Did you attend Higher Logic Super Forum this past week? What were some of your biggest takeaways? For me – it was understanding the importance of community data to associations and organizations. One session in particular titled "Buried Insight: Do More with the Data Your Association Generates" presented by Jon Wivagg and Pauline Siobhan Karpowicz, MBA, CAE, from Westat Center for Association Services took a deep dive into the importance of data. In case you missed out on Higher Logic Super Forum or were unable to attend Buried Insights, I will give a quick recap of my biggest takeaways about identifying and leveraging data!

I spent the beginning of my week surrounded by the orange army at Higher Logic Super Forum. While there was a tremendous amount of buzz surrounding Higher Logics new acquisitions, communities remained the unwavering showstopper at this year’s conference. What is it that makes these online groups so valuable to associations? Some value-adds are the ability of these channels to act as an avenue for support, feedback, and generating lasting relationships. However, the true value-adds of communities (in my opinion) is in their effectiveness for sales enablement and their ability to help with prospecting and engagement.

Every month DCA Live puts on an event to highlight DC's top talent in business, technology, non profit and legal communities. HighRoad is a proud sponsor of the Trending 40 Event and its mission. This week I had the opportunity to attend Trending 40 with fellow HighRoader's Woo Yun and Dave Martin. We all agree that this event never disappoints with its all star guests, great food and trendy atmosphere. While this event is always a success, this months event stands out among all others. Many of HighRoad's clients were brought forward as 2017 technology stars.

Our hats go off to

American Society for Microbiology

American Pharmacists Association

American Trucking Associations

Military Officers Association of America

American Psychiatric Association

As I sat on a plane last week to Chicago for the OrgCommunity 2017 Solutions Day, I reminisced on my experiences from the inaugural OrgCommunity Solutions Day 2016.  Plenty of good experiences came from last year’s show and I worried my expectations for this year might be too high and no chance for a repeat.  Like a movie sequel, how fresh could this event be?  I am happy to report Solutions Day 2017 was again a great experience and event!  

With any good omni-channel marketing campaign there is the planning stage, execution stage, and evaluation stage. As we near the end of the year, executing on our plan for 2017, it is interesting to begin to evaluate how well we responded to key trends for 2017. From last year’s Forbes article on 2017 Trends, I have pulled out the topics most relevant for associations and wrote in questions to ask and reflect on as an organization. Starting well before winter should help to gain insight for planning and preparing for new trends to account for in 2018.

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