COVER STORY

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The creation of a new BITSAA.org

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Sandhya Krishnan, 1999 Infosys
Anuradha Gupta, 1986 MMS

A successful relaunch for some, a historic moment for most; Bringing BITSians around the world together on one page

The old order changeth

We graduated, picked up our BITSAA souvenirs and moved on. A select few registered on a BITSAA website and never looked back. Not until a couple a months ago when BITSAA’s brand new portal was launched. The new www.bitsaa.org has changed the face of social networking, at least for us BITSians.

It started back in the summer of 2005, when Anupendra reached out to the bits2bschool yahoo group for a new set of applications to be developed for BITS2BSchool initiatives. This triggered the idea towards the creation of a community friendly web portal for BITSAA.org. The old website had been put together over a period of a few years, and had grown very fast with the help of many volunteers. While it served the needs as and when they arose, it eventually got unwieldy. The then BITSAA.org website was not an efficient content management system, neither was it sufficiently application oriented. More importantly, it did not support some key requirements of an alumni portal.

Prasad Thamminenni and Anand Rajaram were handling the website during this period. They pulled in Sarath to be a part of what would soon be the genesis of a tech team. Sarath started discussions with KK, Anupendra, Prasad and Anand regarding the need of a community portal for BITSAA. A few vital pieces were put together including a sign in, alumni profile features in 2005 and 2006. The portal idea was presented and welcomed during the East Coast Diwali Reunion in Nov 2006 in New York. However, it was around then that the BITSAA team went through a transition. KK moved back to Asia and others went off to business schools and became busywith their personal lives, burying the idea under some dust.

Towards late 2007, Ashish was asked to become the BITSAA CEO by Anupendra and SP Kothari. Rebuilding a new BITSAA team was the first step with the relaunch of Alumni Directory in a portal as one of the main goals. The Tech team was reshaped and team goals were put together. The ideas of the relaunch were not new since they had been proposed and requested by a lot of alums over the years but the team had to now map it all out. Vivek Iyer, who had already worked on Sandpaper and the SVC chapter for a couple of years was drafted onboard the BITSAA Technology Team in Dec 2007. Over various brainstorming sessions, a document was put in place to chart the course of the relaunch. Aalap, Kapil, Anviti and Kiran were the other tech team members who toiled through the night to bring this plan to fruition.

Goals and timelines

When the tech team got to work they analyzed the website in place, how BITSAA communicated with various chapters and yahoo groups, how fund raisers came together and how a remote group was managed. They then tied it all together and discussed if the team could build this from scratch. The three main aims were clear- helping BITSAA as the umbrella organisation, helping network groups and chapters, ensuring a clear access to the alumni through logins and profiles.

There was a big discussion on whether the portal should be built or bought. Both options had different consequences for time, effort and expense. The team took a quotation from two companies in California and India for developing various features of the portal. The quote they got ran into six digit figures, something BITSAA could definitely not afford. So the focus shifted to in-house volunteer work, help from BITSian startups and other options.

The team worked over phones and emails over the next few weeks. Bhadri from SVC helped with the proposal for front end templates and website organisation based on the essential needs of BITSAA and BITSians. Vivek and Sarath developed the plan for the corresponding backend applications and functions.

Pennywise Solutions, a BITSian startup, was requested to put together their perspective of what the portal should have. A solution by a BITSian startup, Zancara that provided career search networks for communities, was evaluated as a possible foundation to build upon towards the complete portal. Many more freeware/low-cost Content Management Systems were evaluated to be the underlying foundations towards building the complete integrated portal.

The other alumni portals like Harvard, Wharton, IIM (A) and MIT Sloan were compared and contrasted. They were understood, mapped with some fact finding and requirement gathering and then tailored to match the BITSAA community needs.

On fast-track

In May 2008, a roadmap from the goals to the implementation was framed with the complete building of the portal on top of other available solutions envisaged to take 2 to 3 years.

On a parallel track BITSAA Executive Team under the leadership of Ashish and Nikhil initiated the BITSAA Leadership Drive with the goal to galvanize and onboard enthusiastic BITSians all over the world towards key initiatives of BITSAA. A resounding 40+ leaders joined the BITSAA team by July 2008.

Ashish, in the meantime, chanced upon a portal solution called YourMembership.com (YMC). This, he thought, when customized, would help in the development of BITSAAA.org at an optimal cost. There was a need to evaluate BITSAA tech goals against what the software solution provided and see how it would serve the needs of BITSAA.

BITSAA leaders went through 3 training sessions with YMC in July/Aug on how the features were to be used and how we could make the changes that BITSAA required. In Aug 2008, the tech team (by now 5 in size), put together the phased plan for a brand new BITSAA.org website and portal to support many Alumni activities. The first phase would involve a list of basic features to be developed and subsequent two phases were meant to build upon and add more features. The tech team presented the plan to BITSAA Executive team, BITSAA Board and BITSAA Leaders and was soon signed off for execution. The Tech team and communications team were given the task of a Nov 1st launch of the new BITSAA.org.

The tech team feverishly worked prototyping and putting together the foundation for the 44 chapters, 60+ batches, 10+ initiatives and the entire website – all in all – 600+ pages to be built in 2 months.

Enter the Communications team

The Communications Team took over under the aegis of Sandhya when the foundation work with YMC was complete. Consisting of 7 members in 5 different time zones was only the first of their obstacles. Collaborating solely over email, they developed the look, the feel and the essence of the website. They chose images, fonts, styles, designed banners, edited content and helped the tech team select layout and features. Several nights out, BITSian style, went into the effort, all to make sure that everyone had our stamp by November 1st.

The dough

YMC had a fee of $8000 for the 1st year to be paid in two installments and the BITSAA leaders and both teams explored whether we should charge for membership. However, this plan has been held in abeyance because we want to welcome people to sign up and enjoy the benefits of the community. BITSAA relies on donations from philanthropic BITSians to manage its operational expenses and the various initiatives sponsored by BITSAA all by providing many community services via the portal.

In 2006 and 2007 some money was raised through donations for the web portal. Four methods have now been envisaged for raising money in thelong term:

1. Launching a career centre where jobs are put out exclusively to our community for a fee and members who get jobs through this service pay a nominal fee as well

2. Providing infrastructure for chapters and batches for alumni get-togethers, holiday celebrations, cricket matches, golf outings or any such events through event sponsorships

3. Advertising opportunities on the website and other marketing communications to community members. The website has analytics where information can be gleaned for clicks and can be analyzed demographically and geographically to provide good information to advertisers. Different levels of advertisers are envisaged, Gold, Silver, Platinum and their ads on annual reports, marketing collateral, choosing sponsor of the month, and showcasing these advertisers in various ways.

4. Donations from BITSAA community members.

With the amazing input from all BITSAA Leaders, 2 phases were crashed in within the timeframe of Phase 1.

The team was international and versatile and getting them together was a challenge.

“Getting the team together with two people based in India, one in Germany, one on the West Coast of US, one on the East Coast and synchronizing time in itself was a big challenge!” – Sandhya

“Working until 2am to 3am in the morning so the team members in west coast could interact and work together with the members on the east coast while going on with day jobs/schools was reliving a BITSian compre night experience!” - Sarath

Recruiting the team mid year was another treat with almost 40 people involved in the leadership drive with such versatile careers and such a positive response.

And a new portal is launched:

The launch of the portal was very well received. The Communications Team had a publicity roadmap worked out with emails and posters of BITS Pilani going out to all the alumni groups around the world. The portal managed 2000 enrolments in the first couple of weeks.

3500 people have signed up so far from every possible batch starting with 1948 exploring all kinds of networking opportunities and looking for old friends and batch mates.

All in all, quite a journey from inception in 2005 to the actual meaty work in 2008 and the momentous launch at the end of 2008. Yet, if you haven’t signed up our work isn’t complete!

Sign up now and join us at www.bitsaa.org.