There can be problems, of course. If the technology malfunctions, as it is inclined to do, the institution can look amateurish or incompetent. The glitch wasn't our fault, but from the alum's perspective, it looked like Stanford's fault. When a site is difficult to navigate, or slow to download, alumni offices can be transformed into help desks as users swamp telephone lines with questions. If I'm an alum, I call the alumni office, and we're accountable.
Information overload is another pitfall.
E-mail beckons as an inexpensive way to alert thousands of people about alumni events or graduates' achievements. But the messages, if they arrive too frequently, can be perceived as spam, poisoning the relationship between the college and the graduate. Yes, we have the ability to send out e-mail. We use e-mail only for our monthly newsletter. North Carolina's Mr. Dibbert agrees.