Fusion Productions - Integrating Meetings, Learning & Technology

(December 6, 2004)

Fifty-five trade and professional associations participated in the American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) and Fusion Productions survey that examined how associations are attempting to build and sustain online communities to meet tangible member needs and strategic business goals.

APQC and Fusion designed this survey to understand associations’ current results with communities, how they view the value and role of communities in their association’s strategy, how they are structuring community management and resources, and how they measure their communities’ value and health.

Sixty-one percent of associations in the study believe communities are important to their business strategy, yet 46 percent of these associations have fewer than two percent of members active in communities. However, when asked how they measured the success of their community activities, 45 percent indicated they do not yet have measures to assess the impact of their communities on association goals.

“The vision of member–driven associations relies on communities that facilitate knowledge sharing, education, and networking,” said Fusion Co-Founder Don Dea. “But the essence of this vision lies in the execution of the community strategies. This is the first of many studies that will help associations identify the appropriate strategies and tools to design, build, and sustain the 21st century communities.”

”To achieve maximum results with Communities of Practice (CoP), associations need to focus on the fundamentals of building strong communities: measuring progress toward business goals, finding and energizing the right people, providing the appropriate support processes, organizing the pertinent content, and enhancing communication with good technology enablers,” said Wesley Vestal, APQC’s KM Practice Leader. “APQC and Fusion have combined our collective experience, products, and benchmarking research to help associations deliver lasting member value through valuable communities.”

Based on the analysis of the survey results, APQC and Fusion will share their expertise and experience in a soon-to-be-released Building and Sustaining Community white paper. This collaborative effort will provide a road map to help associations:

• Define business case/value proposition and business strategy for communities;
• Design/build strategies that will provide rich, personalized and essential everyday value in the lives of members;
• Define the structural requirements to sustaining communities; and
• Design a user-friendly online experience and identify measurements for assessing community health.

Interested associations can obtain a copy of this white paper and participate in follow-up discussions to delve into the results by registering at www.fusionproductions.com/research/white_paper.cfm.