Connect to Success: Some Alumni Stories
by Kris GallagherTen years ago, social media didn't exist. Now sites such as LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook are revolutionizing how people connect with each other.
We talked to a few alumni recently to see how these new tools are making a difference. We found artists generating new audiences for their work. Job-hunters getting leads, support and even new positions. People making connections to get through difficult times, get back in touch with old friends, or simply add enjoyment to their lives. Here are their stories.
Facebook to the rescue
When the Cowin family discovered that they'd need to raise $70,000 before the hospital would proceed with Jessica's kidney transplant, her sister Amy (COM '08), who was approved as the donor, wasted no time.
"I e-mailed a core group of my friends on Facebook, mostly from DePaul, and said 'I need your help finding a Web site on how to raise money through Facebook.' I didn't have the time to figure it out myself. I asked my friends, who were in all different areas of business and life—someone would know something," says Amy.
Responses poured in over the next 24 hours. The following day, Amy selected the site GiveForward.org. She spent three hours filling out the information on the site and distributed the link to friends via Facebook and e-mail. Then, she went out for coffee with a friend.
"When I came back to the house, somebody had left a donation of $5,000. I just started crying," Amy recalls. "The site was over $5,000 already in less than three hours."
Donations cascaded in, from family, from friends, from their friends, from complete strangers. A classmate collared Raman Chadha, executive director of DePaul's Coleman Entrepreneurship Center, who blogged about it and spread the word further.
"It spread like wildfire. People sent it to everyone they knew," Amy says. "It's just been amazing how much support people have given us, even strangers."
"We had no idea how immediate the response would be," says Jessica (COM '08), who is overflowing with praise for the DePaul community, the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center, GiveForward and the Children's Organ Transplant Association. "DePaul meant everything to Amy and me, and I am so proud to have been a student there. My goal is to be able to finish my education and obtain an MBA from DePaul. I now have the chance to do that thanks to my amazing sister, Amy ... and the many people who touched our lives during this hard time."
While Amy focused on fundraising, her mother contacted U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, who intervened to expedite approval of Jessica for Medicaid. With that medical coverage and funding in place, the successful surgery took place April 2.
It's a far cry from the slow and labor-intensive fundraising that the Cowin family did 10 years ago when Jessica, who was born with a heart defect, required a heart transplant. It took her mother more than a year to raise the $52,000 needed back then. Through GiveForward, Amy raised more than $32,000 in less than a month.
"Facebook was my starting point. Everybody is on there all the time. I knew I could count on those people to help me," says Amy. "There's no possible way to thank everybody enough. We're just happy."
Do YouTuba?
With just two days to go before the Jan. 28, 2009, deadline, Andy Chester decided to audition for an orchestral performance at Carnegie Hall. A master's student studying tuba in the School of Music, he set up a video camera and audio recorder in a rehearsal room, did several takes of the pieces he thought would best showcase his skills—then uploaded them to YouTube.
Two weeks later, viewers from all over the world voted Chester a winner in the first-ever symphonic audition conducted on YouTube, sending him to New York to perform under the baton of renowned conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.
"It was my first time playing [at Carnegie], and I never thought YouTube would be the way I got there," says Chester.
Hundreds of musicians from around the world uploaded entries to the YouTube Symphony Orchestra site from November to January, vying for a chance to perform in the April 15 concert. Judges whittled the entries to a few qualified candidates for each instrument. Then, taking a page from "American Idol," they let the viewers decide, including some 24,000 people who subscribed to the contest "channel."
Extending the online experience, YouTube uploaded videos of rehearsals, master classes taught by legendary performers for the contest winners, and the concert itself to the site.
The experience of meeting and playing with musicians from all over the world and performing under Tilson Thomas was "incredible," says Chester, who hopes to find a spot with an orchestra "under a good conductor" now that he has graduated.
Yelping for fans
Young musicians used to promote upcoming events through posters and word of mouth. They still do—but the bulletin boards are on Facebook and MySpace, and the word of mouth spreads through Twitter and review sites such as Yelp.
"There were no small [classical music] ensembles 20 years ago. You were either in a big orchestra or had an agent," says Cory Tiffin (MUS '07). "Now, social media makes it possible for young groups to thrive."
Tiffin and fellow alumnus Aurelien Pederzoli-Fort (MUS '06) are part of the Anaphora Ensemble, which uses social media to build a following in Chicago. In addition, group members do keyword searches on sites like Meetup.com to promote their events to classical music lovers. The growing number of "unknown" faces at their concerts proves that it's working.
"In a typical audience, people in the ensemble know 90 percent or more of the attendees," says Pederzoli-Fort. "We're having more and more people [attend] whom no one knows. The increase correlates with our promotions through the Web."
"It's a big symbiotic effort when you pool all those relationships together," adds Tiffin. "You can see all the associations outside the group and how we are part of a network."
Social media isn't simply a tool for musicians—it's a requirement, Tiffin says. "Everyone is on Facebook. There are 80-year-old composers on Facebook. My clarinet teacher is on Facebook. As an artist, you have to have it."
Blogging through a tough time
"[T]he anesthesiologist doctor told me that his daughter just got accepted into ... law school. ... I told him to be sure to tell her that brain surgery is NOT as bad as the bar exam." — Excerpt from Mary's blog
There are hundreds of reasons to start a blog. One of them is to reassure your friends that—despite brain cancer—your sense of humor is intact.
When Mary, a recent graduate of the College of Law, was diagnosed with two tumors, she knew that the news would spread like wildfire through her close-knit class.
"When you are sick, a lot of people are very concerned about you. It's very nice, but also very difficult to send 100 e-mails every day," says Mary, who asked that her last name not be used. "Having a blog lets you sit down, think about the problem, get it out, and then go on with your day."
It also means that friends and family have their facts straight. "Remember in kindergarten when you played the telephone game, and the story got really messed up five people down the line?" she asks. "It's nice to have it out there my way. [The blog is] like my own personal press release."
But what started as outbound communication for the efficiency-oriented lawyer soon became a source of support.
Mary, who is being treated at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., far from friends and co-workers in Chicago, finds that the blog helps her feel in touch. "I read people's comments. So many people take the time to write something nice," she says.
The kindness of strangers
Laid off after 19 years with Citibank, Denise Cualoping discovered a whole new world when she began her job hunt. "To network, you used to have to make cold calls and do a massive campaign by mail with résumés," says Cualoping (COM '83). Now, she says, "practically everyone is on LinkedIn."
On LinkedIn, a professional networking Web site, participants enter their job histories and other professional contacts. The site then helps users connect with current and former co-workers, employees at companies where they may want to work, and within special interest groups.
"If I had 25 connections and I connected with Bill, who has 25 connections, too, I now have 50 connections," explains Cualoping. She can send a message within the system to any person she is connected with, asking for an informational interview, a referral or insight into the company. She's been pleasantly surprised by how responsive people are.
"I'm really amazed that there are people that you don't even know and they are so helpful," says Cualoping, who uses the interviews to identify which aspects of her project management and systems operations expertise are most in demand. "It's a softer method of networking that's completely acceptable."
Ashley Richardson (LAS MA '06) leveraged LinkedIn even further when she studied the profiles of hiring managers and HR representatives during her last job hunt.
"I searched their name, where they had gone to school, personal interests, other companies that they had worked with, anything that I should bring up that was not on my résumé," she explains. "They are flooded with applications, so any little thing you can do to get one step above some of the other candidates is helpful."
Richardson, who now works in communications for the American Egg Board, recommends proactively targeting "dream companies" well before beginning a job search. "LinkedIn is a great resource to look for people you might have a loose connection with at that company and to begin to foster that relationship, so that if and when a position becomes available, you already are in the back of their minds," she says.
High-profile blogging
Blogging was the furthest thing from Amanda Sundt's mind when she was laid off by the travel agency Orbitz last November. But, displaying a bit of the DePaul entrepreneurial spirit, she was writing about her job search just two months later—for the Wall Street Journal.
"One of the blogs I came across on my search was 'Laid Off and Looking' on the Wall Street Journal site," says Sundt (MBA '02). Noticing that the bloggers skewed toward investment types, she pitched herself to the site's editors, offering to represent the experience of "other people downstream who are getting laid off, such as travel." The editors agreed, and soon she had her own iconic WSJ portrait sketch and a site to chronicle her search.
Sundt quickly made connections—and landed an interview that led to a job—through travel-related groups on LinkedIn. The CEO of iExplore contacted her through the site and invited her to interview for an opening at his company, a position that she hadn't detected through searches at other job sites. After several rounds of interviews, she landed the job and started in March.
"That's another lesson you learn when you're laid off. You can never stop networking," Sundt says. "[LinkedIn] is a good way to connect with people, stay in touch and expand my network." While she credits LinkedIn with making the connection, she says her blog distinguished her from other laid-off candidates during interviews. "To align myself with such a phenomenal brand that is known the world over, how can I go wrong?"
At the same time, Sundt says she was unprepared for the mean-spirited comments some people left on her blog. It took several posts before she stopped taking the comments personally.
"The headline there is that you really need to develop a thick skin, and 'to thine own self be true,'" says Sundt, who plans to blog again after she gets settled into her new role. "At the end of the day, I've blogged for the Wall Street Journal."