Ever since I discovered blogs, it’s like a new world has opened up and all sorts of new possibilities are arising in my mind, which never occurred to me before. Anyways, along this line, I am brainstorming an idea here and want to put it out there for input to see if it has any merit and if it’s even possible. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. Just throwing it out there to test it out. Hope you all don’t mind.
One of the things I think about often is what can we offer to our members, similar to certification programs, that essentially serve as Golden Handcuffs, where we know the members will renew their membership each and every year.
What I am observing is that the Blogging community, as well as other types of social media, is on the increase – not only “blog owners” but also those who are signing onto blogs as participants. This is going to only increase over time. And there maybe an opportunity here for us associations. Blogging provides not only good learning, one also starts to form emotional bonds and make more friends. Therefore, between the various blogs, my hunch is that if we were to total up the number of folks participating, this could add up to a huge number of members, and possibly even non-members.
So here’s what I am thinking and wondering out loud:
1. Currently, from what I have observed, the blog addresses go something like this:
(Individual Blog Name).wordpress.com
(Individual Blog Name).Blogspot.com
So even though many of us who are part of the ASAE membership, our blogs are independent of ASAE. So if were to drop our ASAE membership one day, we could still continue to operate our blogs as well as retain all those who have signed on, if those participants choose to do so.
2. Once someone starts a blog, it’s highly likely they will want to hold onto it for a long long time. And the more one posts, and as more and more folks have signed on, the more “difficult” it will be for one to “let go” of the blog.
So here’s my thought – question.
Say for us ASAE members, does the technology exist where we each can create our own blogs — but rather then using say wordpress or blogspot, we create our blogs through an ASAE blog technology? So for example, the blog name could be as follows:
(Individual Blog Name).Blog.ASAEnet.org
Then each of the various blogs we members of the ass’n community are creating, or signing on as participants, they all go through the ASAE technology?
But then the question might come up as to why should we do this through ASAE when we have free technology already out there and we’re not tied to ASAE.
To encourage this, say ASAE can create say a blog directory that they use to “promote” each and every blog that is on this “domain”. Thus everyone is linked in some way – but in the end it all goes through ASAE.
Furthermore, since these reside on ASAE “domain”, to participate, whether it’s your blog, or you have signed onto a blog, you must be an active full paying member of ASAE. So by having these blogs reside on ASAE “domain”, ASAE has essentially come up with “golden handcuffs” for a large part of it’s community.
Is this possible? Does it make sense? Any merit here? If this is possible and makes sense, then imagine, other associations can do the same for their memberships. What do you guys think?
Again, maybe it’s a wild and crazy idea. And maybe even just plain way off the wall with no merit or potential. But I won’t know till I put it out there. Thus, this posting.
Vinay
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Vinay Kumar
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E Vinay@grcdirect.com
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February 17, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Vinay – it is totally possible, and some associations are doing it already (I think). We have looked at several association social media solutions, and I think all have member profiles with blogs as features. We might have to work a little more with the IT department to secure PURLs for each one, but giving each member a blog is a definite possibility and I think you will see more of it in 2008.
February 17, 2008 at 6:28 pm
This is fantastic Matt. Thanks.