AMS Fest Archived Crowdsourced Sessions

ARCHIVES: AMS Fest Submitted Crowdsourced Sessions

SEPTEMBER 2015

The AMS selection process in 20 minutes!
Learn the process that EDM has used to help over 100 associations successfully choose a new AMS. We’ll run through the seven steps involved in the process, highlighting the areas that are most critical to your success (and pointing out the potholes to avoid!).

SESSION WINNER: Trochlil’s Top 10 Data Management Tips
Even the best technology is only as good as how it is managed. If you want your data to really serve your association’s mission, this session will provide you with 10 great techniques to ensure your data and database are managed in the best manner possible.

Chicken Little or Armageddon? How to react to “catastrophes” during an AMS implementation
Everyone starts an AMS implementation with the best of intentions and a good kickoff meeting. Many projects even have a project plan. However, we’ve all experienced the sinking feeling when a project starts to unravel and little issues become a big deal. Learn and share tips to identify the warning signs and work with your team to stand down and take positive action.

Finding the Right Technology Partner for Your Organization
Outsourcing technology projects is a common practice for organizations with limited or no Information Technology staff or organizations with information technology staffs that do not have the capacity to take on new projects.

Finding the right technology partner that meets the business and technical requirements for your organization’s digital or strategic initiatives can be a time consuming and frustrating process.

This presentation will discuss the following key issues in selecting the right technology partner for your organization:

Developing business and technical requirements
Finding potential technology partners
Developing a Request For Proposal (RFP)
Evaluating vendor proposals and selecting technology partners
Negotiating contracts with technology vendors

Staff buy-in: Telling the AMS story
Most organizations have an implementation team that spends a lot of time getting the system right, but what about the staff? We’ll talk through why it’s so important to motivate all your staff, as well as some strategies for addressing the change management aspect of implementing a new AMS.

Vendor Demo Report Card
AMS vendor demos are for you, so make sure you get what you want! Will talk through a process for creating a vendor “report card” that can help direct the demo, help your staff rank the different options, and come to the best decision for your organization.

Federated Search: The Killer App for Associations
Associations tend to develop a lot of content, and a lot of different KINDS of content. This content is among your most valuable assets, but members often have trouble locating it: some content is on the main website, some content is on the conference website, the members info is in the AMS, the journal is on a special platform, the videos are on YouTube, and so forth. The purpose of a federated search is to give your members an easy-to-use interface that allows them to find content from any source with a single click. In my presentation I will discuss the benefits and challenges of implementing a federated search.

What Your Association is Not Hearing: The Need for Social Media Listening
Social media has become a “go to” source of information for people around the world. What many associations don’t know is that there is a way that they can actually “listen” to all the social media chatter being perpetuated in the public domain and use quantified metrics to help further their message, increase membership and monetize their campaigns. Some key take-a-ways attendees will receive include:

How to “listen everywhere” and see what people are saying about their organization outside of the social media outlets to which they post.
The metrics available to help them quantify their social media presence for use in reporting and fundraising.
The importance of understanding their social media presence across all outlets.
Be progressive in your approach to social media marketing and vote for this session!

10 Ways to make your AMS Stick
You get a new AMS and imagine you’ll have it forever. But three years later, you’re tired and frustrated, and at the five year mark, you’re planning a switch. Why? Because it’s more than just a tool, it’s a way of doing business. Making an AMS stick involves people and processes and structures, and a dose of humor.

Using herself as the white board, Moira will offer you 10 very sticky ways to manage your AMS project.

SESSION WINNER: So, You Hate Your AMS – This session asks: “What’s the Alternative?”
AMS’s are outrageously expensive, inflexible, and hold you hostage to the vendor for any and all customization, integration and support. Any customizations or integrations you do after the initial implementation are even more ridiculously expensive because… where else are you going to go? Want a new report? Cha-ching! Need to connect to another product or service? Cha-ching!

Let’s all take a walk over to the window, throw it open, and in the immortal words of Peter Finch in the movie “Network” yell “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” This discussion is going to explore association management without an “AMS”.

We will delve into the art of the possible by using relatively inexpensive public cloud tools available such as Salesforce, Office365 and Google Apps for Work.
We’ll examine the pros and the cons of using these tools compared to a commercial AMS.
We’ll look specifically at functionality, cost, shortcomings, and I promise, more than a few pleasant surprises.

Where the Rubber (AMS) Meets the Road (Website)
One of the more common areas that typically gets overlooked until an organization is well into their implementation is what constituent-facing (online) functionality and content is provided through the new AMS and what is provided by your CMS (content management system). This is further made more confusing since the answer can differ with each system you consider or the approach that may be best suited for your organization. This session will be to provide some insights to the different approaches, areas that need to be uncovered or considered early on and also how to prepare the organization for the changes that may need to occur to create the best constituent experience online.

Help, my website (or database) has been hacked!
Security breaches are on the rise. Chances are, some type of breach is in your association’s future. What can you do to reduce your risk of being breached and reduce the consequences of data being stolen? We’ll share best practices for keeping your data safe as it travels across the Internet and as it resides on your servers. We’ll explore questions like: how much of your data should be encrypted? how can you enforce strong passwords among staff and members? can you and should you store credit cards and SSNs in your database? Is your data safer in the cloud? What security questions should you be asking your AMS vendors?

Data, data everywhere and not a drop of real analysis in sight
Associations are drowning in data analytics. Your AMS, CMS, Google Analytics, email blast provider, LMS and other systems all provide reports. But what’s really useful? For example, how meaningful is number of sessions or email open rates? This session will show you how to integrate your AMS with other systems so you get valuable insight into WHO is doing WHAT on your website, who’s opening and clicking, who’s liking, and who’s reading WHAT. Wouldn’t it be great to know if Board members are visiting your website or if primary contacts are opening up your government affairs emails? With the proper integration, you can!

Data Visualization 101
You have data in your AMS, but how do you present it so that it tells a story and makes you look good?

This content rich session will focus on:

Getting started with data viz
Tips on the best types of visualizations to use to tell a story
Top visualization tools you can start using today

Power BI – Putting Business Intelligence in the Hands of the User
In today’s busy world, every second counts. Boards, Members, Trustees and others are all demanding information quickly and succinctly. Power BI merges content from different services (QuickBooks, website information, customer information, etc.) and allows users to easily create charts and other metrics to graphically measure the health of their organization. Choose this session to learn how Power BI helps associations track and measure their members’ engagement by taking capabilities formerly conducted by IT departments and putting them in the hands of every user.

SESSION WINNER: Are you about to climb on an AMS time bomb? How to stop the ticking…
You’ve heard (or lived through) the horror stories. AMS projects that take longer than promised, go way over budget, and leave the users and leaders feeling underwhelmed with the result. “That won’t happen to us” everyone says at the beginning. But why does it happen so often? The secret to a successful project starts well upstream – long before you’ve talked to an AMS vendor.

Which comes first – budget or needs?
Who should be involved?
Who should lead?
How to separate “must have” and “nice to have” requirements?
Customization & DIY – could you / should you?

Join a lively discussion about crafting the process, sniffing out “real” versus perceived requirements, and tips for selecting your AMS vendor … when the time is right.

SESSION WINNER: CRM-based AMS is a Strategy, Not a Platform.
You have heard from colleagues at other associations that they just moved to an AMS based on a Customer Relationship Management System (CRM). This shift in the AMS industry is positioning associations to better serve their members and create a better staff experience. What distinct advantages can a CRM-based AMS offer and what value can it deliver to your association? How can this strategy address your key pressure points including hosting, security, data accessibility, scalability, and costly upgrades and integrations? Let’s discuss why this shift is gaining market share in associations of all types and sizes.

SESSION WINNER: Using Your AMS to Deliver Value at the Crossroads of Membership Management and Engagement
Associations live in the age of the customer. In fact, associations are quickly having to become on-demand service providers. Digital disintermediation and digital disruption have created a new mandate on the membership experience people expect from their associations. It touches every single area associations operate in today. Having the right technology to meet those expectations has never been more important. The good news is your AMS can be the center piece of your “On Demand” member service strategy.

We will discuss:

How to create greater member engagement utilizing your AMS
How to use your AMS to compete against for profits like LinkedIn
How to free your members to management their relationship with your association
How to empower your staff to be more strategic in their service to your members

MAY 2016

A Spoon Full of Change Helps the System Go Down
With a looming member riot on your hands, the board has willingly or begrudgingly agreed to approve the budget to overhaul of your systems. Problem is, the members and staff that hate your current system are wondering why they can’t do things the same way in your new system. This session will explore why change management and not technical requirements are the biggest challenge facing your new system, and how you can best help your customers and staff with the transition.

AMS and Community Platform, Sitting in a Tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G
Wouldn’t it be nice if your AMS and your community platform got along so well that they got ENGAGED? :) This session will be a facilitated Q&A about how to think about how data should sync between a community platform and the AMS – what profile information should live where, how they talk to each other, and how to think about the process of data exchange – not from an IT perspective but from a user experience perspective.

Preventing the A**hole on your Team from Derailing your AMS Project
Toxic employees are a huge drain on organizations, and if you are dealing with one on a regular basis, chances are you already know just how disruptive they can be. If you are unlucky enough to have to include one on your AMS project team, then you have some special issues to face in launching your new AMS. This session will give you 5 concrete tactics to deal with the a**hole on your team, so your AMS project is a success.

SESSION WINNER: Closing the Millennials Membership Gap
As the population ages and trades employment for retirement, millennials are entering the workforce seeking out new opportunities. Unfortunately, they are not embracing membership into professional organizations like their predecessors. Today’s new crop of members are looking for more information for free or “free-mium” member benefits and demanding that older organizations be up-to-date on all technological offerings. Attendees of this session will learn what they can do to meet these demands while still generating revenue.

It Says It’s a CRM, but is it?
Terms such as “Vertical CRM,” or “Industry specific CRM,” are frequently tossed around in regard to AMS systems, but associations and nonprofits should look very closely at systems with those terms because chances are they are not a true CRM. Choose this session and learn the components of a true CRM, how it protects its users’ investments, expected ROIs and industry trends.

SESSION WINNER: Innovate or Die: An Association’s Guide to Survival in a Disruptive World
An Innovation Culture is the key to your association’s race to relevance. With innovation, the sky’s the limit; Without it, your organization will wither and die. Culture cannot be created but you can put things in place to foster and grow innovation. Learn techniques, exercises, tips and tricks of what you can do today to ignite an innovation fire within your organization. You will gain valuable takeaways today to make a difference tomorrow.

SESSION WINNER: Measuring & Scoring Engagement
Learn how to setup and score engagement, how to use engagement scoring to improve membership results, and see what two other associations have done – including their engagement scoring details and member scorecards.

Big Data Reporting on a Small Budget
Did you know that Google Analytics can tell you WHAT people are doing on your website, WHICH marketing activities are driving traffic, HOW people are converting (i.e., purchasing, registering, joining) and WHO is coming? The key is integrating your analytics with your AMS. Through custom dimensions, you can send AMS demographic data to Google Analytics so that you know whether and which member segments are coming to your site. Wouldn’t it be great to know if primary contacts of your trade association ever visit your website? Or the reading preferences of academic vs. clinical members? Now you can!

SESSION WINNER: Five Shifts You Need to Make in a Micro-Moment Driven World:
Are you there, are you relevant and are you staying ahead of the needs and expectations members have of you and your brand? Shifts can be disruptive, bringing extinction to business models and organizations, while giving rise and strength to others. Failure to spot them can pose a threat to any organization. A leader’s ability to anticipate, recognize and capitalize on shifts will set them apart from others, and elevate their organization’s brand, member and staff experiences, and revenues. Don’t get left behind — this session explores the shift to micro-moments of always connected members, and how technology is delivering instant value, how analytics are used to deliver actionable insight, how the cloud has opened new opportunities and how social is a new form of connecting and organizing.

Learning Outcome –
1. How to identify and recognize shifts, and why it’s important to do so
2. The 5 shifts occurring today and how others are already winning as a result
3. The element of surprise and delight, and where to start in your organization