Where Have All the Members Gone - Panel

I thought I would post the results from the conference survey since we ran shor of time at the conference.

Seated from left to right are: Beth Yoke of the Young Adult Library Association,Tami Bensky of Maryland Association of CPAs, Stephen Abrams of the Special Libraries Association, Paul Pomerantz of the American Society of Plastic Surgery, Stuart Meyer of the Emergency Nurses Association and Bonnie Cramer of American Association of Retired People. Ad that is me, Tom Hood of MACPA standing.

The Survey Results...

The top three issues Associations are struggling with in addressing the needs of the new generation of members are:

1. Integrating new technologies and approaches with existing Association structures (leadership, governance, departments, etc)
2. Time to experiment with new technologies
3. Understanding the potential of Web 2.0

Our panel's advice in this area was:

1. Call it "beta"
2. Don't call it Web 2.0 - it is really about engagement and participation!
3. Don't be afraid to try it - we should be inspired by Stephen Abrams 23 things in 15 minutes a day...
4. There is a real sense of urgency - could we lose relevance if we do not adopt these technologies early?
5. Get young members involved early so they have a real voice

The top five technologies Associations currently use or plan to use are:

1. Blogs
2. Podcasts
3. Social networking (myspace, facebook, etc)
4. Photo sharing like flickr
5. Video sharing like Youtube

Well that's it for this post, tell me what you think? I am off to make my wikipedia entry about our Association.