Acronym

So for my last learning lab of the conference I decided to go to one where I tend to disagree with the basic premise of the title of the session: “Data-driven Strategies: How Remarkable Associations Make Information Work for Them.” Leave it to Reggie Henry and fellow presenter Alan Browning to disappoint me.

The title brings forth the data-driven strategy chapter in 7 Measures of Success. I’m on record—and I think one of the few—who think this chapter needs to be treated gingerly. I’m in favor of data, I just don’t see it as a problem in associations. I think a far more insidious problem in associations is overreliance on data to make decisions.

I’m going to have to go back and re-read that chapter, because I remember it being about all the traditional association data sets: butts in seats, retention, membership growth, advertising sales, member satisfaction surveys, etc. I remember the book saying remarkable associations use these things to make decisions. It’s part of decision making, and should only be part of it. If the data says do one thing but your heart says do another… well, I’d try to figure out why, but my guess is that going with the heart will give a better chance for wild success.

So how did Reggie disappoint me?

Well, he talked about all the traditional measures, but he said we’re not thinking about recording and quantifying and using nontraditional transactions: blog posts, discussion participation, wiki posts, “other web wanderings,” etc. These things measure community involvement. As Reggie notes, recent research notes that younger generations are just as apt to join organizations as preceding generations, but their expectations are different. They expect a membership experience that is centered around community involvement. “What we need to get good at measuring is less and less about money, and more and more about engagement.”

I’m becoming a bigger and bigger believer in the necessity for associations to build an engagement index and then make that the central point of every activity they do, from how they attract new members to how they serve each member.