Death At The Disco: Positioning Strategies Out, Customer-Driven In April 14, 2011 by Jeff Hurt Marketing’s positioning strategies died when disco was king. It’s stuck in a bad hair day of a 1970s time warp. It’s like a man trying to wear platform shoes, a silk print shirt, gold chains and a tacky polyester leisure suit to a job interview today. It’s just not right. Many of marketing’s truisms of … [Read more…] Filed Under: Attendance Marketing Tagged With: , association, event marketing, organization marketing
Where Are We And Where We Are Going? April 5, 2011 by Jeff Hurt The Pew Internet & American Life Project provides great data on Americans and the Internet. The Project produces reports exploring the impact of the Internet on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life. They are a great resource of data for any conference organizer or assocation leader … [Read more…] Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , association, event technology, Social Media, social networking, technology
An Association Leader Should… April 1, 2011 by Jeff Hurt All living systems, including associations, go through five predictable life cycles: Birth Growth (formation, adolescence) Maturity Decline Death Healthy systems work to avoid decline and eventual death by using the wisdom and calm of maturity to plan a rebirth. Unhealthy systems avoid change as long as possible, often to their own demise. Leadership often needs … [Read more…] Filed Under: Ramblings Tagged With: , association, association best practices, association life cycle, association trends, association wellness, nonprofit
Connect To The New Social Nervous System Or Become Roadkill January 25, 2011 by Jeff Hurt “What is transpiring is momentous, nothing less than the planet wiring itself a new nervous system. If your organization is not linked into this nervous system, you will be hard pressed to participate in the planet’s future. To be more specific, amidst the texting and Twittering and Facebooking of a generation of digital natives, the … [Read more…] Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , association, social media and your business, social networking, social technology, technology, Web 2.0
What Dr. Seuss, Horton The Elephant, Oprah And Conferences Have In Common January 17, 2011 by Jeff Hurt “We are here. We are here. We are here,” cried the Whos of Who-ville. “Boil that dust speck! Boil that dust speck! Boil! Boil! Boil!” chanted the Wickersham brothers. Horton The Elephant Most people know the story of Horton the Elephant. Horton hears a small speck of dust talking to him. Amazingly, that small speck … [Read more…] Filed Under: Experience Design Tagged With: , association, conference purpose, conferences, meeting, meeting planner
Who Is The Conscience Of Your Conference? January 3, 2011 by Jeff Hurt A thin, transparent sheet of ice is how I would describe some of today’s annual meetings and conferences. The line between education, promotion and sales has blurred. That ice cracks as attendees experience conference sessions that have been sold to the highest bidder. Sponsored education sessions have become blatant promotions of services and products. Attendees … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning Tagged With: , association, conference ethics, conferences, ethics, meetings ethics
9 Ways To Create Irresistible Attraction December 30, 2010 by Jeff Hurt Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love. ~ Albert Einstein Gravitational attraction can draw others to you like a magnetic force. Irresistible Gravitational Attraction Attraction. Advertisers sell it. Companies market it. Media flaunts it. We all want it. We try to get it. We all have difficulty creating and maintaining it. Let’s … [Read more…] Filed Under: Attendance Marketing Tagged With: , association, association trends, gravitational attraction, irresistible attraction
From The Mixed-Up Files Of Association Conference Misguided Behavior December 29, 2010 by Jeff Hurt It was an opening general session with a marquee headliner. I was anxious to hear him. The session started to great fanfare and hoopla. The Minute By Minute Replay Fifteen minutes later, I felt like I was watching those hideous commercials that theaters play before the movie trailers start. I was Waiting For Godot. The … [Read more…] Filed Under: Experience Design Tagged With: , association, conference tips, conferences, general sessions
When Push Comes To Pull: Can Associations Adapt? December 21, 2010 by Jeff Hurt We are living in a period where we are straddling two different society cultures and economies. We are transitioning from a push economy to a pull economy. From Hierarchical To Networked-Based Today’s participatory networked culture has changed business and organizations from a push approach (hierarchical, from the center out to others), to a pull approach … [Read more…] Filed Under: Ramblings Tagged With: , association, association future, association issues and challenges, association trends, push and pull
Three Social Media Models For Your Organization To Consider December 14, 2010 by Jeff Hurt Who should be in control of social media at our company? It’s a question I hear a lot. The answer is not black and white. The answer depends. I typically answer the question with a question: “What type of organizational structure do you have in place already? Is it departmentalized, decentralized or perhaps networked/coordinated?” The … [Read more…] Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , association, social networking
