innovation Archives - Page 11 of 12

Innovation: Small Staff v. Large Staff

Posted on August 16, 2011 | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 9 Comments

In the past 14 years, I’ve held a variety of positions in association management: senior staff in a mid-sized professional academic society, senior staff/acting CEO for a small ed-tech association, consulting, and now mid-level management at a large medical trade association.

Each place has had upsides and downsides. The academic society was in my “official” field (from undergrad and grad school), so I was really engaged in the meat of what we did and felt a deep personal connection with my members. I had the opportunity to manage a fantastic team, most of whom I’m still in touch with 14 years later. But tradition weighs particularly heavy on an august association of PhDs. Even though I had good internal support to try new things, there was only so far we could go. And the annual meetings were murder!

The small association was nimble and innovative, and I had pretty much totally free reign to try anything I wanted. We turned on a dime and had an AMAZING mission and community. Unfortunately, resources – staff, time, money, capacity, space – were a constant problem. Comes with the territory, but we constantly struggled to figure out ways to push all our great ideas forward on the cheap (or preferably, the free).

Consulting brought lots of fun, exciting variety, and I got to meet and work with terrific people from all sorts of associations, finding out about worlds I never would have encountered otherwise (and I got to work with a metallurgy organization staffed and led by a bunch of guys who reminded me a lot of my dad, which rocked – I love engineers!). But I was often in the position of turning over a bunch of (hopefully) useful recommendations that would have an immediate positive impact, with an “OK! Let me know how it goes!” It killed me to mostly not be able to help make change happen.

Large organizations allow you to be more specialized, so you develop deeper expertise in your areas of responsibility. Resources are rarely a serious impediment. And once again, great mission (there may be a theme here). But decision making can be glacial, and it’s often not entirely clear who needs to be involved in a given decision until you’re down the path and someone’s upset they’ve been left out.

So here’s my question for you, association peeps: how does one bring some of the good things small staff organizations enjoy with regards to new ideas and nimbleness to a large organization?

That’s not rhetorical – I’d really like your thoughts.

User Innovation in Practice

Posted on April 19, 2011 | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the concept of user innovation versus producer innovation.

As a follow up, I thought it might be fun to share a small example of user innovation in practice.

One of the hats I wear at NACHRI is to fill our exhibit hall and keep our exhibitors happy.

You know what keeps exhibitors happy? Traffic.

So we’re always looking for ways to increase traffic. And I love to “borrow” good ideas from other places. One thing I noticed a lot of shows do to drive traffic in the exhibit hall is various types of exhibit hall games for drawings. So we instituted an exhibit hall passport game, drawing for one big prize (we’ve done a Wii, a Nook, and an iPad to date) and some smaller prizes.

Another thing we do after every show is survey our exhibitors about the experiences. The three most important questions we ask are:

Please rank your overall satisfaction with the show.
How likely are you to exhibit with us again?
If there was ONE thing we could do make your show experience better, what would it be?

In the fall, one of our exhibitors indicated that, while he liked the passport game because it did bring people to his booth, many of them only wanted to get their passport stamp and move on. He asked if we could maybe set it up as a trivia game, where you had to get the answer to question from each participating exhibitor. So we did.

Result? About 1/3 of our exhibitors generally participate in the game, and our recent spring conference was no exception. But 85% of our spring conference survey respondents said they’ll participate next time because of the meaningful exchanges they either experienced with attendees themselves or watched other exhibitors having around the cards this time.

What great ideas are lurking out there among the users of your products and services? Have you asked them recently?

User Innovation v. Producer Innovation

Posted on March 24, 2011 | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

A recent piece in MIT’s Technology Review by Eric Von Hippel (excerpt freely available, subscription required to read the entire piece) on the topic of the sources of innovation got me thinking about innovation and associations.

The innovation faith is being widely preached in the association world these days, and many of us have converted. But that brings with it a certain amount of pressure, namely, to come up with great new ideas (since that’s really what’s at the root of innovation).

But there’s hope: YOU don’t have to come up with all the great new ideas in order for your association to be innovative. You just have to be open to new ideas, recognize them, and be ready to pursue them, no matter what the source.

How does that play out for associations? Technically, we’re all in existence because of our members (remember them?), to serve them and their professional or industry needs.

Does your association allow room for innovation, aka great new ideas, from the people who actually use what you produce – you know, your members and other audiences?

What mechanisms do you have in place to solicit their ideas on a regular basis? No, not just the board – the “regular” rank and file members. We all tend to be guilty of the fallacy of composition when it comes to our boards, including the board members themselves, but in reality they tend to speak mostly for their own needs and not be some sort of objective, impartial voice of the membership as a whole.

Once ideas bubble up from the membership, what happens next? Do you do anything with them? Do you even reserve the capacity (time, money, staff, other resources) to do anything with them?

Regardless of the outcome (because not all new ideas are necessarily good), how do you let people know what happened and why?

The thing is, your members are a lot closer to what you’re doing and producing, ostensibly for their benefit. Why not ask them what they think about how you can make your offerings better for them, and then try to do something beneficial with what they tell you?

Why You Don’t Want to be a Lifer

Posted on November 16, 2010 | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 3 Comments

You start telling yourself the story of your organization the day you’re hired. Over time, the story becomes more complete, but also more constrained. As you start to “know” more, the range of possibilities narrows.

But what do you really know?

We don’t recall everything that happens. We can only store what fits into our mental categories. As soon as you start forming those categories, you start reifying them, choosing what to keep and what to dump out of your mental file cabinets based on what meshes with the story you’ve already started telling yourself.

You see this most frequently with a long-time employee shooting down a new idea without even considering or discussing it: “We tried that and it didn’t work.”

And maybe that person is right – the organization DID try it and it DIDN’T work.

But maybe “it” wasn’t done right or by the right person or at the right time. Maybe the audience or the environment has changed in the interim, but because different people and different circumstances don’t fit into the long-timer’s story, s/he hasn’t noticed.

This is why people get so excited about the concept of beginners’ mind and why so many new hires try to retain their outsider perspective as long as possible.

I’m not arguing that you need to change jobs every two years – there’s value in institutional memory as well.

What I am saying is that, if your story is stale or you feel it’s completely filled in and can’t accommodate so much as a change in punctuation, maybe it’s time to move on and recapture that blank slate.

Old Skool, New Skool and Free

Posted on September 14, 2010 | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

A few weeks ago, I was invited a book launch event. Several things struck me as a little odd.

We were all sitting around a conference table, but the author used PPT slides as a crutch when talking about the book even though there was no “presentation” per se, and certainly no projector. The slides were provided to attendees, but it also made me wonder: are we now so dependent on PPT that we can’t be trusted to take notes without it? That’s a shame.

Also, I was clearly the lowest person on the totem pole in the room, which was otherwise full of lots of CEOs with lots of experience in the topic the book was addressing, and yet it was viewed as a SALES opportunity by the author. Not including me, many of the people in the room seemed pretty senior and pretty experienced in the topic at hand. So what could have been the chance to get the book into hands of people whose influence is wide was reduced to an opportunity to sell maybe 10 books (I didn’t buy one).

Really?

Now I realize that it’s possible that ASAE paid for them, but did you notice that we all got free copies of the books of the two keynote speakers at the recent Annual? I’m not saying I loved either of their talks and I may not like their books very much either, but those two got their books into the hands of THOUSANDS of people who directly and indirectly influence MILLIONS.

Which seems like the better investment?

Big Questions for Associations – Part 3

Posted on September 7, 2010 | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 1 Comment

This is part three (aka “the conclusion”) in the series inspired by Jeff De Cagna’s March breakfast briefing on associations and mobile technology. Read Part 1. Read Part 2.

Question 3: How will we manage the change from a pre-set package of options (membership) to an individually negotiated exchange of value?

In other words, we’re moving from “you can have any color you want as long as it’s black” to a world of mass personalization. And many of us don’t do a particularly good job at the whole “value proposition” in the first place.

This idea has actually been around associations for awhile, in the guise of “cafeteria membership” (if you follow that link, you’ll notice the article is dated 2002). The thing is, cafeterias generally have a limited set of options. Is “print journal” versus “no print journal” really a meaningful choice?

On the other hand, we’re also constantly exhorted to focus on our “core competencies” as organizations (often with the implied “and outsource everything else” trailer). Don’t try to be everything to everyone – just know what’s really important to your audience and do it better than anyone else.

Another thing we have to contend with is the whole membership model – i.e., you have to be a member to get X at all or to get X at a reasonable price. But what I’m not actually a participant in the profession/industry, and, as an interested onlooker, all I want is X? Is it really OK to price gouge me? Or totally deny me access?

This becomes an even bigger deal as associations start promoting what we do through social media channels, with the potential of LOTS more people finding out about the good stuff we offer (positive)…and then not being able to participate (extremely negative).

We recently ran into this at NACHRI, when someone forwarded a potential tweet to that week’s editor about an upcoming webinar that was free, as long as you’re a NACHRI member, but not available at all to non-members. You couldn’t even see information about the webinar if you weren’t a member. And it was a topic with potential wide interest, if it “got out.” After a fairly lengthy internal debate, we opted to create a landing page outside our member wall (and notice the fortress terminology there, and don’t pretend you don’t use it at your organization, too) with information, rationalizing that anyone who was really interested enough to register (which required membership) probably had an affiliation with one of our member hospitals anyway. We haven’t gotten complaints (that I’m aware of), but it’s only a matter of time.

But shouldn’t our offerings stand on their own two feet? If people want something, they’ll pay for it. If they don’t want it enough to pay for, then maybe we should stop doing it. I realize there are limits to this line of thinking (witness all the people who bitch & moan about taxes and the federal government, yet keep using the police, the fire department, public roads and bridges, public water and sewage systems, public education, etc.). But if a program can’t support itself, unless it genuinely is for the good of the profession, the industry or the public, maybe it’s time to kill it.

The comfortable thing about the membership model – and the reason so many of our organizations are loathe to even consider alternatives – is that, with very few exceptions, it provides a steady and reliable source of revenue that allows us to keep on ignoring those sacred cows. Thing is, they aren’t going to die on their own. And this problem is just going to get worse.

I don’t have an answer to this. But I do know that, particularly for individual membership associations (and trades, we shouldn’t kid ourselves that we’re immune), we’re already past time when we need to figure out how to let our audiences have it their way.

Big Questions for Associations – Part 1

Posted on August 3, 2010 | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 4 Comments

Back in March, Jeff De Cagna did a breakfast briefing on the future of mobile technologies for associations. At that time, he raised a series of questions I’ve been pondering since. I haven’t come up with any answers, so I thought it might be time to take my musings public and hopefully spark a conversation about these issues.

Question 1: How do we connect with stakeholders who have public, digital and highly networked relationships?

This one has been particularly on my mind this summer. After a LOT of back and forth, NACHRI has finally officially gotten on FB (www.facebook.com/childrenshospitals) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/NACHRI). At the same time, we’re in the midst of launching a white label social network on the Higher Logic platform, which will include their mobile app next spring. And we have a fairly robust YouTube channel, plus two blogs. Big changes, and some of my colleagues are more than a little nervous.

The larger social media environment for children’s hospitals is in flux as well. On the one hand, there are plenty of children’s hospitals with substantial social media presence. On the other, the actual people who run the children’s hospitals, not so much. On the third hand (and thanks for letting me borrow one of yours), the current generation of administrators is starting to retire and we’re struggling to connect with the next generation.

Right now, I would say we’re still in the experimental stage with a lot of this. Although we experimented with Twitter during our spring conference, we didn’t officially start tweeting consistently and with a process until about a month ago. The FB page didn’t go live until around the same time. We’re in the pre-deciding what metrics will even be meaningful stage. Hell, we’re in the pre-deciding which platforms will be meaningful stage.

In the meantime, our next generation of administrators is out there. We want to reach ever more deeply into our member hospitals, and those staffers are out there too, as are the people we’re trying to affect around policy, both legislators and grass-roots activists. And in the end, as our tagline Champions for Children’s Health suggests, it is all about the kids. And they’re DEFINITELY out there.

How do we find them? Cut through the clutter? Become the “curators of information” Jeff’s been encouraging associations to be? Provide – and show that we provide – value? How do we broadcast the good our hospitals do while still respecting HIPAA regulations (something with which all health care organizations struggle)?

How is your organization addressing the public, highly networked nature of the relationships with and between your target audiences?

I really don’t know the answers, but I DO know that we’re at least now in the game, and that’s a start.

I’ll be doing a series of posts about this for the next few weeks, so check back and offer your thoughts.

Generations, Leadership and Change

Posted on April 6, 2010 | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 7 Comments

A number of things, including this post on leadership mindsets by Jamie Notter, have gotten me thinking about the major forces that I think are currently shaping the association community.

“The economy” and “health care reform” both seem like the obvious answers, right?

Particularly given that NACHRI is a health care organization, and we all keep getting those blast emails “from” John Graham urging us to…well, I actually haven’t paid a ton of attention since I already have my mind made up on health care (the only major thing that’s wrong with the bill Obama signed about two weeks ago is that there’s STILL no public option, and since I lack representation in Congress, what I think doesn’t really matter anyway). But (I digress) no, not health care.

And the thing about the economy is that it cycles. What’s going on now is a difference of degree, not of kind.

People who know me might guess that I’d say, “Social media! And it’s going to cure cancer, assure me a lifetime supply of Jimmy Choos, and get us all puppies!” Yeah, not so much – social media provides a new platform (or platforms, if you prefer), but it’s for a very old school activity: communication.

I think the most important force shaping the association community today is generational change.

As described in the Lifecourse work of William Strauss and Neil Howe, generations (like the economy) cycle, but the key difference is that a large majority of associations have never directly experienced significant generational change.

Most associations were built by, are currently staffed at senior levels by, and have memberships largely made up of idealistic “prophet” Baby Boomers. I think that provides the foundation for most associations, and carries with it some very good and very bad things: the level of commitment we require of our volunteers, the fact that we expect members to happily support “common good” programs, the focus on process over outcomes, the emphasis on mission and the willingness to make personal sacrifices in service to that mission, and even the high value placed on gathering face to face.

Gen-X “nomads” are much more pragmatic – we’re not joiners, and we don’t follow movements. Is the membership model dying? I don’t really know, but if it does die, I think it will be Gen-X that kills it – not the economy or social media, both of which are usually held at fault.

Xers lack patience with the hierarchy of belonging and with traditional forms of engagement and volunteering. If the price of admission involves reading hundreds of pages of rote committee reports and spending long hours in meetings that don’t actually accomplish anything, we’ll form our own groups. Remember the Bush 41 recession of the early 90s, when Xers were graduating? No room at the (workforce) inn? Fine – I’ll just go do my own thing (and invent Netscape in the process).

I think this generational shift will require that our membership models become more limited and personalized, our decision-making processes become more nimble, and our model of volunteering become more focused on outcomes and less on process.

Further complicating the picture is the emergence of the Millennials, a “hero” generation, into adulthood. Heroes value community and teamwork, in direct contrast to the independent and cynical nomadic Xers, and they are much more sanguine about institutions and authority than either nomads or prophets. This “hero” generation is our future.

To quote The Hourglass Blog:

“[D]oes leadership mean something different to each generation, and therefore our leadership systems will constantly change as each new generational perspective comes into power?”

I think the answer is “yes” – our leadership models will have to change to mirror generational change. Given the single-generation life-span of many associations, that will, I believe, be wrenching.

How will your organization respond to generational change? How will we, as a community, respond? How is generational change causing you to think differently about volunteerism? Membership? Mission? Leadership? Or are you even thinking differently at all at this point?

Category: innovation