Meeting power
Can a meeting be enough to turn an association around? It sure can be a strong factor, says Kevin Holland on The Association Blog. But (and this is a big “but”) it has to do two things to swing it. He says, talking about the ASAE conference that just wrapped up, it has to succeed in
- 1) Creating an impact on the people who were there, and
2) Making that impact so hard that it created âbuzzâ like shockwaves that will emanate from the center of the meeting to the rest of the [in ASAE’s case] association community
Your meeting hopefully does the first, or no one would come. But does what happens at your conference create buzz outside of the convention center? Are your industry bloggers yapping about the keynotes? Are people e-mailing and calling each other to discuss a session? Are your industry’s magazines and Web sites reporting on the meeting? Is even the mainstream press reporting on something you did, or something that was revealed at the meeting? The last one would be a real buzz-masterstroke, granted one that few can achieve outside of tech and medical conferences, where the whole world wants to hear about new gadgets and healthcare procedures.
Anyway, Kevin says a Level 2 event catapulted his organization, the Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA) out of the doldrums it was suffering under new leadership that came after what he calls “both after a wrenching and politically touchy restructuring that followed years of declining membership,” and was held just a few months after 9/11. They put everything they had into it and, according to him, it was the beginning of a whole new era.
The power of meetings=pleasing loyal members. The power of really good meetings=energizing an entire organization and membership base. The only problem with doing a Level 2 event is doing it again next year, and the next, continually topping yourself as expectations rise.
August 18th, 2005 at 12:27 pm
Sue,
Following up on Kevin’s views that we must create resounding buzz beyond the meeting, I believe one way is to launch a new member service at the annual conference, with an inspiring speaker who describes how it will help members, with a break-out for hands-on practice, plus, perhaps a contest for best member use of the service and/or improvement of it.
That’s the news-you-can use plus reason to network that many members (especially younger onces) crave. Consider, for example two new and free tech services that can be customized in powerful ways for members:
1. Google maps for mash-up … and I’m a non-techie, loving this stuff .. and
2. Imagine the value an association can provide its members by tracking and reporting on the breaking news related to their members that is generating the most reader interest.
Thatâs now possible because of a new service introduced by the Akamai Net News Index. Akamai, which helps delivery Internet traffic over its network, is looking to count the sum of page requests across 100 major news sites it serves to rank interest in major events. It has a map of six global regions and measures the current appetite for news relative to average daily demand in terms of millions of visitors to news sites per minute, per week, within each geographic region.
As a newsletter publisher and speaker Iâm looking forward to customizing their news service to stay timely and see trends in my areas of expertise and for the niche markets where I am most likely to speak. Iâd love to hear how your other readers picture using this powerful tool
In the ten weeks of testing before the index introduction, Akamai found the biggest Internet news events were the London bombings on July 7, Hurricane Emily July 15, the combined effects of the Space Shuttle launch and monsoon in India on July 26. The fourth most popular recent Web news event was the June 13 Michael Jackson verdict, Akamai data showed.
The service went public at http://www.akamai.com/en/html/industry/net_usage_index.html/
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