Fusion Productions - Integrating Meetings, Learning & Technology

Organization

ISPE is the world’s largest not-for-profit association dedicated to the education and advancement of pharmaceutical manufacturing professionals and their industry. Founded in 1980, today ISPE serves 25,000 members in 90 countries.

Prior to ISPE’s formal initiative to create Communities of Practice (COPs), there were two distinct groups of like-minded individuals collaborating to address important industry issues that in essence formed the epitome of a COP. At that time, ISPE considered those groups to be committees and treated them as such. Then a little more than three years ago, ISPE realized the benefit of developing COPs around different disciplines of the industry, similar to how those two “committees” had been functioning. This was in response to the need for ISPE to assist its members in connecting with one another to collect relevant, timely resources to help members be more productive at their jobs.

COPs were structured like other ISPE committees and were initially formed by creating static Web sites and topic related Listserv discussions. While the concept of COPs caught on quickly and ISPE constituents recognized the value of participation, it was evident that there was not much benefit being offered by COPs in the manner in which they were structured at that time. One key issue was that while there was real value to participating in Listserv discussions topics associated with the COPs, there was not an effective way to ensure that all COP members were subscribed to the respective COP topic discussion lists. Similarly, constituents that were subscribed to COP topic discussions were not necessarily aware of the existence of the COP on that topic.

Through consultation with ISPE’s Community of Practice Council which provides strategic oversight of all ISPE COPs, and as a result of participating in a workshop produced by APQC to develop a Roadmap for Success of ISPE COPs, it was determined that ISPE should leverage technology as an enabler and implement an appropriate COP software platform. The desired result was to identify a platform that would serve as a true community – a place that encouraged active participation, that would be warm and welcoming, and that would add value such that it would be viewed as a true benefit to ISPE membership.

Challenges and Responses
ISPE chose Fusion Productions as their COP development partner. The project presented many unique challenges, some of which are outlined below.

Challenge
The community platform would have to fully integrate with iMIS – ISPE’s association management system. The existing iMIS database contained records both of members and non-members, so it was imperative that a single sign on process be implemented so that ISPE members and non-members would be recognized as such.

Response
The Fusion e.Comm.unity™ platform was the only community platform that offered the level of integration necessary to fully integrate with iMIS.

Challenge
A complex system of business rules dictated varied permission levels that were different for ISPE members and non-members. ISPE members would be granted full access to all modules associated with discussions, document collaboration, and access to resources, links, files, and important news items. Non-members were either granted partial access or no access at all to certain modules and networking functionalities as a means to recruit new members through the COPs.

Response
Fusion worked closely with ISPE to gain a full understanding of ISPE’s needs to enable it to develop the proper business rules for ISPE’s COPs. Fusion’s ability to customize most any anything required by ISPE has been the key to ISPE’s tremendous success with its interactive online communities. A global community that automatically pulls anyone already existing or added to ISPE’s database was created with more than 60,000 members. Private communities are also being developed to enable ISPE committees and COP Steering Committees to have their own private workspace where volunteer leaders can engage in useful discussions and/or create and share documents.

Challenge
ISPE’s decision to host the COPs on its own server required copious amounts of existing content to be migrated to the new platform.

Response
In order to compensate for the tight migration timeline, Fusion carried out development activities while enabling ISPE staff to continue to perform content uploads/updates. At launch time, more than 15 communities were sufficiently populated.

Result
“The response has been tremendous,” said Scott Ludlum, ISPE Director, Communities of Practice. “It has exceeded our expectations.” Upon launch, the ISPE COP had about 4,000 participants. Less than six months later, that number had more than tripled.

“Ease of use and practicality have been the primary reasons that this tool has been so successful,” said Ludlum. The integrated ISPE COP platform also provides a richer user experience than the previous system of Listservs and static Web sites. ISPE members are connecting in new ways, and COPs are quickly evolving as a primary benefit of ISPE membership.

During a three-month post-launch maintenance agreement, Fusion worked with ISPE staff to iron out any remaining issues, and to provide training on COP maintenance. Now, the ISPE COPs are completely “owned and operated” internally by the association without any external on-going maintenance costs.

“When we talk about the progress of the COPs,” said Ludlum, “We are beginning to see COPs evolve into what we envisioned three years ago.” The ISPE COPs are becoming a strong focal point of the Society and are contributing significant technical content to ISPE’s Body of Knowledge.

With the Fusion e.Comm.unity™ up and successfully running, ISPE Members have immediate and continuous access to all of the subject matter experts, tools, and documentation they need to help them do their jobs better, solve problems, build relationships, and advance in their careers.