NUCLEUS ANALYTICS BLOG

Having worked in the association space since 1992, I have attended my share of ASAE Annual Meetings – Detroit, Dallas, LA, Hawaii – too many to list. This year, I took part in more than a dozen sessions, some live and some on-demand, with most of my focus being on those sessions that were dedicated to the actual business of an association and better serving membership (as opposed to individual leadership improvement or similar content).

While the specific aspects of association business were varied, ranging from Non-Dues Revenue, Content Marketing, Increasing Member Value, Chapters and Components, Member Engagement, or Association Technology, a thread running through each and every one was....

Live Events, Virtual Events, Online Conferences... no matter what you call them, they are here to stay. If you have been following the American Society of Association Executives’ (ASAE) online communities, virtual events are the hottest topic – and for good reason. Most associations have been running their annual conference the same way for years but have had to swiftly move on-line and run their meeting virtually. Fortunately, our CAE training kept us from panicking!

Published by SAS, May 2020 - Data Scientist Kirk Borne on the value of universal understanding of data and its effect on society.

InformationWeek just ran an interesting article titled “Why Everyone’s Data and Analytics Strategy Just Blew Up”. They sum it up starkly: "Customer behavior has changed and company operations have changed. If your data and analytics strategy isn't keeping up with what's happening, then you have important work to do, quickly." We couldn’t agree more – you need Fast Data.

On April 14^th, Associations Now published an article titled “How the COVID-19 Crisis Is Accelerating the Shift to Online Member Engagement.” In putting forth these ideas, ASAE is emphasizing to the member industry the fact that trends towards online member engagement are not new and not subtle – just that they are accelerating in response to the pandemic.

Gravitate is thrilled to announce that we added a self-service visualization builder to the Nucleus Data Analytics platform.  Self-Service is a game-changer for our clients as they can now add an unlimited number of charts and graphs to Nucleus without needing our help. 

Making the case for Data Analytics being budget-neutral in Year One

At most associations, it is difficult to argue that better information is not a good thing – that better understanding your current members, potential members, and the broader constituency would not benefit the organization.

It’s also difficult to argue that Data Analytics, in today’s era of so much member data spread across so many systems, does not provide better information. 

Gravitate attended four association-focused conferences in the last quarter of 2019 – AMSFest, Community Brands Xperience, Higher Logic HUG, and ASAE Tech.  

At each conference, we asked participants “What is your greatest data challenge?” and thought the results were interesting.  The responses clustered as follows:

Community Brands recently published a large-scale study that detailed 8 strategies association executives can use to modernize their organizations for 2020. In recent years, “Modernize” has become a buzzword for associations looking to make the most out of available technology in the same way that “superfood” has become a buzzword used to sell kale and blueberries. While navigating the world of quinoa and chia seeds can be frustrating, difficult, and often tasteless, it is almost undeniably good for you - as is properly-executed “Modernization.”

Inefficient as it sounds today, it was not uncommon in the 1990’s to hear that an association was going to build their own Association Management System (AMS) rather than purchase an existing one.  When we heard that, we’d generally put a reminder in our sales tracking system to contact them again in 18 months. By then, most would have spent a lot of money, failed to achieve the goals established by the organization, and lost some or all the technical staff who were working on the project.  For those who persevered and were mildly successful, they were still challenged with retaining their key technical talent and keeping the system up to date. By the mid-2000s, you seldom heard of an association taking this approach.