The alumni engagement curve

As I've noted on this blog before, I'm a fan of the long tail theory as applied to constituent (let's focus on alumni here) engagement. A recent article by the Register's Andrew Orlowski, though, calls out the long tail, saying that it's more sizzle than steak (my words, not his). It's a good article that gets to origins of Anderson's theory and got me thinking about the whole curve beyond the tail and how it may apply to alumni engagement.

He writes about the pareto principle (or the 80%/20% rule) and how the long tail is really something of an everyman's counter to it, amplifying the voice and impact of the 80%, but perhaps without any bottom line impact. Made me think a bit about how this could apply to alumni engagement.

If 80% of programming is targeted at 20% of the people (due to geography or because they keep coming back, which makes a college less likely to pull back so that it can offer different types of programming), shouldn't it be offering more programs to the other 80%, who may show up in smaller numbers but be just as if not more engaged? Moreover, look at magazine and web content -- who does it speak to? The 20% who share common interests and perhaps give the most or provide the most feedback or are you working to get the other 80%, that may have 80%'s worth of different interests, involved?

Here's how I think it might play out.

 

The answer, maybe, is to depart a bit from what's worked for the 80% but not go so far as to try to reshape the suite programs to over-cater to the long tail as there just may not be enough critical mass there to support a widely (and wildly) diverse set of offerings.The key here is doing so in a way that doesn't sacrifice the top end. In the context of alumni engagement though, which builds upon a shared experience on a campus/at an institution, there should be enough points of commonality among the alumni that a college can shift down the curve in terms of focus in order to capture a larger portion of the alumni body's attention. Right?

This is the point at which you can start to pick apart my argument. Have at it.

Comments

[Rick Hardy]

Interesting post. It's subject is one that I've discussed with staff over the years. I just think that there will only be a relatively small percentage of alumni who will participate and respond to alumni relations' efforts. Therefore, I'd stay with communicating to that group. But I do believe as you said there are common points of interest with all or most alumni that may be used to draw in others.

[Geography Dissertation]

Blogs are so informative where we get lots of information on any topic. Nice job keep it up!!