Association Swing and a Miss--CEA Tech Enthusiast Membership

Last March, I got an email from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) informing me of a new member category they had just created: Tech Enthusiast. I believe the dues were $30 a year and the benefits included the following:

As a CEA Tech Enthusiast (TE) member you will receive hot deals and incredible opportunities from our corporate partners. These include free and discounted products, advance product launch information, access to industry events, and beta testing opportunities. As a TE, you are privy to some very exclusive information.

What the hell, I figured--it was an interesting concept, and for $30 I thought I'd give it a try and see how great the "hot deals" and "incredible opportunities" were, not to mention "beta testing opportunities." I paid up and....crickets. A few emails...and by few I mean really few. No beta testing opportunities that I recall. A circa 2000 online discussion board. That's about it.

Last week I got an email from them announcing that they are ending the new membership category effective January 31, 2012. Wow, really--not even giving it a year? I guess on one hand I applaud them doing what few associations do--cutting an ineffective program. But on the other hand, it feels like they just threw it out there to see if people would pay and devoted basically no staff or resources to it succeeding--what did they expect?

In my opinion, there are a few things they could have done to make this program more of a success:

1. Technology--I know I'm possibly more the exception rather than the rule, but IMHO, it's 2011--why would you launch what is basically an online membership category and use online forums instead of an online social networking platform? It's one thing if your members are old-school or not that interested in online discussion, but for the demographic they were targeting, why did they think members would want to interact with each other on an online bulletin board while their other online interactions are likely on Facebook or something similar? Yes, it would have cost more but it also would probably have been a lot easier to use, and would have hopefully fostered better member engagement. That said, there are absolutely some successful discussion forums out there--having a Facebook-esque platform is definitely not a guarantee of success. But in this case...the forums were just a fail.
2. Communication--We've all heard of "build it and they will come" syndrome when it comes to social media, but a whole member category basically built on pay your dues to join then figure it out from there? Obviously it didn't work out so well in this case. Not that people necessarily want to be inundated with even more email, but seriously--this was the total opposite of too much email: barely any email or any other communications. No newsletter. No magazine. Pretty much no anything, period. How are people supposed to feel part of something if they forget they're even a member because nobody is driving the bus? I heard more from people I haven't seen in 30+ years on Facebook this past nine months than I heard from CEA about the thing for which I was paying to dues to belong to. How about a Facebook presence driving me to the website or reminding me of the "incredible opportunities"? Oh, wait--there is one...which I never knew about until I happened to look it up when I was writing this post. How about a phone call from someone there checking in to see how I was liking my membership and what I felt was lacking? A survey? How about something, anything, other than crickets?
3. Advertising/Revenue--I have to admit I'm kind of sad to see this thing fail because I think it could have been a success. I get that CEA is a huge association with much bigger fish to fry than some lowly "tech enthusiasts" at $30 a year per, but I thought a consumer membership was a cool idea and could have been a great way for them to connect sponsors and corporate members to consumers like me who spend a lot on tech products. What if they had gotten sponsors/partners to offer free membership to their customers, or had stores like Best Buy or RadioShack offer free memberships in stores or fliers? They could have potentially gotten a lot of members and, in turn, could have probably made decent money through advertising opportunities. What if they had offered some kind of weekly or daily deal concept to members? Granted, I'm the first to admit the daily deal world is already pretty saturated, but something that hooks in members on a recurring basis and both offers them a great deal and reminds them of the organization they're part of? Seems like it could have been a decent source of revenue and a good direct-to-consumer way of advertising.

Ok, I'll stop there. I don't know--I guess the "fail fast" thing applies here and they were just trying to cut their losses, but as someone who thought this seemed like a cool concept and was willing to pay to see how it panned out, I'm surprised how bummed I am to see this fail so fast. As a member, I feel kind of discarded or something. Is there such a thing as failing too fast? 

5 Predictions; 5 Resolutions

What would December be without the obligatory predictions post? Or, for that matter, the new year's resolution post? I'm kicking it FIO style and combining the two into one post.

Predictions:

1. Hiring for community and social media managers will continue to rise. And confusion about the differences between the roles will persist.
2. Burnout and disillusionment among social media/community management professionals will rise. All those new hires? Will have to work their asses off to justify their existence and will realize that the job is more than rainbows and unicorns and will decide that the job sounded a lot funner than it is. (And yes, I know perfectly well that "funner" is not a word. I choose to use it anyway.)
3. Google+ will not be a game-changer. Facebook is where the traffic is and their pages offer more functionality. Sure, some brands/organizations will do great on Google+, but ultimately it won't be worth the time or effort for most orgs to set up shop on one more social network.
4. Facebook will abandon Timeline. Ok, this may be more wishful thinking than prediction but I HATE the Timeline design.
5. Foursquare will flourish. I was *this close* to being a Foursquare quitter after I reached 1,000 checkins and, instead of a free t-shirt, got a coupon for 40% off a t-shirt. Seriously?! I was DONE. But strangely, checking in 1,000 times was apparently the magic number of times it took for me to admit my addiction to Foursquare. So despite lack of free stuff or even any decent specials, Foursquare has become a social network for me, as well as probably just a nervous habit, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. Also, now that Gowalla has been acquired by Facebook and will be shutting down in January, all those Gowalla users will have to go somewhere, and who wants to give Facebook access to their checkin data?

Resolutions:

1. I will commit to the Social Sanity Manifesto. I love this manifesto, and have already taken step 1--deleting my Klout profile. I've already experienced the anxiety and overload Rachel Happe talks about in this awesome post and I think the 10 commitments laid out in this manifesto will go a long way towards helping to roll back the anxiety and overload caused by spending too much time online on too many sites connecting with too many people.
2. I will read more--and not for business. Business books are great, but especially in the social space, everyone and their brother either has written, is writing, or plans to write a book in the near future. That's great and all, but let's be honest--not everyone was meant to be a writer and many of these books are crap. Some, of course, are not, but they are few and far between. So I will spend more time reading books I want to read and less time reading books I feel I'm supposed to read because some social media A-lister is marveling about them.
3. I will not be sucked into the numbers game. This basically is a replay of #1, but think it bears repeating, if for no other reason than to drum it into my own head. I hate it that I thought twice about deleting my Klout profile because I had bought into the idea of being graded on at least some level. Seriously--who gives a shit about "online influence" except people trying to sell you shit, or who want you to sell their shit--for free?
4. I will try yoga. I tried it once--about 20 years ago--and the teacher told me, basically, that I was too hyper and/or spastic for yoga. So I never tried it again. But I'm kind of into the idea that people shouldn't limit themselves based on narratives they just play and re-play inside their heads (e.g. "I'm bad at math") so I'm willing (sort-of) to try yoga again. Even as I type this every fiber of my being is saying "seriously?" and laughing, but I'm going to resolve to try it anyway. 
5. I will try not to be this person. Because, sadly, I can own at least half of those 54 things. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but let's be honest--I'm a 43 year old woman who lives in the suburbs. My chances of socializing IRL are not enhanced by being this person. (Or, frankly, by saying stuff like "IRL.") Although I admit that my favorite new friend of this year was someone I inadvertently insulted in a blog post a few years ago, actually met in real life last spring and now am good friends with offline. Even if much of what we talk about is stuff that happens online ; )

Klout Still Suggesting Users Invite Minors

So remember when I wrote about how Klout had created a profile for my 13 year-old son? And how the story made it to the New York Times? And how Klout apologized and "rolled back" the changes, and vowed they had "no interest" in attracting minors to their site, and had supposedly set up some kind of safeguards ensuring that the same thing wouldn't happen again?

Well, it's happened again.

This is a screenshot of my Klout profile yesterday:

In case it's not clear from the picture, it's a snapshot of my "influence network"--including one mystery head. The mystery head, when moused-over, as depicted in this screen shot, is my 15 year old daughter, and Klout is urging me to invite her to Klout (I have scribbled out her last name--that's the black scribble).

To be perfectly clear: my Facebook profile is PRIVATE, not public. My daughter's Facebook profile is PRIVATE, not set to public. Yes, I have opted into Klout--something I'll be remedying soon--but where are the "safeguards" ensuring that Klout users aren't being urged to invite minors to set up profiles and link up their accounts, thereby giving Klout access to their data?

Here's the thing: parents need to be friends with their kids on Facebook to protect them and ensure they're not doing anything they shouldn't be doing, and to teach them about using social networks safely. But Klout is making it so that, in fact, by friending their kids on Facebook and not expressly opting out of Klout (a  complicated and convoluted process), parents are actually providing Klout a direct pipeline to their kids.

How hard can it be to set up some kind of parameters ensuring that profiles of people under 18 will not be included in people's influence networks?

I'm about to make it easier by a factor of one: I'm off to delete my Klout profile.

Book Giveaway: Humanize!

What better way to kick off the holiday season than with a giveaway? And not just any giveaway--an awesome one.

My friends Maddie Grant and Jamie Notter recently published Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World. I was fortunate enough to review a few chapters while it was still being written and was totally bowled over by how smart and awesome it is. And seriously--I'm not just saying that because they're friends; this book goes well beyond the now run-of-the-mill social media book. Humanize addresses the deep organizational changes that companies need to make to become more human not only to succeed in social media but to succeed in business. The book is chock-full of ideas about why and how organizations can become more human....and it doesn't just stop at ideas. It includes detailed action plans--including dowloadable worksheets--you can use to explore where your organization is now and where it could be in terms of being more human, and concrete steps on how to get there.

Seriously--don't just take my word for it--check out the reviews. Or, better yet, read it for yourself when you WIN A FREE COPY! ; )

Here's all you have to do. Leave a comment with your name and either Twitter handle or email address so I can contact you if you win. That's all. I will pick a winner Tuesday evening, December 6 at approximately 9 pm. Why then? Because Wednesday, I'll be at the ASAE Technology Conference & Expo, as will be Jamie and Maddie, so if the winner happens to be there too I can bring the book, thereby not only saving myself from having to mail it BUT giving you the opportunity to get it autographed by the authors. And if you're not there, well, I could get it autographed anyway before I send it.

Don't want to wait? You can buy it on Kindle or Nook today (not affiliate links or anything--you know I am too lazy for that).

Thanks and good luck!

Update: And the winner is...


Commenter #9: girardster (sorted in order of date/time posted)

Thanks for playing everyone!