We have created a virtual book club exclusively for Boston College alumni focusing on how individuals can improve themselves while advancing their careers. We'll read books focused on business thinking, leadership, communication skills, harnessing creativity, building effective teams and much, much more. The book club will connect through a private forum where alumni can discuss the current book and network with each other. Joining the book club is completely free. You just have to get a copy of the book to enjoy. The group will read one book every two months so you'll have plenty of time for each book. You do not have to commit to read every book.
by Horst Schulze
1. Connect with Fellow Boston College Alumni: Want another way to connect with alumni? Joining our book club will introduce you to fellow Eagles across industries, generations and geographies to help you improve your network.
2. Advance Your Career: A professional book club can enhance your career on two fronts. First, the books you read may make you more effective in areas critical to success like leadership, communication and productivity. Second, the network you'll be building may help you with career advice, introduce you to new people and find your next job.
3. Reading is Good for You: Did you know business people who read at least seven business books per year earn over 230% more than people who read just one book per year?1 Reading improves your intelligence, reasoning ability, and has been linked to reducing the chance of Alzheimer's.2 Joining our book club gives you the opportunity to read more and enjoy all the benefits that come with it.
Below are a few examples of the kind of books the group may read. We will vote between several options each period and select a book based on reader interests.
We plan to start the group by reading one book every two months. The texts selected will be popular business and non-fiction books and take an average of six hours to read cover to cover. If you have between 15 and 30 minutes a week to read, you should be fine. There are no strict expectations on members for this virtual community; if you are particularly busy with work, family or other obligations and can't read one of the books, that's okay. If you can only read part of a book and contribute a little to the online discussion then that's okay too. The goal of this program is to connect Boston College alumni together through reading, so participate as much as makes sense for you.
No, the book club will be entirely online. You can participate anywhere you have Internet access and on days and times that are convenient to you.
Participation is free for all alumni! You are responsible only for obtaining a copy of the book.
Participants can get books for free at their local library or purchase them.
The book club will have a moderator from PBC Guru who manages the forum where discussions occur online. The moderator will pose questions to the group, share relevant articles and facilitate conversation about topics in the book. Members will be encouraged to post and share as well. This format allows for ongoing conversation and makes it easy for alumni to connect with each other through the forum.
We're using a private forum to host the virtual book club so it's easy to connect with fellow Eagles. During our sign up process, you will enter the information to auto-generate your free profile. After you complete the sign up, we'll send you a link to the forum and you can begin to post right away!
Professional Book Club (PBC) Guru is a book club management company that works with businesses, alumni associations and professional societies. We are teaming up with PBC to put this program in place for alumni. You can check out their website at www.pbc.guru if you want to see more of what they do.
If you are already a member, you can click here to log in.
Feel free to send an email to info@pbc.guru and we will be happy to help.
1 Tuesday Morning Coaching by David Cottrell, pg 134. https://www.abebooks.com/9780981924267/Tuesday-Morning-Coaching-David-Cottrell-0981924263/plp
2 Harvard Business Review, 2012, https://hbr.org/2012/08/for-those-who-want-to-lead-rea/
