Technology Continues to Surprise Association Leaders

You don’t need a smart watch, drone or 3D glasses to know that technology is evolving at a dizzying pace today with no sign of slowing down. As preliminary results of our unscientific reader poll reveal, three in five respondents (60 percent) say technology is the one single area of the association spectrum in which they’ve seen the most surprises recently. No other area comes close. About 20 percent of respondents say they’ve been most surprised by non-dues revenue developments and another 20 percent of respondents say membership growth (or decline) is the area in which they’ve seen the most surprises since early 2014.

So far, areas such as mobile and social media, video, Big Data, lobbying, advocacy or career tool, have received less than one percent of the response pool.

While associations and their members are not always the earliest of adapters of technology, they are taking steps to be more proactive about closing the gap. According to Fara Francis, chief information officer of the Associated General Contractors of America, there has been a big shift over the past five years in which association technology departments are gradually being invited to help shape the organization’s overall business direction.

“Association leadership now welcomes IT leaders to sit at the table to participate in identifying the business strategy and goals,” said Francis. “With this posture, technology is now given significant consideration in most associations and as such, a plethora of technology trends are now being adopted and implemented,” she added.

See additional comments from Francis in Hank Berkowitz’s feature story today.