Fusion Productions - Integrating Meetings, Learning & Technology

Organization

Founded in 1880 as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, today's ASME is a 120,000-member professional organization focused on technical, educational and research issues of the engineering and technology community. ASME conducts one of the world's largest technical publishing operations, holds numerous technical conferences worldwide, and offers hundreds of professional development courses each year. ASME sets internationally recognized industrial and manufacturing codes and standards that enhance public safety.

Challenge

In today’s multidisciplinary engineering environment, ASME saw the need to create a networking tool that would provide engineers with a means of communicating with other engineers of similar interests and project goals. Due to constraints on their busy schedules, it is not always convenient to attend section meetings and conferences where networking opportunities typically occur. While ASME values its professional membership, younger engineers (40 and under) are of particular importance to ASME in order to preserve the future vitality of the organization. Today, younger engineers find Web-based communications to be a welcomed alternative to face-to-face interaction.

Solution

Fusion’s Communities of Practice platform was chosen as the primary communication tool for ASME’s membership. They use Communities of Practice to enhance the member’s networking opportunities rather than as a means to replace meetings.

Results

• Two months after the release of Communities of Practice, there are over 1,800 registered members using the site and 122 communities have been created ranging from technical interests to section activity.
• All members using the communities site and have expressed to ASME that they find it quite useful.

Best Practices

• This site is member-driven, and members are facilitators of the communities. ASME staff involvement is limited to administration of the site, daily activity monitoring and facilitation of the main ASME community.
• Prior to making the decision on whether to launch the Communities of Practice site, ASME attended a seminar provided by ASAE where they listened to other case studies. In addition, ASME contacted various associations who were already using this approach and discussed best practices.
• Members in the target audience were asked to participate in the beta test phase scheduled to begin May 2004. Testers supplied ASME with valuable feedback on how to improve the site before it was launched to the entire membership in July.
• An aggressive marketing plan was put into action prior to the launch at the ASME national convention in June. Presentations were conducted on how the site worked during the convention and articles with positive testimonials from members using the site were placed in ASME’s monthly newspaper, online newsletters, and all over the ASME website. ASME continues to market this site and plans to do so over the next several months.