By Carlos Restrepo, CAE
@AvectraCarlos || LinkedIn

I recently read an article by Heidi Cohen on the Future of Social Media and thought she had some great insights. While major players in the Social Media market have had a great impact on how we see social media (lower case) today, the fact is computer social interactions have been around since the 1970’s. The Computerized Bulletin Board Systems (CBBS) developed by Ward Christensen went online in February 1978. I remember joining a CBBS with my friend on his Commodore64 running on 2400 baud modem in 1985.

While the technology continues to evolve, there is one thing that doesn’t and that was the exchange of ideas and information. Today we exchange images via Tumbler, Facebook or Flickr, favorite recipes (or smart product placement) on Pinterest and microblog on Twitter – that’s quite a bit of sharing. According to Forrester’s Social Technographics, 23% of social media users were “Creators” in 2010 versus 13% in 2007. If we look at conversationalist, that number is almost 1/3 of respondents.

Why am I interested in all of this? Simple, data!

Ms. Cohen noted that one of the changes over the next 10 years will be –

“Social media will translate personal information and data into a form of currency. As a result, privacy and control of personal information will grow in importance.”

Social data will become a new currency! The old adage of “knowledge is power” will become a truism and those with the knowledge will have the power. Now some may say I’m playing into the conspiracies, but I know enough folks that are starting to privatize their information with the understanding that eventually they will be compensated for their circles, buddies or contacts and that their opinions so freely given on Twitter and Facebook may be sold to the highest bidder in the future.

So where does that put your organization? Remember the dilemma associations faced in the 90’s with web portals? If a website is freely giving away content that associations delivered as value-added member services, then why would individuals join your association? As a result many organizations changed their business practices. So too will you have to adapt to the changing netscape and the potential impact of social currency. Note I don’t mean the kind of Social Currency an individual wields in a community, but the kind that can support an association.

Good news, maybe, is that as an association the concept of networking is ingrained in your DNA. That an association can deliver social networking as a value added membership benefit. That gated communities provide private netscapes for individuals that want to network and be seen by peers. Those communities members will contribute and grow your social community because you have already humanized it and made it part of your organization’s culture. All of this pointing back to your investment in Social CRM and data capture. Yes, as social data becomes currency, you as an association have already invested in providing, growing and cultivating that social data that companies will come to you for. The marketing world will want that bit of knowledge, that bit of power you wield in your market space. Enjoy it!

Why is it we invest in social communities? So that when social currency is a reality we are already rich with it.

By Carlos Restrepo, CAE

A common experience for our customers is that many times the IT professionals, or the internal key Association Management Software stakeholder, will be asked by their enterprising functional areas for new functionality or customizations. It usually begins with something like – “Hey Carlos, we need this really simple/quick/easy functionality in our web/database, can you get it done in 2 weeks? Great, thanks.”

As the membership database stakeholder you may have been a victim, eh I mean, a participant in such conversations and wondered how do I address this?

One way has often been to let someone else be the bad guy. The request is passed along to your Association Management Software (AMS) provider and the provider spends some amount of time going through the requirements gathering, some back and forth getting details out of the project owner and then eventually provides a quote or level of effort (LOE), with an understanding that it is unlikely your organization will agree to the cost associated.

Another way some have handled such requests is to try and put the request in perspective and help the internal customer come to the conclusion that this project has no chance of making it past budgetary approval. The AMS stakeholder spends a great deal of effort talking, going over the request only to look up and see that look of a doe starring into headlights sitting across from them.

For those that wish to tackle the process of developing internal cheat-sheets or processes for project evaluation here are some basic questions that may be helpful with that membership customization, custom member login request or other database project.

Flow with it:

There is no need to create intricate flowcharts or data flow diagrams, but providing a visual representation of the request will often point out key elements of the project or highlight user interface concerns and decision points. The more arrows and objects they include, the more intricate the work will be. So working with the internal client in providing a simple visual representation of the requirement will help all those visual thinkers see your point. Was this a Simple or Complex chart?

Decisions-2-Dollars:

A basic concept in developing customizations is "what are the business rules that need to be taken into account in the development of XYZ requirement?" Every time you have a decision tree, a new business rule or visibility logic to consider - that will impact the development curve of your project. There is a direct correlation between the number of decisions a customization needs to address and the cost of the project. The more code is needed to address each decision, the higher the cost. From the flowchart that was sketched out, can the different decision points or business rules be identified? Can they be quantified into categories – Low (<3); Average (3-5); High (>5)?

Not All Code is Created Equal:

So you have a simple flowchart with a low number of decision points, does that mean we are looking a small customization? Not necessarily! Some aspects of your membership database will be very complex, i.e. processing membership renewals, event registration, shopping cart. Some will be straight forward, i.e. demographics, contact information. So understanding what part of your database or website the customization is linking too will be helpful. Here the AMS key stakeholder may need to provide some assistance. Help the client determine if the impacted area(s) are Complex, Moderate or Simple functional areas.

Time is a factor:

Finally, do you have a realistic time line available for development, testing and deployment? If the client’s time line is ASAP, how much testing will there be? Will there be enough time to map out the desired functionality? Will the vendor have resources available to meet your time line? Rushing through projects often brings about the old adage of “penny wise, pound foolish.” To hurry up and get something done, corners are cut and functionality that is required may be overlooked in an effort to “just get it done.” This is a recipe for disaster and no matter how small or large the customization it will almost always cost the organization additional money, time and resources.

In summary, when you get an internal request and want to provide that enterprising staff person some insight into what they are asking for try to get the following answered/done:

1.     Can the client provide a flow chart?

2.     Is the flow chart simple or complex?

3.     Are there clear business rules and decision points that can be presented to a developer?

4.     Are we looking at a low or a high number of decisions?

5.     What functional areas is the customization targeting?

6.     Are these highly technical areas or do they have limited functionality?

7.     Is there an adequate time line available?

While this list is not exhaustive, I believe it will give you a pretty quick idea of what the request may truly represent and if it is something that the organization would be willing to pursue or if should be tabled for now.

Thank you to all who have offered to host, help migrate, or manage associationTECH going forward.  It's great to know we have lots of option - but the technology is the easy part.  We need everyone (that means YOU) to please vote on whether you PERSONALLY have the bandwidth to participate in this community blog.  Thank you.

This post is for all of you who have contributed to or subscribed to our community blog, associationTECH. You may have heard that Twitter has bought Posterous, the platform we're on right now.

Today we are welcoming a very talented group from Posterous to Twitter. This team has built an innovative product that makes sharing across the web and mobile devices simple—a goal we share. Posterous engineers, product managers and others will join our teams working on several key initiatives that will make Twitter even better.

Posterous Spaces will remain up and running without disruption. We’ll give users ample notice if we make any changes to the service. For users who would like to back up their content or move to another service, we’ll share clear instructions for doing so in the coming weeks.

We’re always looking for talented people who have the passion and personality to join Twitter. Acquisitions have given us people and technology that have enabled us to more quickly build a better Twitter for you.

I don't think it takes a genius to read between the lines here and see that Posterous is toast, just like Gowalla (bought by Facebook), Brizzly (bought by AOL), and any number of others killed by the big boys.  I mean seriously - "For users who would like to back up their content or move to another service, we’ll share clear instructions for doing so in the coming weeks."???  Yeah. That.

So the big question for associationTECH contributors is, do you want to start planning for a move to something else?  

And if you do, is anyone willing to community-manage a new iteration?  I personally feel that this blog has percolated quite nicely on its own for a long time now, and while it may not have the huge activity it had at the beginning, I know that our page views are steady.  But this was never supposed to be a "Maddie project" - so if we move, I will step down as site admin and let others take the reins.

What do you think?  Has this been a good endeavour?  Is it worth keeping (or building with renewed energy)?

I don't think the site will shut down this week - but we need to discuss this now, because when it does I am sure there will be little warning.  Please share your thoughts in the comments.

The American Evaluation Association has a vibrant community on AEA's LinkedIn Group, open to members and nonmembers alike. We wanted to take a look at the change in subscribers over time and to learn more about the group's composition.

In November of 2011, LinkedIn launched a new group stats dashboard, and I thought that it might be just the thing to help. Every group now has a dashboard that group members can view, and in many cases that the public can view as well. If you are an association on LinkedIn, or a subscriber to any LinkedIn group, look in the bottom of the right hand column. You can access AEA's stats dashboard here as an example.

The dashboard includes summary statistics, demographics, growth information, and a weekly activity summary. The screenshot below shows the first page for AEA, but it is worth clicking through to explore a bit.

The dashboard has current key performance indicators (KPIs). I could find the subscribers, basic information about their demographics, and the volume of discussion and comments in the past week. All useful. But a number of things were missing, most noticeable:

1. Filtering and drilldown: I couldn't filter what I was seeing to look at a particular timeframe or drill down to learn more about the group's subscribers from a particular region. We have noted that many of the new LinkedIn subscribers are international, hailing from many countries including a considerable representation from developing countries and countries in transition. However, I couldn't find anything out about them - not even a breakdown of domestic versus international.

2. Longitudinal data: The dashboard offered very little longitudinal data to explore change over time, and what could be found required mousing over individual bars to understand. The annotations, red lines, and even the years in the snapshot below, I had to add myself in a graphics program. However, it was useful to be able to see the history across years. With a little work I could see the increase in average weekly subscribers in 2011 and again in 2012, and it made me want to learn more - but there was no way to segment and explore the newer versus older subscribers.

New Subscribers by Week Over Time

At this point, I want to applaud LinkedIn for starting to help its group owners to understand more about their subscribers, but there is a long way to go. Using the dashboard made it clear that there are unanswered questions (why did we jump so much in the first two months of 2012?), but also that we'll need to turn to other avenues for answers.

What tools are you using to measure your association’s LinkedIn presence? How have you built on the dashboard or developed your own monitoring system?

Susan Kistler is the Executive Director of the American Evaluation Association and owner of iMeasureMedia. She loves data and dumplings, measurement and making a difference. Spinach? Not so much.

After about a month of study, I just turned the last page in Humanize,
a book by Jamie Notter and Maddie Grant.  My overall impression -
WOAH!  This book represents a magnum opus of the knowledge of the
authors.  It is a veritable cornucopia of information.  By cornucopia,
I mean chock full of ideas.  Wherever you are in your career, there is
good information in here for you.  This is a book that can be studied,
torn apart, read over and over, and still have something good to give
time and time again.  To assist, the book has an excellent structure
and is backed up by a robust index.

This is a difficult review to write since the book is simply huge.
Both in amount of text and information, and in the broad thought
changing mindset this book advocates for.  For starters, I’ll say that
this is not an easy read.  It’s not a beginner’s book loaded with
trite examples.  Getting through this book was work.  It challenged my
thoughts while simultaneously presenting a host of complex topics and
issues.

Two major themes resonated with me that I want to speak to.  The
first, coming from my day job is the concept of a “Social Enterprise”.
 Reading this book could not have dovetailed better with this
movement.  The goal of a “Social Enterprise” is, in essence, to have
an organization be more acknowledging, people centered, and basically,
more “Human”.

Humanize from start to finish advocates for behaviors and
organizational infrastructure that facilitates a more human, organic
entity.  The four core values of the book, being open, trustworthy,
generative, and courageous are embodied in the technology that I am
purveying and, I believe, the future.  Being open - flattening the
organization.  Creating a forum where anyone within or without has
access to the right people in the organization.  Being trustworthy,
having data and truth available at your fingertips.  Being generative
- not allowing technological barriers getting in the way of making
progress.  Being courageous - being empowered to try new things,
lowering the cost of entry to new things, and creating a culture that
facilitates trying new things.  The Social Enterprise thought, its
essence, can and should be all things that are advocated for in
Humanize.

The second mindset that I approached this book from is a little more
abstract.  About a year ago I read a book by Dee Hock called “Birth of
the Chaordic Age”.  He was responsible for creation of a rather
popular and widespread organization.  You might know them - VISA.  Dee
talked about the difficulties VISA had during its formative years.  It
was a monumental, almost impossible task to get hundreds of thousands
of institutions around the globe to agree on something and bring a
system to life that had enough flexibility (chaos) to survive and
work, but had enough order to get the job done.

Hock coined a new word “Chaordic” which is a combination of order and
chaos.  Humanize, in my opinion is also advocating for the chaordic
organization.  A chaordic organization celebrates individuality and
flexibility backed up by an efficient structure.  It celebrates
allowing people to be themselves, and create the most productive
version of themselves.  It provides a facility for people and teams to
create and make customers happy.  It is not so rigid that creativity
is stifled.  A human organization acknowledges complexity and
flexibility together, instead of imposing rules, it empowers smart
people to follow loose guidelines to meet the challenge.

This book is written in an aggressive style that authoritatively
spells out its thesis. Sometimes, it comes across as slightly
idealistic, almost manifesto like. I suppose that when you are
proposing such big, sweeping ideas, that’s the only way it can be
communicated.  The book is still a worthwhile read and has many
excellent tools to incorporate into your personal practice.  After
all, one individual going against the grain at an organization can do
great things, develop personal leadership, and make an impact if they
apply these thoughts properly.

I have one stylistic pet peeve.  In the print version, the font felt a
little too small.  I compared the book to several other books on my
shelf and it is definitely a point size smaller than most.  The line
spacing was just a little too dense.  The paragraphs were in block
format and the pages just felt.. crammed.  This could easily be
overcome by ordering an electronic copy and viewing it in a font size
of your choosing.  I’m sure your eyes and the trees would thank you.

Criticisms aside, I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone who
is looking to take their thought process of business organization or
personal leadership to the next level.  While being a challenging
read, for those willing to invest the effort and mental bandwidth to
it, there are great lessons to be learned and a great way to get a
whole lot of information in one place.  Jamie and Maddie did a
thorough job curating the highlights of numerous conversations, books,
and philosophies and tying them up in one place, with an excellent
thesis - making our organizations more human.  I can’t wait to see
what they come up with to follow this book.  In my opinion, this is
just the beginning.  In the meantime, I’m probably going to read it
again.

Thanks and please share any thoughts or comments on this review.

Garry Polmateer, CAE

This post popped up on my twitter feed yesterday – “4 Tips to Keep Your Website Ahead of the Curve in 2012.”  It is an intelligent post with some great content – go lean, be bold, the need for a balance of presence and outreach.  While these are great steps for staying ahead of the curve, I fear that for many associations their website is so far behind/off the curve that they are just struggling to be on the curve.  And so, here are 5 reference tips to make sure we are keep on track while we try to move ahead:

1.       Live in this Decade – Pages that refer to events, newsletters, board members or programs from years ago as what is currently going on are perhaps the most blatant display of website apathy.  Clearly, whoever is supposed to be keeping this website up to date has not reviewed the content in, well, years.  Put these listings in some sort of archive – keep it available publically if you like – and either keep content updated, or create evergreen content that is not date dependent.  If not, well, at least I know I can come back in 2016 to see what the program will be/was next month.

2.       New/Coming Soon – While we are talking about time – use these phrases with caution.  How long is something new?  If you have it listed on your website as new, and I have seen it there for, let’s say six months, is it really still new?  A year?  Do not list something as new without first determining how long it will be listed as such.  The same goes for coming soon.  We all know that projects are given deadlines with the best of intentions.  If you tell me an awesome new member directory tool is about to launch, causing interest and excitement (and me coming back to check if it is up yet) – how long do you think that feeling will last?  How long would it last for you?  Using ‘coming soon’ to generate buzz is fine – but only if it has follow through.  Otherwise, when coming soon means coming eventually, it means I am not coming back to engage.

3.       Take Pity on your Scroll Wheel – 30 second attention spans, multi-tasking without focusing  – we know what has been in the news ad nausem.  In truth, we hear it internally as well – “I sent the members/leaders 3 emails and 2 newsletters – I can’t help it if they don’t read!”  While that is probably a whole post in itself it should help guide your webpages.  If you have site pages that are copy heavy, and take an index finger work out to get through – it is not going to be read.  If you are trying to get that much information across, break it up into chunks, pdf it, and provide bulletpoint links to those pdfs so that those who want to read it can access it and everyone else can see a summary of what you are trying to express.  Copy-heavy, scroll-necessary pages ensure that the user will never reach your eventual call to action….speaking of which….

4.       What Next? –  Do your webpages have a call to action?.  Is the call clear?  Is it on the first page without scrolling?  Most of all, is it member centric?  Is the call centered around an interaction or transaction that is good for the association, or is it put forward as beneficial to the member’s knowledge, network, career, future – and how?  While asking this question of EVERY call may be overkill, it is certainly a worthwhile guiding principle for those pages where the desire is greater engagement.  So have a call to action, a clear what’s next, and if possible show the why.

5.       Be fun, funny, interesting, sexy – just don’t be boring – When you look at your association webpages, do you cringe?  Get a headache?  Glaze over?  Guess what – so will your members.  While cartoons on every page are overkill (on some are ok), if your website bores your members, they will not look forward to coming back no matter how amazing the content may be.  Have web pages you are proud of – creative and straightforward.  Go for informative and enjoyable.  Evoke emotion, paint a picture of the future success of your member because of their association relationship today – be personal.  Show the faces of your staff, have more pictures and youtube videos.    In the end, it will be this perspective that will let you better address those tips for staying ahead of the curve.

Lowell Aplebaum is the director of membership & councils for the International Facility Management Association.  You can find him on twitter @lowellmatthew or follow him at association141.blogspot.com

In the association community, when you start a conversation about integrating systems, the first stop in the discussion needs to be the AMS system. Association Management Systems (AMS) are comprehensive applications purpose-built for the association industry. My company builds one of the leading products in this space and there are many others in the market as well. The goal for these systems has been to provide a centralized system for managing the core businesses of the association. The challenge for most associations is that they have diverse lines of business including membership dues, meetings, publications, education and many others. So, while most associations are not large businesses, they have a level of complexity that far exceeds many for-profit organizations of the same revenue level.

Most people will agree that the AMS must capture the core data of the association and be a single “source of truth” for the organization. This data would include member profile, dues history, orders, subscriptions, committees, and much more. These are all “traditional” areas of data for an association to capture. In the mid-1990s this information may have represented the bulk of what an association cared to capture. However, in 2011, this set of data is only the beginning and much of the key information for an association to capture comes from external sources such as social networks and partner organizations.

So what does an association need to capture in the AMS? In my view, it needs to capture nearly everything that can be associated with a member. The risk you run when not capturing these “extra” data points is that you lose track of what the member really cares about. As an example, let’s say that your membership is increasingly active with Twitter and Facebook and you are not capturing the data from those environments and linking it into your AMS. Over a period of time, you could quickly lose sight of the true areas of interest for each member and not be “part of the conversation”.

The biggest challenge facing associations today is the same one that we’ll have tomorrow – not knowing what is next. You can design a database, web site, and integration methods to capture all of the latest and greatest but you have no real way to determine what will happen next. Change is increasingly surrounding the association business model.

So, what this all boils down to in my view is that you have to make sure that you position your AMS to be at the center of all of this AND you have to make sure your AMS is setup right so that you have the flexibility to capture essentially an unlimited amount of data and types of data. If you do this right and you employ solid methods and technology for Business Intelligence, you’ll reap the rewards by keeping up with your members, staying relevant and necessary to their lives, and increasing the impact of your organization daily.

Amith Nagarajan (@amithnagarajan)

My blog: www.aptify.com/blog

Over the Thanksgiving break, I was thinking about how associations need to improve collaboration between the various systems they use. This is an area that is not in good shape in most associations today and things are about to get worse if executives don’t prioritize it. In general, associations are great at collaboration, but, when it comes to collaboration between their systems, many association executives don’t even know where to start.

Not too long ago, it was considered acceptable by many to leave most systems isolated and just deal a few manual processes when data sharing was needed. In the past, even if this was considered inefficient, it wasn’t necessarily a roadblock to success. These days, the situation has changed drastically. The proliferation of new types of AMS functionality as well as 3rd party tools and social networks demands tight integration. Without comprehensive and well thought out integration strategies, an association can easily drown in the data and not benefit from these technologies.

I’ll be posting a series of articles over the next couple of weeks on the following topics:

• AMS Central – Most people tend to agree that the AMS must continue to be a single “source of truth” for the core data of the association. But the question remains: what is “core data” and does everything need to go in the AMS?
• Social Media – I’ll talk about public and private networks and what to consider when integrating these systems into your AMS
• Email and Marketing Systems – almost every association communicates via email extensively. Are you just pumping out messages without tracking the results in your AMS? If so, you’re missing out on a big part of the member engagement picture.
• Government Relations – while public policy folks are typically tucked away in the corner of the office or in another location entirely, the data they collect, analyze and act upon should not be a silo – it is a vital part of the member engagement picture as well.

Amith Nagarajan (@AmithNagarajan)

CEO @Aptify

My blog: www.aptify.com/blog

It may seem like an oxymoron for a marketing person at a technology software company to tell you (on a technology blog no less) that technology is the end point – it’s the icing on the cake. But I’m going to anyway. Technology is a tool to help us reach our objectives more easily. It’s been that way since the invention of the wheel. It does not necesarilly make our jobs (in a career sense) easier but it helps us simplify our daily tasks.

From an association stand point, technology allows us to reach a larger audience with pinpoint accuracy. Database reporting can isolate subgroups for email blasts for anything from dues renewals to state/chapter events. You can even drill down by zip code and past events attended.  No more manual sorting and piles of contact information papers. You can hold virtual meetings and events, accomodating even the most hectic schedule. Members can connect through forums and online networking regardless of their geographic locations.

But all of these incredible changes over the past decade are powered by people. That’s where it starts. People, process and technology -- in that order. Invest in your people (members, staff and stakeholders), tie that investment into your (business) processes/goals and use technology as a way to get there and a method to continue that investment.

Associations have the people; your “community” begins with your members. Whether you have an online community or not, you already have a member community. How are you investing in it? How are you cultivating it? How has that investment and cultivation changed over the last decade? (Note: if it hasn’t then this is where you need to start.)

Next, work on your process. What are you doing well? What challenges do you face? How do your people tie into this? How can your “process” help your community?

Once you have a community and a process/goals for your community, select your technology. Without a focus on people and a process in place, your technology selection may not cover your true needs. People and process give your technology context with which it is easier to assess those needs.

Purchasing great software doesn’t create engaged members any more than me owning Paula Dean cookware makes a delicious butter-laden dinner magically appear in my kitchen. Technology is a tool. What you do with it is what makes the difference. (Necesssary disclaimer as a technology person: yes, some software is better than others just as some cookware is but…) To be successful in today’s social-driven world, your focus must always be your people. People, process, technology.   

Christina G. Smith is the Social Media Marketing Strategist at YourMembership.com (www.yourmembership.com). She is looking forward to attending #Tech11 and is hoping she can find her winter coat by then.