8 numbers you should know for 2020
Before association industry professionals check out for the holidays, they’re making their plans for 2020 and checking them twice. And that’s all well and good, but how often are plans getting made that actually respond to the data we’ve spent so much time collecting over the course of a year? And how often are we […]
Ready to grow your organization? Listen to Verne Harnish on SURGEcast
As the author of “Mastering the Rockefeller Habits” and its follow-up, “Scaling Up: Mastering the Rockefeller Habits 2.0,” few are in position to offer advice on how to grow your organization quite like Verne Harnish. The founder of the Entrepreneur’s Organization and the founder and CEO of the executive coaching company Scaling Up, Harnish sat […]
Are association chapters worth the effort?
Ask Peggy Hoffman and Peter Houstle what kind of reaction they get when they start asking about whether association chapters are still relevant, and they both start laughing. “There are a lot of people who are intimidated by that question,” Houstle said. “Sometimes, I wonder if there are people who don’t want to do (the […]
Are you creating content you don’t actually need?
When Hilary Marsh was at the National Association of Realtors, she remembers taking a look at all the newsletters that went out to their members. The newsletters, which went out to about a million people, were being opened by fewer and fewer people. Why? They were sending too many. NAR’s staff of about 300 people […]
Why it’s not good enough to ask what members want
When Elizabeth Weaver Engel thinks about what members want, two quotes come immediately to mind. The first is attributed to Henry Ford: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” And the second comes from tech giant Steve Jobs: “People don’t know what they want until you show it […]
Tools you can use to organize your content strategy
So much of what an association produces involves or revolves around content. There are learning courses, conference panels, blog posts, newsletters — both digital and on paper, case studies and white papers. That’s not even to mention all the social media: LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and whatever else is next on the horizon for how we […]
This worksheet helped 1 association trim its website by 95%
When Courtney Reyers first started working at the American Society for Microbiology nearly five years ago, she was faced with a 20,000-page website. It was untagged, unstructured and the search was, in her words, “a complete nightmare.” Something had to be done. As the senior manager for digital strategy at the American Society for Microbiology, […]
Is it time to Marie Kondo your content?
When Meena Dayak’s team at the American Public Power Association sought to redesign their website about two years ago, there was a lot to consider. Well, a lot of content to consider. “It had been a while since we had taken such a comprehensive look at the site,” said Dayak, who serves as the vice […]
Should you shorten your workweek?
If it was possible to have shorter meetings, take a paid day off every week, cut the overhead cost of operating your office building and increase overall productivity, would you do it? Thought it sounds like a no-brainer, what it takes to actually get there might leave a lot of leaders immediately unsure. But that’s […]
Should your association start a podcast?
When Hannah Andrews and her team started thinking about creating their first podcast, they weren’t actually thinking in those terms. Instead, they considered their strategic plan goals around consumer outreach for the Association for Professionals in Infection Control. What’s a great way to build the audience they already had for their website, with info about […]