Category: whitepaper

Why Do Associations Struggle With Digital Transformation?

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

In our research for The No BS Guide to Digital Transformation: How Intentional Culture Change Can Propel Associations Forward, Maddie Grant and I learned that, while associations definitely still have work to do on the technology front, it’s not technology that’s holding our industry back: it’s culture, and more specifically, culture change.

This is also why a lot of the copious digital transformation advice that exists don’t quite hit the mark for associations: for-profit culture is fundamentally different than association culture. 

On one level, that’s because a member =/= a customer.

However, associations also struggle with awkward collaboration, reactive transparency, uneven discipline, and unclear priorities.

To learn more about all of these, and what your association can do to overcome them and use what makes member relationships special to accelerate your transformation efforts, download the full whitepaper at https://bit.ly/3y4O6dy, no divulging of information about yourself required.

What IS “Digital Transformation” Anyway?

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE
What IS “Digital Transformation” Anyway?

When Maddie Grant and I were researching The No BS Guide to Digital Transformation: How Intentional Culture Change Can Propel Associations Forward, we found all sorts of definitions, depending on the perspective of the definer (marketing, tech, HR, C-suite, etc.). People also tend to define digital transformation too narrowly, as just about the adoption of new technologies and/or as adopting a “digital-first” culture.

The thing is, as my pretty post header graphic reads, the challenge associations face in our digital transformation initiatives is that it’s an iterative process that includes both of technologies and culture, and our members. Associations focus on creating more value for our members and for the professions and industries we serve, which means we need to continuously change the way we work, which means we need to be on the lookout for the tools and technologies that will allow us to do that. And the cycle repeats.

Which sounds, if not easy, then at least simple.

So why aren’t we doing it?

To discover the answer, download the full whitepaper at https://bit.ly/3y4O6dy, no divulging of information about yourself required.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Digital Transformation…

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

…but were afraid to ask.

Organizations of ALL types – for profit and tax exempt – have been talking about digital transformation for many years, and yet association efforts, both to digitize and to go digital, continue to lag.

Why is that?

In our new whitepaper, Maddie Grant, co-founder of PROPEL, and I posit that it’s all about culture. There’s a ton of great research and advice – Maddie and I review a good chunk of it in the monograph – but it’s missing our community because it misses what makes us unique:

associations have both unique advantages and particular challenges we face in trying to transform ourselves, assets and drawbacks that the extensive existing literature on the topic doesn’t really address. Associations have been struggling with digital transformation because the advice that exists on how to do it misses what makes our community special.

In The No BS Guide to Digital Transformation: How Intentional Culture Change Can Propel Associations Forward, Maddie and I analyze a decade of research that demonstrates that the key to lasting, responsive digital transformation is intentional and focused culture change. We delve deeply into how that impacts associations particularly and what association execs need to know and do to be successful in their DT initiatives.

The whitepaper also includes:

  • An interview with Martin Mocker, co-author (with Dr. Jeanne Ross and Cynthia M. Beath) of Designed for Digital: How to Architect Your Business for Sustained Success.
  • A summary of digital transformation maturity assessment tools, and a recommendation as to which we think you should use.
  • A summary of PROPEL’s culture management maturity model.
  • The definitive answer to the perpetual “Should we build an app?” dilemma. (Well, OK, *we* think it’s the definitive answer.)
  • Case studies with the Construction Specifications Institute, the Healthcare Financial Management Association, the Independent Community Bankers of America, and the School Nutrition Association.
  • A series of thought questions for you to use to spark discussion with your team.
  • An extensive list of resources in case you want to dig deeper on any of the topics addressed.

I’ll be blogging about the whitepaper in the coming days, highlighting some of our major findings, but in the meantime I invite you to download your free copy at https://bit.ly/3y4O6dy – we don’t collect any data on you to get it, and you won’t end up on some mailing list you didn’t ask for. We just use the bit.ly as an easy mechanism to count the number of times it’s been downloaded.

And don’t forget to check out some of the other FREE Spark collaborative whitepapers, too:

Preview: The No BS Guide to Digital Transformation

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE
Quote from podcast

I’m so excited to announce that the next Spark collaborative whitepaper will be dropping ONE week from today.

In it, Maddie Grant (Digital Strategist, PROPEL) and I discuss digital transformation for associations, seeking to address what makes the process of digital transformation different for associations. Spoiler alert: it’s culture.

I recently sat down (virtually) with Carol Hamilton of Grace Social Sector Consulting to talk about our findings for her Mission Impact podcast. Some of the topics we touched on in our wide-ranging conversation include:

  • The significance of digital transformation for nonprofit organizations
  • What’s different about digital transformation for associations
  • Avoiding shiny object syndrome in your tech related projects

Check out the full recording here, or on your favorite podcast app.

Engagement: You’re Doing It Right!

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

One of the other hot topics on the engagement virtual panel Mary Byers had organized for the Veterinary Medical Association on April 22 was: Who’s doing member engagement well, and what can we learn from them?

A few years ago, Anna Caraveli and I wrote Leading from the Outside-In, in which we describe what member-centric engagement looks like, enumerate eight keys to member-centric engagement, and profile 11 different membership organizations that are doing a great job at it.

Some of those were “big” stories, organizations that had completely transformed themselves, or were built from the ground up, as member-centric: the National Grocers’ Association, the Society for Hospital Medicine, SERMO, and The Community Roundtable. But most of the stories we shared were of associations that had transformed one program, one service, and were using that as a springboard to further change: American MENSA’s SIGs (special interest groups), the Homebuilders & Remodelers Association of Connecticut’s awards program, the Hydraulic Power Association’s standards locator, etc.

Even in one of the first collaborative white papers I produced, The Mission-Driven Volunteer, with Peggy Hoffman, we shared the story of the Oncology Nursing Society, where they were able to go from 1:26 active volunteer members to 1:5. THAT is an engagement success story.

Growing up, my dad was a big fan of Saturday morning PBS educational shows (This Old House, The Victory Garden, and the like), and there’s a running joke in my family about a gazebo-making machine into which you feed a tree and a fully assembled gazebo pops out the other end. The thing is, engagement is more like on the New Yankee Workshop, with master carpenter Norm Abram: Every project is unique, and requires attention to detail and a specific application of the materials and tools at hand.

What’s my point?

Every engagement success story is different and unique to the audiences that association is serving. There isn’t some sort of Universal Association Answer to Engagement, there’s only your audiences, their challenges and goals, and what your association can do to be their go-to solution provider.

Because that’s what I want for you.

Too many associations are a “nice to have” not a “need to have.” Being a “nice to have” is enough when times are good, but when times get tough (professionally or personally), people drop a “nice to have.” I want your association to be a vital partner in your members’ and other audiences’ success, and absolute dedication to a member-centric perspective is the way to get there.

NP Tech Podcast: Cut Through the Clutter

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

A few weeks ago, Hilary Marsh and I had the opportunity to sit down (virtually, of course) with fusionSPAN’s Justin Burniske to talk all things content curation.

The conversation was based on Hilary’s and my recently released whitepaper, Cut Through the Clutter: Content Curation, Associations’ Secret Weapon Against Information Overload. We discussed topics such as:

  • Why now? Why focus on content curation now, when there are so many pressures on association resources?
  • What new opportunities does a virtual work environment present?
  • What are the differences between active content curation and advanced search?
  • Is effective curation push, pull, or both?
  • What impact does a member paywall have on content curation strategy?
  • What skills do staff members need to do content curation effectively?

You can get the full recording on your favorite podcast platform, or at the fusionSPAN website.

Stop Trying to be Google

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

If an association wants to move beyond mere aggregation and serve your members by providing real curation, what should you do?

To quote my co-author HilaryMarsh: “Stop trying to be Google.”

Quoting from our new whitepaper, Cut Through the Clutter: Content Curation, Associations’ Secret Weapon Against Information Overload,

Your association’s community is experiencing information overload in a time when it’s become increasingly difficult to assess the quality of that information due to the proliferation of sources and to the declining trust people have in traditional gatekeepers of information.

Piling on links to a bunch of stuff absent context isn’t going to help solve that problem. If your association really wants to get to the root of this for the people you serve, you are going to have to move beyond mere aggregation and use multiple methods to achieve distillation, or museum-style curation.

There are a number of things you’re going to have to do differently to achieve that, from letting go of your “we’re the best – the only relevant – source of information for our profession or industry” arrogance to interacting differently with your own content to hiring and training for different skills to changing your association’s orientation towards and relationship with your members and volunteers.

To find out more about how you achieve “curation greatness,” download the full whitepaper at https://bit.ly/34P5THr, no divulging of information about yourself required.

What IS Content Curation?

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

Associations use the term “content curation” frequently, but to quote the great Inigo Montoya: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Many times, when we’re using the term “content curation,” what we actually mean is “aggregation.” That is, pulling together a list of related links.

That is helpful for your members, in that you’ve at least reduced the number of pieces of information they should be paying attention to. But it’s shallow, and you can do so much more to help them.

When Hilary Marsh and I talk about “content curation” in our new whitepaper, Cut Through the Clutter: Content Curation, Associations’ Secret Weapon Against Information Overload, what we’re referring to is something more akin to what museum curators do, a process called distillation, in which the curator selects from the available items, brings those items together, puts them in context, and provides the perspective that helps the people viewing those items to find meaning and make sense of the topic by telling a coherent story.

Museums curate artifacts. Associations curate information.

You can help your members achieve their most important goals and solve their most pressing problems by curating information effectively.

To find out more about how you do that, download the full whitepaper at https://bit.ly/34P5THr, no divulging of information about yourself required.

Help Your Members Find the Signal in the Noise

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

This is probably not news to you, but we’re at an information crisis point.

Your members and other audiences are dealing with a flood of information during a time when the role of traditional information gatekeepers has become severely devalued. People are overwhelmed with information, much of it false or untrustworthy, and are increasingly unable to discern what is reliable and what is not.

Associations can help.

In the latest, just-released, hot off the presses (or at least Adobe InDesign) Spark collaborative whitepaper, Hilary Marsh (Content Company) and I propose content curation as associations’ secret weapon for helping our members surface relevant information and place it in the context they need to help them make sense of their increasingly complex personal and professional worlds.

Cut Through the Clutter: Content Curation, Associations’ Secret Weapon Against Information Overload opens by detailing the scope of the information crisis we’re currently facing, describes the key elements of effective content curation, and provides detailed, actionable steps that association executives can take to curate information effectively for your audiences.

The whitepaper includes:

  • An association content curation maturity model.
  • A case study with the Institute of Food Technologists.
  • An interview with Carrie Hane and Dina Lewis, CAE, who co-authored the recent ASAE Foundation content strategy report, Association Content Strategies for a Changing World, with Hilary.
  • An interview with Bryan Kelly, one of the founders of rasa.io and the publisher-in-chief of Smart Letter, discussing the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in content curation.
  • A summary of the ASAE Foundation report, Association Content Strategies for a Changing World.
  • A list of “how-to” guides and curation tools.
  • A series of thought questions for you to use to spark discussion with your team.
  • An extensive list of resources in case you want to dig deeper on any of the topics addressed.

I’ll be blogging about the whitepaper in the coming days, highlighting some of our major findings, but in the meantime I invite you to download your free copy at https://bit.ly/34P5THr – we don’t collect any data on you to get it, and you won’t end up on some mailing list you didn’t ask for. We just use the bit.ly as an easy mechanism to count the number of times it’s been downloaded.

And don’t forget to check out the other FREE Spark collaborative whitepapers, too:

What Should We Do to Get Ready for Blockchain?

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

One of the key elements of blockchain networks is the network. This technology is a system-level technology. What that means is that its true power lies in the network effect, in the system. Any one application can have positive (or negative, or both) impacts, but disruptive change will come about as different applications begin to interact with each other.

In a practical sense, to quote Blockchain for Associations: Separating the Hype from the Promise, that means:

…blockchain-related changes that come to your particular profession or industry are likely to happen not at all and then all at once…

If you do only ONE thing as a result of the white paper and this blog series, it should be to educate your senior paid and volunteer leadership. When the time comes that the network effect hits the profession or industry your association serves, you will need to be nimble enough to make rapid decisions. You can’t wait until then to start your educational process.

Where do you start?

Of course, I’m going to say: download the whitepaper, read it, assign your board to read it, make it an agenda item at your next board meeting, assign senior staff to read it, and make it an agenda item at your next senior staff meeting. Remember, it’s completely free, and you won’t be asked for any information or put on a mailing list.

The whitepaper itself includes advice for next steps after that, ranging from more detailed takes on everything I’ve covered in the past few posts to a substantial reference list to discussion questions to inform your conversations with your paid and volunteer leaders to information about where you can set up sandboxes.

I’ll close with one more quote:

Blockchain is likely to disrupt association operations, just as the arrival of the internet and social media did. Does that necessarily mean that blockchain will put associations out of business? Well, no.

However, it is going to change some fundamental things about the way we operate, and now is the time to start educating yourself as to how.