Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Reality TV: Your Association

At a recent meeting a woman was talking about her "brilliant and innovative" association executive ... so I was all ears ... And turns out she was talking about my pal Carol Van Gorp. Because ...

Carol has her 600-member association on "TV" ... Specifically:

1. Bought the domain name with her association acronym and extension .tv
2. Signed up for free video-service Ustream
3. Purchased a $350 Sony Handycam (because digital cameras don't live stream well)
4. Started live-streaming association meetings, info and courses

Then I found an article about it, and Carol is quoted: “no matter what fabulous program the association offered live, members said they’re too busy, there’s too much traffic, too much something to attend. So now we take our association to their desktop.” The service also enables the association to password-protect content and saves a copy of the live broadcast to be viewed later.

Results included converting some online watchers to live meeting participants; and having much larger numbers see association programming and discussions.

Remember, this is a small association doing this with a $350 camera! Reality TV, association style.

No comments: