WHADITW and Measurement
There has been an interesting and varied blog discussion lately about the importance and role of “measurement” in associations. It strated with Scott Briscoe’s post (lots of comments), and then include related posts by me, Kevin Holland, and another by Scott.
Kevin then did another post, and it has a good WHADITW quote in it:
“The solution to a declining or stagnated membership is almost never a marketing campaign. I suppose there might be some organizations that offer enticing programs, stellar service, and rock-solid value whose only problem is that they’ve been too quiet about it. But far more likely, the best thing a declining association can do to grow its membership numbers is to stop caring about them — and start providing the types of programs and services that its customer base actually wants. (As opposed to what its always done, or what certain volunteers want done, or what certain departments want done.)”
It reminded me of an interesting point, though. Kevin says associations should provide stuff that the people actually want, as opposed to what it’s always done, etc. I just want to point out that those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. Sometimes what a certain volunteer wants is perfect. Sometimes a certain department is right. And sometimes what you have always done is PRECISELY what you need to keep doing. What we point to in our book is the EXCUSE of “we have always done it that way. As a rationale, that is very dangerous. But if you can show that your customers actually want something (through—gasp—measurement?) then it’s okay to keep doing it that way (as long as you stay disciplined about continually showing that customers want it).
Great posts on this topic! I’ve been following the comments and threads and responses around the blogosphere and am sure I’ve missed several on the measurement in associations topic along the way despite my diligence… I at least discovered this blog and others in my pursuit, and am glad for it.
But to the point of my comment… measurement not only makes sense, but is not so difficult to accomplish. Here’s an example: as the education director, I measure many aspects of our programs, including how well and how much our education program attendees have been able to apply what they learned (transference of what they learned at the association event back to their workplace). I also calculate the level of our investment for key programs, and cost per learner per course hour. And for a new initiative I determined the increase in reach because our education strategy is intimately tied to our association’s mission to provide professional development to our members.
Specifically, when I was asked to report to our board of directors and general membership at our annual meeting about the success of our first online learning programs, I was able to tell them that with one Webinar and one asynchronous course we were able to extend the reach of our education programs by 135% and that the asynchronous course costs $230 less per learner than our live courses - and that amount drops every time we receive a new registration.
Measurement results in data, which can be the most effective way of convincing others to continue or discontinue an initiative, event, or other program or service. Even when the data is set aside, at least we have a clear idea of what we should expect, something we would could only guess at, without measurement.
Thanks for letting me comment! Great blog!