Sector and AuSAE News

  • 17 Jun 2014 12:45 PM | Louise Stokes

    Blog post by Mark Athitakis, sourced from here


    In the wake of a massive data breach, Target is moving its corporate and technology leadership closer together. It’s a model more associations should consider following.

    Target is trying to get everybody on the same page. It starts with getting everybody on the same floor.

    Late last year a massive data breach at the retailer compromised millions of customer credit cards. Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel delivered profuse apologies, not to mention free credit checks to concerned customers, but last month he delivered what was an inevitable resignation. (Though it received less publicity, its CIO resigned as well.)

    Since then, Target has been retooling: Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that the company has been working to remove layers of bureaucracy from its operations, as well as creating an environment of improved communication among its executives. The company’s chief information officer and chief marketing officer, the Journal reported, will move to the same space where its interim CEO and executive vice president have offices. “The floor will be getting a more open plan than its current layout of office and hallways, aimed at fostering greater collaboration,” the report says.

    Whether you think the move legitimately chips away at the walls that block innovation and good management or is largely just for show, the reshuffling makes an important statement: The connections between CEOs and an organization’s technology leadership need to be stronger than ever.

    That’s a point that became clear to me as I was writing a feature for the latest Associations Now on data security at associations. Data security is a primarily technology issue, of course, but what I was told repeatedly during my reporting is that it’s also a leadership issue. A well-managed staff is essential when it comes to protecting your information, because the source of the problem is often within your office walls.

    That means knowing who has access to what information, and how well-protected it is, is a task that’s increasingly on the CEO’s task list. Devin Jopp, CEO of the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange, told me that “one of my number-one concerns is the integrity of my data, whether that’s conference attendees, whether that’s member dataundefinedensuring that all the safeguards are in place.” I like Jopp’s comment partly for its implication that a CEO has a lot of competing top concerns. But the quote also stresses that technology needs to be one of them.

    This is a relatively new notion for associations, which often shunted technology duties into a separate department and, until fairly recently, didn’t think strategically about technology’s role in its marketing and communications. Fewer than half of IT chiefs at associations report directly to the CEO, according to ASAE research in 2011; more often, they report to the CFO or COO.

    Last fall, John Mancini, CEO of the Association for Information and Image Management, stressed that structure needed to change. “CEOs personally need to be more invested in the technology decisions that their organizations are making,” he told me. Knowing what’s possible in terms of creating value for members is one reason for that. Knowing where the potential for breaches are is another.

    Jopp emphasizes the need for a posture of constant vigilance when it comes to data, continuously monitoring who has access to what kind of information, even at a small organization like his with six staffers. “It gets back to roles and controlling who has the ability to control data,” he says. “You have to be very restrictive.”

    Target has been forced to get more serious about the role technology plays in its operations; beyond the office shuffling, it’s also hired its first chief information security officer. Whether the moves themselves will improve the company’s fortunes is an open question. But more fully integrating technology into the leadership of an organization is clearly a smart step.

    How much day-to-day responsibility do you think a CEO should have when it comes to technology and data issues?
  • 17 Jun 2014 12:40 PM | Louise Stokes

    Article sourced from: http://www.hcamag.com/hr-news/employer-branding-only-17-of-organisations-have-a-clear-strategy-188810.aspx


    by Janie Smith | 16 Jun 2014

    How much time and effort does your organisation invest in its employer brand?

    According to international research by Employer Brand International, 65% of companies are planning to increase or maintain their investment in employer branding initiatives in the coming year.

    The study also found that the movement by companies to shift recruitment spending into social media during the past three years has continued, with 76% of organisations using social media as the main way to communicate their employer brand and engage with potential candidates.

    But while 87% of companies believe that a clearly-defined strategy is the key to achieving employer branding objectives, only 17% actually have such a strategy in place.

    Career development was the most important attribute for a company to promote when attracting talent, according to 87% of study respondents, followed by leadership on 86% and work environment with 83%.

    Engineering and technical services company Aurecon won Best Employer Branding at last year’s Australian HR Awards and employer brand manager Shannon Gillespie told HC that people are the foundation of organisations, regardless of sector.

    “Employer branding strengthens an organisation’s ability to attract and retain top talent, so you can better build and maintain a workforce with the right people, the right skills and the right cultural fit. For professional services firms in particular, like Aurecon, the ability to build a workforce of engaged top talent is vital, as the expertise of our people is essentially the product we sell to our clients.”

    Aurecon was formed in 2009 through a merger of three engineering firms in South Africa and Australia.

    According to the company’s HR Awards submission, the creation of the global company meant the brand journey needed to start from scratch.

    The company began by establishing an employee value proposition which reflected its overarching brand proposition and was aimed at three audiences – experienced professionals, executives and graduates/students.

    It then reviewed all of its employer brand communication touch points to look at when and where the employer brand reached its target audiences.

    Aurecon came up with a range of tactics to launch its EVP globally, including using a range of media platforms and industry events.

    Gillespie said an employer brand needed to have the “right balance of aspiration and reality”.

    “It should inspire and motivate people, but also be a true reflection of what it is like to be part of that organisation. All stages of the employee lifecycle - from awareness through to recruitment and on to the employee experience - should support the employee value proposition, or you will find a gap between the brand promise and the reality of employment, which leads to disengagement and increased attrition.

    “It’s also important that the whole organisation owns the employer brand. An employer brand is not purely established through marketing channels, but more so through every interaction your staff has with other people, both internal and external. Your employees can be your strongest employer brand ambassadors.”
  • 17 Jun 2014 12:24 PM | Louise Stokes

    Blog post sourced from: http://www.eventmanagerblog.com/entertainment-social-media


    Author: Amy Capron June 12, 2014

    Nowadays, event planners expect more from event entertainment. A lot more. Entertainment doesn’t just have to be all-singing and all-dancing, it also needs to have real impact, increase brand awareness and help to promote the event to a larger audience.

    Gone are the days when event planners could just book a rabbit in a hat magician to interact with attendees at corporate events and expect the client, and their guests, to be satisfied. The Information Age requires entertainment that plays a far greater role within events.

    It needs to be bold, daring, exciting, engaging, be interactive and most of all encourage people to take to social media to increase exposure for businesses and their events.
    Businesses are realising the huge benefits of encouraging social media interaction before, during and after an event has taken place.

    Entertainment can play its part in helping to generate social media exposure at an event by ensuring that people talk about it. This is the New Media Age, an age in which we know what people had for breakfast, what their new haircut looks like and the films they have just watched; so booking exciting, interactive entertainment is a sure fire way of getting your event talked about right across the various social media platforms.

    To assist event planners in choosing the right entertainment that will encourage attendees to ‘share’ an event over a variety of social media we have compiled a Top Ten list of entertainment ideas. The Top Ten includes ‘wow factor’ entertainment that is guaranteed to get people talking, as well as performers who have embraced the New Media Age by actually incorporating social media in to their act.

    Read more at http://www.eventmanagerblog.com/entertainment-social-media
  • 17 Jun 2014 12:19 PM | Louise Stokes

    Blog post sourced from: http://associationsnow.com/2014/06/association-industry-continues-grow-mgi-study-says/

    By Katie Bascuas / JUN 13, 2014

    Among the key findings of the 2014 edition of the “Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report” was that more than 50 percent of associations reported an increase in membership. The report also explored some of the ways associations are contending with common challenges of growing and retaining membership.

    Association membership keeps growing, at least for 53 percent of the almost 900 respondents to the 2014 “Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report” from Marketing General Incorporated.

    “It’s good news,” said MGI Vice President, Eric Schonher, during a webinar discussing the study’s findings this week. “The industry continues to grow.”

    This is the fourth year in a row that roughly half of the survey’s respondents reported a year-over-year increase in membership. Last year, 52 percent reported an increase. And for those associations that saw a rise in members in 2014, roughly a quarter reported at least a 6 percent increase in membership.

    NEW MEMBER ACQUISITION
    Associations did, however, report less new member acquisition this year compared to 2013. Fifty-eight percent of respondents reported an increase in new members, down from 63 percent last year. Despite this decline, new member acquisition is still strong given other factors.

    “This drop is quickly offset by the decrease from 2013 in the number of associations citing a decline (16 percent to 13 percent) and the increase in the number of associations that are maintaining the number of new members acquired from 2013,” the study noted. “In review of these results we quickly see that new member acquisition is very strong.”

    In terms of the most effective ways to acquire new members, the MGI report found that word-of-mouth recommendations and email are still among the most successful marketing methods as in previous years.

    MEMBER RENEWAL
    While new member acquisition may have been strong, member renewal was less so. Most associations, 36 percent, reported renewal rates were unchanged this year, and 31 percent of respondents reported an increase in renewals. That’s down from 35 percent last year.

    “While it appears that membership continues to grow, it becomes apparent that it is now primarily due to the success associations are having in their member acquisition programs,” the report noted. “As most associations count on their membership to provide the majority of their income through nondues purchases, the decrease in renewal rates could have a severe negative impact in the not too distant future.”

    As for the reasons why members are not renewing their memberships, lack of engagement came out on top this year, replacing budget cuts and economic hardshipsundefinedthe top reason in both 2013 and 2012.

    Associations seem to be aware of this lack of engagement as increasing engagement was reported as the top membership goal by 67 percent of associations. Other top goals included increasing membership retention, membership acquisition, and the understanding of member needs.

  • 17 Jun 2014 12:15 PM | Louise Stokes

    Blog post sourced from: http://leadershipfreak.wordpress.com/2014/06/13/7-ways-to-have-tough-compassion/


    Compassion goes wrong when it coddles. Tough compassion calls for extraordinary commitment that stretches people.

    Coddling prevents people from achieving their best.

    Coddling compassion:

    Don’t coddle at the beginning of challenging projects. Never say,

    1. I don’t want to over-work you.
    2. I’m concerned that we won’t make it.
    3. Let me know if this is too much.

    Every escape hatch you open before it’s needed is an excuse for failure.

    Coddling compassion invites excuses and mediocrity. The hidden message of coddling is the mission isn’t worth your sweat. Never provide excuses for mediocrity before you reach for exceptional.

    Tough compassion:

    “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” T.S. Elliot

    Tough compassion says:

    1. I believe in you.
    2. Our mission is worth commitment and sacrifice.
    3. I’m with you all the way.
    4. We can do this.

    Tough compassion:

    1. Stretches people and walks beside them at the same time.
    2. Protects people while they give their best, not before.
    3. Monitors the well-being of teams and takes action when things begin to go dark.
    4. Models the pursuit of excellence.
    5. Expects more of itself than it expects of others.
    6. Invites people to struggle and sweat because its worth it.
    7. Acknowledges challenge and difficulty but believes teams can step up.

    The most important aspect of tough compassion is monitoring the team as they work. Step in when shoulders droop and frustration persists.

    People never know how far they can reach until they reach for something that’s out of reach. Coddling suggests people can’t do it before they try.

    Warning: Constant pressure eventually defeats. Time off and fun energize teams to bring their best.

    Tip: Celebrate wins!

    Failure to celebrate devalues success.

    How can leaders walk the line between stretching people and pushing too far?
  • 17 Jun 2014 11:59 AM | Louise Stokes


    Blog post sourced from: http://jamienotter.com/2014/06/knowing-when-to-turn-the-auto-pilot-off/

    One of the reasons I think so many organizations are stuck is that they have too much of management set on auto-pilot. There are too many things that we do in managing our organizations that are done automatically, without thinking, and without questioning. Think staff meetings, how we use email, much of Human Resources, the design of our office space, etc.

    I understand whey they are on auto-pilot: it reduces the complexity that we face. When we can take some things away from our immediate attention, it frees us up to deal with the other complexities that feel more pressing. And since those other things have seem to have been well for a while, we’re happy to put them on the back burner (to change metaphors) so we can focus on strategy, or social media, or those dang Millennials.

    But here’s the problem. While those things sit on the back burner, the world continues to change. What was once useful can easily become not useful, and things we THOUGHT were useful can be discovered to be quite problematic once we learn more about how things work. So the trick is to know when we need to pull some of those things off the back burner and work on them.

    Take “meetings,” for example. There’s a nice post on HBR that documents some of the huge waste of time and resources that are put into internal meetings in every organization. It also shares some research: that for every person above 7 that attends a meeting, the chances of being able to make a “good, quick, and executable decision” goes down by 10 percent. Once you’re beyond 17 people, the chances drop to zero. Now not every meeting needs to be about those kinds of decisions, but still, do we think about this when we convene meetings? Or do we convene them because that’s how we’ve always done it.

    If you’re not continuously bringing some things off that back burner and reinventing them, then you’re setting yourself up for a slow decline.
  • 27 May 2014 12:35 PM | Louise Stokes
    With sustainability and future-proofing high on the agenda for many Not for Profit executives, CBB's third Community ExecNet will explore mergers, collaborations and partnerships that are already happening in the sector, as well as practical tips on how these avenues could be explored for your Not for Profit.

    When: Thursday 18th June 2014 from 7:00am – 9:30am
    Where: Rob Roy Hotel, Halifax St, Adelaide Cost: $45*+GST perhead
    Cost: $45*+GST per head – including a hot breakfast

    *$5 from each ticket will be donated to St Raphael’s Aged Care and matched by CBB’s Community Development Fund.

    To register please click here: http://www.cbb.com.au/corporate/our-events/
  • 27 May 2014 10:54 AM | Louise Stokes
    Hart Square appoints a Commercial Director in Australia to provide a truly independent offering exclusively for the NFP sector in the CRM, business process reform and digital marketing space!

    Hart Square are very pleased to announce the appointment of Mick Clarke as their new Commercial Director for Australia. Mick is already well known in the NFP sector and has been working closely with AuSAE members and staff for the past few years. This new role will allow him to offer independent services and objective advice for the first time.

    Hart Square needed a seasoned professional with a passion and focus for the NFP sector to head up their Australian arm and drive the business forward. Mick provides this and so much more with his knowledge of the sector, together with his passion to drive success for NFP organisations Australia wide.

    Mick has expressed his delight and excitement as he beds into the new role, speaking in London where Mick met the Hart Square UK team and introduced his unique style and character, ‘I am delighted to be working with Hart Square for several reasons, not least for the ability to continue to work in this sector, but to offer truly independent services to NFP’s in both Australia and New Zealand. Therefore, I am not focused on products, but instead concentrating on delivering solutions that improve the business processes of NFP’s via a wide range of services’.

    Mick also brings a wealth of experience in the digital space with him to Hart Square and this will support new service offerings in both Australia and the UK over time. These services will include Digital/Social Strategies, Content Marketing, Online Presence and more.

    Mick has over 15 years’ experience in the online marketing space and is happy to impart some of this knowledge to improve your online presence.

    In Brief:
    • Experienced Industry professional
    • Passionate about the sector and its challenges
    • Truly independent and objective service offering
    • Solutions focused
    • Offer true value to all areas of the sector
    About Hart Square

    Hart Square is an independent specialist in providing CRM & CMS vendor selection services, Business process reforms, change management and solution based digital strategies for charities and not-for-profit (NFP) and membership organisations. We have worked exclusively in these sectors for over 20 years, so we really understand them – in fact, each of our dedicated team of experts comes from an NFP or membership organisation background.

    Hart Square has expanded into Australia to extend the range of services that have been offered in the UK and is the only truly independent provider of these services in the NFP sector. We are proud to be AuSAE annual partners and we see this as a long term relationship as we have deep seated knowledge and passion for this sector.

    http://www.hartsquare.com.au/

    Media Contact:
    Mick Clarke, Commercial Director, 0406 175 300 mick.clarke@hartsquare.com.au
    10/50 Market Street, Melbourne, VIC, 3000
  • 23 May 2014 4:45 PM | Louise Stokes
    Tourism New Zealand together with Inland Revenue invites you to attend a seminar to understand the changes to the New Zealand GST Act and how you may benefit when holding your next event in New Zealand. Refreshments will be served 30 minutes prior to the start time.

    DATES & VENUE LOCATIONS

    Tuesday 03 June
    Brisbane
    Stamford Plaza Brisbane
    Cnr Edward Street & Margaret Street
    10.30am - 12.30pm

    Wednesday 04 June
    Melbourne
    Stamford Plaza Melbourne
    111 Little Collins Street
    9.00am - 11.00am

    Wednesday 04 June
    Melbourne
    Stamford Plaza Melbourne
    111 Little Collins Street
    1.00pm - 3.00pm

    Thursday 05 June
    Sydney Sir Stamford at Circular Quay
    93 Macquarie Street
    9.00am - 11.00am

    Thursday 05 June
    Sydney Sir Stamford at Circular Quay
    93 Macquarie Street
    1.00pm - 3.00pm

  • 19 May 2014 4:29 PM | Louise Stokes
    nib foundation is encouraging community organisations with innovative health and wellbeing initiatives to apply for funding of up to $50,000 as part of its 2014 Community Grant round.

    Applications will be open from 2 June – 27 June 2014 for the sixth annual community grant round which aims to foster improved health outcomes in local communities across Australia. More information on eligibility, assessment criteria and application process at www.nibfoundation.com.au


The Australasian Society of Association Executives (AuSAE)

Australian Office:
Address: Unit 6, 26 Navigator Place, Hendra QLD 4011 Australia
Free Call: +61 1300 764 576
Phone: +61 7 3268 7955
Email: info@ausae.org.au

New Zealand Office:
Address: 159 Otonga Rd, Rotorua 3015 New Zealand
Phone: +64 27 249 8677
Email: nzteam@ausae.org.au

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