Six Months and Counting

In this day of wonderful technology, I am sitting here at my in-laws condo in North Myrtle Beach and looking out over the beautiful Atlantic Ocean. The condo they are staying in has wireless Internet access and I am sitting here on Saturday afternoon watching the ACC Tourney and posting today.
The great thing about technology is it has allowed us to be able to do so many things that were not even thought about 10, 5 or even 2 years ago. If ten years ago you told me I would be able to sit on my couch with a lap top and search the Internet I would have told you that you were crazy.
I also love going to web sites like Google and Amazon because they are so intuitive. When you do a search in Google, you don't even have to spell a word correctly anymore. It will just come right out and ask you did you mean, ABC? Also, on Amazon, I love ordering music off the web site because not only can you get used CD's at a reduced cost, but it will also tell you others that bought that CD also bought X. You can look up reviews and also hear samples of the music. And better yet, when you come back to the web site after viewing something it remembers what you like to look at.
So, how can we translate that old school philosophy of one size fits all in Associations? Should we even try? Can we ever get to the point that each member has customized member services just for them?
The answer to that is I don't know.
What I think we can do is try to do a better job at listening to our members needs and wants and try hit on as many targets as you can. You are never going to be all things to all people like an Amazon. But you can try really hard to create an organization that listens to its member's needs.
Just recently we held an Association Forum and I was speaking with a member who hadn't planned on attending the seminar and her reason was it just didn't fit. I said that was one of the challenges of this position is how can we provide professional development to all people all the time. Her comment back to me was you are never going to do that. Just keep trying. If you do seminars on 5 different topics, chances are at any given time 10-20 % of the members are going to be interested. Every once in a while you may click and get more than 20%, but you can't always shoot for that.
So, as I got really frustrated knowing that we brought in what I thought was a great speaker last week and only got about 10% of our members, I can't give up. Some topics on going to bring a specific group out. Another topic will bring out a different group. You just have to keep at it and after the end of the year, chances are at least 60% of your members will have attended about 2 seminars over the course of the year. I hope!!