- This month’s installment of the smartest things for associations includes the excellent news that fall meeting and conference attendance rebounded. Most associations were down 40% or so in the spring but saw attendance rise and had only about a 25% decline from the previous year. If we’d never seen 40%, 25% would look disastrous but, if the recession has taught us anything, it’s that it’s all relative.
- Take a look at Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model. In today’s world, many associations are struggling with outdated business models, ones that were built on a certain percentage of revenues from dues and the remaineder—66% and up in many cases—from non-dues sources. With no way to experiment, they are left to continue on a path they know won’t work. This book provides a high-level framework for analyzing the weaknesses in your business model and getting to something that incorporates today’s realities.
- Have you tried Collecta? It’s a real-time search engine that monitors social networks, news sites and blogs for status updates. It can perform several searches at once and show you a preview of the mention within the same Web page.
- PRWeek, always one of my favorite publications, has successfully morphed from a weekly tabloid to a monthly magazine. Every issue carries information that I just don’t find anywhere else. October had a really interesting piece about C-level executives and social media. Although the time commitment, finding a new budget and changing from reaction to proaction where reputation management is concerned—not to mention the not knowing how to do it—keeps many senior executives from embracing social media, the article makes a great point. “Opportunities are being missed to both build and protect relationships.”
28
Oct
2009
