Author Archives: David

They Built It and We Were There: More Qs and As

Posted on by David
1

Here is one more podcast following up on the webinar last week about increasing participation in association social media programs. I merged a few similar questions into one. An archive of the program will be available soon and I’ll update this post with a link when I have it.

[display_podcast]

Here are a few supporting links:

HashTags.org: for tracking hashtags on twitter.
search.twitter.com: main search page for twitter, showing trending topics. Now also rolled into main Twitter interface.
Association People on Twitter: part of the Association Social Media Wiki.
Association Social Media Wiki: great site for seeing who is up to what with social media in the association world.

They Built It and We Were There: The Missing Tapes

Posted on by David
Reply

We had a great crowd at the webinar today. I spoke about increasing participation with association social media programs. About 100 sites signed on, many of them with teams listening in. We had over 30 questions submitted and I didn’t get through all of the promised content for the session. So, without further ado, here is a podcast of the 3 ways to kill an online community and the one secret to success. (Runtime: 5 minute-ish.)

[display_podcast]

Also, Ryan at Boston Conferencing is going to send me the unanswered questions which I will address in another podcast on this blog. Hope to record and post it over the weekend, so stay tuned!

By the way, I am available for keynotes and workshops to address your staff, members, customers and other audiences. Check out the speaking page for more. I’m starting to book out late summer and into fall now.

Hedging Software as a Service

Posted on by David
1

With marginal (and some formerly healthy!) companies being forced out of existence these days, it’s important to assess any technologies you use as a software as a service (SaaS) model.

The beautiful pro’s of SaaS-based services is that companies and organizations can access technologies and services at an affordable price point, paying monthly rather than massive annual licensing and support agreements. You also avoid needing to run or lease your own hardware for the service. A lot of companies can use tech that wouldn’t be availalbe to them otherwise.

However (you knew that was coming!), there are some risks that are much greater today than when growth was much easier for everyone. The primary risk is: what if the company providing the service goes under or ceases to offer the service you rely on? The more central that service is to your core operations, the higher this risk becomes.

That’s not to say that SaaS is a bad model. It’s a great one for many organizations and situations. Given our current economic environment, it’s good to assess your risk and do what you can to mitigate it.

Here are a few suggestions for minimizing and controlling that risk:

  • Back-up your data to your own storage. Your storage should be backed up as well
  • Identify other vendors who can potentially step into the breach. If the worst does happen you’ll need to get back up as quickly as you can. Knowing who is out there in advance will save you some valuable time.
  • Have a plan. What, precisely would you do if you had one week’s notice? How about no notice? For core services, this kind of disaster planning is critical.
  • Talk to your current SaaS provider frequently. Touch base at least once a month to see how things are going. Firms that are going to fail often give some clues before it happens if you are paying attention.

Proper planning and preparation can help hedge your SaaS risk to a great extent. The worst will still impact you but you’ll be able to get back in business much faster than you could otherwise.

Webinar Next Week: They Built It and We Were There

Posted on by David
2

I am leading a webinar with Boston Conferencing next week on social media and associations. The session is titled They Built It and We Were There: Maximizing Participation in Association Social Media Programs. The session will be held at 12 Noon Eastern on Thursday March 12.

Here is an audio summary of the program.

[display_podcast]

Lots of organizations are experimenting with social media these days. I often hear laments about lack of participation and engagement during early efforts. If that is something you are concerned about then this is the session for you!

Our learning objectives for the session include:

  • Top uses of social media to create value for associations and their members
  • A clear plan of action for developing and sustaining social media projects
  • Key staff and volunteer capabilities for working with social media
  • Concrete examples and ideas that you can use immediately

Should be a fun program! For those of you who were following me on Twitter earlier this week, the discussion about cathedrals and bazaars will be a central theme and framing device for our discussion of social media and associations.

I hope you will register for the program and join us online next Thursday!

NYT API – FTW!

Posted on by David
Reply

I saw via Twitter last week (sorry, can’t remember who posted it!) this post about the New York Times Newswire API. In essence, the Times has published an interface with which you can access their latest headlines, including tons of meta data options to slice and dice your query.

This kind of API tends to result in a lot of experimentation and new value in presenting the content available via the system. Twitter’s API is a great example of this.

Pretty innovative stuff. If you are in the business of moving content this is something to check out.

David Gammel's Web Strategy Report, Volume 2 Issue 2

Posted on by David
Reply

Subscribe to receive via e-mail.

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:

  1. 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.
  2. Open your eyes to the ideas that are all around us. They are literally everywhere.
  3. 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.

Creating New Ideas for Your Association Web Site

Posted on by David
1

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!

Creating Your Own Web Site Idea Generatorhttp://static.slideshare.net/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=websiteideageneratorgammel-090225060020-phpapp01&stripped_title=creating-your-own-web-site-idea-generator

View more presentations from David Gammel. (tags: web ideas)

My First Word of Mouth Whoa Moment

Posted on by David
Reply

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.

Great Ideas and Avectra Academy Appearances Soon!

Posted on by David
Reply

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.

Customer Service as Performance Art

Posted on by David
3

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.