If you ever been in AIESEC you know there is one phenomenon that is equal everywhere: when current AIESEC members meet the organization’s alumni, the alumnus almost always regard their period in AIESEC the best in the universe possible and giving the impression that the current AIESEC members don’t know what they are doing (and start giving advice – obviously not considering the current situation of the organization). It’s an illusion of the bright past, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that now that I am an alumnus, I can do the same!
So here are my hints for AIESEC, now that I am only an alumnus:
MyAIESEC.net – the massive intranet were 50.000 interact.
Outsource it´s collaboration tools – if you want to use it as a collaboration tool, do it right or not at all (because there are loads of collaboration alternatives for free online). Instead of trying to develop functions to collaborate, look at what is available in the market. 2 examples of collaboration online here and here.
External apps integration – what are you waiting to integrate it with Facebook, Twitter and all that? Geez, to have a networking function in myAIESEC.net is ridiculous. Get a grip, integrate with Facebook profiles. Ok, you can even make a Ning integration if you wish. The other way around would also be insanelly fun: open myaiesec.net statistics for external apps so users could remix and improve them as they see fit.
Beat the crap out of monster.com – make the exchange forms available to anyone to see (without the contact details and names when not logged in). Let companies search for student profiles to see if they find someone interesting. Let non-AIESEC students search for exchange opportunities and them to apply to AIESEC online to get those opportunities. Of course, for this to work there need to be a major revamp in the way that information is presented and searched. Talking about search…
Use Google search – stop that crappy search from hindering people to find what they want.
Customizable measures of success report – want to see exchange realized in terms, not in years? Impossible today. Want to check your committee’s exchange results 10 years ago? Nope. Come on, the data is there, you just need a good way to organize and present it.
Integrate with Google news (or whatever it´s called) – Present the latest mentions of AIESEC in the web automatically in myAIESEC.net. Can´t be so hard, can it?
Kill the alumni module – I know you put money on it (I helped to pay), but sunk cost will not come back. Make only an alumni Facebook or Ning integration and everyone will be happy.
AIESEC internal processes and stuff – how you run your business
HR business partnering – lots of companies do this: some people in HR are “partners” to certain managers. So they help the manager to implement HR processes. This has an interesting side effect: traditionally-aloof-to-business-performance-talent-management members will be inside a core work team, bringing them closer to how the business is really run without HR mambo jambo.
HiPo program (national) – High Potentials program. A series of stretch assignments for members that we believe have a great potential inside the organization to assume key positions. The national HR would take a co-responsibility in developing these people.
Let successful people talk to wanna-be successful – new leaders interviewing successful leaders in their own units and elsewhere. Connect the HiPos above to each other and to successful ex-HiPos. Create a network of success.
Forget balanced scorecard – as the main planning tool at least. You can use to access the organization if you wish. Almost no local committee needs the complexity of a balanced scorecard. Talking about complexity…
Make “simplicity” a value – that’s it, you know why.
Option to stop the spamming in the exchange promotion – user-centric, remember?
Strategies, focus, actions, whatever…
One blog to rule them all – a global blog that collects exchange, leadership and partner stories all over the world. Obviously can be customized to see only one kind of experience or only people from one country or in another country.
University partnership – there need to be a much much bigger focus in becoming closer to the university. In the future, the right move would be to include AIESEC as an extracurricular activity to get some study points and so on.
Sell university engagement – which organization can provide a fast access to students in 800 universities all around the world? NONE. But AIESEC could, if there was a system that other entities could sell certain kinds of access to certain universities. This is worth a fortune if it’s efficient and customizable enough, AIESEC.
65 years, start the plan now – Start the planning (and execution) of the 65 years of AIESEC now.
Very well written, very much to the point, very Sergio-like!
ReplyDeleteshhhhh... you could have sell these ideas :)) hehhe ;) i loved it
ReplyDeletethat's what happens with people like me that tried to go to AI and was not selected :)
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ReplyDelete@Sergio... Yeah, we're going to have to talk about that...
ReplyDeleteI'll "summon" a meeting after IC :)
Sergio - agree with a lot of points! One of the best ways to be better at social media is actually to integrate it and allow your own data to become social.
ReplyDeleteIM is still an area where there needs to be a lot of maturity gain in - though I think Jake is a good person to figure these things out, we should make sure to prod him now and again on it (love being alumni - opinions without responsibility!! :D)
-Linus
@Alex: Ok (?)
ReplyDelete@Linus: best leadership position ever ;)
I couldn't agree more to some of the thing. :)
ReplyDelete