Engaging Despite Our Member's Busy Schedules

When it comes to our schedules, it seems like COVID is over. All my friends are back to the headless chicken dance of work, home, events, travel, and if they are lucky, maybe a bit of sleep - me too. Time is at a premium again, and no one has enough of it.

I've been thinking about how our efforts to engage members must shift to accommodate our member’s re-found ultra-busy schedules.

The Association Societies Alliance, a group of many state-society association executives organizations, hired me to pilot a Member Engagement Lab Series. The three-part series convened every two weeks for  90-minutes. We saw a slight drop off in attendance from lab to lab. The reviews were great, so if it is not the programming, did lack of time become the barrier to engagement? Or perhaps the relatively long duration between labs is the culprit. It is hard to know without testing every possibility. When we created the pilot, I knew I needed the two-week spacing to create the content, but now that the labs are complete, I am free to play with the timing. The next time I run the labs, I'd love to test conducting them weekly or perhaps on three consecutive days to see the impact on attendance.

One way we can try to fit into our member's busy schedules is to experiment with both duration and cadence. Is it easier for your unique members to block off a whole day? Or half of two consecutive days? Or an hour each week for eight weeks? The answer will likely differ for every member community and will change over time. The 6-day conference of 2015 will probably look a lot different in the future.