The themes of change, rapid evolution of technology and the need to innovate aren’t new themes from today’s perspective. What is new is the rate at which this transformative change is happening and the certainty of how it will affect associations. Fusions Productions put together another great conference this year, Digital Now 2016, to not only highlight these themes but truly focus on how to move past the fear that comes with rapid change and embrace the opportunity to innovate the traditional association model.
With keynote speakers such as well-known futurist and innovation expert, Jim Carroll, content strategist, Kristina Halvorson, and the co-founder of Netflix, Marc Randolph, it’s no surprise that association executives came away inspired to “Think Big, Start Small and Scale Fast” - the mantra shared by Jim Carroll.
While associations could see shifting demographics, further reliance on technology to communicate, and traditional business models being rejected by long-term members as a sign of impending doom and gloom, the ultimate message from all of the sessions and workshops at the conference was that while some may see an emerging trend as a threat, those who are innovators at heart see the same trend as an opportunity.
Over the past decade, mobile, social and geo-locational technologies have truly changed how we communicate with members and customers. Who still has a personal land-line telephone? How many times do you unlock your smart phone a day (did you know that it averages 150 times)? Did you ever think your organization would be on Twitter? 10 years ago there was no Facebook or YouTube! So what does this mean for associations as a whole?
Adapt and evolve is the answer – move past the knee-jerk reaction of fearing the need to change and embrace the opportunity to innovate. Lean on your staff to know your customers and your prospects – understand what emerging trends are going to affect them and how they in turn can look to your organization to help them navigate through that change. The association of the future is very unlikely to look the same in the next 3 to 5 years.
Of course, education will continue to be a key driver of revenue, but the expectations of customers will drive the way associations offer industry knowledge, programs and materials. Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the future. Many of the conference sessions touched on how humans in a technology centric world learn today and how it’s important for the provider to adapt the information and how they distribute it. We’re now in the era of the of ‘Just in Time’ knowledge delivery platform – think about what that means for associations as a whole? A possible warning sign certainly, but definitely a huge opportunity to position associations as the future source for the “JIT” information needed by members looking to do their jobs – jobs, which by the way, in 10-15 years might be positions that don’t exist today.
Younger generations learn from watching videos. Dr. Andreatta, from Lynda.com discussed the neuroscience of learning and pointed out that the hippocampus of the brain, where we “record” information as we focus, has a learning capacity of 20 minutes – after that, it loses focus. Think about those hour-long on-demand webinars your organization offers – if we learn in 20 minute increments shouldn’t we build our materials around how we learn and absorb that information? What can we do to optimize our e-learning programs? How can we incorporate mobile into our learning experience? What will the future of learning entail and more importantly, how can we all benefit from the rapid pace of change headed our way?
These are just some of the items discussed at Digital Now last week. I’ll have more to share in the coming weeks, but want to leave you with Jim Carroll’s advice to the Digital Now audience to continue to “Think Big, Start Small and Scale Fast!”
