#MMCCon Josh Bernoff General Session

27Apr11

The closing day of ASAE’s Membership, Marketing & Communications Conference (aka MMC) started off with Josh Bernoff. For those readers unfamiliar with Josh Bernoff, he’s the Sr VP – Idea Development with Forrester Research (full bio).

Though I came in a little late (yeah traffic!), here are my notes from the session:

500 Billion impressions through Social Media postings about brands

Tapping Your Members as A Channel

IDEA

I – Identify You Mass Influencers (Which of your customers spread the message?)
D – Deliver groundswell customer service (Reach out to those engaging in social channels)
E – Empower with mobile information (Provide support, service, info on mobile platforms)
A – Amplify your fan activity (Find your best customers; get them talking.)

Empowered Organizations and People

Hero Compact -

HEROes – Know the custom needs, use technolog to serve customers, operate safely
Managers – Make innovation a priority, support HEROes, works with IT
IT – Support HEROes with technology, scale up solutions, manage risk

HERO Project Effort-Value Evaluation

Measuring your people’s readiness: The HERO Index

Questions they asked:
- Do you feel empowered to use technology?
- Do they act resourcefully?

Disenfranchised Employees (not empowered or resourceful)
Locked Down (Feel empowered, but not resourceful)
Rogue Employees (Act resourceful, but don’t feel empowered)
HERO Employees (Feel empowered & act resourceful)

1 in 5 nonprofit employees falls into the Rogue Employee category.

Making Your Heros Productive

1. Embrace New Technologies
2. Encourage Experimentation
3. Connect to Collaboration Systems

A copy of his slides are available here.

One of my favorite moments happened in the questions after. There is a huge challenge within the association world about what is member-only content and what is not. Josh offers the advice of defining what is member content and what is not. It’s a smart, simple solution to a big challenge within the association world. Decide what is premium and what is not, but don’t get greedy about it.

My only note, and this is for most ASAE keynotes I see, professional associations are not like all non-profits. I completely commend Mr. Bernoff for talking about non-profits, but for the most part his examples where of 501c3 and most of ASAE’s members are 501c6, there’s a big difference between the two.