‘Will they switch off Game of Thrones for this?’ The art of alumni communication
Posted on Tuesday, July 19th, 2016
As the landscape of higher education becomes more and more competitive, we are encouraged to “create more engagement” with our alumni. But what does that mean, exactly? Call me a curmudgeon, but I hate the word engagement.
As an alumni communications officer I’m expected to embrace it, but this kind of professional jargon becomes devoid of meaning over time. Armies engage; starter motors engage. What alumni teams do is build relationships with strangers. Talking about “engagement” does nothing to grapple with the complexities of that process and the time it takes to get it right.
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