Acronym

As vice-chair of the Marketing Section Council I am fortunate to be on the committee that helps guide the programming offered at the 2010 ASAE Annual Meeting. Anne Blouin, Director of Learning at ASAE, held a conference call last week for volunteer leaders like me and one of the things she said was that ASAE was getting dinged for with Annual was that the actual sessions did not reflect what was described in the Program Book. I have witnessed this same thing first hand when going over post-event surveys for the seminars I do with Kevin Whorton under the College of Association Marketing brand. I know we do our best to make sure that it is incredibly obvious what our programs will cover and have experienced that ASAE does its best to do the same.

Why is it that more and more meeting participants are saying that what they thought they had registered for is not what was delivered? Is the participant not paying attention to details of the marketing pieces? Is it the programming decreasing in quality? Is the marketing over-promising or inaccurate? Is it all of the above?

Personally, I am leaning toward a lack of time as the cause of the increase in dissatisfaction for participants. I think that as the economy worsened and staff rosters shrunk individuals were forced to take on additional responsibilities. Remaining staff members still understood the value of professional development activities but they no longer had the time to read all the details of promotional materials they received. They would therefore skim marketing pieces and notice one or two things that really resonated with them that caused them to register. Unfortunately the skimming of the marketing pieces also caused them to miss the true theme or focus of the entire offering so they end up being disappointed after they attend.

This issue is very important for the future of professional development as negative reactions impact all sides of any education program. Negative reactions impact the rate of repeat attendance, they impact the speaker ratings, they impact your positive word of mouth and, most importantly, they ultimately impact your bottom line. Do you have any thoughts about why this is happening? Do you have any solutions? If so, I think the community would benefit by hearing them.

I was working on a post on social media and association governance for this afternoon, but then I saw a link that David Gammel kindly shared on Twitter and I decided to switch gears.

If you haven't seen it yet, researcher Danah Boyd recently posted a painfully honest and introspective look at her experience as a presenter whose talk was upstaged by a social media backchannel. (Interestingly enough, her talk was on "Streams of Content, Limited Attention: The Flow of Information Through Social Media.")

As associations are increasingly embracing social media as a complement to live meeting formats, this situation is going to arise. It may have already happened at your association.

Some speakers will have a natural ability to smoothly integrate backchannel communications into their talks. Maddie Grant recently talked about some ideas here. But not every speaker will be as prepared as Maddie. We, as conference and event organizers, owe it to all of them--both the naturals and the newbies--to help them handle such situations positively.

What can associations do to make it easier for speakers and the backchannel to live together in harmony? What changes will need to be made to how we prepare and support our speakers to make more positive interactions possible?

Happy Friday, folks! Hope those of you here in the U.S. are looking forward to Thanksgiving ...

- Brian John Riggs shares an interesting visualization of social media he created for his volunteers.

- Maddie Grant is launching a new series of interviews of association social media managers, and wants to know what questions you might recommend for her to ask.

- At KDPaine's PR Measurement Blog, Katie Paine suggests that one way to measure the impact of something is to stop doing it and see what happens.

- Anthony Tjan recently posted five mindblowing stats about the web.

- Shelly Alcorn breaks down some good advice on decision making.

- Joe Gerstandt argues that there isn't a conflict between hiring for talent and hiring for diversity.

- Linda Owens at the Learning Along the Way blog (which has one of the nicest designs I've come across lately) has some thoughts on associations as change agents.

- I just think this is really cool: The CEO of 37signals is establishing "office hours" for customers who want to talk with him.

- At his Management 2.0 blog, Gary Hamel outlines a book on adaptability that he's probably not going to write.

- The Plexus Consulting blog has a checklist to help managers get through a recession.

- Erik Schonher describes two key elements to your association's "personality."

Sometimes, when you start a blog post, you can be overcome by events—or at least overcome by other bloggers. I recently started writing a post inspired by Lynn Morton's comments about a recent spate of turnover among association social media managers. Since then, Maggie McGary, Maddie Grant, and David Gammel have all added their thoughts.

For me, the recent turnover brings back memories of working in a Northern-Virginia-based association in the late 1990s. We couldn't keep an IT manager on staff to save our lives. Someone would start, and two months later, they'd have a great offer from , and HR would be putting out the job announcement again.

But there's a difference between the turnover we faced in our IT manager position then and turnover in social media positions now. The way my former association was structured, the IT manager job was primarily internal-facing and technical; he or she focused on the day to day "keep the computers up and running" aspects of IT. When the position turned over, it was tough. But our IT strategy overall wasn't derailed, because our IT director was still there and still moving it forward.

Social media positions, however, are outward-facing by their very nature. And they're personal. When someone interacts with you on Twitter or Facebook, they're typically interacting with you as an individual human being. As they get to know you, they'll invest in you as a person. So when a social media position turns over, it's very noticeable to the members and stakeholders who interacted with him or her.

Maggie, Maddie, and Lynn's posts all address some of the reasons why we might be seeing turnover in social media positions right now. What concerns me most is the structural aspects of such turnover. Are associations structuring social media jobs in such a way that they’re doomed to churn?

Sometimes there are good reasons to create a job that will turn over regularly. Some great entry level positions are designed to be opportunities for bright people who will learn for a year or two and then move on to bigger things.

But social media jobs are such a direct connection between staff person and member that it seems counterproductive to structure them as one-year learning opportunities. Members will notice turnover there much more than they might notice turnover elsewhere in the organization. (Believe me—I changed jobs more than a year ago and I still hear from members who just noticed that my title’s different in the magazine masthead.)

I’m worried that members could become gun shy, and less willing to engage, given regular turnover in their social media contacts. They might start to question what's "going on" in your organization to cause so many people to leave.

As we’re all figuring out what social media in associations will look like moving forward, it's worthwhile for associations to also consider the implications of their staff structure. If you decide to actually staff social media, is there value in building such positions in a way that is attractive enough for an employee to stay around for a while? If there is value there, what would such an attractive position look like?

In some ways, Mark Golden, CAE, beat me to the punch for this post when he commented last week on Scott's recap of the Social Media Workshop. He raised some concerns about the value of Twitter and the helpfulness of those who love it (and he started a great conversation; it's long, but it's worth your time). For context, Mark is an association CEO, and thinking about his perspective reinforced this idea in my mind:

When a person fails to understand or agree with an idea that you've explained, it doesn't mean that person is unenlightened. It means you did a bad job explaining it, so try again.

Of course, this applies to social media proponents explaining social media to association leaders. When I interviewed Charlene Li for the June issue of Associations Now, one comment stood out to me:

I think the biggest problem with ... the people who understand the technologies is that they don't understand the association goals. They're so focused on what social media can do overall, but they're not specific in terms of how it can help the association. So it's not incumbent on the organization changing its mind. It's incumbent on the evangelists to position the technology as to how it can help the organization. [...] I get the evangelists coming to me because I'm one of them and they'll say, "My boss just doesn't get it!" And I say, "No, it's you! You don't get it! You're the problem!"

The emphasis above is mine. I'd take it one step further, though, and call it "how it can help the association make more money." Like it or not, this is always a part of the equation.

I can't speak directly for Mark Golden or any CEO, but I'm willing to guess a CEO's perspective is affected by the need to drive revenue for the association, because that's the CEO's job. It's easy, though, for social media users at associations to forget this, because thinking about money generally isn't their job.

Neither perspective is inherently good or bad. That's just how each person's brain is wired. (Quite literally. Read this Q&A with author Charles Jacobs for more about the science of mental perspectives. Also long but worth reading if you want to learn about persuasion.)

So, for all of the social media evangelists out there, remember this: to a CEO who runs a business (even a nonprofit business), benefits like knowledge sharing, collaboration, discussion, and engagement don't mean much more than "pretty flowers and butterflies" until you attach real, direct dollar values to them. So shape your arguments that way. Yes, that can be a big challenge, but it's a dynamic that isn't going to change anytime soon.

Also, one more thought about "how it can help the organization." Take note of Charlene's phrasing. She didn't say "how it can prevent the organization from imminent doom." Make your arguments positive. In other words, tell the CEO how social media can make life better for the association, now how it can merely help the association avoid failure.

In the industry our association represents, we are seeing a ton of consolidation. Many national corporate entities are looking for and finding efficiencies by hiring regional and national service providers, who then subcontract the work to local folks. This simplifies many processes for them, including billing/payment, bidding, and work allocation/reporting. It also saves them a ton of money.

This consolidation is having dramatic impacts on local contractors in our industry (whose margins are shrinking because the national providers negotiate lower pricing). But it does make sense from a larger perspective; more consolidation is likely now that the economy is putting more pressure on.

I'm wondering if the same could be true for non-profit associations. It seems that there is now an association for every niche market and industry in the trade world, and countless state, regional, national, and international non-profit entities dedicated to causes like health care, fighting cancer, environmentalism, etc. From a big picture outlook and thinking of economic pressures, are we going to see a consolidation/thinning out of the herd over time? I am posing this as a theoretical question; I have not tried to find any evidence or research pointing either way.

From a productivity and efficiency standpoint, as a whole, are we losing efficiency through the current fragmentation of thousands of non-profit entities, all with their own internal politics, agendas, strengths, and weaknesses? Especially related to social causes, would big picture goals and dreams (cleaner environment, less cancer, etc.) benefit from a consolidation, or suffer?

From a sponsorship/charitable giving perspective, I see many corporations once thought of as cash cows for the non-profit world cutting back on giving and sponsorship to various degrees. I see them working on developing educational programs themselves to deliver to their customers. Would consolidation help to streamline the number of entities asking these corporations for money?

I must ask: Are there too many associations?

Welcome to this week's round of Quick Clicks. Lots of good ideas:

- To tie into our social media theme for this month, a link to an interesting interview with "digital ethnographer" Michael Wesch (creator of the "Web 2.0: The Machine Is Us/ing Us" video) on the dark side of social media and the future of the web.

- If social media is making you feel overwhelmed (raise your hand!), Rex Hammock has a prayer for you.

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter blogs on the Harvard Business Publishing site about the power of the "15 minute competitive advantage."

- Seth Godin encourages you to remember to ask "why."

- Joe Gerstandt was inspired by Veteran's Day to write about what he learned about leadership from the Marine Corps.

- Are you a manager that cares enough? Rajesh Setty has nine questions to ask yourself to find out. Elsewhere, Bob Sutton lists 21 things great bosses believe and do to encourage innovation.

- More for managers: The Digital Now blog encourages you to lead with the latest brain research in mind.

- At the Associations Live blog, Kathy Johnson warns you not to let unfulfilled or unexpressed expectations ruin your relationship with your board.

- Some good economy-related posts: The SignatureI blog lists eight factors involved in building a results-driven culture in the down economy; the Plexus Consulting Group blog has examples of associtations using the recession to "trim down and muscle up"; and on the Hourglass Blog, Eric Lanke has a fantastic in-depth post on how the different generations may be responding to the current economy.

- The Aptify CEO blog has some musings on how to predict if trial members will convert, renew, and engage.

- On the Association Puzzle blog, Cecilia Sepp and several commenters have advice for new association professionals.

- Short meetings are a good thing, right? Not always, says David Patt.

- Tony Rossell shares some advice on how you can structure your organization around the value you offer.

- I'm linking to this to see if Joe Rominiecki will try to come behind me and delete the link: On the Splash blog, Mark Sedgley uses the Yankees as a model to describe how you can create a environment of excellence.

If you're a bit mystified by the term crowdsourcing, don't worry, you're not alone. Ever since Jeff Howe coined the term in 2006, its meaning and value have been debated. And since his appearance at the 2009 Association Technology Conference & Expo, curiosity and experimentation with the model have spread within the association sector, as well.

But again, what exactly is crowdsourcing, and what isn't? I'd like to help settle some confusion by saying this: that question doesn't really matter.

Howe's definition goes like this:

Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.

Of course, the vagueness of "job" and "undefined, generally large group" have led to a lot of debate, such as Dan Woods's column in September at Forbes.com. He wrote that "crowds don't innovate – individuals do":

There is no crowd in crowdsourcing. There are only virtuosos, usually uniquely talented, highly trained people who have worked for decades in a field. [...] The crowd has nothing to do with it. The crowd solves nothing, creates nothing.[...] [I]ndividuals motivated by obsession, competition, money or all three apply their individual talent to creating a solution.

Oddly, Woods both reveals a truth and misses the point at the same time. Yes, crowds don't innovate; there is no hive mind. Individuals each think and innovate on their own. But if those individual virtuosos aren't in your crowd, then they won't be of any help to you. So make your crowd bigger.

And that's the bottom line. Crowdsourcing isn't so much a model as it is just a thought experiment, much akin to the infinite monkey theorem, which says that if you have a million monkeys typing random letters on a million typewriters from now till eternity, eventually they'll happen to type the full text of a William Shakespeare play.

Of course, the actual monkey scenario is absurd (in fact, someone sort of tried it once, and it didn't go well), but the point is that, with greater numbers, basic math says the likelihood of great things happening increases.

And so it goes with crowdsourcing. It doesn't matter what is or isn't crowdsourcing. Is 50 people a crowd? Is 1,000 people a crowd? Is every single one of your members, whatever number that is, a crowd? Sure, just about anything could be deemed crowdsourcing, as long as it means involving more people than you did before.

More people means two things:

• Better potential quality: A greater volume and diversity of ideas contributed toward the development, evaluation, and execution of a task equals a greater likelihood or degree of success.
• Member engagement: A greater number of members who are involved in a task or project, even in small ways, equals a broader level of engagement and all the good things it leads to.

Crowdsourcing is a buzzword now because Web 2.0 tools, whichever you choose, have lowered the barriers to large-crowd involvement. Getting 200 members to share their opinions and ideas in 1989 meant either physically gathering them in one place or hours of telephone calls, reams of faxes, and immense file drawers of careful documentation. In 2009, it can be as easy as setting up a central online wiki or even a simple online discussion board.

Of course, there are still bounds to the degree of feasibility for any given crowd size, but it's up to you to determine what's manageable within your association's capabilities. But if you can involve more people, you might as well. And that's crowdsourcing.

ASAE & The Center recently conducted its Social Media Workshop to a sold out group of association executives. The intended audience were those people and organizations at an entry-level with regard to social media. You can read a couple of accounts from session providers on their blogs (Elizabeth Engel’s and Maddie Grant’s), and, for as long as it lasts, you can see what people tweeted who used the event’s hashtag: #smw09.

I also recently gave a one-day presentation to a collection of state association execs geared to about the same level. Here are three quick takeaways from these sessions and my take on them:

People are struggling with the notion that these tools, and Twitter in particular, can add significant value to their organizations. It’s the “what-do-I-care-what-you-had-for-breakfast” argument. Even ardent Twitter supporters will allow that there’s a ton of drivel in the Twitterverse. As a real-time news source, though, Twitter is unparalleled. It’s hard to imagine an industry or profession that won’t at some time be in a place where real-time news is important. In addition, Twitter’s connective capabilities are finding a niche in face-to-face meetings, both between live participants and people following from a distance.

Organizations don’t have the time to do much in social media. The truth is, time will always be a value judgment—it’s not about the time it takes, it’s about how much value can be expected by spending the time in social media versus spending the time on some other activity. Association execs seem to want a nice, neat solution to this, but there isn’t one. Oh, there are time savers once you’ve gotten into the tools and decided how you want to use each of them. But the bottom line to this one is you can decide that social media is not as important as other things and neglect it. Or you can decide it is important and put the resources behind it. Obviously I believe the latter. An important consideration is that it’s ok—even preferred—to start small. Start monitoring, move into light participation, and see where it takes you.

Finally, risk—both legal and public perception—remains a hot button issue. My take on this one is a two-parter. For legal risk, I think it comes down to barriers to access. The more legal controls you exercise, the harder you are making it for people to participate. Each organization needs to decide its risk tolerance and act accordingly. (My caveat: the higher the barrier the more likely you are to fail at social media.) The other part refers to those who do not want to give dissenters a megaphone to intensify their criticisms. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for this argument. First of all, if they are passionate and their criticisms are communicated well (valid or not), then they already have a megaphone. In addition, I think transparency practices are essential for strong organization, and if you’re transparent about the decisions your organization makes, then you have no reason to fear criticisms. It’s far better to confront it with transparency.

Anybody who attend the workshop want to add or append? Or any of you state veterinary execs I talked to? Would love to hear your take on things.

Welcome to your first November Quick Clicks post! Here's some quoteable and noteable posts from the past week or so:

- The Digital Now blog reminds us that "the fish out of water has no other fish to contend with."

- Shelly Alcorn tells it like it is: "You are not Stuart Smalley and darn it, some people are NOT going to like you."

- "We followed the best advice we found and marched confidently forward … right into failure." Get the full story from Peggy Hoffman at the Idea Center blog.

- Jamie Notter asks, "As a leader, do you know if you are truly willing to trust your people?" Elsewhere, Judith Lindenau writes on building the bond of trust between staff and members.

- Two association bloggers were recently quoted by CNN. Bruce Hammond blogs about the experience and clarifies a few things.

- The Nonprofit University blog asks, "So how's that recovery treating you?"

- If you missed Joe Rominiecki's recent post on the crazy idea of allowing first-year members to attend your meetings for free, there is some great discussion going on in the comments. One standout for me: Joe says, "I believe every member who joins an association and isn't meaningfully engaged is simply a missed opportunity."

- On a related note, Mark Buzan offers some ideas for keeping association members interested and active.

- "It’s not the inability to move quickly that hampers associations, it’s the unwillingness to do anything outside of the status quo," posits Rebecca Rolfes at the LeaderConnect blog.

- "What's your Apollo program?" Eric Lanke at the Hourglass Blog wants to know.

- Chris Bonney at the Vanguard Technology blog has five reasons why playing it safe is a bad idea.

- Deirdre Reid asks where the balance is between managing staff time wisely and providing member service on demand.

- The SignatureI blog has a fascinating "vision of excellence" for association learning and invites you to add to it.

- Aptify's CEO blog has some interesting suggestions for data points associations can collect that correlate to member renewability. (Is "renewability" a word? Do I lose editor points if it's not? Hmmm.)

- Ellen Behrens at the aLearning blog wonders if association learning is lagging behind other sectors.

In case you missed it, November started this week, and a new month means a new themed series of posts here on Acronym. (No, we didn't do a theme in October. We know.)

This month's theme: social media.

I can hear you all groaning now. But wait! Before you stop reading, let me assure you: we here at Acronym are well aware that social media has been blogged about to infinity and back in the past 2-3 years, and we know that the last thing you need from us is just more "rah-rah social media" banter.

So, we have planned the month's posts with one goal in mind: to go beyond what's already been said about social media as it relates to associations. That's it. If we've already read it somewhere else, we won't be simply rehashing it here. It's a lofty goal, but we're going for it. If we miss, then please say so in the comments.

Here's a preview of some of what's in store:

• A look at how associations have progressed with social media in the last two years. (Why two years? Because November 2007 was our first social media month.)
• Why social media staffing at associations could be a big mess for several years.
• Why part of our collective trouble with social media is because associations aren't funny.
• How social media is changing governance at associations.
• A better definition of crowdsourcing, because it means a lot of different things to different people.

We'll also work in some thoughts, perspectives, and wisdom shared today and tomorrow at ASAE & The Center's Social Media Workshop. If you're not there, you can follow discussion on Twitter via the hashtag: #smw09.

So, please stay tuned (or browsed? or clicked?) to Acronym this month. We hope you'll find the series thought provoking and discussion worthy (share your ideas in the comments, of course!). For now, I leave you with this, "The Stupidest Article About Social Media Ever." We'll do our best to not sound too much like that.

[Also, on a semi-related note, remember that December will be our "big ideas" month, and we're still taking suggestions for potential "What if?" topics to cover. For more info, read the "Think big" post and add more ideas in the comments there. The ones that other readers have posted so far are a fun read in and of themselves, too.]

What would happen if your association allowed first-year members to attend any and all meetings and events during their first year of membership for free?

"Bankruptcy," might come to mind, but I actually think this could be a good idea.

Last week I pointed out an article about the positive effects on communities that result from citizen involvement in government, and I drew some rather obvious parallels to member engagement and volunteerism in associations. The bottom line: social interaction leads to increased engagement in a community.

As association professionals, we all know this—feel it, even—because we've experienced so many meetings and made so many great connections and friends in our respective communities. But even so, it's hard to sell the value of that experience to anyone who isn't familiar with it. You just have to experience it yourself to understand.

So if that's the case, what's the best way to get people to try one of your meetings? Tell them it's free.

Once you get people in the door, then you let the community you've built do the work. Let first-year members experience the education sessions you offer, meet with the industry experts that you bring in, and network with all of the fellow members that are there. Chances are they'll be more likely to come to another meeting, and another. And a lot of them will be more likely to come to a meeting in their second year, even though there's a price tag, because they'll feel the intrinsic value of your community so much more clearly.

Yes, you will lose some money up front. For every new member who would have paid to attend a meeting anyway, you've lost registration fees for a year. But for every new member who wouldn't have paid to attend a meeting but does attend one for free, you haven't lost anything other than the marginal cost associated with serving an additional attendee (cost of lunch, tote bag, etc.).

However, you could stand to gain in:

• New-member dues: Because of your "first-year free attendance" policy, you attract more new members than you would have otherwise.
• Renewal dues: With a higher retention rate as a result of increased engagement and a larger initial base (see above point), you have more second-year members a year later.
• Continued attendance: For each member who would have never come to a meeting but tries one out because it's free and then pays to attend one the next year, you've gained a registration fee.
• Exhibitors: More attendees at meetings with tradeshows means a better draw for exhibitors to buy booths.
• More non-meeting purchases: Increasingly engaged members are thirstier for knowledge, meaning they're more inclined to pay for collateral products (books, certification courses, etc.).

And these are just potential dollar gains. Any increase in member engagement also adds to the richness of knowledge sharing, collaboration, and the diversity of ideas in the community. These are harder to put dollar values on, but they're just as important.

Anyway, the free sample idea isn't revolutionary, so I'm interested to know if any association has ever tried this or anything like it. You could make any number of variations to this model (e.g. first three meetings free, first six months free, 50 percent off all registrations, etc.), though the first year free has a certain boldness to it that I like.

I'm just an editor, so there are probably a lot of gaps in this idea that I'm missing. Please let me know what they are. Tell me why this is too crazy to work.

The Halloween candy hasn’t even been eaten yet, and I’m already seeing what I think will be a tidal wave of holiday-season community service outreach and philanthropic activities by a wide range of associations and nonprofits. In the spirit of the upcoming season and because everyone likes to know what their colleagues are up to, I’m going to make an effort to post occasional short lists with links to more details of some of the most creative or highest impact projects and partnerships.

For now, I’ll just share what one nonprofit is doing to address a fundraising issue that becomes especially crucial during the end-of-year giving cycle—enabling trusted, simple, and convenient donations directly from mobile phones. The Mobile Giving Foundation (MGF) has just announced a partnership with major mobile providers such as Verizon Wireless and AT&T to assist 350-plus charities with mobile giving campaigns. The program has generated more than $1 million in 18 months and is expected to grow rapidly, according to the foundation. A Canadian version of the initiative also has launched.

The foundation also has gone the next step: developing a broader partnership strategy to create a "mobile giving channel, whereby consumers can text a keyword that corresponds to a specific nonprofit or charitable cause to a designated short code. Afterward, a micro-donation of $5 or $10 is made and processed.” The wireless service companies tally donations via their regular monthly billing process and forward the funds to MGF, which passes 100% of them to the designated charities.

MGF has worked with almost every U.S. and Canadian wireless service provider to design “clear standards” that “provide a quality user experience and a trusted source of donor engagement for nonprofits." That experience includes offering donors various “information opt-in-based text alert packages … to help the donor maintain visibility to the causes they support.”

Thanks to a process redesign and technology innovations that dramatically accelerated campaign launch processes, the foundation now launches 20 campaigns per week and is currently supporting more than 400 campaigns with price points of either $5 or $10.

Response rates vary wildly from 1.5% to 63%, depending on “the cause, celebrity endorsement, co-branding affiliations, and related marketing efforts,” says the foundation.

Here’s a list of current charity partners and the Standards for Participation in case your organization would like to participate.