Reflections on Virtual Attendance And New Revenue Streams

(Thanks to Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation for the ribbon)

Anyone who reads this blog knows I'm obsessed with social media--I blog about it, use it constantly, even get paid to do it for a living. So of course I'm using it to stay on top of what's going on at ASAE's annual meeting in Toronto this weekend. Thankfully Twitter has been cooperating and has not sustained anymore denial-of-service attacks because I've been living vicariously through the tweets of ASAE's annual convention attendees.

ASAE did a great job with their online Hub--providing links to blogs, videos and attendee tweets. But equally responsible for enabling me to experience the event are the attendees--both those on-site and those also attending virtually. Weird to be able to get great takeaways from people who aren't even there? Maybe--but in this case the reality is that ASAE has some really smart, connected members who are adding a lot to the value of the official meeting content. Two great examples are Michael McCurry's great wrap up of Gary Hamel's keynote presentation and Dave Sabol's suggestions on how ASAE might make their engagement offerings even more robust.

I second Dave's suggestion that ASAE consider making more actual content available to virtual attendees. It's great that I'll be able to catch Jeff De Cagna's session "Associations Next: Serious Questions for 2010 And Beyond" via UStream...but that's courtesy of Jeff, not ASAE. Hopefully the fact that virtual attendees are actively participating in this event will pave the way for ASAE to explore new revenue models for future events via additional offerings for virtual attendees. A few ideas:

• A virtual attendee rate that lets virtual attendees receive CEs.


• The ability to make virtual appointments with exhibitors via the Hub's Online Connection Center. Surely exhibitors would pay more to be able to connect not only with physical attendees but untold numbers of virtual attendees interested in their products and services.


• Some kind of affiliate program like SocialFish did with Buzz2009 where sponsors could pay ASAE extra in exchange for having ASAE tweet about those featured sponsors and/or have virtual attendees host ads on their blogs.

Ok, I'll stop now....but please feel free to add any of your own suggestions in the comments. In October I'm going to be facilitating a brown bag on new revenue streams so it's something I'm going to be doing a lot of thinking about.

More Power of "Huh?"

I still hadn't stopped scratching my head over the whole Power of A thing when the latest issue of ASAE's inTouch newsletter arrived in my inbox just now. Headline: "ASAE Offers New Health Care Resource"--sounds good, right? I click on it and get this:

ASAE now has a new health care and association policy resource for its members, building off the successful Power of A campaign. The Power of A website (www.thepowerofa.org), in addition to showing how associations are economic problem solvers, will also contain blog posts, videos, and other interactive features on association policy issues, with an emphasis on health care. What this means is that the site will be THE place to find daily updates on health care reform legislation, the major issues surrounding health care, and how it impacts the nonprofit community.

The changes and expansion into health care for The Power of A will not be entirely ASAE staff driven however; the site will not be simply a one-dimension information dump but an interactive opportunity for the association community to discuss and debate health care issues. The site will contain:

Interviews with health care thought leaders and association leaders;

Tweets on health care issues (using hash tag #pwra); and

Guest posts from association leaders on specific health care topics.

You are invited to participate in ASAE's endeavor and help us make our site the go-to place for information on association management issues, especially health care reform. If you would like to volunteer or have any questions, please contact the Public Policy Department at 202-626-2703 or publicpolicy@asaenet.org.

Huh? Is it just me or is this crazy confusing?

The Power of..Huh?

Recently I received an email from ASAE's president and CEO about a new campaign, The Power of A. It said something about how they were getting ready to roll out this new campaign to highlight "the many ways in which national trade and professional groups assist U.S. employers, legislators, workers and the public at large every day." The email went on to say something about TV spots, a YouTube channel...to be honest I deleted the email and don't remember what else.

When I read it I had two thoughts: the first was "Cool--maybe now people will understand what I mean when I say I work at an association" (because plenty of people don't); the second, after clicking through to preview the new campaign was "Huh?"

I shrugged off the whole thing until a few days ago when I noticed people starting to tweet about the Power of A. Then I read some blog posts about it and was relieved that I don't seem to be the only one who is just plain confused about the whole thing. Chris Bailey asked the exact questions I did: what audience is ASAE trying to target? The general public? Or just fellow association executives?

After getting a better look at the site now that it's launched, I am more confused than ever. At the risk of sounding stupid, I am truly baffled by the whole thing. I mean, the site looks nice and clean. It also looks expensive. Once I read the press release about the campaign, I understood why:

"The Washington, D.C. office of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide was engaged by ASAE & The Center to develop and implement the campaign, whose top priority is to inform decision makers on Capitol Hill, particularly those individuals who comprise the group of newest political gatekeepers to the American public. A blended Ogilvy PR team of creative, public affairs, media and digital strategists will bring ASAE & The Center’s integrated program to life primarily through television and digital media."

Clearly, the answer to the question about what associations are doing to move the country toward economic recovery is: paying top-tier PR firms to create expensive, utterly-useless solutions to non-problems. I mean, come on--the same "conversation" that's supposed to take place on the Power of A site could easily have been had on ASAE's existing site and/or blog. Acronym could have posed the question "How does your association move the country toward economic recovery?" and the same people who are responding on the Power of A site could have submitted posts to Acronym. ASAE could have suggested the #PWRA hashtag and encouraged members to tweet about the whole thing.

Seriously--how many associations are laying off employees? And how many more are having to slash benefits and/or freeze salaries? Is this really the time for ASAE to be showboating the fact that they have retained Ogilvy to produce a bunch of expensive fluff, all so some association execs can swap stories on a fancy website?

Guest Blogging From ASAE's Great Ideas Conference

This time next week I'll be in Miami for ASAE's Great Ideas conference. Please let there not be some freakish cold streak in Miami--I need some sun and heat!

I'm psyched not only about the Miami weather part; I'll also be presenting at the meeting and guest blogging on ASAE's blog, Acronym.

Hopefully they have wireless by the pool so I can blog and tan at the same time.