You Need To Ask To Increase Engagement
Every hand in the room was in the air. I knew the number would be high, but I didn’t expect it to be 100%! At a recent leadership program I ran at Gannon University, I asked the current campus leaders how many are in a leadership position because someone asked them to take on the […]
Dirty Marketing: The Negative Impact of Mixing Marketing with Relationship Building in Business Communities
It felt like he had just dropped a dirty towel into our perfectly purified community, and it didn’t sit right with me or anyone else in the group. As a forum moderator for a community of business owners, I facilitate peer groups for members to learn and grow from each other. For example, one section […]
Three Effective Ways to Increase Productivity and Focus in Meetings
I felt naked without my cell phone next to me during the meeting. As I entered the room for our two-hour meeting, someone greeted me with a briefcase filled with cell phones. I was told that everyone was required to place their cell phone into the briefcase before entering the room. My first reaction was, […]
Who Makes The First Impression in Your Community?
“Mo!!!” Everyone in the room yelled in unison. Of course, everyone knew instantly who I was talking about, but all I said was, “The security guard out front is great!” Mo is the security guard at the main entrance to Seton Hall University. He is the first person that everyone meets and greets as they […]
Engagement Is A Process, Don’t Push It
I never thought knowledge about plastic recycling would be the reason to get more engaged. Those who know me now may find it hard to believe that I hardly participated in any school-sponsored events before college. I was the student who ignored or declined pretty much every extracurricular activity. I thought that was something “those” […]
Celebrating E-Board Members Increases Engagement And Retention
I never thought putting numbers into an excel doc would win me an award, but that’s what happens when you do the job no one else wants. For the past two years, I sat on the executive board of the NYC National Speakers Association. By the time I joined the board, the only position left […]
Growing a Community is Never Passive
What started as the magic ingredient needed to save their community became a logistical nightmare. Through a mutual connection, the head of a large community of e-commerce sellers invited me to lunch. The purpose of the meeting was to see if we could help them buck their negative member retention rates. The organization had steadily […]
The Three Core Principles of Member Engagement that Apply To Every Community
Even though I can hold my breath for over three minutes, what could I possibly teach the U.S. Military about engaging their Marines? Marines are known for swimming for hours in freezing cold water while holding heavy weights above their head. I’m known for Free Hugs and my love of peanut butter. So when the […]
How To Measure Member Engagement
My role as Member Engagement Chair for the NYC Entrepreneurs’ Organization was to come up with a way to celebrate our most engaged members. Coming up with prizes was easy, but determining our top members out of 300 people was difficult. I started by listing out all the activities that a member might engage with […]
How Often Do You Talk To Your Members?
We recently took over management of the Member Experience from orientation to renewal for a private community of venture-backed start-up founders called www.OffTheRecord.org. While we have many exciting initiatives planned, I knew the first step was to reach out and have a conversation with as many community members as possible. For each conversation, I asked […]