Blog Assignment: The Hult Alumni Association Effect

As Hult MBA candidates with completed degrees and graduation in the near horizon, we begin to reflect upon the important relationships and connections we have formed throughout the year. Furthermore we ponder on how these relationships and networks will look 5-10-30 years from now.  One of Hult’s key selling points for the one-year MBA program is the strong corporate network we build.  Post-graduation, Hult emphasizes how this network can be supported and strengthened by the Hult Alumni Association and their tools. Moreover, Hult states that the key resources for this corporate network will be Hult/ADL Alumni who hold senior positions in leading companies and public institutions around the world. The Alumni Association thereby positions itself as a middleman to keep post-graduated students linked.

With the development of technology and social media platforms, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, connecting us at all times and in all regions; how effective is the Hult Alumni Network Association in reality? Do future alum’s of Hult need the Alumni Association to stay connected? The challenge I recognize is that Alumni Associations may have less of an impact on corporate and social networks for university alum’s, as social media is taking over and becoming an integrated tool. Therefore, if I had unlimited resources, time and access to information I would like to analyze what role and impact the Hult Alumni Association has in these post-graduation networks.  The Social Network Analysis (SNA) will show how the Association as a “portal” potentially connects us and at what level or function.  This could be professionally, socially, and/or academically. Moreover, the SNA will address whether alum’s are actually using the portal or if they rather use Facebook and LinkedIn directly. The analysis may also detect if the Hult ADL/Alumni who hold senior positions are in fact key individuals for the network or if there are other potential “brokers” linking people and bridging gaps (regional, industry, etc.) Overall, the SNA can provide map and insights as to how effective the Hult Alumni Association is.

The initial data needed for the analysis is a list of Hult Alumni students who actively utilize the Association as a platform to: reach other alumni, become members of alumni clubs worldwide, contact Hult entrepreneurs, attend regional and campus events, access affinity programs and find other activities of interest. Through for example a survey, the level of engagement could be ranked, providing an overview of “very active” vs. “less-“ or “non-active” alums.  This data should be relatively easy to gather, as the Association should have good track records of such interactions. The individual profile for each student (name, gender, age, nationality, background, campus, post-graduate position, etc.) has already been gathered through registration processes. Thus this is also easily accessible data to be used to create a more detailed map of the “active” alumni. Data could then be collected from “non-active” alumni on how they alternatively choose to stay connected with peers and top reasons for why the Association is not used as a portal.  This would measure the importance of other tools, such as Facebook, in relevance to the Alumni Associations. The stated reasons could however be very subjective and therefore make it more difficult to create a uniformed picture as to why students are not using the Association as a connecting platform. The challenge may be overcome by creating a survey with a limited number of standard reasons, which could provide a more “focused” outcome.

For the “active” member mapping, it would be essential to collect data and measure who is reaching out to whom through the Association and for what purpose: professional (e.g. for jobs, career advice, professional support/guidance), social or academic. This could create an illustration of central individuals and their role in the network map. This would answer the question as to whether the alumni with senior positions are key resources or if other individuals may have a larger influence (e.g. someone with a lower professional position, but with strong social and professional ties). Here we can use the centrality measure “Degree” to find nodes with the most connections. We can also measure “Betweenness” and identify “connectors” with the most paths between other individuals and then compare their level of engagement within the Alumni Association to determine potential correlations. The SNA could also detect patterns on whether there are certain individuals with specific attributes that are sought after and become focal points. This visualization and measurement will give an indication of how the Association functions as a network, both corporate wise and socially. Data on the frequency of using the Alumni Association vs. direct social media communication could also be gathered amongst these “active” members. The Hult Alumni Association has developed individual mobile applications to connect alum’s and also a separate LinkedIn page and Twitter account. It could be interesting to measure the use patterns of these mobile apps and owned media pages comparatively to the direct use of Facebook and individual LinkedIn profiles.

I believe the SNA will not only allow the Association to understand more accurately how well their corporate network functions and serves alumni; but it also can provide insights on how to improve the operations and services of the organization in the future. The truth is that most of us wish to sustain the meaningful relationships we have established with peers from Hult and therefore seek the best and most effective platforms to do so. SNA will help determine whether the Hult Alumni Association is such a platform.

- Linnea Blystad