Change is COming

Change is coming, but that’s nothing new, we’ve known that since, well, forever. However, within the current tide of change, associations must decide if that change will be the long hoped for type of change that Sam Cooke sung about or if it will be the change that steamrolls its way through our organizations. That’s what this year’s Aptify conference was all about. Specifically, embracing technology to lead and harness the power of change. One key theme that stuck out, was that not only do members expect things at their fingertips, so do employees. This fact was highlighted in Jamie Notter’s (Author of “When Millennials Take Over”) keynote speech about millennials in the workplace – “The Power of Millennial Alignment”. It isn’t enough anymore to know what members expect and to kindly say “we’re working on it”, we must be able to deliver what they want when they want it (and when do they want it? NOW, of course). That’s where technology partners like HighRoad come in. Partners in the association space are working alongside associations to harness the power of technology to deliver member services and respond to member needs.

A session that highlighted the power of technology partnerships was “Creating the Insight-Driven Content Marketing Program: Mindset & Methodologies” featuring panelists from American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), New Jersey Society of CPAs, and American Dental Association (ADA). These organizations were looking to improve their newsletters to better serve members. Simple, right? However, these organizations are utilizing technology to learn their member’s interests and habits to deliver content that is personalized and relevant to them.

While many may eschew this technology solves all approach, consider this -  we now live in a world where our refrigerators can track our food supplies and we can reorder our laundry detergent with the touch of a button. Think about this, when is the last time you did anything, anything at all, that did not utilize technology? I’ll wait. Now bring this a step further, when do you think is the last time that any of your members did anything that did not utilize technology? We need to realize that the same people who use refrigerators to track food supplies and reorder laundry detergent by pushing a button also want to track their Continuing Education units on their phones and renew their memberships at the touch of a button.

It’s up to us to decide if we’ll be singing along with Cooke, that just like the river, our organizations have been running ever since, or if we will sing a woeful song about rivers that have dried up and long been forgotten. Either way change is coming.