Author: deirdrereid

Deirdre is a content marketing writer/partner for companies serving the association market. After more than 20 years managing associations and restaurants, she's enjoying the good life now by helping companies inform, educate, and deepen relationships with the association community. Away from her laptop, you can find her walking in the woods, enjoying live music, reading hundreds of newsletters, watching hockey, cooking, hanging at the local brewery or tap room, or relaxing in a comfy chair with a good Kindle book and a glass of something tasty in hand.

“NO vendors, please.”

Every day in my association’s online community, people reach out to fellow members to ask questions or request guidance. Today I saw someone ask for examples of associations that have had proven success with social media. At the bottom of her request for help, she added three words – “NO vendors, please.”

I get why people say that. Too many clueless vendors use discussion forums for their own spammy self-interest. Their boorish behavior provokes others to put fences around their discussions so vendors can’t contribute.

Some association executives want to hear advice only from those who have been in their shoes, either as a CEO or director of membership, education, or another department. But many vendors have been in these same positions – they know what they’re talking about.

Even if vendors don’t have association management experience, they can provide you with the examples or guidance you seek. I thought of a handful of social media consultants who could have given this person exactly the data she needed for her board. Vendors are happy to share their clients’ (and others’) success stories and answer your questions either publicly or privately.

I’ve learned a beautiful thing about many of the vendors in my association community – they’re willing to share their knowledge when someone asks and they won’t ask for anything in return. They won’t hound you with phone calls or add you to a mailing list without your permission. They simply want to help.

Why? They’re smart. They know providing knowledge to others gets their name out there in the community. That’s why they write articles, blog posts, and white papers, and speak at conferences, workshops, and webinars.

Many of them are also blessed with a good heart. They get a kick out of helping others. Why hoard knowledge when you can share it? They’re driven by relationships and are sincerely passionate about their professional community. It’s why you always see them smiling and laughing at conferences despite the grueling hours spent traveling, exhibiting, and speaking while getting up too early and staying up too late.

I know these vendors’ secrets because I work closely with several of them and I’m friends with many others. I see what makes them tick, and it’s not just the prospect of new business. It’s the prospect of helping someone.

So the next time you’re tempted to write “NO vendors, please” in your request for help, please remember, there may be a vendor out there who has exactly the information you need. As a matter of fact, they may be the only one paying attention who has what you need, and they’re willing to provide it without any ulterior motive, but unfortunately you just blew him or her off.  

Will Associations Earn the Girl Scout Badge for Relevancy?

Eight years ago, the Girl Scouts of the USA decided it was time to transform the organization. “We knew we had to…revitalize the organization to ensure we remain compelling, contemporary and relevant to today’s girls.”

“Girl Scouts was founded 100 years ago. We need to update the organization and our model, or else we’re going to lose people,” says Anna Maria Chávez, CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA.

Sound familiar?

Think big. Act boldly. Transform yourself.

It doesn’t surprise me the Girl Scouts plan to transform themselves. After all, the Girl Scouts have been a transformational experience for many of their alumnae, including me.  According to Girl Scouting Works: The Alumnae Impact Study, Girl Scout alumnae exhibit more positive life outcomes than do non-Girl Scout alumnae, including self-perceptions, volunteerism, community work, civic engagement, education, income and socioeconomic status. Not bad.

Are your members’ lives changed because of their membership? Do they get experiences they wouldn’t have elsewhere? Relationships they couldn’t develop elsewhere? Education they can’t find elsewhere? Does your association provide a transformational experience for your members? Imagine if you did, you wouldn’t have any worries about recruitment, retention or relevance.

Read more about why the Girl Scouts have lessons for associations at the Avectra blog.

My old Girl Scout sash

Word of the Day: Truthiness

Is that even a real word? Yes, it is, says Dictionary.com:

truth·i·ness [troo-thee-nis] (noun):

“the quality of seeming to be true according to one’s intuition, opinion, or perception without regard to logic, factual evidence, or the like: the growing trend of truthiness as opposed to truth.”

And Wikipedia says:

“Truthiness is a quality characterizing a “truth” that a person claims to know intuitively “from the gut” or because it “feels right” without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.”

I came upon “truthiness” this morning in a blog post by Maria Popova at the Brain Pickings blog:

“What emerges is a kind of ‘unified theory of storytelling,’ revealing not only our gift for manufacturing truthiness in the narratives we tell ourselves and others, but also the remarkable capacity of stories — the right kinds of them — to change our shared experience for the better.”

I would hope “truthiness” meant something like having an unquestionable and palpable essence of truth, something that is and feels reliably authentic and true. But no, as long as it feels right, it’s true enough for truthiness. Before looking it up myself, my hopeful definition of “truthiness” felt right to me. It had a truthiness of truth. 

Somehow I missed the entire emergence and proliferation of “truthiness.”  Stephen Colbert has been talking about truthiness since 2005. After reading the real definition of truthiness, I immediately thought of politicians, political analysts and strategists on both sides of the aisle. They all practice truthiness, except their fans and followers don’t know or admit it because they’re blinded by ideology or choose not to question or hear it. What a mess.

But behold! The smartie pants, bless their hearts, and I mean that in a Northern, not Southern sense, are on the case.  Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society and the MIT Center for Civic Media recently organized Truthiness in Digital Media: “a symposium that seeks to understand and address propaganda and misinformation in the new media ecosystem.” I guess the traditional media is too beyond hope for them. Perhaps we can wrestle this word back from the evil side and restore a righteous meaning to it. Perhaps instead of truthiness we can start demanding truth. Oh, what a dreamer I am.

How’s Your Association Attitude?

Quiz time:

  1. How often do you try a new recipe? A different gas station or restaurant? An unfamiliar magazine or radio station?
  2. When’s the last time you talked with someone about an idea or project that flopped, or asked for constructive criticism?
  3. When did you last seek ideas from someone with a different perspective? Or collaborate with a colleague from another department?
  4. Who lights up your office with their energy, passion and creativity? Is it you?
  5. Whose reactions concern you the most: your boss, the CEO, leadership or the average member?

These questions are based on traits identified by Jasper Visser as signs of a good organizational attitude. Visser is a digital strategist and workshop facilitator who works primarily with museums. His recent post, The Future is About Attitude, Not Technology, got me thinking about individual and organizational attitude.

You can have the biggest technology budget on the block, but if your association’s culture and attitude is stuck in the 20th century, that slick AMS or online community is only going to take you so far.

When Visser looks at museums that have successfully adopted new media and technology, he sees five common characteristics that hint at the attitude organizations need to succeed in the 21st century.

Read about these five characteristics at the Avectra blog.

New Member Onboarding (Part 2)

How’s your first-year member retention rate? Not that great? You’re not alone. First year retention is a challenge for most associations, maybe because they spend much more money on acquiring new members than on guiding them into the association. Last week I suggested several onboarding ideas, beginning with the application and welcome touches. The next touch: orientation.

New approaches to orientation

Many associations still run orientations the way the Pennsylvania School Boards Association used to: “We talked at new members — the ‘It’s all about us’ approach.”

Turn the focus around and make the new member reception (more appealing than ‘orientation’) about them. Hold it before an event to encourage participation. Allow plenty of discussion time. Ask veteran members to learn more about the new members, answer questions, show them around the website and advise them on membership paths.

Invite new vendor members to a marketing workshop where a veteran member panel explains how to market and develop business within the association. Send tips on association networking and relationship-building to all new vendor members.

Please read the rest of this post about new member onboarding at the Avectra blog.

New Member Onboarding (Part 1)

There’s a restaurant saying, “turn ‘em and burn ‘em.” Get customers in the seats and back out the doors as quickly as possible. Although turning tables helps the cash register, you risk alienating customers if they think you’re only interested in their money, not their dining experience.

I thought of “turn ‘em and burn em” recently when I read this in MGI’s Membership Marketing Benchmark Report: for every dollar spent on recruitment, associations spend only 27 cents on new member onboarding and engagement. Why is so little dedicated to new members, the ones most at risk for not renewing?

Do you know how it feels to be a new member? Think about the first time you joined a gym. Like new association members, you had membership expectations and goals. Membership would be good for you, but only if you made it part of your life.

Like successful gyms, we should make it easy for members to fit this new habit (membership) into their lives. If they see early results, they’ll be motivated to keep coming back.

Please read the rest of this post about new member onboarding at the Avectra blog.

Is Your Association the Online Hub for Ideas?

Museums and associations, they’re more alike than you think.

  • Nonprofit mission-driven membership institutions governed by member boards
  • Engaging audiences through education
  • Traditional and hierarchic cultures
  • Professional staff siloed in departments
  • Risk-averse and slow-moving
  • Striving to remain meaningful to a growing younger market

While volunteering in two different museums, I overheard many staff conversations: they worry about the same things we do. When I read the blogs of museum professionals, I’m struck by how much we’re wrestling with some of the same issues.

Many museums are experimenting with new ways to engage with visitors and the public — fun short-term initiatives, like the New Museum’s visitor tweet reviews, and bold long-term steps, like the Walker Art Center’s new website.
 
The online museum community has been raving about the Walker’s new site, calling it “a game-changer” and “a potential paradigm shift for institutional websites.” What’s the big deal? And what can associations borrow from their approach?

Engagement catalyst

Like most museums, the Walker’s website was focused primarily on providing information about their collections, exhibits and membership. It was all about the Walker. Now the site is, in their words, “an online hub for ideas about contemporary art and culture, both inside the Walker and beyond.” They busted through their physical walls to start a conversation in the online world, where they engage not only those who might visit the museum in Minneapolis, but anyone interested in contemporary art and culture.

Please read the rest of this post about websites as industry hubs at the Avectra blog.

2012 is the Year of the Girl

100 years ago today, Juliette Gordon Low called her cousin and said “I’ve got something for the girls of Savannah, and all of America, and all the world, and we’re going to start it tonight!” She gathered 18 girls that night to form the first Girl Scout troop in the U.S.

Today, the Girl Scouts of the USA has a membership of over 3.2 million girls and adults. And, nearly 60 million American women, including me, are Girl Scout alumnae — once a Girl Scout, always a Girl Scout.

A few weeks ago I read an article in Fast Company about Anna Maria Chávez, CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA, and the innovative ideas the Girl Scouts have introduced – ideas I’ll return to in a future post. This new PSA video, The Best in Me, is really what got me excited again about the Girl Scouts. Go watch it and come back.

Girl power!

The videos are part of a campaign, To Get Her There, designed to “focus national attention on girls and the issues they face.” The multi-year advocacy and fundraising effort “will seek to create balanced leadership — the equal representation of women in leadership positions in all sectors and levels of society — within one generation.”

Chavez says: “Girls represent an incredible resource for our country and Girl Scouts has always provided them a platform for success, and during our centennial we want everyone—men and women alike—to join us in making sure that every girl achieves her full leadership potential.”

As one of my friends said today on Twitter, Girl Scouts is about more than selling cookies. That’s right, it’s about skill development, community service and, most importantly, leadership. I had my first leadership experiences in Girl Scouts. My fondest Girl Scout memory is being a patrol leader in Cadettes.

My Cadette troop leader, Rachel Hardin, was awesome. A middle school science teacher, she was also a rugged outdoorswoman who taught us how to light fires without matches, lash together log sleds and a bunch of other survival skills. We camped all through the year, even on snow during the Boy Scout-Girl Scout winter jamborees. We didn’t do everything by the official rulebook, as a matter of fact, I never even bought the Cadette handbook, but those leadership skills were embedded in me. Just don’t ask me to lash together a sled.

Support your local Girl Scouts. Stop at that table outside the supermarket and buy a few boxes of cookies. Encourage young girls to join a local troop — help them become our future leaders.

A few of the many badges not sewn on my sash because our Cadette troop didn't wear uniforms. Rebels and leaders!