Tuesday, September 25, 2007

See if anyone notices

New association executive (and blogger) Maddie Grant is deciding to stop some association activities - to see if anyone notices. That system works. I may have had a print newsletter forever except 15 years ago the printer screwed up, it was never sent, and no one missed it. My membership e-newsletter has no particular frequency (often sent several times a week) - but if whole week goes by without sending one we get barraged with communications about whether or not our email system is having problems - they miss it.

These work:
1. Let's stop and see if anyone - or how many - notice.
2. Let's change, and poll them AFTER to see which way they prefer. Asking what they prefer BEFORE trying a change makes it somewhat impossible to evaluate options.

The latter is what turned our Annual Membership Meeting (governance section of conference) from a 2 hour meeting to a 15-minute meeting. When 95% of attendees said they liked 15 minutes more, 15 minutes stayed. Stop and watch; or change, then poll.

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