes looks at Blue Man Group and the Livestrong Foundation. The Northern California club went to a Tesla factory, which was remembered as a logistical headache (Tesla had no established tour pro-cedure at the time) but a big money maker.

• Also broadly popular are events with HBS professors and big-name speakers. The Boston club attracts more than 300 attendees for events featuring “heavyweight” corporate speakers. Its panel discussions are popular too; the topic of a recent panel was aging, societal implications and commercial opportunities. The HBS Club of New York is large, wealthy, and active; it has no trouble attracting luminaries to speak, even without personal connections as speakers generally feel honored to be asked. HBS professor visits are hits with members at every club. Northern California has no difficulty attracting pro-fessors since HBS has a case-writing facility in Silicon Valley that professors often visit. Conversely, not many HBS professors visit the Sweden club, but its members have a unique opportunity to attend an evening recep-tion, “Cocktails with Nobel Prize Winners.”

• Partnering with external organizations on events can be win/wins. Some HBS clubs partner on activities with the Harvard University clubs, peer business schools’ clubs, and corporations, realizing benefits like saving the cost of renting space. The Northern California club held a work/life balance session in the offices of game-maker Zynga, attended by both HBS club members and Zynga employees.

• Leveraging the business acumen of HBSers to help the commu-nity is a great event theme. The Northern California club’s “Community Partners” program is a 30-year-old pro bono consulting program in which club members advise local businesses. Projects involve in-depth four- to six-month assignments; there is even a paid director who is an alum. (Learn more on the Community Partners web-site).The club’s “StartUp Partners” is a “mini-series” spinoff event, a twist on the same advisory theme: over a two-hour lunch, startup business owners present a problem they are experiencing to a small team of club members, who discuss it, case style. ”They want feed-back from HBSers. We listen and give it.”

• Community-focused and philanthropic activities are big hits. Quite a few clubs mentioned raising money for schol-arships to attend HBS, awarded to deserving residents of their area. A few hold benefits and galas honoring accomplished community members.

http://hbscp.net/

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Sporting events and holiday parties are popular. Arizona, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Northern California clubs all mentioned holding or attending sporting events. The large and active Northern California club has a monthly sports events series. The head of the Arizona club said they have better luck scheduling their holiday party for January or February since Decembers are so busy.

• Shared interest groups without regions may have more dif-ficulty with programming. The HBS Healthcare Alumni Association, an industry and HBS Initiative shared inter-est group, struggles to hold events that draw many of its dispersed membership. Its most successful event is its well-attended annual conference in Boston. The club is interested in partnering with regional clubs holding healthcare-focused events and would be glad to post news of these on its website. (The club’s executive direc-tor eagerly awaits the IT migration to iModule, which will facilitate cross-marketing.) The HBS Women’s Association of Greater New York does not share this problem, being anchored geographically. With a mis-sion of members supporting one another’s endeavors, its members are extremely engaged. Members even offer their homes for parties, such as “decade parties” (for graduating classes in a particular decade). This club also has monthly breakfasts, fundraisers, and activities to help startups succeed.



OVERVIEW

Many HBS alumni clubs find that offering sponsorships is an excellent way to offset club operating expenses. During this breakout session, officers from several HBS clubs dis-cussed how they structure sponsorship deals and the ben-efits to both sponsors and clubs.

BREAKOUT WORKING GROUPS – SPONSORSHIP


BREAKOUT WORKING GROUPS – SPONSORSHIP

KEY TAKEAWAYS

There are two broad types of sponsorships offered by HBS alumni clubs:

• Event sponsorships. Sponsorships tied to specific events help underwrite the expenses associated with holding an event. In some instances, this might allow for lower ticket prices to members, boosting attendance. The sponsor gains exposure to the attractive demographic that the HBS alumni community represents.

• Annual sponsorships. These provide sponsors with ongo-ing benefits throughout the year, including opportunities to network with HBS alumni at club events, recogni-tion of the club website, and on printed collateral. Some large clubs offer tiered levels of annual sponsorship, the top tier (“Gold” or “Premier” level) paying as much as $25,000 a year in exchange for broad visibility and access to the HBS club community.

While regional clubs may offer either or both types of sponsorship, shared interest groups are challenged to find annual sponsors. Lacking a region, they have fewer ob-vious sponsor prospects. They have to look for spon-sors in cities where they host events, which often rotate. Partnering with the local HBS club in the city may help.

Some of the benefits clubs provide to sponsors include:

• The sponsor’s logo and a hyperlink to its website on the club’s website.

• The sponsor’s logo on club publications.

• Tickets to a certain number of club events each year.

• Networking opportunities and introductions to HBS alumni.

• Opportunities to provide speakers or panelists, who are often employees or clients of the sponsoring organization.

• Time at the podium or seats on the dais at special events.

• Permission to display literature, signage, or sign-up sheets at event registration tables.

For some clubs, servicing sponsors requires more time, at-tention, and expense than for other clubs. Some sponsors expect to see data on the audiences they are reaching, such as breakdowns of attendee demographics. Preparing those reports takes time and represents overhead. Other clubs find servicing sponsors to be nearly effortless. For example, the Northern California club’s sponsors are happy simply to be included on event email lists and welcomed at the events they choose to attend.

An example of a good use of sponsors: one club in the western United States held an event for 250 visiting HBS students (a “West Trek”). Sponsors looking to hire the students underwrote the entire cost of the event in ex-change for a table and three minutes at the podium.



OVERVIEW

HBS alumni clubs are encouraged to collaborate with various units at HBS. The clubs network is an impor-tant resource for advancing the objectives of several areas of HBS, such as MBA Admissions’ outreach and Executive Education’s recruitment efforts. Likewise, vari-ous units have value to offer alumni, such as Career & Professional Development’s new programming for alumni and Executive Education’s discounted tuition for alumni. In short, there is much value to be gained by both clubs and the various School divisions when they can help each other. Such collaboration only strengthens the broad HBS community of which we are all a part.

CONTEXT

Representatives from Executive Education, the MBA program, MBA Admissions, Career & Professional Development, and Campus Development discussed their activities, objectives, and the opportunities they see for their teams and HBS alumni clubs to collaborate.

PRESENTERS: MARY LOU BARNEY, Managing Director, Executive Education

BRIT DEWEY, Executive Director, MBA Program, MBA 1996

JILL FADULE, Senior Admissions Board Member, Outreach Director, MBA Admissions

LAUREN MURPHY, Director, Career & Professional Development

ANDY O’BRIEN, Chief of Operations, Campus Development, AMP 188

QUICKFIRE UPDATES FROM SCHOOL UNITS



KEY TAKEAWAYS

HBS Executive Education and the alumni clubs are connected by shared interests.

The four main parts of HBS—Executive Education, the MBA program, the HBR publishing arm, and external relations, of which alumni clubs are part—have historically been separate silos. This is decreasingly the case. There is growing recognition of the overlap, including how they share resources in pursuit of a common commitment to lifelong learning. The alumni clubs play a critical role in this commitment by extending the value of an HBS edu-cation throughout a graduate’s life and nurturing lifelong ties to HBS.

“Executive Education overlaps other parts of the School, using the same faculty, the same cases, and the same pedagogy. . . . It leverages a lot of the MBA program’s elective curriculum.”

—Mary Lou Barney

Graduates of three ExEd management programs auto-matically earn full HBS alumni status (Owner/President Management program (OPM), Advanced Management Program (AMP), and General Management Program (GMP)), while Program for Leadership Development (PLD) graduates would first have to complete an addi-tional 10-day module to be considered HBS alumni. ExEd produces about 900–1,000 new alumni each year, whose names are included in the lists supplied to the geographic clubs.

Figure 1. Lifelong learning is at the center of HBS’s four “silos”

Some facts about ExEd:

• HBS Executive Education comprises about 130 pro-grams annually, of four types (Figure 2).

Figure 2. ExEd offers nearly 130 programs annually of four types

• Three-quarters of ExEd programs feature open enroll-ment. That is a strategic choice driven by faculty’s desire for a diversity of voices to help test theories and ap-proaches. Conversely, virtually all other schools’ execu-tive education programs are mostly custom-designed for specific companies. The open nature of HBS programs requires more investment in recruitment and marketing.

• The student body is much more diverse than the MBA program’s in every aspect except for gender. ExEd is working hard to attract more women.

• Recent construction has transformed the area of campus devoted to Executive Education. Tata, an architecturally striking residence hall, has been open for a year and a half; Esteves Hall (the former Baker Hall) just opened (May 2015); and the Chao Center, a new dining facil-ity, is under construction (due to open summer 2016).



KEY TAKEAWAYS

Figure 3. Statistics on enrollees attest to the diverse mix of executives ExEd attracts

Some ways in which alumni clubs and ExEd might col-laborate include:

• Co-sponsor events

• Leverage ExEd alumni and past participants in club programs

• Provide market feedback on topics of interest to execu-tives to inform ExEd curriculums

• Align ExEd mission programs to club missions/service activities

• Contribute ideas on how ExEd can attract under-served populations (e.g., women, African Americans)

• Come home to HBS—club leaders and members are encouraged to enroll in programs.

The MBA program’s strategic goal is to differentiate the brand via an ever-improving value proposition.

What keeps executive director Brit Dewey up at night are these questions: What is the value proposition of students’ large investment in a two-year, full-time MBA program? How can HBS ensure that the ROI to its students is com-pelling and enabling enough to justify such a “product acquisition?”

HBS does not want to assume that its offering will remain as compelling as it is today. Avoiding such complacency and keeping itself on the hook for ever-improving student ROI is a must. To that end, HBS’s strategy is “extreme differentiation.”

In the interest of differentiation, HBS continues to en-hance the value its MBA students realize, both while they are students and for their lives. The most recent innova-tions and initiatives undertaken include:

• Curricular innovation. A new pedagogy—the FIELD method—that complements the case method has been adopted and is being refined. It is designed to ensure that HBS graduates not only analyze well, as the case method demands, but also execute well, which real life demands. Students spend time in a range of global locations and work collaboratively in teams of five or six. Teams present ideas for new products and services directly to business leaders in emerging markets, and actually cre-ate products and implement services in a year-long field immersion experience.

“This is a really exciting period in HBS’s history. . . . [We’re] preparing students not only to be analytically compelling but to be really grounded in what execution means.”

–Brit Dewey

Other recent curricular innovations include:

– HBX CORe, an online course offered pre-matricula-tion to help prepare HBS students, particularly those who have not had formal business education.

– Bridges, an elective course for the few weeks after formal coursework ends and before graduation. It is designed to help HBSers transition from being stu-dents to being alumni, and engaging with the alumni clubs network is part of the program.

• Community and culture. Brit Dewey has spent a great deal of time thinking about the different identities HBS students have and how HBS can better support them by creating environments where they can be their best selves. Initiatives address sexual violence awareness among students; health and wellness, including mental health issues; and inclusion, e.g., addressing issues raised by students’ wealth disparities.

• Career and professional development. New programming has been launched to support students and alumni.

• Admissions and financial aid. An ideal time to pitch the value of an HBS education is during the applicant



KEY TAKEAWAYS

interview experience, when ears are attuned for any-thing HBS people have to say. Additionally, PEEK, a program being piloted this summer, will bring tar-geted groups of college students to campus for three days to “get a peek at” the HBS experience. Finally, a new summer fellowship program will enable financially pressured students who would normally decline unpaid internships, even if educationally valuable, to be able to accept these (a typically overlooked need for aid but an important one to address).

Admissions’ outreach is critical to ensuring a rich diversity of applicants and matriculated students; alumni clubs are a part of this effort.

The high numbers of applicants to Harvard Business School (about 9,700) relative to spots in the class (920–930) attests to the continued relevance of the Harvard MBA, though the School never wants to take that for granted.

About 20% of applicants are invited for interviews and exposed to programming to help them understand what being an HBS student would mean. About half of those interviewed are admitted. Some 89%-90% of admitted stu-dents choose to matriculate, which is a very high yield. But yield is about more than numbers; it’s about ensuring that admitted students have the information necessary to make the right decision. Admissions credits alumni clubs in facilitating admitted students’ decisions and keeping yield so high.

“We bring to bear all the resources we have to give ad-mitted students the information they need to make the best possible decision. . . . [T]hanks in large part to your efforts, about 89%–90% accept our offer.”

—Jill Fadule

The Admissions Department’s outreach initiatives help keep rich diversity in the applicant pool, as required for classroom success of the case method. Admissions’ year-round outreach efforts represent multiple formats, in-cluding webinars, class visits, campus tours, on-campus information sessions, full-day open houses, off-campus presentations, fairs, Forte events (targeting women in busi-ness), college visits, and social media (the newly launched blog: MBA Voices). Ways that alumni clubs can help in outreach efforts include:

• Identify corporate venues in your area for outreach ac-tivities; using corporate meeting space is preferable to renting hotel space.

• In networking, encourage early career leaders to engage with HBS.

• Spread the word that HBS wants applications; do not let people “self-select out” because they think they do not fit the profile of an HBS student.

Clubs can spread the word about Career & Professional Development’s expanded alumni programming.

The Career and Professional Development (CPD) team recently expanded its career development services for alumni, including coaching, web resources, and program-ming. Over the past year, the focus has been on getting the word out via a 30-city tour.

“We’ve received amazingly positive feedback from alumni on the road, and we want to get the word out more.”

—Lauren Murphy

The new initiatives include:

• Career Reboot Camp, a successful program offered in New York, San Francisco, and Boston. Working in small groups, alumni develop their action plans for the next steps of their careers.

• LinkedIn profile makeovers, offered at reunions.

• Webinars focused on a wide range of alumni career needs and interests.

• A High Impact Talent (HIT) program being piloted in New York and Boston.

• Part-time and temporary/consulting jobs postings.

• Alumni Networking Resume book.

In the works are:

• Expanded and improved online resources, with a new site planned for fall 2015.

• Coach-facilitated, virtual job search teams.

• Career advisors (alumni to student).

http://www.hbs.edu/mba/blog/Pages/default.aspx



KEY TAKEAWAYS

CPD welcomes opportunities to collaborate with alumni clubs and has identified a few ways:

• CPD could advertise club programs on its careers website.

• Clubs could advertising CPD programs and services in their newsletters and on websites.

• They could work together to customize alumni programs.

Lauren Murphy welcomes more collaboration ideas and is hoping to start an ongoing dialogue with the clubs that will help CPD develop more alumni-focused services.

Figure 4. HBS campus master plan and construction timeline

Forklifts are giving campus a facelift.

HBS’s campus has grown dramatically over the past de-cade, keeping Andy O’Brien’s seven-person operations team busy as it pursues its mission of managing the proper environment for the School via operational excellence.

In this session’s concluding segment, the operations chief (and recent Advanced Management Program graduate) recapped the construction projects that are transform-ing the campus to materialize the master plan (Figure 4). Alumni in attendance peppered him with questions about such things as where the parking lots will be (they will be replaced by basement parking garages beneath new buildings).



OVERVIEW

Stepping up to challenges put to HBS alumni by Professors Michael Porter and Jan Rivkin in the U.S. Competitiveness Project, a small team at the HBS Club of New York set out to make a positive difference in their local economy. Their goal was to address the supply/demand gap in cer-tain middle-level jobs in NYC. Proceeding without a roadmap, they educated themselves about the problem, connected the critical players in the education and business communities, and played the role of “network integrator,” building the collaborative relationships that were needed before a talent pipeline could be built.

Their message to other clubs: you can do this. The model worked, and rolling it out across multiple HBS alumni clubs will help the U.S. economy immensely. All it takes is time, passion, and skills that every HBS club has in abun-dance: business savvy and personal networks. The personal rewards of this work, say team members, are like no other.

MODERATOR: MANJARI RAMAN, Program Director and Senior Researcher, the U.S. Competitiveness Project

PRESENTERS: BRUCE BOCKMANN, Co-Chair, HBSCNY Skills Gap Initiative

RICHARD KANE, Co-Chair, HBSCNY Skills Gap Initiative

GAIL MELLOW, President, LaGuardia Community College

JOEL GLASKY, Director, HBSCNY

U.S. COMPETITIVENESS PROJECT IN ACTION: SKILLS GAP INITIATIVE OF HBS CLUB OF NY



KEY TAKEAWAYS

HBS’s U.S. Competitiveness Project has issued recommendations to promote shared prosperity.

HBS’s collaborative U.S. Competitiveness Project, co-chaired by professors Michael Porter and Jan Rivkin, taps the opinions of 11,000 HBS alumni and the research of 20 HBS professors who have contributed to the Project over the past four years. They have defined what competi-tiveness means for a nation, devised a system to assess the relative competitiveness of an economy, determined that the United States is not as competitive as it could be and where it lags, and come up with thirteen recommended remedies to be implemented by government and business. (For more information, see this article.)

Figure 1. The U.S. is not the global competitor it could be

Figure 2. How the U.S. government could help

Figure 3. Business leaders, not just government, have roles to play in furthering the agenda

The chart above does not coincide with the roles business might be expected to play. What is needed here are the five recommendations for business: skills gap, build domestic supply chains etc.

The other five ways the identified that businesses could help: upgrading supporting industries by rebuilding domes-tic supply chains, bolstering regional strength by support-ing economic clusters, adopting conducive management practices, supporting innovation and entrepreneurship, and shifting the business/government relationship via lob-bying reforms.)

A team of New York alumni set out to help bridge mid-level skills gaps in their local economy.

STEP #1: THEY DECIDED WHERE EFFORTS COULD DO THE

MOST GOOD

First, they dug into the U.S. Competitive Project’s re-search and made the judgment that their skills and capacity as a club were best suited for addressing the skills gap chal-lenge in middle-level jobs; i.e., where demand for labor outstripped supply (for more see Bridge the Gap).

NEED FOR A STRATEGIC AGENDA TO RESTORE U.S. COMPETITIVENESS WHAT WASHINGTON SHOULD DO NOW

U.S. COMPETITIVENESS PROJECT

1. Simplify the corporate tax code with lower statutory rates and no loopholes

2. Tax overseas profits earned by American multinational companies only where they are earned

3. Ease the immigration of highly skilled individuals

4. Responsibly develop America’s shale-gas and oil reserves

5. Aggressively address distortions and abuses in the international trading system

6. Improve logistics, communications and energy infrastructure

7. Simplify and streamline regulation

8. Create a sustainable federal budget, including reform of entitlements

Source: Porter, Michael, and Jan Rivkin. "An eight-point plan to restore American competitiveness." The Economist: The World in 2013. (Nov 2012).

4

http://www.economist.com/news/21566902-eight-point-plan-restore-american-competitiveness-what-washington-must-do-now

http://www.hbs.edu/competitiveness/Documents/bridge-the-gap.pdf



KEY TAKEAWAYS

STEP #2: THEY FOUND OUT WHERE MIDDLE-LEVEL SKILLS

GAPS EXISTED LOCALLY

Once pointed in that direction, they determined where the most egregious skills gaps were in their local economy. They looked for occupations that fit two criteria: 1) de-mand for talent was growing faster than supply could ac-commodate; and 2) job training could be done through community colleges. They outsourced this research to Career Builders, a headhunting firm, which emerged with two targets for the team’s initial focus:

• Medical finance administration (a.k.a. medical billing) jobs. New York area doctors’ offices and hospitals have a des-perate need for medical billing specialists. Yet because they will not hire inexperienced applicants, they cur-rently poach each other’s talent. With community colleges not training people for these jobs, no talent pipeline existed in this skills area.

• IT jobs in early-stage technology companies. Technology startups do not have the resources to pay IT talent what large companies do. The HBS alumni learned that developing companies needed skilled people who would be enthusiastic to get a job in technology but would not demand a huge salary.

STEP #3: THEY REACHED OUT TO THE LOCAL COMMUNITY

COLLEGE COMMUNITY

A member of the alumni team, Joel Glasky, had a well-placed friend: Chancellor of the City University of New York (CUNY) system. He quickly arranged a meeting be-tween the alumni team and the presidents and administra-tors of several of the local community colleges. LaGuardia Community College President Gail Mellow “got it” and enthusiastically committed to working with the alumni club. Gail is one of the leading community college presi-dents and her leadership and involvement turned out to be key to the project’s success.

STEP #4: THEY GOT THE EDUCATION AND BUSINESS COM-

MUNITIES TALKING AND COLLABORATING ON THE PROBLEM

Next, Joel Glasky led the alumni team on an educational journey to learn all about community colleges generally and LaGuardia in particular, such as how the curriculum was designed and how faculty and administrators develop relationships with the business community.

Then the team played the role of “network integrator.” This meant facilitating effective conversations between the business people with a skills gap problem to solve and col-lege administrators and faculty that did not really know what the business people needed. It involved bridging language and cultural disconnects and, most importantly, overcoming skepticism on the part of business and resis-tance to change on behalf of faculty.

“We played the role of network integrator . . . getting the business and education people collaborating. This is hands on and participatory. It’s not scalable with technology because it’s all about people building rela-tionships to solve a problem.”

–Bruce Bockmann

Most importantly, the team helped form strong relation-ships among people in education and business, so that on-going collaboration would occur. It seems strange that the communities did not naturally gravitate toward each other given shared interests in solving the skills gap problem. But in both industries that were examined, healthcare and technology, the conversations with educators were not happening.

“Employers and educators were not talking to each other. We’ve been using our personal networks to create con-versations that would likely not have taken place other-wise. That’s the main thing we brought to the table.”

–Richard Kane

President Gail Mellow says it is difficult for a community college to get access to employers without the help of an intermediary able to play the role that the HBS club did.

“The alumni group from HBS Club of New York al-lowed us to get in to talk to employers, and got them to stay with us. We got to come back. We got to ask more questions. We had to tinker, but we created this out of whole cloth.”

—Gail Mellow



KEY TAKEAWAYS

Once the conversations were started, the solutions were simple in concept. The employers determined the skills they need and then collaborated with the educators to de-sign or adjust curriculum to meet those needs. However, the simple concept was implemented differently for the two industries. The medical billing solution involved a collaboration on designing a new five-month training program at LaGuardia (see below). The technology jobs solution involved sending interns to the companies, deter-mining what skills were needed, feeding that information back to LaGuardia and then adjusting curriculum.

The result: in the targeted occupations, a talent pipeline is being built, demonstrating a viable model.

As a result of the new collaborative effort, job opportuni-ties have opened up to people who would not have had them otherwise. “It’s obviously much too early to claim success,” said Richard Kane. While improving the lives of a few dozen people is great, “it’s not changing the world just yet.” However, the good news is that the early suc-cesses prove the model works. With other clubs following suit, there is an opportunity for large-scale strides.

“We’ve seen enough to suggest that the network inte-grator approach works. . . . That approach is probably transferrable to other sectors, other schools, other cities.”

—Richard Kane

How a small team at the HBS Club of New York built a talent pipeline in medical billing

• The alumni set out to address the medical billing talent gap by using their personal networks to find healthcare organizations feeling the pinch. Weill Cornell Medical Center was one.

• The team’s pitch: “Would you be interested in finding a training facility that will create qualified applicants for your jobs, people who are likely to take those jobs and stay in them?” They were.

• The team met with HR folks at Weill Cornell to learn about their hiring practices, soliciting detailed job descriptions.

• LaGuardia faculty used these guidelines to design a five-month training program. Cornell preferred a five-month program to a more thorough two-year program owing to the urgency of their need. The faculty met with Weill Cornell several times and job-shadowed medical billers to ensure the course they designed adequately equipped students to do the job.

• When the course was first promoted to students, how-ever, no one showed up to learn about it. One problem was the marketing materials, which mentioned “training” but not “jobs and careers.” The alumni team worked with LaGuardia to redo the marketing. The second problem was expense. For the college’s economically disadvan-taged students, $2,000 was too steep an investment to make. The Club’s board decided to provide scholarship funds to partially defray the cost initially, so that the pilot had a chance of working.

• Nineteen students began the program six months ago; 10 graduated (better than the college’s overall comple-tion rate of 30%). Interestingly, they were the same 10 individuals who had applied for scholarships (10 of which were awarded). At the time of the conference, the gradu-ates were interviewing for jobs at Weill Cornell and other hospitals; six of the 10 had been called back for second interviews. The HBS Club of New York alumni team is optimistic about their prospects.



KEY TAKEAWAYS

The New York club’s message to other HBS clubs: let’s scale this model up!

“Other HBS clubs can do this” was the resounding mes-sage of the speakers. There were no unique enabling cir-cumstances in New York. All HBS clubs have access to alumni with the same business skills and personal networks that were instrumental at making the project work. And the New York club’s large size was moot as the team that did the most of the work was just 10 people.

“The process will work and be meaningful if there’s a single employer and a single community college you can bring together.”

—Richard Kane

Gail Mellow, in addition to being an incredibly effective leader of LaGuardia, is one of the most influential of the community college presidents. She has offered to intro-duce other HBS alumni clubs to leaders of local com-munity colleges. Likewise, the team at the HBS Club of New York stands ready to help anyone who would like to pursue a similar initiative—they have accumulated plenty of resources to share.

“This will be true for everybody here: you’ll find that you can really add value, and it’s just amazing. . . . There’s a tremendous amount of personal satisfaction as a result of having participated in this unmapped exercise.”

—Joel Glasky



OVERVIEW

We typically think of negotiating in terms of one of two prevailing paradigms. We hold in mind the hope of strik-ing a “win-win” agreement (exemplified in Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton) or we try to drive the hardest bargain and walk away with the better deal (Herb Cohen’s You Can Negotiate Anything). Both are too simplistic to be effective amid the complexi-ties of real-world situations.

There is a better way, a dynamic approach based on the techniques of master negotiators who excel amid chaos and ambiguity. The best negotiators do not trap them-selves with rigid plans but view negotiation as an explor-atory process requiring an agile mindset.

CONTEXT

Professor Wheeler shared with a powerful new way to approach negotiating, drawing on the themes of his latest book, The Art of Negotiation: How to Improvise Agreement in a Chaotic World. The book was based on research by Professor Wheeler and colleagues in Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation.

PRESENTER: MICHAEL A. WHEELER, Senior Fellow, MBA 1952, Professor of Management Practice, Retired

THE ART OF NEGOTIATION: HOW TO IMPROVISE AGREEMENT IN A CHAOTIC WORLD



KEY TAKEAWAYS

The best negotiators see negotiation as an improvisational art.

Professor Wheeler has studied the best practices of master negotiators. They approach the negotiating process as im-provisation, using emotional I.Q. as their guide. They lis-ten deeply and are both calm and highly alert. The signals they pick up on tell them what to do or say. They realize when to assent, when to walk away, and when to ask for something more, not from any predetermined plan but from the real-time proceedings. Their mental agility serves them well in situations of complexity and ambiguity, as so many negotiations are.

Needed is an agile mindset, allowing you to learn, influence, and adapt on the spot.

Lessons about negotiating that emerged from this session include:

• You cannot script negotiation; it must be improvised. That is because: 1) other parties will have their own ideas about where to go and how to get there; 2) circumstances may change (for better or worse); and 3) your own prefer-ences may shift (a little or a lot).

• Therefore, you must improvise strategically and tactically. Doing so takes managing contradictory inclinations: creating value versus claiming value, and assertiveness versus empathy (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Strategic and tactical agility

• Managing these contradictory tensions is key. “The negotiator’s dilemma” is knowing when interests are best served by an approach emphasizing claiming value over creating value (or vice versa) and assertiveness over empathy (or vice versa).

• You need an agile mindset for optimal results. An agile mindset allows you to learn, influence, and adapt as proceedings continue. You learn more about the other parties’ cir-cumstances, you influence their stance, and you adapt yours—in an iterative, circular fashion (Figure 2).

Figure 2. An agile mindset

“Negotiation is learning, adapting, and influencing in a strategic environment.”

—Michael Wheeler

Negotiating success is part luck, part skill. The elements of luck include who is across the table, how they play the game, and whether you can influence them. The elements of skill: how well you read the other party’s tendencies, how well you learn to influence the other party positively, and how well you can change the game.

Take to heart three lessons from military doctrine:

1. The U.S. Marine Corps’ Warfighting Manual says all ac-tions in wartime take place amid uncertainty, “the fog of war.” Think of negotiations the same way (“the fog of negotiation”), and bake agility into your plan.

2. Craft a “bump plan” for the worst-case scenario. Figure out what would be the most dangerous result possible, and have a plan ready to use in that scenario if you have to.

3. Perfect your OODA loop: Observe > Orient > Decide > Act.

anagilemindset

1

“Nego&a&onislearning,adap&ng,andinfluencinginastrategicenvironment.”



KEY TAKEAWAYS

Other Important Point

• There’s an app for that! Download Professor Wheeler’s Negotiation 360™ app with interactive features that can enhance your ability to reach agreement and resolve disputes. It generates a personalized profile of your rela-tional and problem-solving skills, highlighting strengths you can build on and areas where you can improve. See a description of the app here, and learn more about Professor Wheeler’s negotiation technique at his web-site, Negotiation 3.0™, here.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/negotiation-360/id949271941?mt=8

http://negotiation3-0.com/



OVERVIEW

Many HBS alumni clubs recognize a responsibility to use members’ skills and resources in ways that give back to their local communities, and many alumni enjoy doing so. A desire to give back is reflected in several of the club initiatives discussed in this session, namely the HBS Club of South Florida’s Community Partners program, scholarship program, and “insider” event series, and the HBS Association of Northern California’s Alumni Angels chapter.

Two other club endeavors discussed serve to accelerate club goals of connecting and engaging alumni. The African American Alumni Association’s Global Ambassador Program enriches the regional clubs with which it part-ners by connecting them to speakers and advancing the interests of its constituency. The HBS Club of New York has been leveraging the power of analytics to better un-derstand, engage, and retain multi-generational members.

CONTEXT

Panelists from different HBS clubs discussed programs that have worked well for their clubs and the benefits they have produced.

MODERATOR: KATHLEEN MURRAY, President, HBS Women’s Association of Greater New York

PRESENTERS: NICOLE BELL-SIMON, Membership Lead, African-American Alumni Association

OHAD JEHASSI, President, HBS Club of South Florida

JEAN KOVACS, President, Alumni Angels, HBS Association of Northern California

IRENE TSERKOVNY, Chief Information Officer, HBS Club of New York

TEDX PRESENTATIONS AND PANEL DISCUSSION



KEY TAKEAWAYS

The HBS Club of South Florida is involved in several community service programs and initiatives.

The club’s president, Ohad Jehassi, discussed three of the club’s biggest community service initiatives:

• Community Partners program. Community Partners is a pro bono consulting program pioneered by the Northern California club in 1986. South Florida’s Community Partners program has been running since 2001. It serves nonprofit organizations in four Florida counties that need but cannot afford business consulting services.

Each year, two organizations, out of about 20 applicants, are chosen to receive consulting services by alumni vol-unteers. Consulting projects typically last 10–12 weeks. After developing an understanding of the client orga-nization’s strategic and implementation challenges, the consultants recommend actionable changes to help move the organization forward. The program’s recent successes include helping a children’s center develop a five-year strategic plan, helping a women’s shelter de-termine and assess its relocation options, and helping a museum evaluate expansion possibilities.

• Scholarship awards. The HBS Club of South Florida’s HBS South Florida Foundation raises money for area nonprofit leaders to attend an HBS Executive Education program on full scholarship. The scholarship program, called “Strategic Perspectives in Non-Profit Management,” has awarded 36 scholarships since 2005. Funds are raised via a leadership dinner and award night honoring an exceptional business leader in the community.

• Community Insider series. This popular event series raises funds for nonprofits in the community and drives new members for the HBS Club of South Florida. Held at the facilities of arts centers and other nonprofits, these events give members an “inside” look at the operation, with unique HBS-only programming. Attendees typi-cally number 100–200 and tickets sometimes sell out. The net proceeds go to the hosting organization. The club typically donates $1,500-$5,000, and individuals raise another two to three times that. It is a very suc-cessful model: club members are treated to a memorable experience, and the club supports a worthy cause. (See the video from a recent ballet event in the Community Insider series.)

The HBS Association of Northern California is very involved with the HBS Alumni Angels Association.

One of HBS’s shared interest groups, Alumni Angels, founded in 2008, is a global organization with 13 chapters worldwide. The association provides a forum for Harvard alumni to connect with, learn about, and invest in qual-ity early-stage companies, located predominantly in the northern California area. This involves outreach to the re-gion’s vibrant entrepreneurial community. The Northern California chapter of Alumni Angels has 120 members. Many of the Alumni Angels members are also members of the regional HBS club.

The chapter’s major activities include:

• Quarterly pitch evenings, where local entrepreneurs pitch ideas to Alumni Angels members.

• Educational webinars, focused on topics of relevance to investors and startups.

• A global conference. This year’s will be on November 19, in Mountain View, California (details and registration).

• The StartUp Partners mentoring program. Startup business leaders present their business dilemmas to teams of three to six HBS alumni during working lunches. The situ-ations they describe are like HBS case studies, with a narrow focus in one or two key areas. The alumni dis-cuss the issues and provide on-the-spot advice. Thus far 40 companies have participated, representing 300 hours of volunteer work.

Among Alumni Angels’ benefits, the program:

• Attracts a unique group of alumni, interested in club membership for reasons beyond networking.

• Provides an ability to reach out into the entrepreneurial and angel investor community.

• Strengthens alumni bonds by encouraging communi-cation and collaborative efforts between club meetings and events.

https://vimeo.com/66649698

https://vimeo.com/66649698

http://www.hbsalumniangels.com/

http://www.eventbrite.com/e/save-the-date-4th-annual-hbs-alumni-angels-global-conference-tickets-17508335904



KEY TAKEAWAYS

Figure 1 shows the startup companies that the Alumni Angels chapter has helped to fund during 2014.

Figure 1. The Northern California chapter of Alumni Angels helped these startups last year

The HBS African-American Alumni’s (HBSAAA) Global Ambassador Program strengthens Harvard’s ties in local communities.

According to the HBSAAA website, “The African-American Alumni Association (HBSAAA) serves over 2,200 African-American, African, and other graduates of HBS who identify with an African-American heritage. It is dedicated to building and sustaining a beneficial network that connects alumni, current students, and applicants with HBS to increase [their] influence at the School and in the broader African-American Community.”

HBSAAA’s Global Ambassador Program is designed to further this mission of connecting and uniting (also thereby advancing the objectives of the One HARVARD initia-tive). How the program works: HBS African American alumni in key cities serve as local liaisons to other HBS African American alumni and to all Harvard geographic and shared interest groups in the area. In this role, the ambassadors:

• Work with local clubs to publicize existing events

• Suggest speakers/topics of interest to HBSAAA constituents

• Organize stand-alone HBSAAA events including speak-ers, dinner series, etc.

Among the benefits of the Global Ambassador Program, it:

• Builds a sense of community and increased engagement in all clubs

• Increases membership of both organizations

• Taps the brains of amazing speakers

• Broadens the reach of the network and more effectively leverages the network

Some of the Global Ambassador Program’s success stories include:

• HBSAAA partnered with HBS Club of New York and HBS Women’s Association of Greater New York to promote the fall 2014 Global Networking Night. The partnership resulted in a 10% increase in HBSAAA membership and increased engagement.

• Ambassadors helped make 2014 Global Networking Night a success in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, DC, Florida, and Los Angeles.

• HBSAAA promoted the Harvard Black Alumni Society’s bi-annual conference.

• HBSAAA partnered with the HBS Club of New York and the HBS Women’s Association of Greater New York to bring Desiree Rogers to speak about leadership.

• In partnership with the HBS Club of New York, HBSAAA hosted Roger Ferguson, CEO of TIAA-CREF and former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman, as a speaker.

The HBS Club of New York uses analytics to support its membership engagement efforts.

The generational profile of the new alumni emerging from HBS differs from that of older alumni:

• New HBS graduates and alumni are younger, more entrepreneurial and technology focused, more socially connected, and inundated with professional and personal opportunities.

http://www.hbsaaa.org/

http://www.faculty.harvard.edu/oneharvard



KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Established alumni are highly engaged in community work and special projects. They want to contribute to a growing startup ecosystem.

The New York alumni club sees an opportunity to more effectively engage and unite the two groups by differenti-ating the way it approaches and interacts with them. The opportunity lies in leveraging membership data, via ana-lytics, to reach the groups in targeted ways that are more relevant to their respective realities.

“Both [younger and older alumni] feel a deep connec-tion to the school, and we have an opportunity to bring them together.”

-- Irene Tserkovny

Membership data analytics allows HBS clubs to better en-gage members by:

• Personalizing alumni site experiences

• Targeting programing to the member’s probable inter-est level

Analytics also allows the club to better execute operation-ally and strategically. It provides the means for:

• Better management of diverse revenue sources

• Improved forecasting capabilities

• Better member acquisition strategies

Having accurate and precise information is key to success with analytics. For example, membership data needs to be broken out by day, month, and year. Year-over-year comparisons should be tracked for all data, enabling the ability to see change in the metric over time.

The HBS Club of New York tracks various data to enable more strategic membership acquisition, engagement, and planning.

Figure 2. Data the HBS Club of New York tracks

Area Data Tracked

Marketing • Accurate, real-time membership data

• Weekly/monthly new and churned mem-bers by segment

• Net new members vs. renewals

• E-mail bounces

• “Unsubscribe” email requests percentage

• Segmented conversion rates/open rates/click rates/asset engagement to ticket purchase/registration by event type and registrant type

• Registrants vs. attendants by category of attendee by event

• Member/non-member/alumni/guest based analytics by event type

• Performance of events by event type (hierarchy/sub-hierarchy)- a/b testing

• Year-over-year comparisons for all data

Administration • Authentication errors/security data

• Duplications errors

Business/Accounting

• Revenue and costs

• Dues

• Event revenue by type/category/mem-bership type

• Gifts

Membership • How many members are new members (past 12 months)

• How many members renew relative to how many are up for renewal (past 12 months and last 90 days)



MEMBERSHIP & MARKETING: YOUNG ALUMNI FOCUS

OVERVIEW

Younger HBS alumni are at a particularly busy stage of their lives, making their professional goals a reality while often starting families. While their ties to HBS are strong, they often do not have the bandwidth to participate in club activities to the degree they—and we—would like. They are selective about which activities they spend time on; only those perceived as most value-added make the cut. Offering programming that adds value to their busy lives is a challenge.

The HBS Clubs Team has five programs targeting young alumni that have been increasingly used by clubs over re-cent years with great success. Clubs that have focused their efforts on engaging young alumni have best practices to offer other clubs, as does the HBS Clubs Team.

CONTEXT

Panelists shared tools and best practices for engaging young alumni.

PRESENTERS: SCOTT LYON, Marketing Chair, HBS Association of Boston

LINDSAY MCCONCHIE, Associate Director, Young Alumni and Student Engagement, HBS Alumni Relations



KEY TAKEAWAYS

Engaging busy young alumni is a challenge; value-added programming is a must.

The approximately 13,000 young HBS alumni, defined as 0–15 years out of HBS, have settled all over the world, but about half (6,570) are concentrated in four regions: New York (2,750), Northern California (1,717), Boston (1,408), and London (695). Most clubs’ regions (approxi-mately two thirds) have fewer than 100 young alumni. Other regions with high counts are Washington D.C. (565), Southern California (543) and Chicago (452).

Figure 1. Where young alumni live

The HBS Clubs Team has identified four primary chal-lenges to engaging young alumni:

• Generational. Most clubs are run by older alumni and programming is often geared to them.

• Stage of life. Young HBS alumni are in a fast-paced stage of life, working hard to make things happen in the busi-ness world and starting families.

• Bandwidth. At this stage of life, they have much on their plate. Despite the close ties they feel to HBS, many young alumni simply lack the bandwidth to engage in club activities.

• Value-added programming. Given their limited bandwidth, young alumni are selective about the activities in which they participate. Activites perceived to add value to their careers or lives will be most popular.

YOUNG ALUMNI ENGAGEMENT

5

CLUB HBS Alumni Association of Israel 31 HBS Alumni Association of Italy 39 HBS Alumni Club of Ireland 10 HBS Association of Boston 1408 HBS Association of Germany 117 HBS Association of Hong Kong 202 HBS Association of New Zealand 6 HBS Association of Nigeria 31 HBS Association of Northern California 1717 HBS Association of Orange County 90 HBS Association of Oregon 55 HBS Association of Pittsburgh 31 HBS Association of Southeastern New England 30 HBS Association of Southern California 543 HBS Association of Taipei 19 HBS Association of Thailand 29 HBS Club of Argentina - Inactive 43 HBS Club of Arizona 39 HBS Club of Atlanta 226 HBS Club of Austin 91 HBS Club of Birmingham 15 HBS Club of Brazil 183 HBS Club of Buffalo 6 HBS Club of Calgary 18 HBS Club of Central Ohio 21 HBS Club of Charlotte 93

CLUB HBS Club of Chicago 452 HBS Club of China 203 HBS Club of Cincinnati 26 HBS Club of Colorado 105 HBS Club of Connecticut 239 HBS Club of Dallas 206 HBS Club of Denmark 7 HBS Club of Egypt 20 HBS Club of Fort Worth 25 HBS Club of France 131 HBS Club of New York 2750 HBS Club of Greece 25 HBS Club of Houston 213 HBS Club of Iceland 3 HBS Club of India 181 HBS Club of Jacksonville 27 HBS Club of Japan 132 HBS Club of Kansas City 17 HBS Club of Korea 71 HBS Club of Lebanon 24 HBS Club of London 695 HBS Club of Maine 20 HBS Club of Malaysia 18 HBS Club of Mexico 118 HBS Club of Michigan 84 HBS Club of Minnesota 135

CLUB HBS Club of Montreal 29 HBS Club of Northeastern Ohio 51 HBS Club of Norway 16 HBS Club of Ottawa 2 HBS Club of Pakistan 10 HBS Club of Peru 26 HBS Club of Philadelphia 130 HBS Club of Puget Sound 247 HBS Club of Rochester 11 HBS Club of San Antonio 15 HBS Club of San Diego 77 HBS Club of Singapore 153 HBS Club of South Africa 148 HBS Club of South Florida 164 HBS Club of Spain 78 HBS Club of St. Louis 40 HBS Club of Sweden 25 HBS Club of Syracuse 4 HBS Club of the Netherlands 34 HBS Club of the Philippines 20 HBS Club of Toronto 133 HBS Club of Turkey 50 HBS Club of United Arab Emirates 51 HBS Club of Utah 76 HBS Club of Venezuela 3 HBS Club of Washington DC 565 HBS Club of Wisconsin 39

GRAND TOTAL: 13,451

WHERE ARE THEY?



KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Clubs Team’s toolkit includes five programs designed to appeal to young alumni.

The Clubs Team offers programming developed specifi-cally to appeal to young, busy alumni. The five programs (shown below) targeting this demographic have grown dramatically over the past five years.

Figure 2. The growth of Clubs Team’s programs for young alumni attests to their success

Program Description Growth

FY2010 FY2015 to Date

Percent Change

Young Alumni Ambassadors

For alumni 1–2 years out. Graduating class is invited to opt into volunteering for roles including reunion planning, fundraising, class secretary, regional volunteer, admissions volunteer.

108 volunteers

518 volunteers

+380%

One-Year Reunion

For most recent graduates, held mid-May each year. Programming takes place from Friday night to Sunday morning and includes faculty sessions and social activities.

94 attendees 638 attendees

+578%

Young Alumni Regional Events

Networking events co-branded with regional clubs in cities with critical mass of young alumni (0–10 years out).

192 attendees

630 attendees

+228%

Dinner Connections*

This program provides an opportunity for young alumni in an area to engage with each other in small group dinners. A young alumnus host brings together six to eight young alumni in a local restaurant, with planning support from the Student & Young Alumni Engagement team.

3 dinners 3 cities 20 attendees

5 dinners 4 cities 34 attendees

+70%

FIELD 3 Alumni Advisory Boards

Young alumni (0–15 years out) are invited by the GEO office to act as an on-call advisor to students during FIELD 3. Alumni provide input, guidance, and feedback as students develop their FIELD 3 businesses.

— 380+ alumni engaged, past 3 years

—

* Piloted in fiscal 2014.



KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Clubs Team has great suggestions for engaging young alumni.

The Clubs Team’s programs leave lots of room for in-dividual clubs to design their own events and activities around the programs. To kick off its Young Ambassadors program, for example, the HBS Association of Boston held a summer mixer, a networking/social event for alumni 0–10 years out. Class-specific delegates were encouraged to reach out to their social networks to “humanize the message.” There was an explicit emphasis on spreading the word of the event via social media.

The HBS Association of Southern California has been fo-cusing on engaging young alumni this year, with great results. Turnout for young alumni events thus far this year has been nearly twice as much as all of last year (124 regis-trations to date in 2015 versus 68 in 2014). The three new programs for young alumni this year are a Harvard Happy Hour, “Executive Sutra: Amplify Your Performance,” and an HBS Young Alumni Event. Going forward, the Southern California club hopes to engage young alumni in new ways, including:

• Involve interested young alumni on a volunteer basis. Plans include utilizing the “wisdom of the crowd” to find the best event opportunities as well as involving young alumni in organizing and marketing events. With rising involvement from young alumni, the club hopes to spot potential future board members.

• Organize more events bringing together young alumni from different Harvard schools. The club’s recent happy hour included young alumni from the Harvard Law and Kennedy schools; turnout exceeded 40 people.

• Try out new ideas for interesting events. The club is con-tinually exploring new opportunities that would attract young alumni (e.g., a tour of SpaceX’s facilities).

Best practices for engaging young alumni go beyond programming ideas.

Although not present at CLC, the HBS Association of Southern California offered, via PowerPoint slides, best practices the club has learned as it began to focus on en-gaging young alumni:

• Recognize that you’re dealing with a different demographic with different preferences. The club has noticed three things about this segment:

1. They tend to want only casual board involvement. They may have event ideas but little time for exten-sive commitments.

2. They appreciate opportunities to meet other Harvard alumni in the area.

3. HBS-supported events are big hits, such as the annual HBS-sponsored LA Young Alumni event.

• Offer a diverse range of events. Keep a good mix on the calendar in terms of both type (e.g., happy hours, stand-up comedy nights, hikes, speaker series) and size, with some large- and some small-scale events.

• Actively communicate with the young alumni community. Stay in touch via the club website, newsletter, and emails. Events can be a great opportunity to promote future events.

• Solicit feedback from young alumni. Understand their needs and try to address them with programming; for example, on career development or other relevant topics.

• Collaborate with HBS. For example, the HBS Association of Southern California gets involved with the HBS-sponsored LA Young Alumni event.

• Experiment. That is the best way to discover what works for your young alumni community.



KEY TAKEAWAYS

Lindsay McConchie, associate director of Young Alumni Programs and Engagement, suggested that clubs think about engaging young alumni not only when planning programming but also when deciding how to structure membership tiers, communications, and board seats. Her list of best practices included:

• Structure memberships to attract young alumni. Create scaled, discounted membership for most recent graduates and graduates 0–5 years out (the Boston club does this).

• Create targeted messaging. For example, send a welcome email to all MBA graduates in the area.

• Start engagement efforts early in people’s association with HBS. Invite admitted students and current students participating in internships in your area to events with alumni about 3–5 years out. Hold events at a popular bar/restaurant venue, close to public transportation, no earlier than 6:30 p.m.

• Hold pre- and post-event parties specifically for young alumni. Invite a V.I.P. to attend and promote these events via peer-to-peer social networking. Consider offering reduced or separate ticket pricing for young alumni who attend both the main event and special party.

• Create officer roles for young alumni. Add a “Young Alumni Liaison” position to current officer positions. Give the person a list of recent grads in the area interested in get-ting involved (the HBS Clubs Team can help with this). From the list, the liaison could vet and select a young alumni coordinator to take responsibility for outreach to the region’s young alumni.

Other Important Point

• Service: a young alum magnet. In engaging young alumni, do not forget the power of younger generations’ com-mitment to community service. The HBS Club of New York has found that its Community Partners projects are a “young alumni magnet,” says Bruce Bockmann. Busy, young people often want time away from thinking about work or networking, he observes, to do something they believe in; community-building activities fill the bill.



ACTION ITEMS PROGRAMMING

• In planning programming, consider using scalable pro-grams the HBS Clubs Team has developed.

• Consider offering a wide range of events. Clubs have had success with:

1. Programs leveraging HBS graduates’ business skills (e.g., Community Partners)

2. Speaker events (e.g., HBS faculty)

3. Panel discussions on business- or work-related topics

4. “Insider” tours of arts or business facilities (such as museum or factory tours)

5. Fundraisers for good causes (for example, awarding HBS scholarships)

6. Networking events

7. Events for students and recent graduates

8. Social occasions (holiday parties, sports games, cultural excursions, regional attractions)

• Consider designing programs to advance goals, such as engaging young alumni, contributing to local commu-nities, or advancing the interests of the broad HBS com-munity, including reaching out to admits or helping to match students with internships.

PARTNERSHIP/COLLABORATION

• Partner with corporate sponsors. Promoting sponsoring companies at events and on your website can bring in welcome revenue for use in multiple ways.

• Team up. When HBS shared interest groups and geo-graphic clubs partner on events, both benefit. Events draw bigger crowds and offer richer networking. The new iModule technology software will facilitate co-marketing.

• Consider co-hosting events with other Harvard clubs—another way to boost attendance and expand members’ personal networks.

• Collaborate with local nonprofit organizations on ser-vice initiatives. Nonprofits often could use the advice of HBS graduates to solve strategic or operational chal-lenges, and alumni often find pro bono consulting to be very personally rewarding.

ACTION ITEMS FOR ALUMNI CLUBS


ACTION ITEMS FOR ALUMNI CLUBS

• Partner with area employers and community colleges to help alleviate the skills gap problem in the local econ-omy (as a team at the New York Club has been doing; see the session summary, “U.S. Competiveness Projects in Action”). This is another great use of HBS graduates’ skills and personal networks.

• Collaborate with local businesses to co-host events of mutual interest. For example, the club might contribute a speaker, the company a free venue.

COMMUNITY SERVICE

• Consider offering club members a chance to take part in rewarding initiatives that give back to the local commu-nity. Examples include pro bono consulting work such as Community Partners, “StartUp Partners,” a Northern California Club invention, the New York Club’s afore-mentioned Skills Gap initiative, and scholarship awards. The South Florida Club’s foundation awards nonprofit leaders full scholarships to HBS.

• Use community service initiatives to attract and engage young alumni.

ENGAGING YOUNG ALUMNI

• Stay in close communication with young alumni. Understand their busy lifestyle and career development needs. Solicit their feedback.

• Offer young alumni targeted programming that they perceive as value-added; i.e., worth making time for. The Shanghai club has a popular Mentorship Dinner series as well as an entrepreneurship event; both are very popular among its predominantly young membership.

• Involve young alumni in club governance roles (for ex-ample, create a designated board seat), recognizing their “bandwidth” limitations.

• Think of engaging the HBS community’s younger members as an investment in the club’s future, helping to build a leadership succession pipeline.

OPERATIONS

• The IT platform transition from AlumniMagnet to iModule will occur in FY16. Please be sure to respond promptly to the Clubs Team’s requests for the informa-tion they need to migrate your club’s website.

• The new technology will bring new functionalities to club websites, email systems, and administrative plat-forms. Use these new capabilities to full advantage to optimize such activities as marketing and membership data management.

SUPPORTING HBS UNITS

• Executive Education encourages alumni clubs to:

1. Collaborate with ExEd on events

2. Provide feedback on topics for the curriculum

3. Offer ideas on attracting underserved populations to ExEd programs (women, African Americans)

4. Urge executives in their networks to engage with HBS and enroll in ExEd programs

• Admissions encourages alumni to congratulate and con-nect with admitted students and to help with its outreach to potential applicants. Alumni can help by spreading the word that HBS wants applications, encouraging early career leaders to apply, and identifying local corporate venues for Admissions’ outreach activities.

• Career & Professional Development encourages alumni clubs to spread the word about its tools and resources for alumni.