More engagement, higher attendance, better reporting…the all too familiar (and often annoying) phrases when it comes to Professional Development. And while we are constantly told what we need to do, we are very rarely told how to do it.

This is where online CPD comes in. In a recent survey, 72.3% of respondents indicated that online education and webinars are valuable resources. Why? Because they help them to interact, engage and remain accredited without having to leave their home.

So how can you leverage the online world and reach and engage more members? Our partners at Redback Conferencing have put together the top tips for delivering Online CPD Programs - everything from creating your events to maximising them once they’re done.

Download your copy of the 101 Webinar Guide: Tips for Delivering CPD and CPE.

Fitness Australia have today (Friday) unveiled the results from the recent Board of Directors election, with one fresh face set to serve, while two other members have been re-elected to their positions.

Newly-elected Board Member, Rod Harvey, will take his place at the peak body’s table for the first time following a successful campaign. Rod is a highly respected and well recognised member of the Fitness Industry with a strong connection to Fitness Australia.

With over 20 years of experience within the fitness industry, Rod’s personal vision in taking on a directorship, is to improve the professionalism of the Fitness Industry, build Fitness Australia’s profile within the Industry and extend its reach to consumers, ‘to get more people moving’.

Meanwhile, both David Allan and Michael Jordan will resume their place on the Board.

David has been an influential and tireless member of the Fitness Australia Board since 2011 – being elected Chairman in 2015. His recent re-election for another term shows his commitment and passion for the fitness industry and Fitness Australia.

Michael has been a Board Member with Fitness Australia since 2014. His vision is to see fitness clubs become the heart of communities, which he believes will drive a healthier nation.

Fitness Australia CEO, Bill Moore, welcomed today’s results and is now looking forward to an exciting period ahead in collaboration with the Board.

“This is a fantastic result for Fitness Australia and the Fitness Industry,” said Bill.

“We’re fortunate to have some incredibly talented and experienced people on our board and these three gentleman embody that.

The new board will come together for the first time on 14 October for the AGM, signalling the beginning of #FASymposium16.

Congratulations to Rod, David and Michael on their election to the Fitness Australia Board of Directors.

This article was originally sourced from Fitness Australia and was written by Tom Skolarikis.

AuSAE has welcomed new members from the following organisations this month.

Is your organisation on this list? If your organisation is on this list as an AuSAE organisational member but you are unsure if you are part of the membership bundle, please contact the friendly AuSAE team at info@ausae.org.au.

Not on this list? To join AuSAE today please visit our membership information page here.

Artificial intelligence is the next big thing in the IT world, and we’d all better be prepared for where it’s going to take us.

According to the founder of the US based Geek Squad, Robert Stephens, all of the big IT players are investing heavily in AI to improve efficiency and provide enhanced customer service.

Messaging is the fastest on-line behaviour in the history of IT and Robert predicts that 85% of all interactions with an organisation will be messaging by 2020. This will have profound implications for Associations.

Have you heard of Deep Text (Facebook uses it to customise your newsfeed and ads) or Machine Learning (a type of AI that provides computers with the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed)? These are two of the game changing developments being fast tracked by the likes of Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft.

So why the buzz around this? The whole world is going mobile. Less and less phone calls are being made while messaging is trending upward on a steep trajectory through applications like Facebook Messaging, Whats App, Skype Twitter, SnapChat etc.

The question Robert posed to the audience at the ASAE Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City in mid-August was “where would we use messaging to take steps out of a process, reduce time and effort for customers and provide a better service”.

It’s certainly made me think about the future IT infrastructure and capabilities for AuSAE and not just relying on a website, LinkedIn and Twitter. For those of us who are Gen X or Baby Boomers, it’s going to require a lot more thought, discussion and consultation with thought leaders and our IT providers.

Click on the below links for more insights and learning from the ASAE Annual Meeting:

Listen to the Key Insights from some Australasian attendees

Brendon Ward

Chief Executive Officer

Australasian Society of Association Executives

On Sunday morning, opening keynoters Mark and Scott Kelly galvanized thousands of #ASAE16 attendees with stories recounting their dual rise to space and encouragement to avoid taking the easy route.

Astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly kicked off the 2016 ASAE Annual Meeting & Exposition on Sunday with a double-act keynote speech that encouraged association professionals to rise to challenges, persist despite failure, and embrace “doing the hard thing.”

Surrounded by projected images of stars and planets and viewing photos taken from Scott Kelly’s recent year spent on the International Space Station, thousands of attendees heard how the lessons the brothers learned as fighter pilots and astronauts resonate in nearly all walks of life, including association management.

The identical twins born in 1964—Mark is six minutes older than Scott, a point the two repeatedly sparred over in jest—said they owe their success, including their combined 550-some days in outer space, to the example of their mother, a New Jersey secretary and waitress-turned-police officer.

They recalled that in the 1970s, aspiring cops were required to pass a grueling physical fitness test, which included climbing over a seven-foot wall. Night after night, the young brothers watched their mother attempt to traverse a replica wall their father had built. After months of practice, she finally did it, in half of the allotted time—and later became one of the first female police officers in that part of the state.

“This was one of the first times in our lives that we saw the power of having a goal and a plan—and what it meant to work really, really hard,” Mark said.

Years later, Scott would become a Navy captain and go on to pilot four space flights, including one that lasted 340 days—a journey that ended when he returned to Earth in March. Mark would fight in the Gulf War as a naval aviator and serve as a NASA space shuttle pilot on four missions.

But when they’re asked what they loved best about their time in space, Scott said, they don’t respond with the launch, the landing, or the view—but rather with the opportunity to accomplish something that was hard.

“That’s what we’d like to talk with you about today,” Scott said. “Doing hard things—and how to successfully accomplish that. We want to talk about having a goal and having a plan with very small manageable steps, about—at times—testing the status quo, about taking risks and not being afraid to make mistakes, and about how, if you work as a team, you can accomplish anything.”

Overcoming setbacks and failures comes with that territory, the brothers said. During his Navy flight training, as he struggled to master difficult skills, Mark was repeatedly asked by his superiors, “Are you sure this career is for you? You didn’t do well.”

But he persevered—and learned a valuable lesson. “How good you are at the beginning of anything you try is not a good indicator of how good you can become,” he said. “I’m a prime example of somebody who was able to overcome a lack of aptitude with practice, persistence, and just not giving up.”

Another important lesson came several years later when Mark found himself in an A-6 Intruder airplane about to drop eight 1,000-pound bombs in Iraq. As he maneuvered the aircraft to dodge surface-to-air missiles, his bombardier navigator kept his sights on the target—his main responsibility on the mission. While Mark’s alarm grew over the possibility of a missile strike, his navigator stayed calmly focused on his target.

“In the Navy and at NASA, we call that compartmentalization,” Mark says. “Focusing on the stuff that you can control.”

Scott learned that same lesson as the commander aboard the International Space Station, when he got word that Mark’s wife, then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, had been shot at a community event in Tucson. He had two months remaining in his space mission, with no possibility of coming home to comfort his loved ones.

“I had to understand that I really couldn’t help [Mark] … and I really needed to focus on what I could control and ignore what I couldn’t,” Scott said.

Several years later, when Scott was departing from the Space Station for the last time, after spending 500 days of his life there, he reflected on it: “If we can do that—the hardest thing that we have ever done—we can do anything.”

This article was originally sourced from Association Universe and was written by Emily Bratcher.

During the ASAE Annual Meeting & Exposition in Salt Lake City, a trend of discussion during different sessions was that innovation quite often requires quick work, something many associations are not known for. How can we make the big, hulking machine a little easier to turn?

When it comes to what the corporate world can pull off, do association executives ever get jealous of how fast many of their for-profit equivalents can move?

That’s not to criticize the work that associations do, which is often monumental. One look at the lauded American Society of Plant Biologists platform Plantae highlights the potential associations have to do something big and bold that gets people talking. But, let’s be honest, the average association turns a corner about as effectively as a tour bus, and switching gears is by no means easy.

Let’s be honest, the average association turns a corner about as effectively as a tour bus, and switching gears is by no means easy.

I’m of the opinion that, at an event as large as the 2016 edition of the ASAE Annual Meeting & Exposition, themes eventually appear in the subjects that get discussed during the event, and one that loomed particularly large on Sunday was the idea that associations can’t always move fast enough to innovate, or even, in some cases, keep up.

You may have heard variations on this statement in the past—and bringing it up again makes it kind of provocative, because, inevitably, organizations will wonder if I’m talking about them, specifically. (Not naming names or even criticizing specific tactics, honest.) But I think if anything is gonna change, we gotta bring it up and talk about it. A few things that got this topic on my mind:

At one point on the expo hall floor, I had a lengthy discussion with someone about how the startup-driven API model that has been embraced by the for-profit world was in some ways anathema to the lengthy, process-driven approach associations tend to take in deciding on a bedrock product like an association management system. As a result, products that might be well-suited to an association’s needs—say, an intuitive email platform like MailChimp—may be harder to embrace because the decision-making is more deliberate.

An excellent session on digital learning technologies started out with a bit of a spiel about how for-profit education firms are more adept and offering approaches like microlearning and microcredentialing, technologies that tend to be more compatible with the public’s busy lifestyles. When it comes down to it, the argument went, associations struggle to approach fast-moving platforms such as Uber and Waze. David DeLorenzo, a longtime association executive who is a recent addition to the DelCor staff, at one point emphasized that what he and fellow speakers (Bean Creative’s Layla Masri and EDUCAUSE’s Veronica Diaz) were pitching was by no means an extreme approach. “You don’t have to be revolutionary to do this,” he said.

A surprisingly small number of hands went up during a session on virtual offices, when the audience was asked how many of them used Slack, a piece of software that has taken the corporate world by storm. (To be fair, a few more hands went up on the next question, about whether people used a chat app at all.) That’s not to say that organizations have to use Slack, or that it’s even the best idea—but considering the nature of the session was about communicating with people separated by long distances, the lack of hands reinforced a point that was already on my mind by this juncture.

A TALE OF CORPORATE HUBRIS

Oddly, the thing that probably got this whole discussion on my mind happened before I even touched the ground in Salt Lake City. On my flight in, I caught a documentary I had been wanting to see for a while, the Colin Hanks-directed love letter All Things Must Pass.

It’s a film about Tower Records, the music-obsessed retail chain that started small and nimble—launching large, low-key record stores all along the West Coast, New York, and eventually in Japan and elsewhere—only to be brought down by a combination of hubris, mismanagement, and Napster.

At first, the company was well-positioned to turn vinyl records into a major subculture, at one point opening up a famed location on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California, that was frequented by Elton John. As the company grew, it handled risk aptly—it was willing to expand to the Japanese market almost on a whim, then doubled down when Japanese consumers proved big fans of vinyl records. But problems arose as the company matured: Tower was woefully ill-prepared for the internet; it found itself the target of a class-action lawsuit due to its high prices; and the company’s aggressive overexpansion, funded by $110 million in debt, eventually proved to be a company-killer. (Well, outside of Japan. It’s still big in Japan.)

“Tower, in almost 40 years, had always grown,” Hanks explained to NPR last year. “It had always made money. It had never lost money. … Well, I think there was a lot of stuff that Tower did not see coming.”

It’s a classic tale of corporate demise. And somewhat tellingly, the film was funded not through traditional means, but by Tom Hanks’ son putting up a Kickstarter and raising more than $90,000 to fund the project. It’s the tale of a company getting caught off-guard by the internet and failing to reverse course—a tale that wouldn’t exist without the internet.

Association executives have some big advantages that Tower Records did not. For one thing, Tower was a notoriously disorganized company, one that had some immensely innovative ideas (there’s another documentary, Art Gods, about one of those ideas), but was perhaps too complacent about its core business.

The company couldn’t zag because it had doubled down on zigging. And it became clear, at a point when it was too late for the company to reverse course, that zagging—i.e., jumping online—was what truly mattered.

WHY INNOVATION CHALLENGES ASSOCIATIONS

One big advantage that associations have over this slumbering corporate giant is that they’re very well organized. But despite that organization, many associations may find they’re poorly suited for zagging.

For the association space, what’s the root cause there? If you ask me, it comes down to an inability to make a decision quickly—whether through challenges with boards or a desire not to rock the boat by taking risks. And that ultimately can lead to decisions being made through the path of least resistance.

During their well-received opening presentation at #ASAE16, astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly repeatedly rejected the tendency toward complacency, with Scott explaining how it was the one thing holding him back from being a good pilot during his time in the Navy.

“I got too comfortable with the status quo,” he said.

Innovation is, almost by definition, a willingness to challenge the status quo. How can you ensure that the status quo isn’t holding your association back?

This article was originally sourced from Association Universe and was written by Ernie Smith. 

Did you know that 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text? Amazing!

Incorporate infographics within your association’s magazine, on your Web pages and in your emails to:

• Increase awareness of your association.
  
• Recruit new members and staff.
  
• Generate traffic to your association’s website.
  
• Show expert understanding of the subject and/or your industry.
  

The key to producing successful infographics is to offer good, relevant data in an exciting visual style, presenting information in a concise format that is easier understood than through words or video. The best infographics don’t strive to go viral over night, but instead beg to be consumed and continuously travel among members and non-members.

Check out our infographic for tips about how to use this powerful marketing tool to engage members in print, online and on social media.

This article was originally sourced from Association Adviser and was written by Brianna Lawson. 

It’s no secret that being an association pro is hard. And sometimes, it can be downright exhausting. But take pride in your job! You do something not a lot of people can.

In fact, here are five reasons to LOVE being an association pro:

1. You give people a voice

People are passionate about things - but they can’t always express how they feel. As an association professional, you give them a platform. You make sure their voices are heard, and boy if that isn’t cool!

2. You better the industry

You work day in and day out to make your industry a better place, and trust me, that does NOT go unnoticed. Things are the way they are because of the work you do. Just let that sink in.

3. You make ordinary things fun

There’s a professional organization for everything, and some of those things...not so thrilling. But YOU make them fun. You plan conferences and events that people wait months for. That’s impressive!

4. You teach

When something new happens in your industry, you tell others. When there’s a new tool or best practice, you spread the word. You teach others how to be better - and we all know what a gift that is.

5. You’re basically a superhuman

No, seriously. You’re expected to do SO much with SO little, especially if you’re a small-staff association pro. You have limited resources and a very long to-do list - but you make it happen. How you do it, I have no idea. But more power to you!

The bottom line here is this: You may get frustrated because your job is hard - and that’s COMPLETELY understandable. But be proud of yourself! You do some pretty amazing work!

Rock on, association pros!

This article was originally sourced from Member clicks and was written by Callie Walker. 

For one association’s new two-tier membership offer, the deciding factor between the two options is a member’s desired engagement with one primary activity: certification.

“New Membership Structure Press Release” is a very niche genre. It doesn’t even have quite the same following as, say, Star Wars fan fiction. But, as a devoted follower of association membership strategies, I got some geeky excitement last week when I read about the new tiered membership offer at APICS, an association for the field of supply-chain management.

It’s always interesting (to me, at least) to see how associations design tiered membership packages. Sometimes they’re of the “bronze, silver, gold” variety; other times the packages are built around a handful of major types of member activities.

In APICS’ case, the focus is clear: certification.

Its new membership structure, launched July 20, offers two packages: Core and Plus. There’s really no mistaking who each is aimed at. From the press release:

• “APICS CORE – This membership package is for individuals not actively pursuing an APICS credential. …

• “APICS PLUS – This membership package is for individuals actively pursuing an APICS credential.”
  

Well, there you have it. So, how did APICS decide to make certification the fulcrum for members to choose between its new membership options? “The data drove us there,” says Jim Pavletich, CAE, vice president, membership and customer experience.

“Our data was showing that people were coming into the organization to take advantage of the discounts for the certification products and services, and then once they earned it, they were, to some degree, at a certain percentage, stepping away from the organization,” he says. “And what we tried to do is [determine] what can we do to stop the churn of the 13,000-plus members we’re gaining each year but we were also losing as a result of attrition.”

Pavletich says APICS membership retention rate in the past had been down around 65 percent—an affliction not uncommon among associations with one particular program that stands above the rest. APICS offers three certifications for its industry: Certified in Production and Inventory Management (CPIM), Certified Supply Chain Professional (CSCP), and Certified in Logistics, Transportation, and Distribution (CLTD). The challenge APICS faced was in designing a membership package that better fit the behavior patterns of its members, though this was just one part of a broader membership strategy to shore up retention and keep the organization growing, Pavletich says. (See sidebar for more on other elements of the strategy.)

APICS quantified its members’ interest in certification as a result of adding a simple yes-or-no question to its join and renewal forms last year: “Are you interested in actively pursuing an APICS certification?” (The question has since been changed to a multiple choice selection to ask which one.) It found 70 percent of members were interested in certification.

The association’s previous membership package for individuals included several benefits related to certification, but by clearly carving out one package tailored to certification-seekers and another for non-seekers, and promoting them as such, APICS hopes that members will find the packages more in tune with their desired levels of engagement, Pavletich says. Annual individual membership dues were previously $200; the new packages are $180 (Core) and $220 (Plus). Core members get a 10 percent reduction in dues that might be more palatable since certification is not a driving factor for them, while Plus members get a premium package aimed at supporting their certification goals.

Pavletich says he hoped members’ stated interest in certification would equate to corresponding engagement with the new membership model.

“Again, we were asking the question, ‘Are you interested in certification?’ And what we were hearing was 70/30,” he says. “I know from having been around the world enough times that people don’t always put their money where they say they will put their money. So, I was thinking, let’s be conservative and we’ll put this model in place that will allow for even a 50/50 split—again the $180 and the $220—to keep us revenue neutral.”

It is, of course, early, with just a few weeks of joins and renewals in since the July 20 launch (APICS follows an anniversary-style dues cycle). Pavletich says 780 members have joined or renewed since then, with 500 at the Plus level and 280 at Core—a 64/36 split. The long-term effect on renewals will take a year or more to take shape, but Pavletich says he likes the early start.

“The purpose of the new member strategy wasn’t to increase member revenue but to increase member engagement, slow the attrition, and help the organization to grow by simply keeping the members that we had,” he says. “So, the fact it has come out to 65/35 I’m very pleased with.”

What primary benefit does your association offer that could be the central focus of a multi-tier membership package? Has your association faced the challenge of engaging and retaining members who join for one specific (time-limited) purpose?

This article was originally sourced from Association Universe and written by Joe Rominiecki.

For many folks, responsive design means mobile-friendly. But that’s not the whole story. Responsive design can be implemented across a variety of devices and offer easy reading and navigation with limited zooming, panning and scrolling.

According to Laura Taylor, director of online solutions at Naylor Association Solutions, “Associations invest a lot of time and resources into positioning themselves as the content leader in their industry. In order to ensure industry professionals see the association as their number one resource, it is imperative that associations deliver their content in a mobile-friendly format.”

With the growth of mobile usage, it’s essential for your association to offer a website that is responsive.

When your website is responsive, members can easily locate relevant information, regardless of their preferred device.

Google has been favoring responsive websites since it recently updated its algorithm in March 2016.

Mobile readers engage with emails longer than desktop readers do, with 67.1 percent of mobile readers spending longer than 10 seconds.

Do you know if your association’s website is responsive? Take the test here.

With the growth of mobile usage, over 41 percent according to the Informz Association Email Marketing Benchmark Report, it’s essential for your association to offer a website and emails that are responsive because more email is read on a mobile device than on a desktop. When your website is responsive, your members and potential members can easily locate relevant information, regardless of their preferred device (phone, tablet or desktop).

Benefits of responsive website design

Laura Taylor also mentions that “more than half of website visitors and newsletter recipients are viewing digital media on a mobile device, and that percentage is growing rapidly. If associations do not move to a responsive design for their website and newsletters, they are at risk of losing their audience and position in their industry.” By having a responsive website, your association can:

• Improve search rankings for your website. Google has been favoring responsive websites since it recently updated its algorithm in March. Google’s Jerry Dischler wrote a post for the AdWords blog last year, stating, “more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Japan.” Responsive websites perform best in search rankings because they provide a better overall user experience than non-responsive sites.

• Keep a single URL. If you’re on the fence about whether or not your association needs a responsive website, there’s good news. You don’t need a separate URL for the mobile version of your website; even Google discourages using more than one. Plus, having a single URL will keep your workload lighter by allowing you to make changes to a single website instead of two separate websites, and then have it reflect across a wide variety of mobile devices and tablets.

• Increase mobile visits through social media. Does your association post frequently on social media? Social media is a great way to bring visitors back to your website. Think about how you check your social media accounts throughout the day; we assume it’s most likely through your mobile device. When your association’s website is responsive, people will be less likely to navigate away after clicking through to your website from a post that they found interesting via Facebook or Twitter.
  

• Generate the best user experience. Most importantly, responsive web design leads to a better user experience. When a potential member views your website via their mobile device and is seeking more information about membership, they need to not only be able to find it easily, but read and apply it to your association easily. No matter where your website visitors are, they should be able to access information on the go without having to go through the trouble of zooming in/out, panning and side scrolling. This will also eliminate high bounce rates and boost conversions when you cater to the needs of your audience and how they can receive information easily and efficiently.
  

What’s next? Responsive email design

The same report from Informz found that mobile readers engage with emails longer than desktop readers do, with 67.1 percent of mobile readers spending longer than 10 seconds with an email and more than 57 percent of emails being read on iPhones. Therefore, it’s not only important to have a responsive website, but responsive emails as well.

Similar to having a responsive website, responsive emails create a better user experience and prevent readers from immediately deleting the informative emails you’ve worked hard to create. What good is your content if readers can’t actually read it upon immediately opening your email? Think about the design elements of your responsive emails, including:

• Layout. When viewing emails on a mobile device, multiple column layouts tend to appear squished, busy and difficult to navigate. Stick to a single column layout so that your emails are compatible regardless of what device is being used. Since the mobile screen is small, using a single column layout cannot only simplify your design, but can highlight more important content as well.

• Fonts. It’s crucial to select a font and size that is clear and easy to read. Small font requires people to zoom in and side scroll, which isn’t ideal. You don’t want readers to have to do any extra work in order to read your email or else they’ll be likely to move on.

• Content. Your most important message should be conveyed “above the fold.” Let readers know first off what your email is going to be about beyond the subject line. People reading emails on mobile devices are likely to skim through and seek out images and any call-to-actions first, for example to watch a video or to download a report.

• Call-to-action. Make it easier for your readers to click on an item with hyperlinks or buttons. You’ll be more likely to convert a reader to become a member of your association by offering them a button that’s easy to click and take action.

• Images. Don’t go overboard with images in your emails to cater to mobile devices. Don’t lose readers with too many graphics and graphics that do not adjust to mobile devices well. For example, avoid using long banners in your emails as it can distort the overall format on mobile devices.

• Don’t forget to test your emails! As with any item you plan to send out to your membership, make sure you test, test and test again. Have a fresh set of eyes review your email and provide feedback on usability through multiple mobile devices and tablets.

Conclusion

A responsive website or email campaign is no longer a nice-to-have, but a necessity that can impact how visitors and readers interact and view your association. Offering your members and potential members a beautiful, optimized experience through their device of choice means you have expanded your reach of service and opportunity for increased engagement.

This article was originally sourced from Association Adviser and was written by Brianna Lawson.