Our new One Stop Product Demo Series is going strong. We've updated our landing pages to make it easy for you to register for upcoming live demos & to access the recorded demos that you can watch on-demand. 

Is it just us, or have you also found July to be both the fastest month & yet the longest month thus far in 2015? We have been busy, busy, busy spreading the digital word and talking one-on-one to so many organizations who are discovering what inbound marketing can offer! While this is exactly what we're trying to get more buzz about, people take time! Our time has been taken up on good problems to have--a lot of engagement and inquiry--two sure signs that the mission of the brand is making things happen.

Before I worked at HighRoad, I thought of Canada as a big,friendly neighbor to the north. Full of wonderful cities, clean air and big skies with adorable people who have the uncanny ability to be incredibly nice while being tough as nails in a fight. My sons play a bunch of Canadian teams in their lacrosse lives and even there you can find a dad who is throwing out an even keel "C'mon ref, let 'em play. They're just boys. Keep it up, Scotty!" while his gargantuan son Scotty flattens the American kid with an illegal body check and puts one on net. Yes, I love Canada and always have. I'm the only kid I know from Washington, DC that convinced my parents to take me to Canada to look for colleges and then, later in life, ended up with a BFF from Montreal who finally taught me that the reason I'm cold in winter is that Washingtonians continue to wear cotton which is a laughable fabric to Canadians.

I'm happy to see that our association market is starting to pick up the thread on using personas to grow and focus. Personas are a great tool for getting into the right mindset (#1 issue in associations that are holding them back from growing in my professional opinion) of modern marketing. They are also great at aligning departments to get over internal egos that are causing your communications to come off as greedy.

I live in DC and despite being a very powerful world capital with no end to diversity, I still have to fight the Political Correctness Good Girl Voices that tell me we can look something straight in the face and pretend we don't see it. In light of this week's NAACP Spokane story whereby the leader chose to be black, I have to ask: when are we comfortable enough to get real about diversity, race and being able to acknowledge reality? I think the interpretation and handling of diversity is of particular importance to associations as they need to quickly define (redefine?) the critical question:

What is Reality?

Is your organization being real about the state of your target growth populations? Are you looking at the impact of culture on future member's tastes and preferences? Are you understanding the level of diversity and how much impact the fusion of cultures has had on mainstream America? 

Mark your calendars for June 30th because it's time for our Q2 Client Innovation Call! We call Q2 the Marathon Quarter because of the sheer number of activities, projects and events that we've completed.

Big Observations for Q2

The biggest thing we noticed during Q2 is the emphasis on reporting and the need for better member insights. You guys have spoken and asked us hard questions such as "Why is it so hard to get data together in one place so it's actionable?".  We also heard time and time again that organizations are under pressure to have a deeper understanding of their members so that experiences can be personalized. It seems like we're finally at an inflection point where we're willing to stop mass mailing and really take on contextual marketing.