Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain
Imagine my shock when I fired up my computer and discovered that a brand new association had been formed in direct competition with my own. Not only did it exactly mirror the menu of product and services NCRA offers so closely that they might have copied it straight off of our homepage, but a quick search of its membership list suggested that it already had thousands of supporters, including my entire board of directors.
But not so fast...
To be fair, the website never explicitly claimed the individuals listed on their site were actually "members." They just linked to a public directory from someone else's legal services website--a directory listing many hundreds of court reporters.
There is a (probably apocryphal) story that Alexander Graham Bell never had a telephone in his home or office. He wondered why he should expose himself to interruptions from "any idiot with a finger to dial with," or words to that effect.
In today's world, any idiot can put up a website and call it an association. Anyone can scribble out a little quiz and call it a certification. Anyone can start a blog, recruit two or three friends to comment approvingly on each new entry (or even invent some alternate, online personas and do it themselves), and claim to speak as the conscience of the industry, the profession, the nation, or whatever.
But if you peek behind the curtain, as Dorothy did, you discover that, like the great and powerful Wizard of Oz, there is less to the story than meets the eye.
The Internet has eliminated all barriers to catalyzing collaborative action. That's a good thing. But the Internet has also made it easier than ever to create an illusion of substance.
If anything, virtual associations that DO offer substantive value are even more damaged by sham organizations than traditional associations. A brick and mortar association at least has a mailing address to differentiate itself from the pretenders. But the need to demonstrate validity and credibility has never been more important--or more difficult--for associations of all forms.
Many of my members wanted us to demand that this new "association" take the site down or demand that they substantiate the claims made. I'm not sure anyone has the right to expect the site sponsor to do so. It's an open market: caveat emptor! It's up to my association to actually deliver on its promise and for the consumer to decide who is providing true value.
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Comments
Mark,
The solution is for associations to find ways to compete differently. Many association have so much content that remains locked away from consumption by consumers (members and future members). There are ways to "unlock" the content yet retain full control, monetize, provide subscription access or at the very least add to your content marketing strategy.
But to do so it requires a different type of Content Manager Software (CMS) and resource specialized in “self-publishing” large bodies of content cost effectively (conferences, manuls, journals). It needs to provide advance search/navigation, indexes and consumes a variety of content types, security at the page level, and it all needs to meet the specific needs of your association and it's members.
Posted by: David McKnight | April 18, 2011 1:14 PM
Great post, Mark (and good luck!) I was just thinking of this issue when I was looking for advice on how to select some Fidelity funds and the resources that appeared first were from an entreprenur who calls himself 'the Mutual Fund Investors Association.' I supplied my email address to get a bad white paper, and now the spam is already flowing freely... But being an 'Association' (with or without claiming or charging for membership) is becoming a more common method for one-person shops to gain credibility so I suspect the issue of potential reputation damage will become more rather than less common over time.
Overall our field has fared well compared to others who have been completely transformed by the Internet. But we could have the best CMS, SEO, free video content, etc and only match the accomplishments of a new or knockoff association that focuses their efforts only in the online arena.
Of course, some of these startups fill new niches rather than go head-to-head with established organizations. The only client who ever stiffed me was an entrepreneur who launched an 'association' online and with a board of prominent friends, then began assessing long-term viability among early responders. He closed shop once he found out what becoming a real association would entail, yet his website remains. It looks impressive even without regular updating. I wonder how many people are paying dues on the strength of it, and how long it takes new members to figure out he's not delivering lousy service--it's just not an active organization.
As we've all grown more comfortable with e-commerce, the Potemkin Village functions just as well as a real community of practice that represents the collective activity of thousands of members. Since we don't have a Better Business Bureau to rate us the way non-profits are by their watchdog groups, it's up to the potential member, sponsor, or vendor to determine what lies under the surface.
Posted by: Kevin Whorton | April 21, 2011 8:14 AM