Faucette is the only employee for the Kentucky Coalition of Nurse Practitioners and Nurse Midwives. She is the person who carries out the day-to-day tasks for our statewide professional association.

“There’s no reason to choose high tech over high touch [communication] or vice versa; it comes down to deciding what works best in each situation,” Faucette said.

In August, Faucette outlined three tips for balancing electronic and personal communication with her organization in an issue of “Associations Now.” Here’s a quick wrap-up of what she had to say:

1) Answer calls by the third ring and forward calls to your cell
As soon as I know my caller’s name, I ask, “What can I do for you today, Kim?” which often startles the poor person. It’s my belief that the less scripted I sound, the more human I become. The more human I become, the more comfortable my member is in asking for the help she needs.

If I’m doing my job and giving my members the information they need, I am not bogged down by phone calls. But I’d also be lying if I say I make myself available 24/7.

2) Update the website quickly and with relevant info
If I notice a trend in requests, I do my best to make changes to our website right away. I feel it’s better to have a solution up right away than to wait for volunteers. I have them check my changes, and we adjust if need be.

3) Maintain prompt, personal attention
I put myself in my member’s seat—needing information, frustrated that I can’t find it on my own, short on time.  Job number one is solving the problem right now and if not right now, then later today. After all, if I am not getting resources to my members to help them do their jobs better, then I am not really doing my job.

A growing number of associations have found that they can trade all that for “cloud computing,” a way of accessing software applications, data, and shared computing power on demand through the internet. Groups that use the cloud model don’t own computer power and software nor do they keep it on site, they rent it.

Some managers use a cloud to access the Google Docs suite of business software, including text documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.

Officials from the International Legal Technology Association, which hosted its first cloud solution — and intradet — in 2000, said that everything they do is in the cloud. “We don’t have a server on premises,” they said.

Thanks to cloud computing, the National Defense Industrial Association uses web-based applications has doubled its budget—from $15 million to $30 million—without adding staff.

No system is perfect for every association. There are pros and cons to every technology, and the potential cost savings of working in the cloud don’t come without their own costs.

On the up side, if your documents are in the cloud—and not locked on an office server—you can theoretically have anytime, anywhere access to those files. You don’t have to spend more on computing power than necessary.

The cloud also offers a new level of reliability and vendors are the ones to worry about fixing computers and servers, updating virus protection, or putting software patches on each office machine.

The downside to cloud computing is obvious: Lose your internet connection and you’ve lost your link to the cloud. There’s more than a little distrust about relinquishing control of so much of our worklives to some amorphous entity “out there.” And despite the backup systems, there’s still concern over whether data in the cloud are secure.

Regardless, associations can’t replicate the computing power they’ll find in the cloud without a great deal of expense.

With the recession raging all around it, the Illinois-based association gathered its staffers and evaluated at every product and program that didn’t require board approval — $1.2 million of its approximately $6 million budget — and figure out which ones could be trimmed, cut, and restructured.

They ditched booklets, cut pages, negotiate on prices with vendors. they cut little things such as an offsite warehouse they didn’t need and the membership cards no one used. They merged a book of meeting abstracts with a journal issue, they used both sides of the printer paper and sent only one photographer to the annual meeting instead of two.

By the time it was done, ASSH had saved slightly more than $300,000. Eventually, the board got into it and found ways to save another $75,000.

What the association didn’t expect, however, was that the process of scrutinizing the entire company had an even bigger effect than the cuts did.

ASSH turned its staffers into stakeholders and created a culture where rethinking how programs are run is persistently top of mind. The staffers interacted with each other on a regular basis. Once a month, they look at their efforts with fresh eyes—not to cut programs, but to figure out how they could be made more efficient.

The most valuable result from the experience, staffers say, is an organizational culture that’s much more attuned to thinking about member needs and value before reflexively launching a new product.

“I think more than anything, it’s allowed us all to feel more comfortable shouting out ideas when the opportunity presents itself,” said Tara Havenga, the company’s director of communications. “It has us all really thinking about value input versus value output. Questioning the old norms that we accepted before is more of a daily practice now, which I think is refreshing to a lot of us.”

Source: ASAE Center, August 2010

This is according to Nick Senzee, a blogger from Ashburn, Wa. who writes about social media and associations.

According to one of Senzee’s posts from 2007, Joseph A. Michelli, author of “The Starbucks Experience” discussed how associations can “leverage experiences to better position themselves.”

Michelli says 8 out of 10 leaders believe “the experience” rather than differentiating products and services is the next battleground for companies and associations.

Full experience-based associations are committed to the experience of the member. They add sensory experiences and theatricality to contact with the audience.

Like Starbucks, associations can improve their experience by doing five things:

1. Allow the members to feel ownership.
2. Create an environment where members can try new things.
3. Be Welcoming, Be Genuine, Be Considerate, Be Knowledgeable, Be Involved.
4. Remember that people notice the details. Starbucks promises affordable luxury. They use double-ply TP.
5. Do something that consistently says, I’m always going to have this experience, it’ll be predictable.

Source: Nick Senzee, August 2007

That’s according to Shelly Alcorn, a former executive director and a blogger from California, who writes about the culture of associations.

In a post, Alcorn questions the relevancy of leadership principles and why all levels of an association cry for more of it when something goes wrong.

“Something in me refuses to believe we just don’t know any better, or that we just all suck,” Alcorn writes. “Some other force is at work.”

That other force, she says, is leadership that leas toward incremental change rather than fostering large-scale innovation.

What’s needed then, Alcorn says, is individuals or groups within the system are actively working on positive change and progress on both the micro and macro level.

“The “leaders” aren’t the ones with the titles, they are ones that are getting things done,” she said. “Change can come from any level – executive, staff or volunteer. And no matter WHAT your title, or where you fit on the food chain, if you are facilitating change you are the de facto leaders in the association. Period.”

Source: Association Subculture Blog, September 2010

As a part of the association community, we agree.

Using “#asae11,” the executives at Principled Innovation recently blogged about preparation for next year’s ASAE meeting in St. Louis. The executives issued three questions, which, they say, are geared to “spark many powerful conversations for organizations across our community in the months ahead.”

In an effort to foster these types of discussions, which helps position our clients, longtime colleagues and friends for success, here is a quick round-up of the questions that the Virginia company has posted.

1.  What is it going to take for associations to thrive over the next decade? The next ten years will be decisive for many associations. The challenge of building resilient organizations capable of flourishing in an environment both unforgiving and filled with opportunity is unprecedented and complex. Over the next 12 months, the “thrivability imperative” for associations will grow ever more insistent and our organizations, as well as the association community as a whole, and we need to develop a clearer sense of how we’re going to respond.

2.  What is our mental model for associating over the next decade? We need new mental models of associating in order to conceptualize the new business models that will make our associations thrivable in the years ahead.  At the very least, the growing global importance of online networks and other social technology platforms confirms that associating is already evolving into a richer, more complete and more resonant digital experience.

3.  What can associations do to sustain human attention and energy for engagement?
In a world of continuous partial attention, growing obesity and sleeplessness, human attention and energy are becoming more scarce and, thus, more expensive.  Associations can no longer afford to waste these irreplaceable commodities on administrivia and meaningless make-work.

What questions do you hope we will be discussing by the time we gather for #asae11?

Source: Principled Innovation, August 2010

According to Andy Steggles, the former chief information officer of the Risk and Insurance Management Society, a recent onslaught of social networking platforms have emerged targeting the nonprofit market.

“Every association is different,” Steggles said. “There’s no one right answer. But there are some key issues you should study before making a decision.”

Here’s a quick wrap-up of few things Steggles says are important to consider when picking a platform.

1. Security. If you intend to have any kind of “members only” content on your website, you’ll want to look at how well a platform can handle permissions and groups.

2. AMS exclusivity. Some vendors are creating exclusive deals with AMS vendors, which means you won’t be able to take the platform with you if and when you ever move away from that AMS.

3. Know your vendor. Two critical questions for any social platform vendor: What is your experience in the nonprofit space? And what percentage of your business deals with associations and the social web?

4. Pricing. “Per user” and “per community” pricing models can be risky for associations. Steggles prefers the “size of organization” model, which attaches the platform cost to membership size or annual revenue. Just be clear about how the vendor is measuring size.

5. CMS issues. Your platform should provide web services (tools that connect the social platform to your main website) for the most common requests you’ll make.

6. Component and chapter strategy. Many components will want their own social network, so why not give it to them?

7.Cloud computing. It’s a common misconception that buying software means installing and running it locally. If the vendor offers “Software as a Service,” that’s an indication that their product uses a decentralized or “cloud” system, which can offer significant cost savings.

8. Internationalization. Internationalizing your website isn’t just a matter of handling multiple languages.

9. Event management. A key consideration for RIMS’s platform was enabling chapters to create and manage events in a common calendar and allowing for online registration and event management. Don’t be fooled into thinking you’ll only want a monthly meeting registration.

10. Advanced functionality. Friending and group creation are old hat after a while. Ask your providers to tell you the most creative things their customers have done with their software—it will give you an idea of the software’s flexibility and extensibility.

Source: ASAE Center, February 2010

According to Susanne Connors Bowman, the co-owner of The Haefer Group, Ltd., in Merrifield, Va, the key to keeping new members interested, involved and coming back for more is this: first impressions, first impressions and — you guessed it — first impressions.

“It takes more than simply sending folks a new-member package,” Bowman said.

Here are 10 tips on marketing to new members:
1. Immediately acknowledge a new member by sending the package or e-mail that day, and be sure to make it personal. In fact, make all communication personal, avoiding any “Dear member” letters. It also helps to have members in the area also send a welcome e-mail.

2. Celebrate their joining with a “get to know the new people” section of your newsletters.

3. When you acknowledge joining, repeat your offer with core messages that reinforce and raise awareness of you brand. Also, spotlight your benefits but don’t overwhelm them with information.

4. Don’t assume that they understand the layout of your organization. Offer them an orientation.

5. Watch their first six months of participation in programs and services. If they are not participating or purchasing, reach out and find out why. Consider developing a special renewal campaign for that critical first renewal.

According to Vinay Kumar, a self-proclaimed introvert and the senior director with Marketing General, Alexandria, Va., new technology allow a broader spectrum of people to engage in meetings and life in general.

“As an introvert, I live in my head a lot. I don’t smile much, and I am quiet by nature,” he said. “People often ask me if I am OK, if everything is all right, if I am upset, and so on.”

Before we online communication, primary modes of interaction — the phone and face-to-face meetings — were more friendly to extroverts, who by nature prefer more verbal means of communication.

Now, he says, technology allows us to interact in real time via writing, such as listservers and social media, which are more introvert friendly and lead to more of us introverts becoming engaged.

Kumar says this is important for associations because a significant portion of the human population are introverts.

For associations, this means that they must embrace both traditional methods as well as new technologies.

“If it wasn’t for listservers and other electronic media, I seriously doubt I would be as engaged in our community as I am today,” Kumar said.

Source: ASAE Center, July 2010

According to Seth Godin, a marketing expert and entrepreneur, there are three stages of preparation for a speech, product, interview or sporting event: the beginner, novice and expert stage.

Godin published his thoughts on his blog, which is ranked in the “AdAge Power 150” as the No. 1 marketing blog out of 976 tracked.

In the blog, Godin says that beginners make huge progress as a result of incremental effort while novice preparation leads to “not so much visible increase in quality.” Expert preparation, meanwhile, wins races and makes the sale. A huge amount of effort, off limits to most people, earns you just a tiny bit of quality. But it’s enough to get through the Dip and be seen as the obvious winner.

“Go, give a speech. Go, start a blog. Go, ship that thing that you’ve been hiding. Begin, begin, begin and then improve,” Godin writes. “Being a novice is way overrated.”

Selecting a membership system can lead to paralysis by analysis. According to Godin, people should “push through and make something stunning.”

“If you’re not in the habit of being an expert, it’s unlikely your current mode of operation is going to change that any time soon,” he said.

Source: Seth Godin, September 2010