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I Got DFT’ed…And I Didn’t Like It.

On May 29, 2012   /   AlumniChoose, Dance Floor Theory   /   Leave a comment

Last week I was part of a panel discussion for TiE on the New York startup scene. I was invited to talk about my experience as both a TechStars Alumnus and founder of Red Rover and AlumniChoose.

Before the event officially started, everyone was casually networking around the room. At one point a lady popped into my conversation and introduced herself and asked what I did. As soon as I finished describing AlumniChoose, she tapped the shoulder of someone nearby and said we needed to talk to each other. As soon as she brought the two of us together in a handshake, she walked away without saying anything. Then a few moments later, she tapped another person I was talking with and pulled him, mid-sentence, away from our conversation and into another one. I continued to watch her work her “magic” around the room and she kept repeating the same system over and over.

In Dance Floor Theory, we teach student leaders to be spatulas of the dance floor. In other words, we teach them to be facilitators of relationships and to focus less on the event and more on the introductions that happen from the event. In doing that, we want them to connect people together around shared interests. Then, once that relationship is started, move on to another group and make more connections. By the end of the night, everyone should, in theory, know everyone else, which makes for a great, long-lasting, dance party. Hence the picture above.

In theory, that’s what the lady last week was doing, but it rubbed me the wrong way, and here’s why…

  • Genuine Interest – When she asked me what I did, I thought she was genuinely interested in what I did, but in reality, she was just trying to figure out who she could connect me to as fast as possible. It felt cold, which is the opposite of a relationship. Had she asked me a couple follow up questions, it would have felt much better.
  • Right Timing – Knowing when to pull someone into and out of conversations is a bit of an art. But one good rule to follow is don’t pull someone out of a conversation mid-sentence, unless they want you to. This lady not only pulled someone out of a conversation mid-sentence, but it was within a few minutes of having her just introduced us together. We were just warming up our conversation, and she cut it off. A relationship takes time to build roots.
  • Make It Natural - Once you see how a magic trick is done, the magic is gone. DFT is magical when done right, but like a magic trick, if you reveal to the audience how you are doing it, it’s no longer natural and feels forced. The lady last week made her ‘introduction game’ so obvious, that I then doubted the value of the introductions she was actually trying to make happen. She was going for quantity over quality and in doing so, her magic trick was reveled.

I suspect the lady thought she was being smooth and helping connect everyone to everyone else in the room. Overall, she probably was being more helpful than harmful, because most won’t even think to make introductions like she was. But the real art is in the practice of making it seem like you aren’t even trying and that you genuinely want to connect two people together because they actually should connect, not becuase you want to make your dance floor better.

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Help Move the Herd to NOLA

On March 1, 2012   /   AlumniChoose, Good Time Fun, Inspiration, Involvement, Student Activities, Student Engagement, Student Involvement, Student Leadership   /   1 Comment

Guest post by Joe Ginese, Director, Center for Student Involvement at Nichols College (MA).

“Would anyone be interested in an alternative spring break trip?”
The crowd mumbles with a sense of excitement and curiosity.

“It’d mean spending a week, perhaps in New Orleans, doing service like Habitat for Humanity or in soup kitchens in the area that Katrina hit.”
The audience of students at the student government association meeting enthusiastically nods and collectively exclaims mixed reactions including, “Yes!”, “That’d be awesome,” and “Oh I’ve done trips like that.”


Here at Nichols College, perhaps not so unlike other institutions of larger sizes, the students are the inspiration for change and often the drivers of it. If the students want it, we make it happen. After that meeting in the spring I started sharing the idea with colleagues to talk feasibility, connections, and timelines. Sure enough, someone knew someone who has done work in New Orleans on a yearly basis and had a connection with an organization with a great reputation. Momentum was rolling, but this couldn’t be done alone so it was time to find collaborators, which meant more intentional conversations. Turns out the assistant director of residence life was once in my shoes, being the one to start an alternative spring break program and knew what it would take to make it a success. I had the connection to the organization; I had a co-conspirator to help facilitate since I knew I wouldn’t be able to make the trip. Now, it was time for the students to follow through on their initial excitement about the prospect of spending their spring break doing work for and serving others.

Here is where our biggest challenge came into play. We had an application process that was standard with essays and references, but it also outlined that students would be required to raise $600 each to attend the trip. Many of our students work hard for their money between part-time jobs, on-campus work study positions, and affording expenses of being a student; $600 was surely enough to stop some people from considering the opportunity. While this seems like something that would be a negative to the program, it was a positive when it came to selection. We didn’t select students who thought nothing of the $600 fee. We selected students up for the challenge of raising $600 in less than 5 months. We selected students who weighed the $600 as the cost of an experience of not only traveling to New Orleans, but to make a positive impact on a community and, to make a positive impact in their own lives.

Together, we have 8 students who vary in just about every possible way. From hometowns, to majors, to class years, to motivations for doing this, to experience with tools; the one thing they share is being prepared to transform from a group individuals going on a trip to becoming a group. Which leads me to my main motivation for bringing this to the Nichols College campus, transforming our students. A shared experience of doing service whether you fly 1,000 miles to do it, or do it down the street from campus has the potential to change a student’s life. This isn’t cliché. I’ve had the opportunity to lead two alternative spring break trips, and each resulted in students returning to campus with more than just a retreat “high”, they come back with new eyes. The change in perspective, the memories, lessons, experiences, and connections established with the students is what makes these trips worthwhile. Serving a community is great, traveling to new locations is fantastic, and making friends is phenomenal, but transforming yourself from someone existing in this world to someone who is an engaged global citizen is the goal. Alternative spring break trips shouldn’t be called trips, they should be called journeys because it is on a journey that one grows, learns, and often ends up in a place where they didn’t expect to be. In 11 days, 8 students and 2 administrators will go on a journey together. In 21 days, 10 people will come back with a shared experience, a shared mindset, and a new perspective on the world around them.

Help us move the herd to NOLA. Donate to their trip here: http://alumnichoose.org/nbab

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Give $10 Get $20 (& Be A Student Leader Champion)

On February 23, 2012   /   AlumniChoose   /   Leave a comment

One month ago, we opened the digital doors of AlumniChoose.org and instantly student leaders and advisors from across the country saw how valuable AC was for helping raise funds for their club/org projects and trips.

From attending the ASGA National Conference to bringing fresh water to Peru to building homes in New Orleans, we currently have 10 student projects raising $23,400!

If you can help make these student projects happen, we’ll thank you with more than our usual virtual high-fives. For every $10 you donate, we’ll give you (or anyone you want) a free one-year magazine subscription (or renewal) from the list below. Yes, if you donate $30, we’ll give you three different subscriptions, or three years towards the same subscription.

Just click on a project below, and once you’ve donated, we’ll send you a follow up email on how to claim your subscription. You ready to help make a positive impact on a group of students? Let’s go!

 

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Hi World, Meet AlumniChoose.org

On January 25, 2012   /   AlumniChoose, Company Tid-Bits, Student Affairs, Technology   /   Leave a comment

As a student leader in college, my club spent a full year fundraising to host a year end celebration. We hosted bake sales, raffles, and even a “kissing” booth so we could generate enough funds. The amount of time it took to raise so few funds was ridiculous and had nothing to do with the purpose of our group. We spent so much time fundraising, and so little time doing. When I look back at my college years, my strongest emotional connections are to the times I spent engaging outside the classroom in various student groups.

As an Alumnus, I get solicited to donate to my Alma Mater all the time via mail, email, and the occasional singing telegram. I’ve never donated. Not because I don’t have the funds to donate, but because I feel like I’m just writing a check that gets lost in the black hole of operations. It’s emotionless donating. I could check the “other” box and restrict the funds to a specific campus project, but it still feels emotionless to just check a box. I’d be much more excited to donate money directly to “my” college club to host their year end celebration. I want to help them spend less time fundraising and more time doing.

So we built www.AlumniChoose.org to solve these problems.

AlumniChoose is an online fundraising tool for current campus groups that leverages the power of social media and micro-funding. It works in four steps:

Step 1: Campus Groups post projects they need funding for.
Step 2: Family, friends, & Alumni financially support interesting projects.
Step 3: Student Groups receive funds and start their projects.
Step 4: Donors receive project progress updates.

The idea of micro-funding should sound familiar because it’s been proven successful many times in other industries, but it hasn’t caught hold in Higher Education yet.

The mission of AlumniChoose is to help student leaders realize their full potential by spending less time fundraising and more time doing. Two by-products of our mission include:

  1. Higher retention rates through increased engagement
  2. Increased donor pool & donations using fewer institutional resources

Through partnerships with Student Affairs offices, we make #1 happen. We make the process of posting projects, getting the word out, raising funds, receiving funds, and updating project donors insanely easy. Student leaders get to spend less time fundraising and more time doing.

Through partnerships with Alumni/Development offices, we make #2 happen. We know that small restricted donations are a pain for Development Offices. We also know that we LOVE small restricted donations. When one person donates $1 to a student club project that excites them, because that’s all they can afford, we smile :-) .

Through backend processes, we run all the leg work for the Development Office on all the small restricted funds, so they can continue to focus on the large unrestricted donors who “keep the lights on.”

Like what you hear? Then let’s get to it. Whether a Student Leader, Student Affairs professional, Alumni, or Development Office, make your way to www.alumnichoose.org and either set up your own campus project or fund a campus project that sounds exciting to you. Together let’s positively impact even more student’s lives!

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