Archive for February, 2009
February 27, 2009
David Gammel’s Web Strategy Report, Volume 2 Issue 2
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Thoughts On Strategy: If you can’t innovate now…
If you are unable to innovate your web presence now you never will.
This may sound harsh, but, honestly, if the dramatic changes all around us are not prompting you to consider your online opportunities, I’m not sure what will!
Improving your organization’s web presence is of greater value today than ever before. The economy is hitting meeting revenue hard in some sectors while programs such as certifications and distance learning are booming for the same organizations. Your online offerings must shift to take advantage of the world of today, not what you planned for last year.
There is good news: anyone can improve her web site.
There are ideas you haven’t tried yet all around you, if you are willing to open your eyes to them.
- What are your members’ problems and opportunities today?
- What features of your existing technology are you not using?
- What are wildly different companies from you doing in similar activities?
- Can social media be applied to your core strategies?
You get the picture.
There are three keys to successfully creating and implementing new ideas for your site:
- Give you and your staff permission to create new ideas. Too many people think they can’t because they aren’t a ‘tech’ person. Untrue! If you can read and write, you can improve your site.
- Open your eyes to the ideas that are all around us. They are literally everywhere.
- Be optimistic about the value you can provide. Innovators are inherently optimistic people, which will really make you stand out from the crowd these days!
I presented recently on how to generate you own web site ideas at an association industry conference. You can see my slides from the speech here.
If you or your staff could use a boost in the web site innovation department, drop me a line. I offer a range of mentoring, coaching and workshop options to help my clients help themselves online.
Case Study: Subscriptions vs. Sales
Joel Spolsky, in a column this month in Inc. magazine, discussed how he accidentally shot the revenues of his CoPilot service through the roof. CoPilot is a service that allows you to remotely control someone else’s computer, the primary use of which is to help your parents to fix a configuration problem on their PC.
Joel’s company used to require a payment of $10 a day to use the service, with customers having to make a payment transaction each time. If you look at the chart he links to in the column, you’ll see relatively flat revenue.
Then one of his developers added a subscription option, so customers were billed monthly without having to re-enter any credit card information. Same chart with huge growth in revenue for subscriptions compared to the pay as you go method. Convenience and anticipation of new need (you know your Mom won’t need your help just once!) led to a powerful result.
I know of an association that changed a webinar education series from individual registration events to a subscription model and have realized significantly more revenue from the change.
How can you offer continual value in exchange for continual revenue? It’s a good question to explore.
High Geekery: Netbooks
The latest rage in laptop computers has come out of the cheap end of the market: ultra-light, ultra-efficient, low powered laptops called netbooks. These wee little laptops are designed to get you online with a portable device that costs much less than your annual latte habit.
Innovation in laptop computers has traditional come from the high end of the market. New screens, input devices, more powerful chips start out expensive and only available in premium laptop computers and gradually work their way down the market over time as new tech comes to the fore and economies of scale come into play.
That was up-ended by a foundation that wanted to provide an inexpensive laptop computer to every child in Africa. As they developed these computers with the primary purpose of connecting to the Internet for e-mail and Web access in a portable and energy efficient model for next to no money, they kicked off a new trend.
According to this post on Wired, netbooks are the fastest growing computer segment in Europe and are just beginning to break into the U.S. market in a significant way.
This is a new platform to watch. There are many potential applications for these computers designed to just access the cloud of services available online. Cheaply empowered remote workers, on-site support staff at meetings and events, your own children, there are lots of potential uses.
Offerings from David
Webinar on March 12!
They Built It and We Were There
Is your social network anything but? Do your blog entries draw more crickets than comments? Are you tweetless on Twitter?
If so, join me for a webinar with Boston Conferencing on how to best achieve participation and member value with association social media programs. This session will zero in on topics such as:
- How you can use social media to engage with members anywhere online, not just on your own site
- How to use social media to create valuable outcomes for members and the organization
- The power of social media when used as a long term engagement strategy
- The top three ways to accidentally kill an online community and the one key requirement for success
Listen to my audio introduction to the program here and learn how to register.
Announcing a new Book in Development
Bringing Your Mission to Life Online: A Practical Guide to Web Strategy for Associations, Foundations and Charities
I am in the process of writing a book on practical web strategy for practical results. It will be published by ASAE & the Center for Association Leadership later this year. The book will explore the seven strategic outcomes for non-profit organization web sites, how to determine which best serves your overall goals, and what that will then mean for implementing your web presence.
Send me an email if you would like to receive a brief white paper on the seven strategic outcomes.
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February 26, 2009
Creating New Ideas for Your Association Web Site
I had a great time presenting on Sunday at ASAE’s Great Ideas conference about how to create your own ideas for your association web site.
I emphasized in the session that:
- Anyone can do this, you do not need permission.
- Ideas are literally all around us if you open your eyes to them.
- Creating and implementing new ideas is inherently an act of optimism, which will make you stand out from the crowd these days!
I had a few people come up afterward saying how enabling they found the ideas of the presentation. They were not ‘tech’ people and, before my talk, didn’t think they could do much of this themselves. Untrue! If you can simply edit content on your site (or have someone do it for you) you can immediately begin improving it.
Here are the slides for your reference.
I also offer this same presentation as a staff workshop. If you see value in empowering staff to do more with your web site, drop me a note and we can discuss putting a program together for you. Your members will thank you!
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February 19, 2009
My First Word of Mouth Whoa Moment
Lindy has asked me to contribute a story about the impact of word-of-mouth marketing. So, here goes.
Back in the dark ages of the Web I was working for the Employee Relocation Council in the research department. ERC launched one of the earliest association web sites and I was listed as the contact for research information, including international relocation.
The day the site went up (probably in 1995, maybe 1994), I started receiving e-mail from people all around the world with questions about how to get a visa to come to the United States. This was way before e-mail scams were that common, they were genuine people looking for help. I was blown away and knew this was something new and special. I have no idea how people found this page on the web with my e-mail but they did. Search was next to useless or non-existent then, if you can imagine. ASAE used to maintain a single page that listed all the association web sites online, to give you an idea of how sparse the web world was back then.
All of these folks found me somehow through links and clicking and sharing information with others back when you had to get through some pretty significant hoops to be online.
That’s word of mouth powered by strong needs and desire.
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February 17, 2009
Great Ideas and Avectra Academy Appearances Soon!
I have two opportunities coming up in the next week to hear me in action.
First, this Sunday I am presenting a session at ASAE & the Center’s Great Ideas conference in Miami. The session is titled: Creating Your Own Web Site Idea Generator. I will lead the audience in determining the best sources of new ideas for their organization’s web site and how to make it a regular innovation process rather than an infrequent exception. Should be fun!
Second, I am moderating a webinar for the Avectra Academy on Monday Feb 23 with two great panelists. Suzanne Zurn of 720 Strategies and Brad Fitch of Knowlegis are going to discuss the big changes that are coming in advocacy from the new administration and changes in technology. The session is titled Association Advocacy in 2009:
Leveraging Changes in Technology and Administration to Create the Change Your Members Need. This is a free session but be sure to sign up this week if you want to join in.
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February 16, 2009
Customer Service as Performance Art
Supporting your customers and members with social media is a very different kind of activity than supplying a call center. It requires a whole host of new skills, not least the ability to engage as a person with other people.
That ability to engage has to be a formal policy and expected behavior for your staff that you plan to turn loose online to engage with your customers. You can’t simply put call center people who only know how to read from a script onto a Twitter account with your company name and hope for the best.
Talking to a scripted call center staffer is usually unsatisfying. A scripted support person using social media is merely making the substandard experience transparent to the entire world. This is not adding value for anyone.
View social media based customer service as more performance art than as transaction. The quality of the interaction is going to be of more value to your organization than the individual improvement in outcome that you create for the customer or member in question.
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February 11, 2009
How’s that value proposition?
Kevin Holland point to an article recently that ended with the following quote about a publishing trade association membership:
Henry Donahue, CEO-publisher of Discover Magazine, said his magazine is still a member of the MPA. “We are,” he confirmed via e-mail, “though it’s an ongoing source of discussion given the expense.”
A quote sure to strike fear into the heart of any association executive.
Be sure you are proactively communicating and delivering the value of your association. You almost can’t do it enough. Ideally it’s self-evident but even the highest of value services need to do some self promotion.
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February 10, 2009
Last Call for NPO Exec 2009 Web Goal Survey
This week is your last chance to get a response in to the survey I am fielding on NPO top web goals for 2009.
The survey is to support a book I am writing on web strategy for non-profit organizations. Respondents will receive an executive summary and an invite to a free teleconference where I will report on the results.
Here is the link to the survey and a link to my original post with the full details.
Join the 50+ executives who have already responded! Survey closes on Saturday morning.
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February 9, 2009
Are Your Web and IT Teams Fixing or Improving?
On a global consulting forum I belong to, Alan Weiss suggested that one thing to explore on a regular basis with direct reports is whether they are spending their time mostly fixing things or improving them. This is a great question for your Web and IT teams as well.
For teams that involve technology such as the Web and IT, it’s critical that they have a primary focus on improving the value of what others in the organization can achieve. IT and Web technology are pre-requisites for almost any endeavor these days. Teams that focus on improving and creating new value will increase the ROI of your technology investments and create an organization that constantly increases the value you offer to your constituents.
If your teams spend most of their time simply putting out fires, then they are leaving a lot of value on the table.
Don’t get me wrong, being able to troubleshoot, debug, and investigate the weird glitches and problems that technology entails is an important activity and skillset. However, it’s not why your teams exist.
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February 5, 2009
Very Brief Survey on Your Top Web Site Goal for 2009
I am writing a book on web strategy that ASAE & the Center is going to publish later this year. The working title is: Bringing Your Mission to Life Online: A Practical Guide to Web Strategy for Associations, Foundations and Charities.
As part of my research, I am fielding a survey for non-profit executives to state their most important goal for their web site this year. If you give me permission in the survey, I may quote you by name in the book. If you do not give that permission, I may paraphrase your entry but it will not be associated with your name or organization in any way and I will edit out anything in the submission that might inadvertently identify you.
That said, if you are secretly planning world domination for evil purposes via your web site, I suggest you skip the survey. :)
In return for your participation (the survey takes no longer than 5 minutes to complete), I am offering the following to all who complete the survey:
- An executive summary of the results, discussing trends, commonalities and my recommendations for achieving those outcomes online.
- Invitation to attend a one-hour teleconference, at no charge, where I will go into the results and my recommendations in much more detail.
- A signed and personally dedicated copy of the final book to anyone I quote by name from the survey.
Below is the link to the survey. Please do me the favor of completing it today. (It really is very short!)
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=RHA_2f9_2fwKQgXKir_2fY208Gcg_3d_3d
Please forward this to your NPO colleagues and friends.
Thanks for your assistance!
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February 5, 2009
Do You Need a Partner or a Vendor?
With the extent of outsourcing and software-as-a-service models, executives are focused on creating strong partnerships with their technology vendors more than ever before.
However, make sure you really need a partnership before investing in creating one.
True partnerships between the people of separate organizations require a lot of effort and dedication to create and maintain. This can create powerful results. You must make sure those results are worthy of the relationship investment, however.
How can you know? Here are a few criteria:
- The service or technology is a significant investment for your organization.
- The service or technology enables you to achieve highly valuable outcomes.
- You, as a customer, are of significant importance to the vendor. If you are a small fry client, you will typically get small fry attention.
- The technology or service is not a commodity, easily interchangeable with others.
If you and your vendor don’t fit the criteria above then you are both possibly wasting your time and effort on a partnership when one isn’t required.
Related Resource: Creating High Value Partnerships with Technology Providers
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