Every year, the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS) organises various events for various target audiences. Think of events for the entire educational institution, such as alumni days, the education conference or events at faculty level. The university has recently started using Momice software. In this interview, Renee Hol, Anneke Hoogendoorn and Masja Secherling-van Santen explain how events help to maintain relationships and thus reach strategic goals.
Internal events realise goals
Anneke Hoogendoorn, project manager Events, says there are two moments every year, at which the AUAS brings employees together. “We have 4000 employees spread across eleven faculties – which makes it challenging to connect to them. Internal events increase the relationship with the organisation - and offer room for reflection on the profession and the exchange of knowledge. It improves the quality of the education and informs colleagues about relationships with the professional field. That’s why there is a lot of support for these events.”
Internal events help the AUAS achieving other goals, such as the innovation of education. “It’s all about sharing knowledge and meeting others. Let the technical teachers have a chat with the social teachers, so their knowledge becomes less one-sided and new perspectives arise. When ‘tribes’ meet each other, there will be room for innovation.”
Different events, same look & feel
As the central webmaster and communication officer, Renee Hol is involved in many events. He states more and more of his colleagues choose to work with Momice. “They like the fact that the software is user-friendly and they quickly get the hang of it. In 30 minutes, I explain them how it works and the Momice YouTube videos help them further.”
According to Hol, an important advantage is that – thanks to Momice – it is possible to organise events in a decentralised manner, while maintaining a consistent and professional look & feel. “The lay-out is the same for all websites and invitations, thanks to the templates and account settings. This saves me time and effort in coordinating and checking, but also saves the different faculties time and effort. Many things are preprogrammed in Momice, such as the option to add a calendar item to the unsubscribe link. Even less digitally skilled colleagues can easily work with the software.”
Evaluations and invitations offer value
Hol states the Momice reports provide support. “We organise five central, internal events. Think of the opening of the academic year, an education conference or masterclass. At every event we want to measure the percentage of students among the attendees and collect feedback on how they value the event. The survey module in the software gives us useful insights. Thanks to the suggestions for the next year, we can improve the event.”
Momice does not only help to gain useful insights after an event. According to Hol, the software ensures attracting more visitors to the AUAS events too. “Momice invitations are way more effective that the standard notification on our website or regular mail campaigns. And, because colleagues can easily create proper, appealing event websites and invitations, they want to use the software for all AUAS events. Previously, many events were only promoted by adding an agenda item on the website and an announcement in the newsletter. Now, events are taken more seriously and they get the attention they deserve.”
Alumni event contributes to strategic goals of the AUAS
“The AUAS also uses Momice for the alumni events”, says Masja Secherling (alumni coordinator). Secherling: “Previously, alumni events were organised at faculty or educational level. However, research shows that after five to ten years after graduating, many graduates have developed into different work fields. If we limit our communication to faculty-related content, they might disengage. We now organise an AUAS-wide alumni day, which enables people to connect with other disciplines.”
The AUAS strives for every graduate student to find a job. “That is why the experience and expertise of alumni are so important. Thanks to them, we know whether our education still aligns with ‘real life’. In addition, alumni provide guest lectures and make internships possible. We offer the alumni a lifetime chance to learn: our masters and post-VE prepare them for a next step. The alumni day contributes to realising our goals, because it strengthens our network of alumni.”
Strategy for alumni
According to Secherling, there is a lot of internal support for alumni events. “The president of the Executive Board, for example, facilitated the opening of the event. Next year, the various departments want to contribute to this day as well. More and more employees realise that the events contribute to our goals.”
In the future, the AUAS wants to add the Salesforce application to the Momice software. “This way, we can measure the involvement of our alumni. Do they read an email, do they actually attend an event, or just register? This allows us to assign a certain amount of points to these alumni, in order to classify them into specific categories. This information shows the engagement of our (potential) active alumni. In addition, the Momice-Salesforce connection reduces the amount of manual actions and helps us formulate a strategy to activate more alumni.”
Conclusion
The AUAS uses internal and external (alumni) events to achieve strategic goals. Internally, there is a lot of support for these events and Momice is used for the communication and registration. The use of Momice software results in a consistent look & feel for all events - while the employees save a lot of time and effort, so there is time to spare for the development of new strategies.
