Recently I was invited to join an alumni networking group – but this time it wasn’t an invitation from my alma mater, Duke University. It was from my ex-employer, IBM. IBM’s venture into employee alumni networking got its start in Europe, and is now making its way across the Big Pond to America. IBM is one of a small, but growing, group of corporations who are beginning to look at resources beyond their current employees in a deliberate and structured way.
I’ve been very intrigued with this new group ever since I joined several weeks ago. It started me thinking about some core issues: For instance, what is the value of an employee alumni networking group to the corporation that creates it? And, what is the network’s value to the ex-employees who join it?
For a corporation, the value is
- Tap into a larger creative pool of talent for ideas.
- Larger test audience for proposed initiatives before they go generally public.
- Given that the average employement time is shrinking, IBM can keep close to a pool of trained people for staffing up during times of need.
- Make it more likely that current employees can find mentors without an internal agenda.
From an ex-employee standpoint, I can think of several potentially big benefits of being a member:
- Access to the significant corporate resources that were once available to me as an employee
- Connections to other ex-employees with whom I feel a real camaraderie
- Endless opportunities for doing business with other ex-employees regionally, nationally, or globally.
- Involvement in initiatives of mutual interest such as community projects with other ex-employees, non-profits, and socially responsible people
- Knowledge of IBM’s open contracts for vendors
As a Search Engine Marketing specialist on the cutting edge of a burgeoning industry, I also realize that I will be able to easily connect with fellow ex-IBMers who need help and guidance to develop a Search Engine Marketing strategy for their own companies.
In the short time I’ve been a member, I have already been approached with two business offerings – an investment opportunity and a European partnership offer. It doesn’t take long to see how these networking groups can be a dynamic conduit for successful business dealings that would seldom have happened outside of the group.
If you are a member of a corporate alumni network, I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences, too. In future blogs, I will come back to this subject and talk about the “Social Networking Aspects of Corporate Alumni Groups.“
