Thanks for bringing these examples together in the one place (and particularly pleasing to see a student shout out from Australia!)

Thanks for the comments guys. Dave - I would be very interested to hear about what you decide to do at your spring graduation ceremonies and which approaches work best. I think LinkedIn holds incredible potential when it comes to "transitioning" graduates into alumni. Yes, it's not an online community run by your institution, but that's the point - it's much bigger than that. Use your LinkedIn groups as a starting point for conversation and to show why being an alumnus is valuable (promoting the services you offer, exclusive alumni events, important networking opportunities that exist etc etc).

Thanks Jen - Tilton's approach makes a great early case study of crowdsourcing as stewardship. Have Tilton contacted their alumni by email to let them know of this project? I imagine the number of conributors will grow steadily as more alums see the inspiration wall and are encouraged to share their own memories. On terminology, crowdsourcing and crowdfunding are often used interchangeably, but they are discrete terms. Tilton's is a practical example of crowdsourcing (as is the Middlesex Instagram Challenge). Crowdfunding is different in that it involves dollars. Check out the Maryland Institute College of Art's Kickstarter page for lots of creative and inspiring crowdfunded projects. http://www.kickstarter.com/pages/mica Thanks for the takeaway tips - crowdsourcing is much more powerful when it has a clear goal in mind, and I also like encouraging alumni to be "sleuths" with old photos. A clever, simple and powerful way to engage with your network.