Beyond Ward Circle

Hiring Fellow AU Alumns

2009-04-02T07:31:35-04:00

I recently needed to hire some contract help for one of my firms. So what did I do? I circulated an email to some of my friends who work at AU and asked them to pass it around. I ended up with a deluge of qualified people -- so many that I couldn't even talk personally with everyone who submitted a strong application.

Ultimately, I didn't even need to advertise the opportunity anywhere else. I am pleased to say that I have now struck up a business relationship with a recent AU grad who is currently enrolled in a master's degree program there.

I see it as good for business and good for AU that I was able to meet my need without going outside the university community.

AU Eagles Basketball on Fire

2009-02-23T15:04:10-05:00

I had the good fortune to be able to be in DC this past weekend with enough time to sneak up to AU's campus and take in a critical regular season Patriot League basketball game between the first place Eagles and the second place Holy Cross Crusaders. It was my first basketball game of the season, and I must say the atmosphere was electric.

Let's face it: AU has never really been known as a sports school. Sure, there have been some good programs and talented individuals, but only successful major programs like basketball, football, and hockey tend to get widespread media recognition. Last year's NCAA tournament bid drew renewed attention to the basketball team.

And it really showed on Saturday. More than 3000 people turned out for a regular season game at Bender Arena -- something I never recall seeing 15+ years ago when I was a student. Just as interesting, as I walked around campus before the game, students were buzzing about the team and the game. When I was there, my friends and I often didn't even know when a game was being played, let alone who was playing and what the game meant.

The core of any university ought to be learning, but the benefit of a credible athletic program is undeniable. It is something that can unify students and alumni around something fun. I am reminded of this regularly whenever I attend UNH Wildcat hockey games here in the Granite State and see thousands of fans packing the arena and rabidly following the team.

As the Eagles locked down the victory in the waning seconds of the game, the crowd rose to its feet in appreciation. My new friend and fellow AU Alumni Board member Boots Nissenbaum leapt out of his seat at courtside and pumped his fist in the air. That pretty much summed up how everyone felt and the optimism many have for the prospects of a return to March Madness.

School of Public Affairs 75th Anniversary Reception

2009-02-23T14:38:24-05:00

The American University School of Public Affairs will be holding a reception to celebrate its 75th year. The event takes place at the Katzen Arts Center on campus next Tuesday evening, March 3.

For more information or to RSVP, visit the SPA web site.

I hope to see you there.

The AU Alumni Board

2009-02-21T10:52:46-05:00

The American University Alumni Board recently added a number of new members, and I am honored to have been selected to join the group. Yesterday I attended my first meeting, and it was a great learning experience, led by Board President Brian Keane and Tara Lang and her team in the AU Alumni office.

The Board spent 12 hours together, touring various parts of the campus that have changed in recent years and meeting with a number of AU officials to discuss how their departments work with and on behalf of alumni.

We wrapped up with dinner where we had a chance to chat among ourselves more informally and get to know each other better.

The newly constituted Board seems to do a great job of bringing together voices from many aspects of the AU alumni community, including undergraduate, graduate, and WCL, as well as representatives from all across the United States and even a couple of people who live all or part time overseas. Kudos to Board VP Erin Fuller for leading a process that resulted in such a high-quality panel and discussion.

The experience and perspectives of each individual should ensure many unique ideas and opinions and hopefully help provide meaningful guidance to the University administration.

President Neil Kerwin and Vice President of Development and Alumni Relations Tom Minar are both deeply committed to strengthening the vital bond between alumni and the university community. It will be a two-way street where AU works to help alumni and provide real value to them, but everyone will also be asked to do their part by volunteering, contributing expertise, and of course even giving money.

I am confident there will be great strides made in the next 12 months and I look forward to doing what I can to be a small part of the effort. Stay tuned to this space and be sure to stay plugged in on the AU Alumni web site for more information on a variety of initiatives.

Conversation with AU Alumni Board President Brian Keane

2008-04-25T15:28:40-04:00

Brian Keane, a 1989 AU graduate and President of the Alumni Board, took time out of his schedule to visit with Beyond Ward Circle and discuss his career and his current involvement with the school. As President of SmartPower, he markets clean energy to consumers in practical terms. He discusses how he got involved with the organization and how they accomplish their mission.

(Listen to the 21 minute conversation here.)

In addition, Brian talks about his life since graduation and what the future of AU is from an alumni perspective. He will be hosting several online chats in the coming weeks to solicit ideas from fellow graduates as part of AUs strategic planning process, initiated by new President Neil Kerwin, the first head of the school to come from the ranks of its alumni.

For more information on how to participate in these online chats, please visit the AU alumni web site.

AU's School of Public Affairs Kicks Off 75th Anniversary Celebration

2008-03-04T14:30:18-05:00

The School of Public Affairs kicked off its 75th anniversary celebration last night with a nice reception at the Katzen Arts Center. SPA Dean Bill LeoGrande and AU President Neil Kerwin both gave excellent speeches. The highlight may have been when Kerwin suggested he had lots of tales to tell about LeoGrande from the old days when they were both assistant professors, but that he would be kind enough not to share them. Perhaps someday we can get him to spill the beans here on BWC.

Stay on top of anniversary news and events here or at http://spa.american.edu

Jehan Harney Draws Praise for Short Film

2008-03-03T08:56:06-05:00

More than a decade ago Jehan Harney made the trip from Egypt to study international journalism at American University. Today, she is profiled by the Washington Post as her film-making talents draw attention:

Harney, a TV journalist, filmmaker and Muslim, set out to capture a different story. Her short film, "Soul Mechanic," about a Muslim car mechanic and artist in Cambridge, Mass., was selected as a finalist in the "One Nation, Many Voices" online film festival last week. The documentary tells the story of a Muslim mechanic who uses his garage to display sculptures that fuse Islamic, Christian and Jewish symbols.

Mark Webber to Advise President on Asian Security Issues

2008-02-15T08:50:44-05:00

From a White House press release yesterday:

The President has named Mark J. Webber to be Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for South and Central Asian Affairs in the National Security Council. Mr. Webber recently served as Special Advisor to the Vice President for National Security Affairs. He received his bachelor's degree and master's degrees from American University. He received his JD from the George Washington University Law School.

Q&A With Amy Holzman, Another SPA Alum Turned Entrepreneur

2008-01-31T10:03:39-05:00

One of the things I have learned over the past few months is that more than a few SPA grads have turned to entrepreneurship in one form or another since graduation. While many of our classmates have had long and productive careers in government, politics, the law, and related fields, the company and organization creation bug seems to have made the rounds as well. Recently I have connected with Amy Holzman (SPA/'89) and she was nice enough to take the time to answer a few questions for me.

You went from getting a degree in political science to launching a startup travel web site. How did that happen?

Like most political science majors, I had a strong interest in politics, government, public affairs, and certainly, the law. And, like most poli sci majors, my intent was to pursue a law degree upon graduation from AU. The last two jobs that I had in college were working for The Department of Interior and Citibank. I graduated within a couple of years after the stock market crash, and as a result, many students who may have pursued MBA degrees were now applying to law schools. Competition was fierce, and I decided to take one year off to work and save some money before going to law school. Upon graduation, I accepted a full-time position with Citibank; my one-year off turned into five years with that company alone. During this experience, I awoke one night with a revelation about how companies can effect increased profitability by actually walking the customer service talk – and I had a valuable process to help them do that. It would be a few years before I cut my teeth as an entrepreneur, but in 1997, I created my first company, Service Solutions International, Ltd.

Creating a company from scratch is an incredible challenge – and amazingly fulfilling. It provides an education that one cannot be taught, but must experience. In 2005, after struggling to find, and safely and easily rent a vacation home on Cape Cod, I took the skills that I learned and honed through the years to launch my current venture, Keys to..., LLC, and www.keysto.com. While emerging from Phase One, Keysto.com is a proprietary; global; online; and secure real-time reservation system for short- and long-term vacation and extended-stay property, and related services and products. Keysto.com also interactively provides a spectrum of useful information, as well as additional valuable, tangible features and benefits to many kinds of users, including: vacation and extended-stay rental property owners and administrators (listing and leasing agents, management companies, et al); short-term and extended-stay travelers; Professional Members, such as travel, real estate, and corporate agents; and related third-party service and product vendors. It’s been very exciting working toward bringing to reality my visions as to how to meet global needs and wants in the private vacation property market.

What lessons have you learned from entrepreneurship so far?

Being an entrepreneur is very challenging, and very rewarding. You have to be able to weather the numerous peaks and valleys that you will encounter on the journey. As an entrepreneur, you can engage in every aspect of the process, turning your vision into reality – and seeing your vision become reality is an incredible feeling. Of course, as with most things, creating a company, and certainly a successful company, is a collaborative effort. It’s important to recognize that you can’t do everything, and you aren’t an expert in everything. Recognizing that you need to enlist the skills and expertise of others, delegate responsibilities, and empower others to do their jobs well, is key. I also believe very strongly that you must take care of your internal customers in order for them to be able to take care of your external customers. As an entrepreneur, you set the culture for your company.

What is the most valuable thing you took away from your AU experience?

I had a wonderful experience and received a very high quality of education at American University. It’s difficult to pinpoint only one most valuable thing that I took away from my AU experience because because I think that there were many valuable aspects. However, if I had to choose only one, I might say that the more social education that I received as a result of the diversity of the student population and the incredible cultural offerings and opportunities both at American University and in the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area tremendously influenced and impacted my life in many positive ways. Truly, the American University community is so fortunate to have such broad-reaching global access and exposure.

What would your AU classmates be most surprised to know about you?

...probably that, while I have made my home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, I still miss life in Washington, D.C.! And while I will always foster my entrepreneurial spirit, I still hope to complete my law degree and pass the bar exam someday...

Jen Consalvo on her AOL Career

2008-01-25T09:01:08-05:00

Jen Consalvo has a BA and MBA from AU and now is the Director of Personalization at AOL. (Enough acronyms for you?) She was kind enough to share a few minutes of her time with me to talk about her career and reflect on her time at American (SOC/BA/'94 and Kogod/MBA/'00). She even endured some pretty hefty audio technical difficulties, for which I cannot apologize enough, though the final product is fortunately quite easy to listen to.

(Click here to listen to the 12 minute interview.)

Consalvo's current job aims to “remove some of the noise” and “bubble up what is most important for people.” This is something that the online industry as a whole is spending more time on, and it starts with concrete steps like giving users explicit choices, but she says “I think we’ll start seeing it happen on a more passive level as well.” For instance, they can customize your experience based on your online behavior rather than requiring you to dial up or down different choices.

Consalvo notes that privacy “has to be a concern,” but she doesn’t see it as an obstacle. She emphasizes transparency and conveying value to the user. “Just make it completely obvious,” she advises. If users don’t see the relevance then they won’t think it is worth it.

During her 12 years at AOL, Consalvo has experienced a lot of changes and saw AOL grow from a smaller company where she would sometimes bump into Steve Case at lunch. As it became part of the Time Warner empire, she has gotten to experience a lot of new things, including now making more regular trips to Silicon Valley to work with startups.

In the beginning, the focus was on chat and Consalvo worked on community aspects of the site. Over the years, she has worked in a variety of different positions, including focusing on digital imaging, search, AOL.com, RSS, and more.

Along the way, she managed to earn her MBA from American while still working at AOL. “I felt like I needed more of a background in business,” she told me. AOL had a program to pay for secondary education, and she took advantage of it. It meant a lot of work, many nights and weekends, and a few extra years to get the MBA, but she feels it was worth it. She felt like she could unify her MBA work at AU with her day job at AOL, and it added value to her experience.

The relationships she developed at AU played an important role in her development, she says, noting that she has “so many friends from different countries.” She has traveled extensively based on these friendships, attending weddings and other events. She also credits the “broad liberal arts” exposure that she got at AU for learning about things like anthropology which “would never have been on my radar” yet it ended up being her minor.

One last summer class on multimedia where she had to build interactive projects sold her on the Internet (“I was obsessed,” she confesses). She ended up interviewing with a company in Georgetown that focused on the interactive media space (ironically hired by someone with an AU connection himself). After her time there, she moved to AOL which she has called home ever since.

(Click here to listen to the 12 minute interview.)

Photo by jough