There is no question that change is inevitable. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “you can’t ignore change, you must embrace it!” When it comes to technology, understanding and investing in the right areas is critical to an organization’s health and future success.
According to the Harvard Business Review three factors affect what an organization can and cannot do: its resources, its processes, and its values. What keeps me up at night, and my team fired up to come to work each day, is how we can design and deliver technology-based solutions that will help associations to:
- Maximize their resources, both financial and human
- Improve their processes, enabling them to be more efficient in their daily work
- Deliver high value content and services to members that align with the organization’s stated values
We are halfway through the first quarter of 2015 and I can honestly say that our focus on identifying and bringing to market the products and services that will enrich the lives of associations and their members has never been greater. I want to highlight three areas where we will experience significant change this year that will ultimately have a positive impact on the associations we serve as well as their members.
Usability & Design
We understand usability and design as key components to opening the window to member engagement. When you think about it, an association’s website is where the vast majority of members and prospects will interact. Everything about a membership software platform’s design must keep those visitors in mind. Streamlined navigation, illustrative reporting, and quick and easy access to the most commonly used tools and features need to be designed with the admin user and their members’ perspectives in the forefront. We are excited about the changes we will bring to market this year, touching all of our future product enhancements.
Mobile
There is no question that associations are being forced to compete in an on-demand, 24/7 world in order to succeed. That means attracting and serving mobile consumers. We’ve taken big steps to meet the growing expectations of today’s association members while preparing for tomorrow. From our perspective, it’s all about responsive design—any device, anywhere. In our vision that includes mobile responsive job boards, buyers’ guides, websites, email templates and more.
A great example would be for an association to be able to create a mobile event app that would provide access to keynote speakers, sessions, schedules, networking, and more. We know that members are on the go and it is vital to create the best experience possible so they can quickly access information when attending conferences and events.
Member Engagement
We know that nothing is more important than creating and sustaining value for an association’s members. Key to that goal is being able to design and deliver a new mobile responsive member engagement platform. A platform that fosters a member experience that drives daily engagement by providing new & improved networking solutions, education, relevant content, and career opportunities. It is our view that an active member leads to individual member growth, and member growth equals association success.
We’re Focused on the Future
To be able to design and deliver solutions that elevate our customers we have to be really good at doing two things at once – keeping an ear open to the challenges and needs our customers share with us, while keeping an eye on new technologies entering the marketplace. We are excited about the product enhancements we will be releasing in 2015, and confident that our associations and their members will have opportunities to engage in entirely new ways.
