Flotsam, Jetsam, Covenant Alumni Directory

One factor that you haven't considered here that would argue in favor of the college purchasing and managing a system itself is data collection. If the college owns the system, then the college has access to updates to alumni addresses, phone numbers, etc. Perhaps more importantly from the standpoint of improving alumni communications, the college has poor records at present of what activities or organizations students were involved in during their time at Covenant. If alumni begin to establish 'circles' in the new directory that will help the college communicate better with alumni with particular interests.

So, for example, if a Catacombs circle is established, that will help the college identify alumni who have an affinity for Catacombs (which may help should the college ever choose to renovate Catacombs, or implement an adopt-a-Catacomber program or anything like that). As it stands right now, the college doesn't have complete records of who played a sport, who sang in chorale, who was a member of the philosophy club, etc.

I may be wrong, but my understanding is that piggy-backing on free alternatives wouldn't give the college this capability. So, it may still be too soon to determine whether this was a "misguided and fiscally irresponsible decision on the part of the college."

It kind of sucks for the college that this is a 'you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't' sort of situation. If the college doesn't buy an online directory, some alumni complain about the lack. If the college does buy an online directory, other alumni complain that they bought the wrong one, or that they should have used a free one. If the college uses a free online directory, the alumni who work in the alumni office complain about the fact that it's not helping the college's efforts to reconnect and communicate with alumni. Grievous.

Derek, as per usual, good points. But like we talked about at lunch, facebook, for example, already has groups and clubs etc. and the data that would need to be collected by the college could be gained through certain avenues with the creators of facebook.

But, one way or another, the college would be spending money. My frustration is most likely due to the "late the the party" nature of this situation, which is unavoidable (now). Its good that the college is doing something, in this regard, just a shame its 3 years *late*.

WKLT -- no go at my end either. I'll have to try it later when I'm outside the firewall, but I don't think that is it (I can get to other outside stuff). They do appear not to have a complete handle on things... the "play with Windows Media Player" isn't enforcing a particular player for example. (Not that I want them to... but with a definitive named player, I expected them to enforce some control over it.)

By the way, Josiah... what do you hear about the college's failure to keep up bagpipeonline.com? I was looking forward to keeping up with things via tha mechanism, but it's not been updated in months. Does the bagpipe have snail mail subscriptions??
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RDS

I've subscribed to "'Sheed said it". All I can say is thank you, Josiah. My world is now a better place.

What's a "catacomber." Is that like a Michiganian?

Since everyone loves "a little controversy", I thought I'd respond in an unofficial but informed capacity. I was the person responsible for bringing Affinity Engines to the Alumni Relations office and hope to set the record straight with my response.

The concept of social networking is a relatively new phenomenon with the major players consisting of Affinity Engines, Facebook, Friendster, LinkedIn, and others. Each solution has pros and cons, but at the end of the day, the college sought to provide an avenue to connect its alumni--a place where validated users can easily come and communicate securely with one another. Unfortunately, despite the best intentions of the college, the current system does not do this effectively.

You raised several points that I beg to differ on:

1. “Better and free alternatives to the Affinity alumni directory exist” – Better? Compared to what? How can you comment on something that you haven’t seen? Affinity Engines is a very strong player in the social networking space with clients from schools such as Stanford University, University of Michigan, University of Florida, University of Virginia, Dartmouth, Georgetown, Northwestern, Georgia Tech and the list goes on. I think you can agree here, we are in good company.

A couple of facts about Facebook that people might not be aware of are that they only allow access to users with school affiliated email addresses. So in order for me or any other alumni to access and participate in the site, we must have some sort of @covenant.edu address.

You suggest that the college should “give out” email accounts. Who would maintain this email service? What would that cost? Define cheap. Why buy anything when there are already a multitude of free email services? From the alumni feedback I’ve received, many have stated that they may not want another email account to check regardless of whether or not it says @alumni.covenant.edu.

While this free option does exist, you have to ask yourself "Why is Facebook free?" What is the business model that they are using to support people accessing their site? It’s advertising revenue, plain and simple.

2. “It was stated that a large reason for the college to purchase its own directory was the desire for editorial and content control” – Are you kidding me? Stated by whom? I’ve been involved from the beginning of this and never heard an expressed desire for editorial control. The college understands that the Alumni want to be heard and they are providing the means to connect. As members of the Covenant Community, we should rally behind this effort and drive traffic to the site. We need a secure, vibrant, branded site that will be self-policing for the appropriateness of content. Having your name and class associated with each post will almost certainly have this effect.

Content control is more about the advertising that is permitted on the Facebook site. The last thing we need or want is to have the Covenant College sanctioned site littered with inappropriate ad content from Hooters or some online dating service. In response to your statement that a simple phone call will take care of inappropriate ads, Facebook is doing wonderfully with advertising and has no incentive to appeal to University administration or Alumni Associations to run their business.

Despite what you think, the concept and its acquisition are not misguided, nor are they fiscally irresponsible. In fact, I think the concept and the implementation will help to provide the Alumni Relations office with some much needed assistance. With this product, users will not only be able to leverage the student relationships established while at Covenant but those of the greater Covenant Community at large. The college is trying to reenergize the Alumni network with this electronic medium for everything from prayer requests, broadcast communication of events to internships or career opportunities.

If you have any other specific questions or concerns on this, please feel free to contact me or Marshall Rowe to discuss further.

How 'bout if I have specific questions or concerns I say it right here, you know, for old times sake.

You'll have to forgive me for not contacting you personally to discuss further; my e-mail client seems to have broken. I'm still kind of new to this whole internet thing, so I hope you'll bear with me as I wrestle with this new phenomenon. If I may implore you: your advantageous position as an unofficial but informed individual is, I think, apropos in this capacity.

But if I may "beg to differ" and insist "what you have to ask yourself" on a few points:

Have you used friendster, facebook, linkedin, myspace, grokster, imeem, zoominfo, etc.?

Are you aware the social networking sites are "relatively new" as of 1997? I suppose that all depends on your definition of "relatively" and "new" and the verb "are".

Are you aware I have used/perused the Affinity Engine software? Are you aware Affinity is suing Google for supposedly stealing their code for Grokster?

Are you aware that the college was given a proposal for the continuation of student e-mail accounts post-graduation four years ago which would have cost the college a fractional increase to their technology budget and would have resulted in a current alumni e-mail list that included every alumni that has graduated in the last four years along with the ability for older alumni to sign up for new accounts? Go look it up on the Wittenburg Door.

Are you aware that nearly every college and university allows their students to keep their e-mail accounts? We can do a list if you'd like. It'd be nice to be in their company.

Are you aware that GoDaddy provides domain registration, hosting, and website building tools? Why build and support a website of our own when there are a multitude of free website services, like Tripod and Geocities? Are you aware that I'm being sarcastic?

Are you aware that two persons in the alumni office expressed to me that content control was a very important issue with an alumni directory? Where you aware that you admitted to such importance in your second and third to last paragraphs? Where you aware that I wasn't kidding?

Where you aware the Covenant students need to date too?

Where you aware that a given action by the college is justified if it is going to be used for prayer requests?

The alumni directory is going to be a good thing and I'll be one of the first to sign up. It is, of course, good to know that alumni like yourself are championing our cause from such an informed position. Other school's alumni should be so lucky.

That's funny. Why doesn't everybody just go to myspace and do a school search for Covenant College? I did and got at least thirty Covenant Alumni that showed up. And some of them were hot.

Will I sign up for an Affinity account? Probably. Will I use it? Not that often.

The whole point of these social networking engines is to allow people to connect with other people of similar likes and interests. Limiting your network to Covenant only people seems like a contradiction.

Less is more. If I'm going to sign up for a social networking engine, I want the ability to network.

PhilG: No Hooters ads? How else are people to know about their tasty wings?

Josiah, thanks for your feedback. You make some valid points. On some things we'll have to agree to disagree. At the end of the day, I'm glad to hear that you'll be the first to sign up and I welcome having you involved.