CAE Weblog

Enterprise Portal Session for DigitalNow

I am doing a session on Enterprise Portals for Associations at DigitalNow in April.  If you are planning to attend and would be willing to participate on a panel to discuss your goals, challenges and lessions learned, please contact me.  I would like to include an association that has done a MOSS implementation and one additional portal infrastructure (BEA Weblogic Portal or Plumtree; IBM WebSphere; Oracle; etc.)

BTW, if you have not yet registered, you should know that it is nearly sold out again this year.

Tagged:  Enterprise Portal DigitalNow

Association Tech Conference Keynote

This keynote will be covered better elsewhere so I will not try to duplicate.  But I would like to comment on the presentation by Anthony Williams, author of Wikinomics.

This was a dynamic presentation that challenged associations to adapt quickly to meet the changing needs of their members, especially the N-Generation.  BTW, India and China have 10 times the number of N-Geners than all of North America who are starting to enter the workforce.

Williams made a convincing argument that this new generation works and thinks very differently than older generations.  They network differently, shop differently, communicate differently, etc.

The audience was faced with two ways to respond to this challenge.  It would be easy to throw up one's hands, be overwhelmed, not know where to start, or go into complete denial.  The second option is to take action and develop a strategy to change their business models to meet these changing needs.  I hope that most take the latter path.

Tagged:  ASAE Association Technology Conference Anthony Williams Wikinomics N-Gen

Tech Conference Town Hall

Since we agreed that comment made in the room would stay there, I will not report on what folks had to say but here are a few interesting findings from the electronic polling that took place in the room...

• 81% of participants were association professionals (others did not participate on many questions)
• Only 23% of association have a CIO or CTO (61% of those with 100+ staff)
• 68% reported having no formal technology plan (really ?!)
• Top 3 priorities:  Website improvements; AMS upgrade; social networking
• 81% reported technology budgets trending up over past 3 years
• 13% have deployed wikis; 35% have no interest (scary)
• 26% have deployed blogs; 34% have no interest (scarier)

Tagged: ASAE Association Technology Conference Town Hall polling

Association Technology Conference Underway

ASAE and the Center's Technology Conference kicks off this afternoon with a Town Hall meeting pre-session to gauge the pulse of associations on technology issues.  Participants will have voting machines to indicate their perspectives on current issues such as social media, security, governance, applications and tools, etc.  It should be interesting and I will share some of the findings here.

Tagged:  Association Technology Conference ASAE 

Technology Conferences for Associations

Here is a list of the major technology events coming up this spring for association professionals:

• Association Technology Conference (Jan. 30 - Feb. 1) in DC (ASAE and the Center for Association Leadership)
• Nonprofit Technology Conference (March 19-21) in New Orleans (NTEN)
• DigitalNow (April 23-26) at Walt Disney World in Orlando (Fusion Productions & the Disney Institute)

Tagged: Association Technology Conference Nonprofit Technology Conference DigitalNow
 

Content Management Conference

It seems like we are just about wrapping up the technology conference season following the ASAE Tech Conference, N-Ten and DigitalNow.  But there is another good one coming up for any association professionals interested in learning more about content management systems (CMS).

The Gilbane Conference will be held at the Ronald Reagan Building in DC on June 5th and 6th.  With the volume of digital content doubling every three years, associations need to consider how they are going to manage the production, review, usabiltiy and findability of this content.  Use my last name (Johnston) as a discount code and get $100 off your registration.

There are lots of good sessions this year.  I'll be doing one on "Social Networking: The Association Experience" with Reggie Henry (CIO for ASAE and the Center) and Mark Carpenter (General Manager of eKnowledge for the American Institute of Architects).  Reggie is doing some very interesting things with SharePoint 2007/MOSS and Mark is heading a very exciting eKnowledge initiative at AIA that is in testing now and will launch soon.

Unfortunately, the Association Social Media Unconference is also scheduled for June 5th.  Fortunately, it is at the same location (Ronald Reagan Building).  So you can decide which you most want to attend or hop back and forth as I will be doing.

Tagged: Gilbane DC Conference CMS Social Networking Unconference

Behind the Scenes at Disney

Each year, the Disney Institute has offered an optional behind-the-scenes tour for DigitalNow attendees following the conference.  I have partcipated in a couple of these in the past and always enjoyed them.  That's where the magic really takes place.

This year was really special as the tour included two areas never before included on a tour.  The first was the testing and training laboratory for audio-animatronics.  This is where Disney trains staff to maintain all generations of the animated figures that appear in Disney attractions throughout the world.  These start with the original audio-animatronics that appeared at the New York Worlds Fair in 1964-65 that are still be used today (the deer on Tom Sawyer's island and the birds in the Tiki House for example).  The highlight of this part of the tour was getting to operate the moose from Country Bear Jamboree.  These early figures needed huge rooms of computers that were often located in separate buildings.  The computers used to run It's a Small World were located in the Haunted Mansion.  With new technology, each new figure is able to house its computer nearby or within the character itself.  Disney is now experimenting with free-roaming animatronics that need to no human intervention.

In addition to a tour through the tunnels under the Magic Kingdom, the second first-time tour was through the costume laundry that handles 300,000 garments a day (most within a 24-hour cycle).  Each piece has a unique bar code.  Once sorted, cleaned, dried and pressed, it goes on the hanger that is given the same code.  The conveyor takes the garment to the proper truck for distribution to its appropriate park or resort.

Disney uses an odd combination of old technology that they have no need to replace and state-of-art techology that continues to impress both WDW guests and those of us who work with technology every day.  Have a magical day.

Tagged: Disney Institute audio-animatronics

DigitalNow: Days 2 and 3

DigitalNow continued to exceed my expectations again this year.  All four keynotes (one more than previous years) were both informative and motivating, including two for which I had low expectations.  Perhaps the best was Stephen M. R. Covey's session on the Speed of Trust (after his book by the same name, published last fall).

I have long been a strong advocate for trusted relationships as the foundation for building effective organizations.  So I did not expect to learn much from Covey's session.  But I was wrong.  He helped me better understand:

• the real impact of trust and how it can be considered the best predictor of both personal and organizational success
• the 4 cores of credibility:  capabilities & results that lead to competence; integrity and intent that produce character
• the "Waves of Trust" from trust of self... to relationship trust...all the way to societal trust.

Since trust of government and corporate sectors is at an all time low, we need to put trust at the top of our agendas to ensure that the nonprofit sector does not suffer the same fate (as some have already).

Also exceeding expectations were the keynotes by Chris Trimble and Susan Scott.  I am only part way through Trimble's fascinating book, Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators: From Idea to Execution.  His research with partner Vijay Govindarajan was first published as an article in the Harvard Business Review and offers practical advice on how to start a new corporation from an old one.  While most association are not spinning off entirely new business ventures (a few are), the principles also apply to nonprofits who want to start major new programs or products without hurting the old ones or the entire organization in the process.

And, finally, I had the privilege of sitting with Susan Scott during Trimble's presentation and getting to know her during his table exercises (we were sitting in chairs in the back of the room).  During this discussion, I happened to use the example of an architect perhaps wanting to identify other architects around the world who share an interest in building tree houses (obviously a very niche area of specialty).  Surprisingly, I learned that Susan is actually building such a tree house on an island on the Washington coast.  I guess that social networking can still happen the old fashion way via accidental meetings, but it made my point that social networking among professional groups is an essential role for today's professional and trade organizations.

Susan's keynote was a nice follow-up to Trimble's presentation and lead-in to Covey's.  She made us all understand that meaningful relationships (from spouses to co-workers to members) do not happen if we can not have "fierce conversations."

You can see the notes, presentations and actual videos of each keynote on the DigitalNow site.  All four are worth the price of admission (free download).

Tagged: DigitalNow Chris Trimble Susan Scott Stephen M. R. Covey

N-Ten & DigitalNow

This just seems to be association technology conference season with the N-Ten Conference in DC last week and DigitalNow this week.  These are both good meetings but what a contrast.  N-Ten does an amazing job of building a huge event with a wide variety of technology topics.  Rusty Burwell from the American Lung Association and I did a session on sharing fundraising data across large organizations with local-national issues and siloed data sources.

DigitalNow still gets my vote as the best association tech event of all.  Now in its 7th year, it limits attendance to 300 and sells out every year.  But this means you might actually be able to ask a question of a keynoter or have lunch with a keynote-quality workshop presenter.  I got to talk with Jim Collins last year for about 10 minutes but only got to see him at a great distance at the ASAE and the Center's Annual Meeting in Boston.

This year's theme at DigitalNow is all about applying Web 2.0 principles of social networking, sharing knowledge and user-generated content to associations in a practical way.  This might seem old news to some of my readers but most associations are still struggling with basic communities of practice and special interest groups.

Today's keynote was by Jimmy Wales, founder of the Wikipedia Project, who presented a convincing argument for free access (free as in "free to copy," "free to modify," "free to distribute," and "free to distribute modified versions"; not free as in "free beer").

His notes can be found on the DigitalNow site along with presentations from several other sessions.  More tomorrow...

Tagged: N-Ten DigitalNow Jimmy Wales Wikipedia

VSAE Meeting

There was a great turn-out (about 45 in all) for the workshop on "Defining Service Excellence in the Digital Age" at the Virginia Society of Association Executives meeting today at Virginia Crossing Resort.  Thanks go out to Ben Martin and Chris Festog for their assistance on the panel.

If anyone who attended the meeting sees this post, please comment briefly below.  I'm curious how many will check out this blog as a result of the presentation.

Tagged: VSAE Virginia Crossing Resort Ben Martin Chris Festog

Webinar on Effective Information Access Strategies

For those of you who are interested in learning more about current association trends toward eKnowledge communities, I would invite you to participate in a webinar that I will be doing in conjunction with the folks at Endeca.  Several of our clients have been using their enterprise search tool to enhance their service offering relative to enhanced search of both internal and external information/data sources.

When I talk to associations about challenges with their web sites, the number one thing I hear is:  "We have lots of great content, but our constituents say they have trouble finding what they need."  With the proliferation of both content and data, your members, staff, volunteers and others can no longer rely on standard navigation and search to find relevant information.

The webinar is "Driving a Compelling Operational and Customer Service Advantage for Associations" and is scheduled for Tuesday, March 22nd at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time.  You can register online.

Tagged:   webinar Endeca enterprise search eKnowledge customer service

Association Tech Conferences

I had the best of intentions yesterday. 

With so many good technology conferences this year, I had decided to skip ASAE and the Center's Technology Conference in DC.  However, our Microsoft partners invited me to hang out in the booth at the Tech Solutions Marketplace so I decided to take the train up for the day and network with some folks who I expected to be there.

The train was two and half hours late getting to DC from Richmond so I didn't get there until 1:00, half way through the exhibit hours.  With the bad weather, the comuter attendance was off and even our friends at Microsoft were unable to make it in.  I did manage to catch up with a few folks at the conference and a few more on the train or at the station.  BTW, the train back was more than two hours late also.  But at least I had lots of quiet time to work.

Here are some other conferences or meetings coming up:

Virginia Society of Association Executives (March 2nd at The Virginia Crossing Resort) -- Ben Martin from the Virginia Society of CPAs, Chris Festog, Director of Information Services at the Virginia Farm Bureau, and I will be doing a workshop on "Defining Service Excellence in the Digital Age."  I'll also be doing a brief keynote at the luncheon that follows.

Virginia Gift Planning Council (March 8th at the Commonwealth Club in Richmond) -- I'll be doing a pre-lunch session at 10:45 on "Improving Your Web Presence."  Register online at their Web site or call 804-740-2140.

Association CXO Roundtable (March 28th at Ruth's Chris in Crystal City) -- Invitation-only event for senior association executives on "Resulting Trends in Context of the Long Tail Strategy."  I will be faciliating a panel discussion that includes Michael Edson, Chief of Information Technology at Smithsonian American Art Museum and Sam Tornabene, Director, Communication Services at Edison Electric Institute.

N-Ten Technology Conference (April 4-6 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in DC) -- I'll be participating on panel faciliated by Rusty Burwell, VP of Data and Technology for the American Lung Association on integrating constituent data sources for use by multiple departments.

DigitalNow (April 11-14 at Walt Disney World) -- This meeting still has my vote for the best association technolgy conference.  It's co-sponsored by Fusion Productions and the Disney Institute and is held at the Yacht and Beach Clubs Resort.  This year, I'll be facilitating a panel on ePublishing.

Gilbane Conference on Content Technologies (June 5-6 at the Ronald Reagan Building in DC) -- Tony Byrne, founder of CMS Watch, has invited me to present and faciliate a panel discussion on association use of social networking applications.  Panel members tentatively include Reggie Henry, CIO for ASAE and the Center, and Mark Center, General Manager, eKnowledge, for The American Institute of Architects.

Tagged:  VSAE DigitalNow Gilbane DC Conference CMS Watch technology conference

Convio Customer Summit

I am pleased to be at the first Convio Customer Summit in DC today and tomorrow.  Over 300 people are in attendance for this event, designed to update customers on the latest product updates and future developments and solicit their feedback.  I will not comment on those developments here because of our nondisclosure agreement, but I continue to be impressed with the Convio eCRM hosted environment for event management, online donations, email campaigns and advocacy, and with the company itself.  Good people.

Convio founder Vinay Bhagat talked about innovation and pointed out that it often comes from their customers.  For example, the SPCA of Texas provided an extra level of constituent service with vacination reminders and lost pet announcements.  And the Defenders of Wildlife used a goal thermometer (similar to a fund raising progress device) to show how well they were doing on an advocacy campaign.  In doing so, they inspired more advocates to take action.

Tagged: Convio Vinay Bhagat innovation ASPCA Defenders of Wildlife

DMAW's eMarketing Day

This is one of the better one day technology (and marketing) events that I have attended.  Joseph Wilcox, a senior analyst with Jupiter Research kicked off the day with a look ahead at the new Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers and implications for e-marketing and web design.  There seems to be some debate as to how quickly users will adopt these new browser versions.  Even though Microsoft is releasing IE7 via Live Update (probably before the end of this month) , most employers will delay implementation for a while.  So home users are likely to accept the Live Update while still using Version 6 at work.  And this will likely impact the rate of RSS acceptance as well.

Later in the day, Lisa Bradner from Forrester Research presented some interesting statistics on how Internet usage is changing with over 50% of American homes now having broadband access and that number expected to climb above 70% in the next three years.  Perhaps most disturbing was her breakdown of the demographic groups.  It was bad enough being associated with baby boomers but now they refer to young boomers and older boomers.  I don't want to think of myself in that latter category.

I was really impressed with the extensive podcasting program that NPR has developed.  Bryan Moffitt has developed a very successful program with lots of sponsorship.  But then they have lots of great content to feature.

Tagged: DMAW NPR podcasting Forrester Jupiter IE7

DMAW Events

Just a note to remind readers that I will be speaking at the 4th Annual E-Marketing Day sponsored by the Direct Marketing Association of Washington on Friday, October 13th (hopefully a lucky day) at GWU's Marvin Center in DC.  I will be presenting with Bryan Moffett, Sponsorship Operations Manager for NPR Digital Media.  Bryan will be talking about podcasting, RSS and his experiences using these technologies at National Public Radio.  I will address the use of blogs, wikis, and other social media as opportunities for eMarketing.

I will also be heading up a panel at DMAW's Association Day on Thursday, November 9th, at the Renaissance Hotel in DC.  The topic that day will be "Technology Trends for Associations."  Guests panelists will include Rob Birgfeld with the National Restaurant Association and James Gallisdorfer with Community Health Charities.

Tagged: DMAW Associations E-Marketing podcasting wiki blogging social media

Your Support Requested

I was surprised at how many people I met at the Annual Meeting of ASAE and the Center for Association Leadership in Boston who mentioned they read this blog...most of whom I had never met.  So I would like to issue a challenge to see how much support is really out there.

I have been a volunteer as well as an association professional for most of my life and am currently serving as Treasurer for the Central Virginia Chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.  As I am sure most of you know, this can be a devastating disease, especially when the onset occurs in youngsters.

If you read this post, please consider a donation of any size to support our Walk to Cure Diabetes.  You can make a donation online or learn more here.

Tagged: JDRF juvenile diabetes Walk to Cure Diabetes

Connecting Great Ideas

The overall theme of this year's Annual Meeting & Exposition for ASAE and the Center for Association Leadership is "Connecting Great Ideas and Great People."  And there has certainly been lots of talk here in Boston about associations doing more to connect with their constituents, and helping their members connect with each others in new ways.

One of the sub-themes that I find particularly interesting is around the use of innovation to take associations to a new level.  Many of the impressive thought leaders who have presented here have argued that associations can no longer rely on adopting best practices and simply copy things that seem to be working for other nonprofits.

In the general session yesterday, Bill Taylor, co-founder of Fast Company and author of the new book Mavericks at Work, talked about the need for big ideas that are "distinctive and disruptive," many of which may be generated by members, customers or others completely outside the organization.  Larry Huston, the VP for Innovations at Proctor and Gamble is responsible for bringing in new products ideas from outside P&G.  Their goal (recently met) has been to seek 50% or more of these innovations from outside their organization.  The panel called for an "architecture of participation" to enable this infusion of new ideas and benchmarking ones organization against other outside their own industry.

Almost everyone who has talked about innovation has referred to the success story of Southwest Airlines, who we all know reinvented air travel and became one of the most profitable companies in the United States within a depressed industry.  And, then, there's the Starbucks story.  Again, impressive.  But how about remarkable association stories.  Are there any that stand up to Southwest and Starbucks in comparison?  Perhaps, but I have not heard our community talk much about them.

Meanwhile, other leaders such as Jim Collins told us that the great associations do not seem to depend on big new ideas.  While they embrace the opportunity to change in response to or anticipation of changing events, great associations are more focused on consistent implementation of programs and services in support of their mission.  So innovation may be around new ways to achieve the mission rather a big new idea to reinvent themselves.

I would suggest that associations need both...focus on a consistent set of core strategies for fulfilling their mission and an architecture of participation to seek out new strategies and innovations in response to our ever-changing environment.

Tagged: innovation Bill Taylor Mavericks at Work Fast Company P&G Larry Huston Jim Collins

Blog and Podcasting

My first session at ASAE's Annual Meeting in Boston was Bill Dyszel's presentation on "Podcasts and Blogs That Excite Your Membership and Enrich Your Organization."  Bill writes for PC Magazine and authored Microsoft Outlook for Dummies.  Mickie Rops does a nice job of summarizing some of Bill's key messages so I will not do that here.

Based on the comments and questions during the session, it's still clear that many associations are eager to use the technology but don't know where to start.  They're confused whether to use a blog, a message board or a listserv for their communities of practice.  Some have tried to build an online community only to have it see little use by their members.

I suggest:

• starting small with one or two message boards or blogs for topics of special interest
• engage 1-3 volunteers who will commit to post regularly for the first month or two to "prime the pump" 
• consider a blog around your major meeting or event of the year to stimulate interest before, during and after the meeting
• use excerpts from posts in your enewsletters with links back the blog or message board

Associations need to understand that they are no longer the sole proprietors of knowledge.  We need to facilitate the exchange of knowledge among our members or someone else will do it for us.

Tagged: podcasts blogs communities of practice Bill Dyszel Mickie Rops

ASAE Boston

I have arrived in Boston (so close and yet so far from my home state of Maine) from Virginia on a pleasant JetBlue flight that arrived 30 minutes ahead of schedule.  I'll be posting several times over the next four days on take-aways from the ASAE Annual Meeting.  So if you are interested in the work of associations but are unable to attend the meeting this year, you may want to follow along.

ASAE is using an interesting social networking tool from introNetworks to connect attendees this year.  Once you fill out a profile with both personal and professional interests, it plots common interests with other attendees so that you can connect with people you may not know but have a lot in common with you.  This would be a great tool for associations, not only for meetings support, but for on-going membership services.  As I have said before, associations need to help their members connect with each other an on-going basis.

I've reached out to a few folks within my closer circle and I'll let you know how that goes.

Tagged: ASAE Annual Meeting introNetworks social networking

DigitalNow Day 3

As good as Jim Collins was on Day One, Polly LaBarre (of "Fast Company" fame) was equally sensational as the third and final keynote presenter.  She gave us a preview of her new book to be released later this year based on her 2-year study of organizations and the folks that drive innovation within them.  She described a process for "open-source experimentation" that can lead to what Tim O'Reilly calls "an architecture of participation."  She says it requires a very different leadership mindset based humility (leaders who know what they don't know) and genuine generosity.  It should also be built on the follow design principals:

• Keep the focus narrowly defined (not too broad a scope or problem to solve)
• Broaden the number of participants to include a diverse group with varied interests
• Keep it fun by including an element of competition
• Don't keep all the benefits to yourself; be open and transparent

In a very brief 15-minute exercise at our tables, several very innovative concepts were developed.  I will report further on follow-up from this dialogue once the DigitalNow blog is launched.

Tagged: DigitalNow Polly LaBarre innovation

DigitalNow Day 2

More good stuff on Day 2 in Orlando...  Stan Slap's morning keynote was thoroughly entertaining.  While I would have liked to see him more specifically address the association community, he provided a few important points about the difficulty of changing organization's cultures yet how important that can be.  Employees are the key and it is not enough to simply inform them of a new strategy as their natural tendency will be to reject the change as treatening.  True leaders need to be vulnerable and let everyone know that the success of the strategy is largely out of their direct control and will depend on to the extent that everyone buys in.  The same thing can apply to volunteer acceptance of strategies developed by staff.

My workshop on "Defining Service Excellence in the Digital Age" was well attended and there was great participation.  Thanks again to Amy Parker from the Virginia Society of CPA's and Rob Birgfeld from the National Restaurant Association for their valuable additions.  The PowerPoint from this session and most othters can be found under the Conference Content page on the DigitalNow site.  The definition that I offered is: 

"Understanding the needs of your Association's constituents relative to your mission and exceeding their expectations."

I was impressed that an increasing percentage of associations are now using online communities (listservs or message boards for the most part).  However, only a few in this session reported using podcasts and wikis, even though there is lots of interest.  I predict that next year the number will be much higher.  And no one reported using an RSS reader.  Until folks start using this technology, they will not truly understand the power it will offer their associations.  Download a reader such as Pluck today and start using it to follow blogs, websites, and news of interest to you.

Tagged: DigitalNow RSS service excellence

DigitalNow Day 1

DigitalNow 2006 launched today and proved once again that this is the best association conference offered by anyone.  Jim Collins got 300+ attendees charged up early on with his repeat visit (having first addressing the group in 2003).  As the author of one of the top-selling business books of all time, Good to Great, Jim has more recently published a fascinating 35-page monograph on "Good to Great and the Social Sectors." 

Two big take-aways:

• Nonprofits should not try to be more like businesses.  Mediocrity abounds within business and he advises that associations emulate great organizations, profit or nonprofit, and not businesses in general, despite what many of our volunteers keep telling us.
• Never measure success in terms of dollars.  While financial goals are important as enablers of the services we provide, "money is only an input, not a measure of greatness."

I also attended two interesting workshops in the afternoon starting with "The Future of Professional Search." Dr. Claude Vogel talked about the emerging technology to support enhanced search within vertical areas of interest.  Associations who want to provide their constituents with improved access to gloabal knowledge resources as their own can now offer searches that provide results with defined categories based on taxonimies that make sense for a given profession, industry, or charitable cause.

In a second workshop, folks from the Texas Medical Association presented an excellent case study on a business intelligence system they have developed using SQL tools and Excel pivot tables.  It is easy for their staff to now get real-time access to a digital dashboard, allowing them to make more timely decisions.

Session PowerPoint presentations can be found on the DigitalNow site. Okay, it's off to Pleasure Island for the evening networking opportunities.  More tomorrow...

Tagged: DigitalNow business intellegence Jim Collins professional search

DigitalNow Conference

I'll be at the DigitalNow Conference in Orlando later this week and will try to provide daily updates and observations.  If others are planning to attend and would like to network, please let me know.

DigitalNow Update

I'm still looking for one more panelist for the session I am leading at the DigitalNow Conference the end of April.  The topic is "Service Excellence."  We'll talking about how associations are going beyond providing "excellent service" to look for bold new ways to deliver extra value to their constituents.  If you are planning to attend and would be interested in participating, please contact me this week. 

Other panelists include Amy Parker from the Virginia Society of CPAs and Rob Birgfeld from the National Restaurant Association.  This superb conference is held at Walt Disney World and is moving from the Yacht Club to the Contemporary Resort this year.

ASAE Tech Conference -- Day 2

A few additional take-aways from the conference...

• Web 2.0 session was especially good -- thanks Jeff, Ben and Kevin; need to learn more about how to tap the potential of "The Long Tail" now that I finally understand it
• Also Dave Gammel's session on Website management -- most associations do not have but need a cross-functional team of Web channel stakeholders to provide governance and establish changing priorities
• Need to check out whiteboard.com for collaborative editting as recommended
• Also podzinger.com which helps to search the internal content of podcasts by converting them to text
• Podcasts seem like a natural fit for many associations if done well; technology does not seem to be the barrier; a lack of strategy does; finding the right personality to host can also make or break a podcast; the power is in subscribing (via RSS) and that requires a loyal audience

ASAE Tech Conference

A few thoughts and observations from this week's new Technology Solutions conference in DC...

• Great networking opportunity to catch up with old friends and meet new association leaders
• Too many vendor panelists and not enough association professionals to share best practices
• Well-intended effort to have a "paperless conference" by providing all handouts on a USB drive
• Lots of folks scrambling for paper to take notes
• Not all hand-outs available in advance or easy way to follow along during sessions (If you didn't tote along your laptop)
• Good marketplace event for vendors to showcase their products and services with lots of incentives (food and drink) to stick around
• Very few associations are effectively using social networking tools to create online communities to augment the excellent meetings they have been organizing for years
• Lots of interest in the above but many find number of options (listservs, message boards, blogs, podcasts, etc.) overwhelming; don't where to start

Back for day two tomorrow....

Tech Strategies & Solutions Conference

I'm planning to attend ASAE's new Technology Strategies & Solutions Conference in DC next week and would welcome the opportunity to network with others interested in technology trends within the association community.  Send me an email at rjohnston@ironworks.com if you would like to arrange a time to meet.