T-bird Connect Launches

Thunderbird Launches

Digital Community Platform

By Tomas Bilbao, Executive Director, Branding and Communications

T-bird Connect will serve as a digital gathering place for the School’s global community

Two things have always characterized Thunderbird: our position as the vanguard of global leadership, management, and business education; and the breadth, reach and impressiveness of our alumni network. Over the past year, the School took great steps to reclaim, rebuild and reinvent Thunderbird to be the vanguard of global leadership in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (see page 5). A critical part of those achievements has been restoring alumni unity. As a result of our recent efforts, alumni engagement has increased by 64% year-over-year, and the Thunderbird Global Alumni Network (TGAN) has been hard at work engaging alumni around the world and working with the School to ensure the voices of all T-birds are heard.

BRINGING TOGETHER 45,000 ALUMNI

Having approximately 45,000 alumni across 145 countries does come with some challenges, however. In the 1990s, Thunderbird helped bridge the gaps between alumni by deploying the My Thunderbird App, a cutting-edge digital platform at the time. Over the years, the platform became inflexible and eventually outdated when it was unable to integrate new technologies as they became available. As a result, our global alumni network’s ability to digitally connect with each other and with the School deteriorated over time. But just as the School has been able to recapture its rightful place as the vanguard of global leadership, management and business education with a #1 ranking from the Wall Street Journal, we have also been hard at work developing a new digital platform called T-bird Connect with the express purpose of organizing, connecting and informing all members of the Thunderbird global family.

Thunderbird launched a beta version of T-bird Connect at this year’s Global Alumni Reunion in Tokyo, Japan. This new mobile digital platform is much more than a replacement for the old My Thunderbird App. We engaged Hivebrite, a Paris-based technology company that has built robust digital alumni platforms for Harvard Business School, West Point Military Academy, University of Oxford, Imperial College, the University of Notre Dame and many others. T-bird Connect uses the latest technologies on a platform that can evolve to incorporate innovations while immediately lever aging integration with our website and other social channels.

By launching T-bird Connect, a new digital platform for current students, alumni, faculty and staff, Thunderbird is making it easier for T-birds to forge new connections, reach career goals and stay in touch with the School’s global community.

T-bird Connect is open and free to all T-birds, including current students, alumni, and Thunderbird faculty and staff. It can be downloaded as a mobile app for smartphones and tablets in Apple’s App Store or Google Play. It can also be accessed in any web browser.

“We’re excited to unveil the T-bird Connect platform because it leverages the power of Thunderbird’s global alumni community,” said Dr. Sanjeev Khagram, Director General and Dean of Thunderbird. “Today, our alumni base is composed of more than 45,000 alumni and supporters, who are eager to help T-birds succeed. They are spread out all over the world helping Thunderbird advance its mission of contributing to equitable and sustainable prosperity worldwide, so this new tool can help us all connect regardless of where on this small planet we happen to be at any given moment.”

EXISTING AND FUTURE FEATURES

T-bird Connect features relationship-building opportunities. For example, through the “Find a T-bird” directory, users can get listed, look up former classmates, find others employed in the same industry, and join academic college and interest groups. This tool features an interactive map that shows where your fellow T-birds are currently residing if they opted to share their locations. Users can search for other members by group, industry, location, or any custom keyword, making it easy to identify and forge new bonds.

Alumni engagement of more than 45,000 graduates worldwide is essential to supporting Thunderbird’s vision of a world made more peaceful and prosperous through global commerce. T-bird Connect offers great ways to get involved, including social and professional networking through our regional alumni chapters and groups. Volunteers play an important role in scholarship fundraising that makes it possible for many international students to attend Thunderbird and in student recruitment of our best and brightest students. Of course, the benefits for the School and graduates are mutual. Alumni can also use the platform to give visibility to their activities, including entrepreneurial and philanthropic efforts. Alumni can publish ventures to leverage the global T-bird network when launching, hiring, or fundraising. Through T-bird Con nect, members can access an alumni job board and directory, as well as networking, mentoring and career development opportunities. Users can also give back to the community and stay informed using the platform, which provides opportunities to serve as mentors, share job opportunities and keep up to date on the latest Thunderbird news and events. For example, members can easily map their network and contact each other directly, dramatically increasing their access to job opportunities. Members can also quickly and easily find details on upcoming events, including Global Reunion. With the click of a mouse or tap of a finger, users can join the Reunion Group or send an event invitation to another T-bird.

Entrepreneurs can promote opportunities to find potential co-founders, investors, or employees, displaying and capitalizing on the dynamism of our global alumni community.

A variety of ways to become a more active member of the Thunderbird family can be found on the platform, which will evolve as functions are refined and as new features are developed from the ground up, tested, and integrated based on feedback gathered from users, especially you, our proud alumni. The platform includes a function that allows users to suggest improvements. Ideas can be submitted through the platform directly to the team capable of making upgrades behind the scenes. T-bird Connect is designed with a user-centric approach that makes it simple, familiar, intuitive, and customizable. The team of administrators is also comprised of members of the Thunderbird community, so we have a vested interest in improving our

shared platform continuously using your feedback, which will always be welcome as we look for new ways to deliver more value.

Some of the platform’s other features include the ability to let members display their projects and find help through the community, the ability to create discussion forums around specific topics, a check-in tool that lets you tell other T-birds where you are to give

nearby members the option to join you, and a trips tool that lets local members know when you will be traveling to their corner of the world with availability to meet up. There is also a private messaging function and a tag function that lets you make sure people in your posts or comments see them. Another attractive quality is integration with existing social platforms, which means T-birds can log on with their Facebook or LinkedIn accounts, making for one less password to remember. T-birds can

even take advantage of this integration to share our community’s social activity in real-time on the Live Feed.

GROUP MANAGERS AND USER PRIVACY

While a handful of us at global headquarters will manage the back end of T-bird Connect, the platform is brought to life by its users. Chapter leaders will manage their own group pages and have the ability to access up-to-date alumni chapter lists to communicate news, events, and opportunities to their chapter members. Students manage their cohort groups and staff members manage department pages, creating the content for group followers. Meanwhile, users who interact with the platform’s various features, share updates, connect with friends, join conversations, post job opportunities and engage throughout the platform, provide the content that enriches T-bird Connect and makes it a valuable resource for our global community.

Best of all, the privacy and personal data of all users is protected by robust security built into the platform by Hivebrite, the company that designed and manages T-bird Connect along with many other all-in-one online platforms for private communities. Members can control what information they choose to keep private, and what information they share with others. In addition to industry-leading data security, Hivebrite’s cutting-edge technology also allows T-bird Connect members to customize their experiences by changing their settings and preferences anytime to control how they receive communications such as direct messages and in-app notifica tions. Hivebrite is the industry’s most advanced cloud-based engagement platform, which means T-birds can rest easy knowing they’re using the best product on the market when they connect online.

THUNDERBIRD 4.0

As we work together to reclaim, rebuild and reinvent Thunderbird, bringing together our global community will always be at the center of our efforts. T-bird Connect provides a platform to bring together tens of thousands of alumni, students, faculty and staff in one place to help them organize, stay informed and connect across the globe to advance our vision of a world with inclusive and sustainable prosperity.

“We want T-bird Connect to be a place where all T-birds can engage with our vibrant worldwide community and build meaningful relationships,” said Dean Khagram. “I encourage all our students, alumni, faculty, staff and supporters to spread the word and help us grow the network.”