Archive for the ‘Posted by Alex McLachlan’ Category

Institutions as Mobilising Networks

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

The book I’m reading at the moment is “The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age“. The book links to a number of themes I’m interested in, particularly developing knowledge content and user generated content (and also a number of the drivers indentified in the recent NCVO future of membership report).

The book looks at how new technology such as social networks and virtual environments will change how people learn. And although the book is aimed mainly at higher education, there is plenty of read across into the membership organisations as many are knowledge-based and/or educational.

I’ve just finished the chapter titled “Institutions as Mobilising Networks” which contrasts how institutions are often viewed - as rule-driven, centralised, old fashioned and slow moving - with how they could be - trend setting, dynamic, agile and innovative.

The key opportunity (or challenge, depending on how you look at it) is: to use social media and learning environments to aggregate, coordinate and disseminate knowledge and facilitate learning - to mobilise the network of members and other potential participants.

Taking up this challenge could dramatically improve engagement and knowledge development in an institution’s area of interest.

Membership Marketing

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

I’ve been following the (US) membership marketing blog for a few months now and there have been a number of interesting posts for anyone in the membership sector.

Some examples of recent posts that have caught my eye:

  • Membership Renewals: A Couple of Quick Tips
  • 7 Proven Ways to Grow Your Membership
  • Growing concern over membership value
  • What strategy leads to membership growth
  • Open OS Map use gains momentum

    Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

    The increased availability of Ordinance Survey map data was trailed in the Governement’s Power of Information Taskforce Report in 2009.

    The OS’s OpenSpace API for using interactive OS map data on websites is gaining momentum with the release of additional developer resources, which now include a wiki, blog and forum. There are some good example applications on the wiki, including where to find “Boris’s Bikes”.

    OpenSpace is free for use by not-for-profit organisations as long as the service is not charged for and is not behind a member-only login. There are daily limits on the data downloaded and the terms and conditions need careful scrutiny (as always). A “pro” version is also available.

    For many there will be a usability decision to be made between this and Google Maps, with OpenSpace having significant advantages for applications to do with walking or away from major centres (as demonstrated by my experience of trying to navigate the South Downs Way using Google Maps on my iPhone).

    Book Review: The Best Service is No Service

    Monday, August 23rd, 2010

    The Best Service is No Service” by Bill Price and David Jaffe is an excellent book that ought to be compulsory reading for all companies with a customer service element, mostly because so many of them are so very far from providing even reasonable service.

    The book gives clear, practical advice and loads of examples of where service has gone wrong and of best practice (plenty of examples from Amazon and first direct for instance in this category).

    A few of the most significant points they make are:

  • Good quality self service has major benefits, making it easier for users to do what they want, when they want and significantly reduce operational costs
  • Get rid of unnecessary reasons for people to contact you (”dumb contacts” is the phrase they use in the book) - eliminate contacts that have no value to the customer and no value to the organisation
  • Value those contacts and relationships that are most important to you and have the greatest benefit to the organisation
  • Gather metrics on what people are trying to find out about, both on the website and through calls
  • “Service” is not just the province of a contact / service centre, it is equally important across the whole operation
  • The advice should transform customer experience where it is poor and have a major impact on the bottom line of companies who take notice.

    It is interesting to think about how this impacts on the NFP sector. I think the key issues are:

  • NFP organisations are different from the Amazons and BTs of this world. The relationships with their key stakeholders (particularly members / supporters) are more complex and long term, especially where it forms an important part of their career development or social engagement. This makes the following points even more important.
  • It shows the need for joined-up service, which is likely to be across the whole set of services and interactions - knowing about the member or supporter and their interests across all departments, not just the contact centre and using that information to provide excellent service.
  • Route calls and enquiries to the people who are best suited to provide the best answer.
  • Give ownership of important relationships to the most appropriate department (not necessarily the contact centre).
  • It is particularly important to provide good self service.
  • The two key IT elements of this are:

  • The website needs to have good self service functionality and provide information to eliminate the need for people to phone / email. So, people should be able to update their details, make donations, pay their subscriptions, book events, etc.
  • The CRM needs to be interfaced to the website and be the repository for contact history, preferences, areas of interest and information needed for marketing.
  • Also available: ebook version

    The Future of Membership

    Friday, July 23rd, 2010

    The NCVO has just released the Third Sector Foresight report “What will membership be like in 5 years time?“. The report identifies major drivers that will impact membership organisation over the next 5 years and beyond:

  • changing sources of identity
  • changing attitudes to money and consumerism
  • increasing availability of free information
  • the rise of the social web
  • changing expectations of participation
  • the commodification of membership
  • There are some interesting pointers to how these challenge current models of membership, suggested next steps and a case study.

    It provides a useful starting point for thinking strategically about the impact of the drivers on membership models, engagement … and business and IT changes.

    See also - the blog by Katherine Hudson, one of the authors and member of the NCVO Third Sector Foresight team.

    When is it time for an Intranet?

    Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

    It can be difficult to decide when it is the right time to deploy an Intranet, particularly because of the hype that surrounds the topic. As in most cases, it is more helpful to look at the benefits to the business rather than be swayed by the hype.

    The main business advantages come when a company or organisation is large enough that some of the following are useful (typically when you don’t know everyone in the company, or there are shift patterns / geographical spread):

  • directory lookup including more than just the Active Directory type information, listing areas of expertise, etc
  • news group / forum type features for sharing expertise or solving problems
  • information resources that are updated relatively frequently, such as HR, quality system, standard purchasing list (there can be a problem here of staff not being aware of the latest HR policy though)
  • useful applications, perhaps a purchasing system with workflows, linked to the purchasing list
  • where some internal communications are relevant to a subset of the staff (perhaps a division or special interest group); it can be more helpful to have this available on a “pull” basis by the user, rather than a “push” email to all
  • email summaries can be sent at user selectable intervals of what’s new and what’s changed with the detail on linked pages
  • as an extension to document sharing, particularly when SharePoint is used
  • Considering these can avoid investing in a white elephant that no one looks at.

    Clay Shirky - Cognitive Surplus

    Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

    Clay Shirky launched his new book “Cognitive Surplus” at the LSE yesterday evening (also available: podcast and video). The “Cognitive Surplus” comes from a combination of the increase in free time since the mid 1900s and the recently developed medium for coordinated action.

    This follows “Here Comes Everybody: How Change Happens when People Come Together” which is one of the seminal texts for the impact of social media on society.

    As well as presenting some excellent material from his book, I found him a very engaging speaker. His main theme (amongst a fair few) was that digital communications and social media is providing opportunities for previously unmet social/psychological needs. So, it has provided opportunities for example, to counter attacks on Indian women considered by right-wing activists to be behaving inappropriately.

    He suggested categories of opportunities:

  • Communal - there are numerous examples of communities of people with common interests sharing photos, jokes, etc.
  • Public, such as Wikipedia.
  • Civic - where there could be significant impact on our culture, such as political opposition and moves to much more openness in medical records.
  • Among his examples, conclusions and suggestions were:

  • It has taken 100 million hours of effort so far to create Wikipedia. This may seem large, but the US population consumes more hours of TV commercials than this in a weekend.
  • The power of brands will decline significantly.
  • Marketing and communications professionals need to switch from their current approach of either being in broadcast mode (advertising) or receiving mode (research), to a far more conversational approach.
  • In the third world, mobile is far more important than PCs, so incorporating SMS into solutions needs serious consideration.
  • Cultivating Knowledge through Communities of Practice

    Thursday, June 24th, 2010

    A very interesting slide set - Cultivating knowledge through Communities of Practice - from Steve Dale, the information architect for the award winning local government “Community Hub” online community. He sets out the fundamentals for setting up and encouraging Communities of Practice and the different ways of sharing and developing knowledge.

    The presentation takes is business-focused (rather than IT-focused), looking at the methods and roles to get successful Communities.

    Using SharePoint for Intranets … with care

    Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

    SharePoint is a popular choice for Intranets, and with the release of SharePoint 2010, is likely to become even more popular.

    There have, however (in common with other areas of IT), been some expensive failures.

    With this in mind, there is some useful advice in Jacob Nielsen’s latest article “Does SharePoint Destroy Intranet Design?“, particularly the need to carefully consider the needs of the target audience.

    Microsoft Dynamics CRM NFP Announcements

    Friday, May 28th, 2010

    There have been some interesting announcements by Microsoft on its Dynamics CRM product and additions it is making for the charity sector.

    See:

  • Microsoft announcement for US and Canada
  • NFP Techno article giving more details
  • Civil Society article confirming UK release