Connecting the Community

Alumni update from Michael Laine (SSP 2008):

I had a good, long and useful conversation with Kirk K over the weekend.  The conversation meandered all over the place but a few items really stood out: 1) Website work/edits, 2) Twitter/Social media connections and 3) reaching out to our “lost sheep”.

First, he made some changes to the site.  We agreed that his teams’ main focus is on communications with the ISU community, and the website is one of the critical tools for this.  So he modified the site – while we were on the phone – to better reflect this.  He created the new capability to add events and to post an update on what you are doing.  This is pretty handy.  I’ve used both this morning.

Second, he fixed some code on the site so that people can better find each other on the various social media platforms, including direct links to their profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.    Personally, I think this is very important.  To expand on this, I have created a list of all the ISU people I know of (not just US folks), that have twitter accounts.  You can find this list here: http://bit.ly/atXBYJ

Finally, we made a plan to contact the “Lost Sheep”.  This is my phrase, but essentially, it means this:  Kirk has a list of approximately 500 US ISU grads from the various programs.  Much of that list stretches back to the late 80’s/early 90’s and the inception of the school.    Of those 500 names, less than half have an active email address on record.  Of that ~240, less than 100 people have filled out a profile for the ISU USA site.  So I am going to do what I can to find these “Lost Sheep”.  Kirk and I devised a plan to work on this.  Wish us luck!

Other than that, with respect to my involvement in space activities: 1) Went to ISDC, 2) organizing the Space Elevator Conference http://bit.ly/c9cb6b 3) working to build a new venture capital company that is focused on hardware/advanced technology – with an emphasis on space http://bit.ly/bgwBNX .

Take care.  Michael Laine (SSP08 and MBA12)