I'm either proud or ashamed (on any given day it varies) to say that I've been in and out of the association world for about 20 years so I have a certain longitudinal perspective on trends and certainly, on digital technology adoption. I worked at National League for Nursing way back in 1996 while I was studying at Columbia in an admin role and the only reason we had a computer was for email.  Over the course of twenty years, I was here for the advent of websites moving from brochureware to content management systems and was on the front wave when social media and mobile hit.

I've worked on every type of software product that associations use and how to best apply these to business challenges. What that translates into is hundreds of completed projects and probably more that weren't completed because of shifting priorities, summer Fridays off and slashed budgets. Hundreds? Yes, I mean hundreds and that probably equates to thousands of meetings spent consulting with associations cross-departmentally to understand how their normal course of business can translate to digital, how digital can be used to promote, measure and increase their brand reach and how workflow processes change when digital is central to the process.

So here we are in 2016 and I'm fascinated to see that there is a new trend emerging that is busting up the predominant philosophy that has governed association management thinking for the last 20 years:

Stop the do-it-yourself (DIY) madness and outsource the work.

With trends ever increasing in online education it’s important to ask if your organization is using eLearning Best Practices.  While eLearning is continuously evolving, some of the foundations of teaching and learning remain constant, yet it’s important to make sure you are also keeping up with new trends in the market of digital learning. Making sure your organization is following the Best Practices in online education will increase learner retention and customer satisfaction.  Here are Five Best Practices to help learner success: 

The themes of change, rapid evolution of technology and the need to innovate aren’t new themes from today’s perspective. What is new is the rate at which this transformative change is happening and the certainty of how it will affect associations. Fusions Productions put together another great conference this year, Digital Now 2016, to not only highlight these themes but truly focus on how to move past the fear that comes with rapid change and embrace the opportunity to innovate the traditional association model.

The Top 2016 Association & Non-Profit Innovators have been announced and will be celebrated the evening of Wednesday, January 27th in Crystal City, Virginia. We are thrilled to see so many of our clients get the nod & recognition that they deserve for pushing association marketing to a new level of excellence.

I can't believe I just caught myself saying that we should change digital to fit the print mindset. It's true, I'm guilty. I'm working into the wee hours because I want change and change doesn't usually fit into the typical 40 (or even 35 work hour week of some associations) hour week. Change is an investment, it's a discipline and it has a voice all its own--even to the change agent.