One of the great things about attending the ASAE Annual Conference is that for a few days you get the opportunity to be totally immersed in all things associations, and this year was no exception. From the trade show to the education tracks, to the networking opportunities (rain or shine!) it lived up to its billing as the “not to be missed” event of the year. I particularly enjoyed being in Nashville, my second favorite music city, next to Austin.
Downtown Nashville also provided the perfect setting to host the second YM Thought Leader Summit, where we pulled together many of the people who so generously share their time and talents to help drive YourMembership’s thought leadership initiatives. We have been working with this team for three years, and it is a real privilege to collaborate with this outstanding group of association professionals.
When we started the Resource Center in 2011 the emphasis was on the written word. We offered hundreds of content pieces, including e-Books, whitepapers, articles, tools and templates to any association professional free of charge for them to use.
In 2014 the emphasis turned to video and webinars. With YouTube ranked as the second largest search engine around, averaging 3 billion searches per month, it only made sense to focus our efforts there. Video is only second to face-to-face interaction as a tool to humanize your brand and content.
The results have been exciting. We launched the YM YouTube Channel, dubbed RCTV with videos from our monthly CAE Webinar Series, our new Ask the Thought Leader series, and the thought leadership sessions from Xperience2014, YM’s Annual Customer Conference. We covered topics ranging from online communities, the 2014 job market, gamification and Gen Y, and a try before you buy membership model, just to name a few.
CAE Webinar Series
The CAE approved Thought Leadership Series has grown in popularity each month since we launched in November 2013. Below is a list of our webinars broadcasted to date:
- Getting Gen Y to play: The influence of gaming on today’s (and tomorrow’s) association leadership with Shelly Alcorn, CAE
- The Strategic Value of an Integrated Online Community – Stepping Beyond Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to Deliver More Value to Your Members with Ben Martin, CAE
- Social Networking, Mission Creep, and the 2014 Job Market – The Potential Risks and Rewards for Your Association with Rick Rutherford
- Getting to the “Good Stuff”: Evidence-Based Decision Making for Associations with Elizabeth Engel, M.A., CAE and Peter Houstle
- Looking Forward 2014: Critical Factors for Associations and their Members Today and Beyond with Dean West, FASAE
- Flipping the Membership Equation: Thinking Different about Member Retention and Recruitment with Rick Rutherford
- High Touch Membership in a High Tech World with Shelly Alcorn, CAE and Rick Rutherford
Ask the Thought Leader Series
Designed as a follow up to our CAE Webinar series, we launched our Ask the Thought Leader series, which allowed us to focus on questions submitted during our monthly webinars and provide in depth answers. It all began with our first video featuring a number of association executives entitled “What Keeps You Up at Night?”
Below is a list of our Ask the Thought Leader episodes broadcasted to date:
- What Keeps You Up at Night?
- Ask the Thought Leader Episode 1 with Shelly Alcorn, CAE
- Ask the Thought Leader: Episode 2 with Elizabeth Engel, MA, CAE and Peter Houstle
- Ask the Thought Leader – Episode 3 with Willis Turner, CAE, CME, CSE
- Ask the Thought Leader – Episode 4 with Rick Rutherford
- Ask the Thought Leader – Episode 5 with Shelly Alcorn, CAE
Xperience 2014
One of the real highlights for our YM customers this year was the strong participation from the Thought Leadership team at Xperience 2014, our Annual Customer Conference. They presented some of the most popular sessions at the conference.
Below are the Thought Leadership sessions from Xperience 2014
- Xperience2014 Shrink to Grow – A Counterintuitive Path to Relevance with Mary Byers, CAE
- Xperience2014 Climbing the Ladder of Engagement with Your Members and Prospects with Elizabeth Engel, MA, CAE
- Xperience2014 Strategic Alliances: How to do More With Less with Mary Byers, CAE
- Xperience2014: 5 Ways to Improve Your Association’s Marketing with Willis Turner, CAE, CME, CSE
- Xperience2014 Attention Doesn’t Scale: The Role of Content Curation in Membership Organizations with Elizabeth Engel, MA, CAE
- Xperience2014 – Sexy Data – Using Data to Wow Your Board with Kathie Pugaczewski, CAE, CMP
We are currently putting together our CAE Webinar Series schedule for 2015 from the ideas our team brought to the table at our Summit in Nashville. We will finish out 2014 with webinars presented by Peggy Hoffman, CAE and Mary Byers, CAE, and Holly Duckworth, CAE.
