15th October 2013

Harnessing the Web - the round up

Emily Turner
Content Strategist

We had a great time at Memberwise's Harnessing the Web conference last week. We were joint official sponsor, won a debate and spoke about all things digital. We also found out that the majority of membership organisations are cows - we'll explain!

Feeling stressed?

Simon gave a presentation at the conference on the games we all need to play to stay ahead in digital. Simon's presentation takeaways are:

  • If you're under stress from the pace of change, this should be a warning sign
  • Are you an organisation with a website or a website with an organisation?
  • Your digital agency should 'live in the future' and help you navigate turbulent times
  • Only stable teams are qualified to build modern digital strategies. They're too complex for talented amateurs
  • Personalisation is a big trend in websites. The commercial sector is learning from membership bodies
  • Membership websites should be helpful robots. Personalisation means they should make suggestions

Slideshare

The big debate

Dominic won the High Impact Digital Communications Debate. He was debating against the motion that memberships organisations are ten times more likely to engage and sell products and services to members, compared with commercial organisations. Dominic felt strongly that the commercial world was less bogged down in bureaucratic decision-making and business was more agile and flexible to react to markets.

Dominic said: "95% of your members do not engage with you. Member organisations need to understand their members. Commercial businesses adapt to the market and are used to change. They don't have endless approval chains. Unfortunately, democracy inhibits change and commercial organisations respond to your members quicker and anticipate change better."

The #SoMeZodiac results

We got a lot of interest in our social media discovery tool and found that the majority of professionals working for membership organisations class themselves as mostly cows. We've got some helpful tips on our character types here.

The 'other' in our chart is the result of someone suggesting a new category, 'conductor' for the person who keeps everything running smoothly and without missing a beat.

Have a go

Want to see if you are a cow, elephant or even a troll? Take the quiz and tweet your answer with #SoMeZodiac!

Want to know more?

For more insights from Harnessing the Web, search on Twitter under #HTW2013.