Austin Membership Organization Leadership Series

Last week I attended, on behalf of STC Austin, the first of three seminars in the Austin Membership Organization Leadership Series, the goal of which is to bring together Austin area member-based organizations for mutual help in sharing strategy, cost-savings, and resources. There's little debate that we all need to improve how we grow membership, retain members, differentiate ourselves, engage members, and leverage social media; the idea here is that we can do all these things better if we don't go it alone.
The overall goal of the series seems to be to get Austin organizations to network directly for their mutual success. The first seminar offered a vision of how organizations fit into Austin's context by ATX Equation (ATX = Austin, TX), a group that is trying to define what makes (and, by so doing, to help make) Austin special and unique. The slides were presented by Heather McKissick and Bijoy Goswami (Bootstrap Austin). My takeaways:

• Combining the unexpected creates hip "coolness"; creating anticipation is key.
• Among metro areas, Austin is extremely young (median age).
• Paul Graham's concept of city "ambitions": Boston: be smart; Silicon Valley: be powerful; NYC: be rich; LA: be famous; DC: be an insider; Austin: (proposed) know/express/be yourself
• "Progression Of Economic Value", lowest to highest: Commodities > Goods > Services > Experiences > Transformations. So, increasing value to members is about creating transformative (career-changing?) experiences.
• Elements of Experience, per magicians: Pledge (engagement) > Turn (conflict) > Prestige (resolution/surprise)
• Social vs. Market Exchange: Focus on the relational (connection, reputation) versus monetary membership benefits
• From table conversations: Common problem for established societies is that employers are no longer paying dues and that the membership is graying -- too few young people joining.

Comments

[Beth Schrader]

What an interesting group!
Regarding your last bullet:
Because there are so many online (free) networking groups, people see no reason to pay for information and interaction. And paying for employees' memberships doesn't improve the bottom line, thus most employers see no advantage to it.