Dear Members- I am interested in starting a dialogue about participation. I recently was made aware of an ASAE (American Society of Assn Executives) report regarding the impetus to join an association. Apparently this was a two year study. I have ordered it and am awaiting its arrival. The abstract stated two things-
1) Associations exist to serve membership and therefore member participation must be a performance metric for all associations
2) Board of Directors may be out of touch with the participatory venues and needs of the rank and file membership.
One of the items I have been questioning is the value of some of our programming- I figure that is my job to constantly and consistently reassess our programming for its value proposition. A discussion at a recent board meeting centered around an event that had tremendous attendance. The board was very pleased at all the warm bodies in the seats.
I wonder if we are measuring participation in the most valuable manner? Are warm bodies the only measure? Our online auction really hit the point home in my mind. We ran it for 5 days but it really started cooking the third day. Many members participated and really seemed to enjoy the online, e-bay style event and it received a great deal of positive comment. Even though these members did not leave their offices/homes they actively participated in a board event. I look at our Facebook site where participating members seem to just double every month and I assert are they not participating in the social fabric of our association- is this not networking? I have had several members express their pleasure with the blogs. So if these members are reading and in a sense attending a group conference with the CEO, MLS techs & Pres-Elect are they not participating in shaping and leading the membership?
I know that for the first time in our society there are 4 generational groups in the marketplace. This means four generational groups in our association. I completely get that the Civics and the Baby Boomers like to attend things. They value physical attendance. I think I am one of those weird people because I am on the cusp of two generations- depending on which study you read I am either a baby boomer or a Gen-Xer. I am an equal split as far as demographic traits go. And no, I am not going to reveal my age, I am a girl after all, but I will reveal that my photo was retouched to make me look younger- the photog's idea not mine. I think that is why I feel comfortable with social media and with traditional gatherings.
I also have been seriously educated from recent conferences that Gen X and Gen Y do not value physical attendance nearly as much. If they do physically attend they are much more likely to attend a political rally or a Habitat Build .They do not necessarily like or need face to face but actually prefer texting, blogging, facebooking, twittering etc. For these members the participation is Facebook and Blogging.
In summation, I am asking you, the membership, to help me define the membership participation to be used as a performance metric. I would be VERY interested in your thoughts and comments on this subject.
PS I am raising a Millenial (she's 15) and I struggle to relate to her every day- so more change is yet to come and we need to be ready to adapt!
7 comments:
Dawn, you painted a broad brush with the meaning of participation. I think their are different levels by which to measure. As an older post war boomer, it has been my experience that the percentage of constant participation is 10% or less. What you are hoping for is a random sampling of this groupthat is diverse enough to constitute a trend. If you are wondering about reacting and commneting on a blog the percentage will be less than 1%because blogs are not common within the membership. A greater participation will only come with education. Large participation is maybe the impossible dream unless required to maintain a license or membership it won't happen. It is my opinion that the large majority of the membership is busy with their jobs and their outside of real estate life. For them, they depend on the 10% and you will only here from them when something or some decision goes terribly wrong.
Well, I think you make my point when you speak of painting with a broad brush.
Pretend you are hosting an open house- you had 10 couples show up on a Sunday. Pretend you concurrently had a virtual open house that had over 200 hits. How many people participated in your open house? What would you consider the greater success- the live or the virtual?
Would you be disappointed if you had 1000 eyes on your virtual open house and no one showed up for your open house?
And do both sets have the same value in your opinion? Should we rate one set at a different standard?
I agree with Joe P about warm bodies & percentages.. an open house with 10 vistors means a sale, 1-2 Buyers,& 3-4 probables for follow up. Virtual tour 200 hits is 200 hits !! ? I checked your blog back to 8-13 and the MLS blog to 8-11 combined comments 12; 8 by readers and 4 by mls staff add it all up thats .00275th of 1% not a very good return on the investment of time.
"The link I clinked took me to e-mail this blog - guess I don't do enough blogging! LOL! Love to have info online. If there is time meetings are enjoyable to meet the people we talk with on the phone - that would be great."
"I get as much if not sometimes more out of networking from facebook as attending a meeting. This way I am ggetting to know people sometimes I sit back and listen and sometimes I put my 2 cents in. I don't always have time for an hour or two meeting and what if my friends don't show up. I always have friends on fb or I log off...."
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