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Remember your association’s magazine?

That thing you’ve always done? Maybe it’s monthly, maybe it’s quarterly, maybe it’s annual. For many members—the checkbook members, who often are the majority—that print publication is the association. It may be the only tangible interaction they have with the association.

Problem is, if you’re really going to be relevant, if you’re going to be there when they need you, if you’re going to be a crucial part of their lives, once a month isn’t going to cut it. Members want a living, breathing association—not just a “sometime” connection. If you’re any good at delivering on your promises, your members will want to access your content in between the annual convention, in between issues of the print publication, in between chapter meetings. If your content is as relevant and valuable as it can be, members will want fresh content when they log onto your site, and when they’re there, they want community, engagement, and a whole host of real-time resources.

That’s because, in case you didn’t notice, members are running the place. You no longer control the association. They do.And they are operating full-speed ahead, as they join or create their own social networking sites, blogs, and other communities in search of relevant and meaningful content as well as interaction with their peers. [/column] [column]

So how do you avoid getting flattened by competition?

Let’s Kill the Silo Mentality.

For starters, remember: This is not the death knell of association print publications; media never was a zero-sum game. We don’t just watch TV; sometimes we read. We don’t just listen to music; sometimes we go to the movies. Members don’t just read the magazine or just visit the website or just hang out on Facebook or Twitter. Some do all of those things and some do a few of those things at different times.

The real issue for a smart association is that the content that used to be created once a month for the magazine or once a year for the convention now needs to be created on an entirely new, “anytime, anywhere” schedule. The programming schedule, the publishing schedule, and the member communications schedule just got mashed together, and they spit out an entirely new association.

But simply slapping your content online, posting an on-again, off-again blog, and shoveling disjointed news on your homepage won’t cut it.You have to start harnessing your valuable content and delivering it to members in a valuable way. Otherwise, they’ll surf for a few seconds, find another venue—most likely one that doesn’t charge dues—and spend their time there. [/column]

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The content your association creates must be integrated and published holistically, not created by departmentalized silos, each with their own business objectives, goals, and agenda. Not everyone needs to get on at the same stop, but the ultimate destination must be the same.

The good news is that technology makes this easy. The bad news is that “easy” is very time consuming, often not integrated properly, and not necessarily high quality.

Pay Attention to the Data.

None of this is particularly easy, but the most difficult part of creating high-quality content is the brilliant idea. What is the bright, unique, wonderful idea that no one else has thought of?

Data is not the answer, but the answer is hiding in the data. Take your membership data, your survey data, professional data and demographic data and see where you are and where you’re going. Your profession is morphing into something else—TV news directors are becoming new media directors, technology whizzes, not journalists; GPs are giving way to specialists; engineers are becoming project managers.Your industry is moving off shore. Your members are retiring, and the next generation is not so interested. Your current members hate receiving so much email.Academics love your journal, but the general membership could care less. [/column] [column]

You know all this stuff. But chances are you’ve shelved the data because, well, it’s data, maybe an overwhelming amount of data, or because contemplating what it might actually mean to what you need to do is just too, well, overwhelming. You have maintained the status quo because the status quo was fine, or at least good enough. Not anymore. Not in this environment. Not with the competition bearing down on you.

The answer is in the data: who they are and what they want now, who they will be and what they’ll want in the future. You have two choices: dive into all that stuff and respond to what you find, or get wiped out by the train coming down the tracks. Come up with the idea and then commit to it in the form of high-quality content delivered in multiple media across many platforms.

If You Stopped, Will Anyone Care?

Content must appeal to members and be topical, frequent, and integrated—in the magazine, at the conference, in research, everywhere. And it must be compelling. Slicing already known information into smaller and smaller pieces to make it original does not make it interesting.

Watch someone read your magazine. Do they read anything in its entirety? Do attendees take notes during the after-lunch speech [/column]

[column]or do they check their BlackBerries? If you stopped doing something, would anyone notice? When conference goers come into the exhibit hall, where do they go first? The keynote? The work group? The book store? The job fair? The software vendor?

Field research needs to be a huge part of what an association does. Good editors visit readers and sources every month—physically pay a visit. Watching people do what they do allows you to see what they haven’t thought to ask for. Your reader survey may say that members are satisfied with your magazine, but that might be because they cannot imagine it any other way. Imagining what members want is like figuring out what should go on tomorrow’s front page—they don’t know they want it yet.

This is a content-driven relationship. And that’s what will keep members coming back.

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