The Impact of Second-Tier Destinations on Association Meetings and Events

Beyond Accessibility: Building Neuroinclusive Association Communities

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Catherine Galli, MPH, digital content writer at the International Coaching Federation, sits down with Wendy-Jo Toyama, MBA, FASAE, CAE, chief executive officer of the American Epilepsy Society, and Megan Henshall, chief impact officer of The Neu Project, to explore findings from the ASAE Foundation and MPI Foundation report, “Enhancing Neuroinclusive Practices in Association.” The conversation examines how associations can create more inclusive environments for neurodivergent staff, members, and event attendees by moving beyond accessibility checklists toward intentional belonging. Toyama and Henshall discuss persistent stigma surrounding neurodivergence, gaps in awareness and implementation across organizations, and the importance of making neuroinclusive efforts visible and actionable. They also share practical strategies such as quiet and resilient spaces at events, inclusive facilitation techniques, clearer accommodation pathways, and ongoing feedback mechanisms, while emphasizing curiosity, co-creation, and intersectionality as essential components of meaningful neuroinclusion. A special thanks to the sponsors and supporters of this important report: Choose Chicago Visit Kansas City MGM Resorts International Discover Puerto Rico Myrtle Beach Convention Center  MPI Foundation   Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/l9p_s7Bz6QU [https://youtu.be/l9p_s7Bz6QU] Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings [https://associationbriefings.com/].   Transcript Catherine Galli: [00:00:00] Welcome to this month's episode of Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Catherine Galli, digital content writer at the International Coaching Federation. Today, we're excited to welcome Wendy-Jo Toyama, CEO of the American Epilepsy Society, and Megan Henshall, chief impact officer at The Neu Project. Welcome, Wendy-Jo and Megan. Today, we're discussing the joint report through the ASAE Foundation and MPI Foundation, “Enhancing Neuroinclusive Practices in Association,” of course, which was done in partnership with Ferguson and The Neu Project. For those who may be new to the term, let's just dive right in. How do you define neuroinclusion, and why is it especially relevant for associations right now?  Megan Henshall: I can jump in first, and then I would actually love to hear your answer, too. So at The Neu Project, we define neurodiversity as all of us, right? We all have a [00:01:00] brain. Some brains are, quote, unquote, "neurotypical," some brains are neurodivergent, but there are billions of neurotypes and combinations of different ways of thinking and cognitive function. And so neurodiversity really speaks to, to all of us, and I think we're gonna dig into sort of the neurodivergent experience in this conversation today. But it really is important to note that it is speaking to brain health across everyone and how we support people with cognitive functioning, sensory processing, regardless of their neurotype  Wendy-Jo Toyama: Yeah, and then taking it to the next step, neuroinclusion then would be creating that sense of belonging so that everyone can feel seen and heard. So creating an environment that really embraces that neurological difference. And I think it's particularly important because, as Meg said, it cuts across all aspects of associations, and so we have members who are [00:02:00] affected by practices that are either barriers or neuroinclusive. We have staff. So it's really important to build this to be able to be effective and welcoming and create a sense of belonging for everyone. Catherine Galli: Thank you. That's a great explanation, and I think it really centers everybody into the topic today. So in the association industry, this report on neuroinclusion is a first. What are some of the most surprising or unexpected findings that emerged from the data?  Wendy-Jo Toyama: I will just start by saying I think associations have a long way to go on being a welcoming environment around disabilities in general. And so I think what surprised me is that there are some things that are going well or strengths we can build on. Like, I think it was not as bleak as I thought it was maybe going to be. For me, there are places where things are happening that we can build on. So that was one surprise to me.  Megan Henshall: One of the things that jumped out to me when we did the individual interviews, and we [00:03:00] interviewed samples across the entire association population, but in a, a particular interview with a senior leader, so executive, there was a comment made of, "I don't think this affects my particular organization. Everyone in my organization is very high-functioning." And so it's not-  Wendy-Jo Toyama: There's  that as well, yes.  Megan Henshall: I hear it all the time 'cause I travel constantly and talk with a bunch of different types of organizations and in different industries about neurodiversity, neuroinclusion, neuro-informed design, and I hear it a lot. There is still a lot of misunderstanding and stigma around what a neurodivergent person is and how they present. So I think one of the biggest sort of aha moments from any of these conversations, not just the brilliant work that we've done with ASAE and MPI, is that there are neurodivergent people in every rank, and a lot of this is completely invisible. Wendy-Jo Toyama: Yes.  Megan Henshall: And so it's really important to know that, and until that sort of awareness exists in your body, it's really hard to [00:04:00] support it, accommodate and advocate for it.  Wendy-Jo Toyama: Yeah, that was shocking when I read that finding. The other place that I was surprised about, and I think we probably need to dig in a little bit more, is there's a pretty big gap between member perceptions and staff perceptions. That came out, and it will need more exploration, I think.  Megan Henshall: Yeah.  Catherine Galli: It's interesting that you note visibility in there, and Wendy-Jo, you mentioned the connection to inclusive design and making things inclusive for people with different disabilities, and I think you've also tied it into inclusion in other topics within associations. I love that this study really tries to look at all of the different levels and how that fits within members, their experiences at different events, and then also for staff themselves. And you mentioned this gap between staff and members. When you compare those perspectives, [00:05:00] where do you see the biggest disconnects in how neuroinclusion is experienced? Wendy-Jo Toyama: The one area that I noted a disconnect was around communication, in that the scores are very good about creating design the way it's formatted and looks pretty effectively. But where it is-- where there is a gap is in the actual messaging and the content itself. So not being explicit about being inclusive and thoughtful and intentional around neuroinclusion was one big gap  Megan Henshall: This is a constant thing too. What we saw in the ASAE research is no different than most other organizations who are on a journey to try to implement a neuroinclusive practice. I think a lot of times we educate ourselves, we build an awareness, then we start to implement practices or tactics, and yet we don't story tell around those things, and we don't co-create with the people that we're building for. This is a real challenge across [00:06:00] all design practices, not just this one. But I think a lot of times people, especially event people, who are all heart, right? We care so much about others. We're doing these things in service of others, yet we're not talking about the real intention and thought and care behind those things, and we're not asking for feedback and conversation and dialogue around them when we do try them. So it's really hard to learn, and it's really hard to iterate and get better. But it's interesting because staff are like, "No, we're doing the thing." It's really hard to make it as impactful as possible unless we're inviting the people that it's for into the conversation and iterating, co-creating, evolving with them. So it's really interesting to watch how that's always a part of any journey with this work. But it's a really critical part of the journey.  Wendy-Jo Toyama: And Meg, I think when I look at the page that really calls out this gap [00:07:00] between leaders and members, members perceive us being further along than the staff do. And I think it's related to the journey. I think where it is closest is things around being supportive, creating intention. But where the gaps are the largest are like when you put it into action. So I think allocating resources to support neuroinclusive initiatives. There's a huge gap between what members think and what staff think on that front. There's a huge gap between development programs and training around neurodiversity awareness and understanding. There's a gap around actively involving neuroinclusive initiatives into your plan. So I think it's a journey gap, if you will.  Catherine Galli: It's interesting to hear both you, Wendy-Jo, and Meg, you've mentioned that there's this communication gap as well of we're trying to implement these neuroinclusive practices, and yet nobody knows that they're being [00:08:00] implemented, or perhaps members are not able to find the information they need. Can you explain that gap a little bit more?  Megan Henshall: I can speak to our experience working with companies and also my own experience advocating for myself. So I got diagnosed with autism at 40 after my son was diagnosed at three, so this has been a professional journey for me, but also a very personal one. But I think there's a lot of fear around work like this, and there's a lot of hesitation to lean in because what if we get it wrong or what if we try something that actually isn't helpful? And I think that is why a lot of organizations or just people hesitate or struggle to openly and transparently communicate around what they're doing and why. I also think there's this cancel culture and asking a question and it not being the right question has created a lot of harm in work like this, and I think that's one of the cultural and societal issues with [00:09:00] this. And I hear leaders say it all the time, "I really wanna do something about this. I'm afraid of getting it wrong and it ac- and actually making things worse." But the truth of the matter is, if you approach this sort of work with humility and you're honest and transparent about what you're doing, people are grateful. They're grateful every time. Now, you might get some critical feedback or you might get feedback that you weren't expecting at all, but that just makes us all better. And so in my opinion, at a macro level, I think this is one thing that impacts people's ability to communicate effectively is just this hesitation that, what if I use the wrong word? Or what if I'm not knowledgeable enough? No one is an expert in neuroinclusion. It is a real-time dynamic practice. We are learning more about the human brain every day. We're learning more about how that brain is evolving in real time, so you can't possibly be an expert. We're all learning. We should be [00:10:00] learning openly and together. Wendy-Jo Toyama: I want to build on that and say when I became a CEO, I had a strong membership background. I had an MBA. I was pretty comfortable with finance. I didn't know meetings so well, and I certainly didn't know publishing. But that didn't mean that I didn't do those things because I didn't know and I was afraid of making a mistake. So I think that then you think about what did I do? I reached out to someone I knew who was our editor at the place I worked before. I gained knowledge. I engaged consultants. These are all things you can do around neuroinclusion, and you can certainly start by looking at the research. There's some good articles in there. But saying, "I'm afraid of making a mistake," is not an excuse for equipping yourself to being able to create a welcoming environment around this. The other thing I would say is something that I noticed when I was reading the report. There's a lot in here around intention, and so again, [00:11:00] not just creating a pathway for people to get an accommodation if they need it, but to actually designate somebody who may be an ambassador or someone that you can put out that folks can proactively reach out to. So again, shifting from a compliance culture, sure, if you ask, we'll do it, to one that says, "Hey, are there accommodations you need around neurodiversity? And if there are, here's the pathway for that." That's huge, and really the implementation is the same. You'll still make the accommodation. It's all about the front end and how you make it visible, easy, and begin to take away the stigma around it, right? Catherine Galli: So for association leaders who are wanting to begin this journey, I like that you're starting to mention the skills transferability of leaders are always having to learn new things, and they're always having to apply new things. Just to give our listeners some examples, what are a few simple [00:12:00] high-impact changes that event planners can make to create more neuroinclusive environments? Wendy-Jo Toyama: So I just attended a large 11,000-person meeting. I was there all day. I do not identify as neurodivergent, and yet when I got home, I'm a little introverted. When I got home, I was just done. And so I know some meetings, ours included, are trying to create a quiet place, a space where people during the meeting can go and take a break, and it's quiet. It's away from the hubbub. It's created with intention though, not just, "Here's a room." So I think that's one, one thing I would say I am beginning to see implemented at meetings, and I think it's very good.  Megan Henshall: I couldn't agree more about resilient spaces. I'll give you a funny anecdote. We were at a large culture festival in Texas. I'll let you do with that what you will. And they had resilient spaces, and my [00:13:00] partner in this work, Rachel Lowenstein, and I walked in just to check it out. We're, like, so curious, and it was, like, an inflatable, almost a kids' bounce house in- Oh. ... its room. And so you had the fan going, which is, like- Oh my God, immediate sensory nightmare. The touch of the rubber thing. It was just so not it. So I think there's a lot of, for resilient spaces, I think there's a lot of mental mapping we've done that they need to be juvenile and they're for children, but adults need these spaces in many ways more than kids do. Because we, we don't take care of ourselves, and we largely just, like, we don't take care of each other as much as we should, and that was just a really funny example of, ooh, maybe not the gr- the best way. Yeah. It was a funny moment. I also think, like, there's this- Mindset in the event industry and experience design industry at large, that the flashier, the louder activation. Megan Henshall: [00:14:00] The brighter, the more colorful this thing is, the more you're gonna capture and keep people's attention. And like we know based on neuroscience, that is not at all true. Where you have high highs, you need low lows. People can't sustain high energy all day. They actually can't sustain attention. We have-- The human attention span is actually now less than a goldfish. Thank you, social media.  Catherine Galli: Yeah.  Megan Henshall: So, like we really need to give people breaks. We need to facilitate transitions and give them permission and alibis to go and process and regulate and restore, and sometimes that can be as simple as just giving longer breaks.  Wendy-Jo Toyama: Longer, yeah.  Megan Henshall: They can find their own way. I think giving intentionally designed spaces is really beautiful. Understanding budget constraints and things, like just give them more time to process between things. And think about how we attenuate and amplify at the right time. If you wanna do the [00:15:00] loud music and the flashing lights, like cool, choose your moment for that and know that you also need to provide an alternative, a counterpoint to that at another point in time, because people need both. If you want the most out of them, you need to make sure that you're supporting how their brain works.  Catherine Galli: And that's not even a neurodivergent challenge. That's just a people challenge. I remember going to a three-day conference that was basically a rave for three straight days. Um, leaving and being very overwhelmed. Wendy-Jo Toyama: Yeah. And that speaks to universal design, right? The idea that a lot of times these considerations that get put in place for one purpose end up benefiting everybody. So yeah, better meeting overall.  Megan Henshall: I planned for conferences for decades, and I would come home from running an event, and I would go non-verbal, and I would be in bed for two days. And at the time, I thought, I'm just exhausted. No, I was actually having a full-    Megan Henshall: Yeah ...autistic shutdown, [00:16:00] and now I know how to moderate. But there's a lot of things that I go to because I have to for work, or I need to be there to speak, and they're really untenable for me and a lot of people  Catherine Galli: So you mentioned some of the things that are supportive in events for being able to be more accessible, not just for neurodivergent individuals, but for everyone. What are some of the ways that associations can better support their neurodivergent members, whether that's volunteering, leadership roles, or even committee participation?  Wendy-Jo Toyama: We recently had a strategic planning session, and I really appreciated our consultant who we brought in to facilitate that because she did very thoughtful things around this. It would be typical that they might throw out a question to a group, talk about how X is affecting the field. But she also included, "I want everybody to think for the next two minutes. Let's not talk. [00:17:00] Let's just think. Take out a piece of paper and write down how the external environment is affecting your association." And I really appreciated that. It gave folks who are not think talkers the chance to gather their thoughts. I think there's little things like that we can do. I think that that was really helpful for a group that I'm sure included neurodivergent folks.  Megan Henshall: I think one of the reasons I loved the approach to this project we did with ASAE and MPI is it started with curiosity and listening, and I really believe-  Wendy-Jo Toyama: Yes Megan Henshall: Curiosity is a dying human practice because now we can Gemini or ChatGPT anything, and we don't talk to one another anymore. And I think any organization that really wants to get this right, they have to start with listening and a really deep spirit of curiosity to understand the [00:18:00] experience of the people that ultimately they serve or, or building for or designing for. And I'm always really proud to be a part of a project that-- or a journey that starts that way. So I think it's as simple as asking people on your team, "How do you best like to see, receive information? What is your communication style, and how can I accommodate the ways that you learn or you process information?" Cool. Tell me a little bit about your chronotype. What are the parts of your day where you're peak creative, and how can we lean into that? I think this idea of job crafting and things in the future, learning strengths-based work and, and just building together, collaboration is gonna be more important than ever in a post-AI world. And curiosity is not something that AI can replace. Bravery to ask the question is not something that AI can ever [00:19:00] replace. And so these are the human things. This is very human work, right? These are the human things that we need to recultivate, and guess what? They're free, and they're simple. So I, I really do think that's the best first step for anyone who wants to get into this work. Wendy-Jo Toyama: So interesting to hear you talk about it, Meg, because at the organization I'm at, the American Epilepsy Society, our members are really curious, no surprise. And so we bring a lot of curiosity into our association and into our work. We also talk about neurodivergence at the board table as well as with staff. And I think, again, normalizing it, bringing curiosity helps us think about how to curate and design a meeting or a day in a way that takes that into account and doesn't make it something that's odd or stigmatized or negative.  Megan Henshall: Yeah. We're not robots, right? We all have different needs, and it's so important. And once you throw it out there, people are like, "Oh."  Wendy-Jo Toyama: Yeah.  Megan Henshall: And it creates such rich conversation. It's a beautiful thing.  Wendy-Jo Toyama: Yeah. There's no IEP for adulthood.  Megan Henshall: 100. Don't I know [00:20:00] it.  Wendy-Jo Toyama: Yeah. So we have to figure out how we carry on that, creating an environment where everyone can bring their best self.  Catherine Galli: That's wonderful. And even just framing it within curiosity takes away some of the fear for people who are trying to jump into this space to say that, "Okay, I'm going to get it wrong, but I want to learn, and I can learn with the people that I work with and the people that I serve together." That's wonderful. So we've talked about this idea of stepping into starting these practices. I like that the research kind of sets a baseline for neuroinclusive practice and associations. Going off of that, what guidance would you offer to leaders to measure and improve neuroinclusion in their organizations?  Megan Henshall: I can jump in. I think when you're doing, again, very deeply human work like neuroinformed design and neuroinclusive practice, I think [00:21:00] understanding sentiment is one of the most important things, because again, this isn't data on a spreadsheet. This is lived experience, and this is like human beings' everyday lives. And so I think, again, creating a really robust feedback channel that is open and transparent is critical for this sort of work. As you implement, you ask, "How did that land? How did that feel? Was that helpful? How could it be more helpful?" And I know we're all survey fatigued, but it doesn't have to be a survey, right? It can be an individual conversation. It can be observational audit, right? Just to see how people are engaging with the thing that you tried. We've done this a multitude of ways in the new project. At one point, we brought in behavioral and organizational scientists, and they did an observational audit and helped us iterate and improve. So I think there are a lot of different ways that you can do this that aren't as potentially annoying or invasive as a survey. [00:22:00] But the feedback loop, people seeing you responding to their feedback and then coming back to them is, it's just so kind, and it's just one of the most impactful things that you can do. It is very hard to boil this down to two KPIs, but once you have that feedback loop in place, the story writes itself, and then I think you can plug out certain data points or positive or negative side effects of various interventions, so you can build from there. But that feedback channel is really important. Wendy-Jo Toyama: I love your answer because it is very personal and actionable. I will also say, I do think you could use proxies, right? So I do think that ideally, if you are being inclusive of all your employees and neuro inclusive, you might see employee engagement scores go up. You might see your employee retention go up. You might see your member retention or your net promoter score go up. [00:23:00] So I think there are other proxies you can look at. You may not be able to draw a straight line, and of course, these kinds of efforts take time. So that's why I like augmenting proxies with what you're talking about. I love the experience audit idea. I also think there are questions we can ask. Does everyone feel like they belong? Do you feel like you can express your opinion? Do you feel heard? I think there are questions that sometimes feel like soft questions, but they really aren't anymore, right? We're learning that what leaders need is shifting and evolving, and these are essential skills. But there are qu- there are questions you could incorporate into something else you're doing, right? To your point, Meg, there's... People are tired of surveys, but so I think figuring out what you're currently doing and how you can just tweak it a little to get a little information could be helpful.  Megan Henshall: Yeah. I'll give a really tangible example. Based on feedback and sentiment, we heard we're partnering with an organization, we heard we need [00:24:00] something intentional and designed to lower stress and anxiety in this particular environment. And so we created an intervention based on the feedback, we implemented it, and then we actually tracked some biometric data. Oh. We had a user experience team come in and conduct interviews, and started with feedback, did this intervention, and actually ended up with this incredible data around how this intervention had lowered stress and anxiety rates by 60%.  Megan Henshall: Uh ... so amazing. The teams felt more creative post-intervention, and they actually felt more productive for up to four hours afterwards. And so it was really interesting. We didn't know exactly what we would learn, but we knew we were solving a real problem that we had heard from the people we cared about. And so this is just a very tangible example of how that can manifest. You don't always know exactly what KPI you're gonna end up with, but if you're doing the right thing with the right intention, you'll prove yourself right with the [00:25:00] data. Wendy-Jo Toyama: Right. And here's what I heard. I didn't hear, "Oh my gosh, I have to bring in a behavioral health scientist to measure this." What I heard is, "Oh, she listened to her audience, made changes, and it was effective." That's the part of your answer that I heard that feels very implementable, right? Because, again, we don't wanna not do it because I can't have someone come in and measure it. I don't have the money to do that, so I'm not- Right ... gonna do it at all. You can still do it, and guess what? You'll still get a result even if you're not measuring it.  Megan Henshall: Yeah. I think sometimes we get so hamstrung. We're in a prison of date, of data necessity. I love it. And we... There's this really great saying, "The same hammer can build a cathedral or a prison," and I think a lot of times we wield data that way. Yeah. Boxed ourselves in. Just do something 'cause you know it's the right thing to do and it's needed, and I guarantee you the data will come. Yeah.  Wendy-Jo Toyama: It's incredible. It's like being at the conference the other day, and I didn't have my watch on, so I couldn't count my steps. I'm like, "Oh my gosh." You know? Yeah, but I guess I'm still taking [00:26:00] them all, so it still counts whether or not I measured it.  Megan Henshall: Uh, I have the Oura Ring, and sometimes it's a very self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm like, "Oh, I'm not well today." Catherine Galli: So then for organizations considering getting involved or sponsoring this type of research, what's the real value both for the organization and the broader community? Wendy-Jo Toyama: Ultimately, creating a sense of belonging is going to be beneficial on so many different fronts, from including all voices, different voices, people wanting to be a part of your association, working or as members. So many different benefits.  Megan Henshall: Yeah. As someone who regularly says that my autistic special interest is people, I'm often completely befuddled by this mindset of, "We wanna sell you something. We wanna get something from you, yet [00:27:00] we're not gonna take the time to understand you and meet you where you are." Yeah. And I think we talk about neuroinclusion as, and it's not just the right thing to do, it's also a strategic imperative.  Wendy-Jo Toyama: Yeah.  Megan Henshall: There was a really interesting study that came out last year from our friends at understood.org. Like 52% of Gen Z, decent sample size, identify as neurodivergent.  Catherine Galli: Sure.  Megan Henshall: And so it's just really interesting to think there's this whole swath of people that most organizations know very little about, not only how to support them and accommodate them, but also how to get the most out of them, how to help them meet their potential, or how to sell them something even, right? And so I think it's really important that when you're designing or you're looking to target people, that you do everything you can to understand them, because that's gonna help you get the messaging right. That's gonna help you create the right design interventions, and ultimately, it creates a really virtuous cycle, right? I understand you, I do the right thing for you to give [00:28:00] back. It creates reciprocity, and it's not as extractive. So I, I just think it's a really important part of business, like good business practice.  Wendy-Jo Toyama: It's essential.  Catherine Galli: Yeah. I love that, and I love hearing just this idea that, one, it's about being a good steward of resources and being a good steward of people, treating people with respect and kindness, and inviting them to engage on all these different levels. But also just a strategic imperative- It is ... that the future of work demands that associations or really any organization be prepared for these changes that are happening, and be able to work with future staff and future members who may identify as neurodivergent. So I really like that this research is coming in now because I think it's a great place to spark those conversations and to prepare associations for a future like that, and for people right now who are navigating these different events and [00:29:00] leadership positions, committee participation, and wanting to show up as their best selves. Mm. And then I had a question about- We talked about the research, we talked about ways to make events a little bit more inviting. That first step can be really challenging. If an association wanted to get started with neuroinclusion today but didn't know where to begin, what's the first step you recommend they take? Wendy-Jo Toyama: I wouldn't boil the ocean. And I think if you haven't stated an intention, I think that's a place to start. But you do need to follow it with action. You don't wanna be performative in this space. I think one of the things that you could do is begin a conversation with your staff about this. You may not know who identifies as neurodivergent, and if somebody steps [00:30:00] forward, then that might be someone you could co-create with. So that might be a way to start by bringing it into the room, having the conversation, having by us, for us kind of discussion, and identifying something that would be meaningful and doable and sustainable.  Megan Henshall: I love that answer. Yeah, look around where you are and invite neurodivergent people. They're there. They are. Invite them to the process.  Catherine Galli: Yeah.  Megan Henshall: So I said earlier, start with listening. I think listening to people in your own organization is a beautiful way to get started there. I will counter, so here's what not to do. Oh,  Catherine Galli: yeah.  Megan Henshall: Do not hire a neurodivergent speaker, especially if you're not compensating them fairly. Have them come talk about their lived experience, and then do nothing afterwards. That is so icky. I see it happening all the time, and people are like, "We did it. We checked the box. We educated people." A 30-minute keynote at a conference where someone is talking about their [00:31:00] disability is not it. Don't do that. But I, I actually don't think there's any wrong way to start as long as you're doing it from- Start ... an honest, honest place and you're curious.  Wendy-Jo Toyama: Yeah.  Catherine Galli: Yeah. Love that. And is there anything else you want our listeners to know about enhancing neuro inclusion in their practices and associations?  Wendy-Jo Toyama: One of the things we haven't talked about that I do wanna mention is intersectionality. And I do think that if you are someone who identifies as a person of color or female in a male environment, male in a female environment, you might closet your neurodivergence. And so again, I think it's important for leaders to understand that this is happening. That when you say, "I don't have anyone neurodivergent on my staff," you probably do. They are probably, there's probably intersectionality happening there, and they don't wanna be an Asian woman and neurodivergent. [00:32:00] So I think that's really important to be aware of. And again, I think what Meg's been talking about, being curious and listening, I think those are some of the ways that you can try to tease this out. But it's a real- anxiety, stressful-producing situation to be in as an individual if you feel you have to hide part of who you are because, oh gosh, I have this other stuff going on. So I, I just think it's important that people are aware of that. I'm not actually sure what to tell you to do about that, but be aware of it and continue to be curious and listen. Megan Henshall: Yeah. Less than 30%, I think it's 27% is the latest stat, of people disclose that they're neurodivergent at work or in mixed spaces, right, where they don't have really trusted people around. And a lot of people are undiagnosed.  Wendy-Jo Toyama: Sure.  Megan Henshall: They need this work, and they just don't know they need it. So yeah, I just- I'll give a quick plug. We have free resources on The Neu Project website. It's just The Neu Project, N-E-U project.com. There [00:33:00] are free resources there specifically for event planners because we know events are one of the most stressful things for neurodivergent people. A lot of them don't go, and so they're missing out on professional opportunities and networking opportunities that matter to them, and their careers, and their growth, and their ability to contribute. Go check that out. We'll- those will always be free. And I think, while I can't speak for Wendy-Jo, but if you have questions and you just wanna unpack things with a safe person, I'm always open. So you can contact the team at The Neu Project through the website. And yeah, stay curious.  Wendy-Jo Toyama: Yeah. And  the resource with MPI and ASAE has practical actions in it. It has links to articles in it, and I believe toolkits will be coming out as well. Again, I think now that you've heard about neuroinclusion and neurodiversity, you're probably gonna find a number of places you can turn. It wasn't on your radar screen maybe before, but now it is. So there are [00:34:00] resources out  Catherine Galli: there. That's wonderful. Thank you so much, Meg and Wendy-Jo. Thanks to everybody listening to this episode of Associations NOW Presents. Join us each month to explore key topics relevant to association professionals, discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today, and highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy, the US, and the world. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And for more information on topics impacting the association space, visit Associations Now online at associationsnow.com.

The Impact of Second-Tier Destinations on Association Meetings and Events

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents: Industry Partner Edition, guest host Sharon Pare of HighRoad Solutions is joined by Stephanie Alexander-Priakos, director of meetings and conferences at Visit St. Pete-Clearwater; Myha Gallagher, vice president of brand at Future Partners; and Jill Stone, site selection manager with HelmsBriscoe, for a conversation about the evolving meetings and events landscape and the growing appeal of second-tier destinations like St. Pete-Clearwater, Florida. Drawing on industry research and firsthand planning experience, the guests discuss how planners are increasingly prioritizing affordability, accessibility, safety, and unique experiences when selecting destinations, while also navigating rising costs, convention center fatigue, and growing political considerations tied to location decisions. The conversation also explores emerging trends shaping the future of meetings, including the rise of “bleisure” travel, the importance of walkability and outdoor gathering spaces, and how AI is beginning to influence sourcing and attendee personalization. Alexander-Priakos highlights what continues to drive interest in St. Pete-Clearwater, from its award-winning beaches and walkable downtown to expanding meeting infrastructure, wellness-focused properties, and cultural attractions such as the Dalí and Chihuly museums. The episode also examines the role destination organizations play in supporting planners through site visits, logistics, and creating memorable attendee experiences that extend beyond the convention center. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/dQzqtjc_2N0 [https://youtu.be/dQzqtjc_2N0]   This episode is sponsored by Visit St. Pete-Clearwater [https://www.visitstpeteclearwater.com/]. Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings [https://associationbriefings.com/].   Transcript Sharon Pare: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of Associations NOW Presents: Industry Partner Series, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Sharon Pare, partnerships director at High Road, a HubSpot agency, and your host of this series throughout the year. This episode is sponsored by Visit St. Pete-Clearwater.  Today, I'm joined by three fantastic guests. First, I wanna introduce Myha Gallagher, vice president of brand at Future Partners, where she helps bring meeting and travel industry research to life through data-driven storytelling and insights. Stephanie Alexander-Priakos, director of meetings and conferences at Visit St. Pete-Clearwater, who's passionate about showcasing the destination's award-winning beaches, culture, hospitality, and group experiences. And Jill Stone, site selection manager with HelmsBriscoe    and co-host of the In the [00:01:00] Genes podcast, who brings more than 35 years of experience helping planners create successful meetings and events throughout the world. Today, we're talking about trends shaping the meetings and events industries, meeting and events industry, and why more planners and associations are looking beyond traditional convention destinations toward places like St. Pete-Clearwater. So I'm gonna put a little disclaimer here, 'cause as a Florida girl born and raised, and I think I mentioned this to you ladies before, I have to say it's been really fun watching the west coast of Florida evolve. 20-plus years ago. I don't wanna date myself here, but in college a lot of us on the east side of Central Florida, we just didn't head west all that often. And now here in the 2020s, 2026, I think St. Pete-Clearwater has become one of the most talked about destinations, right? Meetings, events, food, maybe sports, and maybe just the overall experience. So I'm really excited to dig into all of this today. So Myha, I really wanna kick off your work [00:02:00] with the research, because I think it will frame this entire conversation. So Future Partners, which I know you're very heavily involved with that survey, every year you do a survey of meeting planners to understand the trends that are impacting the meetings industry. So what would you say are some of the top emerging trends as it relates to St. PeteyClearwater?  Myha Gallagher : Yeah, I'm happy to share that, Sharon. Thank you so much for having us on. The first and probably the biggest trend that we see coming out of our latest survey is the rise in interest among meeting planners in sourcing second-tier destinations. In fact, nearly 81% of planners that we surveyed agreed that second-tier destinations are growing in popularity for events, and this is really being driven by the demand for new experiences, a perception that second-tier cities are much safer than first-tier cities, and then cost savings in sourcing smaller destinations as well. And then we're also hearing from planners that their attendees are having [00:03:00] convention center fatigue. Just being stuck in the four concrete walls of a convention center can really drain your energy, and so planners are sharing with us that they are looking for more differentiated experiences and, of course, beautiful scenery to keep their attendees engaged and energized. And then lastly, unfortunately, there's been a considerable rise in agreement among planners that politics are having an effect on the destinations that they're sourcing. In fact, 61% of planners said they have had to reconsider a destination due to controversial issues in the past 12 months alone. And in subsequent conversations with planners, they've shared with us that, of course, they're planning events for large groups, many diverse attendees, and they wanna make sure that the destinations that they select will be safe and welcoming for their groups. And this is an area where St. Pete Clearwater has done a fantastic job crafting each message and ad campaign to [00:04:00] really showcase how welcoming a destination they are.  Sharon Pare: So I wanted to dig in a little bit more. You mentioned this convention center fatigue, this attendee fatigue, right? And like you said, a lot of the attendees say don't wanna be within that traditional sense in those four walls of the convention center now, right? And perhaps we're gonna dig into this a little bit more in the conversation, but can you touch on that a little bit about are planners now looking for destinations where the city itself becomes part of the entire event experience?  Myha Gallagher : Oh, absolutely. I think the traditional sense of conventions and convention centers, especially with younger attendees coming into the mix now with Gen Z, planners are really looking for ways to engage that younger audience, and we know there are different tools that need to be used to activate our younger convention attendees. And one tactic is definitely sourcing more unique spaces, making sure you're in a really [00:05:00] beautiful environment to keep the energy up. And that's not to say convention centers are going away at all. They serve a very specific and vital part of the meetings industry. But for planners who are hosting smaller groups, not citywides, they are definitely looking towards more unconventional and more unique spaces to host their events. Sharon Pare: And to add to that, what right now are planners ... And don't worry, Jill, I'll be getting to you soon. But what are they asking for that maybe three or four years ago they weren't asking for? Is there anything different? Is there a shift that you've seen?  Myha Gallagher : Yeah. The top trend around that, I think it comes as no surprise to anyone in the room, is the use of AI. Many planners are using AI to help with their sourcing decisions, and they're also thinking about ways that AI can be integrated into the meeting environment to [00:06:00] personalize meeting agendas for their attendees. And like every other industry, AI is making its impact, and, and it'll be interesting to see how planners continue to leverage the tool to evolve their meetings. Sharon Pare: I'm gonna bring it over to Jill. And it's really interesting, Miha, to hear about the research side of things because again, I think it's really reshaping how the planners are thinking about some of these things today, and how they're planning their meetings. So Jill, after decades, I don't wanna say many, but after decades working directly, well, it just shows your expertise and your wisdom around really knowing your stuff. But after working with these directors and planners and clients after all this time, are you seeing those shifts play out in real time? And maybe you can tell us about a recent experience you had with Visit St. Pete/Clearwater, and tell us a little bit more about that.  Jill Stone: Sure. Miya took most of my answers, I gotta say. But I got a few left I think that maybe I can share. She's right. Clients are looking for [00:07:00] lots of different things. Mainly, there's, the safety issue's huge. Politics is huge unfortunately. And I've had clients leave a particular hotel or destination, or just totally discount it altogether because of that. And then there's other things that happen, laws that are passed, et cetera, that maybe they can't either agree with or get on board with. But yes, I just had a client at the Wyndham Clearwater Beach, and St. Pete was great. They offer free things for clients, and I'm sure Stephanie's gonna get into all the things that they offer and the things that they can do. But they also help when I'm looking for a destination, and maybe I have forgotten one. They're quick to tell me, "Hey, look at this one, too." And- What I found, especially when I interviewed Stephanie for our podcast, is that they have some great hotels and resorts of all various sizes. So if a client has a large size meeting, let's say 4- or 500 people, that can be done, but also some of the smaller meetings can be at some of the more boutique style hotels or those [00:08:00] kinds of things. But, and one other thing they're looking for is walkability to things, ease of getting to the destination. Affordability is huge. Second tier destinations like St. Pete/Clearwater are very affordable. And yes, I agree with Miha on the convention center fatigue. If they can get outside to the beach, and more beach, that makes them happy. And outside venue spaces are key for lunches, breaks, et cetera. So if they can find a meeting space that has an outdoor terrace or a lawn or someplace where they can be outside in a great, warm destination, then they will be signing on the dotted line pretty quickly for that. But also, St. Pete has the The Renaissance Vinoy is one of my favorite hotels, and it is located in a really cool area, maybe not so much beach, but they've got shops and restaurants and museums and things that are so walkable and people wanna get to and experience. So there's all kinds of things you can experience in their destination. All of it, [00:09:00] actually. You can have a city experience or you can have more of a beach experience. And a lot of planners are looking for that now. They've got attendees who want, we call it bleisure. They wanna expand and they wanna go someplace they wanna go. And so it's on their bucket list to get to. So those are the kinda things that my clients are looking for. And another thing that's easy for them is if they are just using one hotel, one contract and one contact makes their whole life a whole lot easier, too. So anything we can do to help the planners find what they want with ease and make it easier for them, that's my job to do, and I try to do that. Try to do that every day. Sharon Pare: It sounds like Visit St. Pete-Clearwater definitely gets you outside of those four walls because it has so much to offer. You mentioned having the boutique hotels, obviously, and I know this too, some of the most beautiful beaches. Bleisure, this is my first time ever hearing of business and leisure just put into one, right? What are some of your clients prioritizing the most right now when they're selecting destinations? I know you talked about [00:10:00] walkability and some of the other things. Is there anything else that the clients or your clients are really looking for, too?  Jill Stone: With the way the economic things are happening right now, affordability is one of the key things. Which it does, second tier destinations do tend to be more affordable. It's easy to get into their airports, which are smaller, so their attendees don't feel like they're lost in a huge Airport, and at, and typically where they're going is very close to the airport. No one wants to be hours and hours away from the airport. So those destinations tend to have ... In St. Pete, I know, I know Stephanie will talk about all those things too, but they do have all those things. You, depending on where you wanna be in their area, you're very close to things. And yes, walkability. The Wyndham, for example, there was a pier and lots of restaurants just within walking distance. And so it was perfect for both. They got both experiences, the beach, and a little bit of the city experience too. So for my client, that was very much ... They're, the, and they're, the, and they [00:11:00] also we have to think about not only do the attendees, because they're s- pretty much in meeting rooms all day, their spouses wanna come and bring their kids sometimes. And so this was perfect destination for that, and the kids got to be outside flashing around and, uh, running around in the sand.  Sharon Pare: Jill, I, I think that's such a good setup for Stephanie, 'cause now we've talked about what the planners are looking for. And Stephanie, I, you're from the Visit St. Pete-Clearwater side. So I wanna talk about really what makes the destination work so well for groups. Why is St. Pete-Clearwater a great place to have a meeting or conference?  Stephanie Alexander-Priakos: First of all, m- going from what Jill had said over here, we do have award-winning beaches. That's what we're famous for with Clearwater Beach and St. Pete Beach. They've had accolades. I've lived here 19 years now, and they've been having accolades of the best beaches in America for as long as I've been here, and I think it's an awful lot longer than that too. But the weather. This is why I moved here. [00:12:00] Coming from the UK where it rains a lot, it's very gray, it's windy. I'd had enough of it. I needed some blue sky and sunshine. And I've, I've been lucky that I've been in this industry all of my life as well, and I must have traveled to over 80 different countries now, and I've lived in six different countries. And there is nowhere else in the world that I would rather live and work than St. Pete-Clearwater. For me, it has everything that I can possibly want, and I don't think I'm alone because we get a lot of meetings that are held over in this destination. One of course, like you said, because of the weather. We actually hold a Guinness World Record, St. Pete does, and it is for the most consecutive days of sunshine in the world at 768 consecutive days of sunshine. We have all year round great weather. I love it. The groups are really busy in January and February when it's really [00:13:00] cold and snowy up in Chicago or Boston or Cleveland. So we get a lot of people coming down at that time of year just to get a break from the cold weather too But our hotels are so different. Each and every one has its own unique selling point. Everything from downtown St. Petersburg, which really has that vibrant arts and culinary feel to it. We have four restaurants in downtown St. Pete that are in the Michelin Guide. Every single restaurant in downtown St. Pete except two is independently owned and operated as well. Very proud of that. And like Jill said, everything is walking distance. I will make one correction on the Vinoy, though. It's no longer The Renaissance. It is the Vinoy Marriott Autograph Collection. Oh, sorry about that. That's okay. And the Vinoy is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. They went through a major renovation. The hotel is just... It's fabulous. Very Spanish style. [00:14:00] Lot of history to it. They have great meeting space. Their largest meeting room is 12,000 square feet, and they have a total of 35,400. So it's a great option in downtown St. Pete. And like Jill said, everything's walkable. It really is. And they have a marina right opposite the hotel, so you have the choice of doing your deep sea fishing charters. Go and see some dolphins. It's just about guaranteed every time you go on the water you're gonna see some dolphins. We get a lot of people that asking for natural light in their meetings now. When you'd mentioned- Yes, that's so important ... yep, and Mihad mentioned this convention, they, they don't want to be in those four walls where they don't know what's going on outside. Sharon Pare: Or those basements sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes you end up in, in a cave, and you haven't seen the light of day for 72 hours, and then by the time you get out of it, it's dark, right? Yeah.  Stephanie Alexander-Priakos: Yep. So, okay. Right. That's good to know. Yeah, so a lot of hotels with, with meeting space, space with [00:15:00] natural light. We have up and down the beaches, too, and in downtown St. Pete. And I think that's really important, but our hotels are smart because they do have the option to bring down those blinds if they do need to st- If people are looking outside and watching the dolphins too much in the middle of the meeting, we do have options. We can fix that, so it's all good. That sounds sad- I would be- but, you know, that makes sense. Go ahead, Jill. Jill Stone: I would be watching the dolphins. That would be a whole... probably more fun than whatever's on the screen. But no, I like that idea, too. And you can see outside when you want to. And like I said, they like to get outside, so if there's a way to do that, too, they're happy there. And I know there's... You, Stephanie, you have a lot of hotels with that capability. A lot of people  Stephanie Alexander-Priakos: are bringing in the wellness tourism into their meetings as well. The wellness... We've got three properties that are recognized by the Wellness Tourism Association, which is The Vinoy. We also have the Don CeSar on St. Pete Beach and the JW Marriott on Clearwater Beach. So we're seeing that groups are looking for different experiences as well, and [00:16:00] incorporating that wellness into their agenda. Ad Read: Let's take a quick break and hear a word from our episode sponsor. Whether it's a sunrise walk before sessions or a sunset reception on the Gulf, America's favorite beaches give your event a backdrop that no ballroom can match. The Dali Museum, Chihuly Collection, and hundreds of murals across the Edge District give planners ready-made cultural excursions that feel curated, not generic. St. Pete-Clearwater has earned national recognition as one of America's next great food cities. From laid-back Gulf Coast seafood to Michelin-recognized kitchens, the range and quality give planners a roster of restaurants that impress any attendee and appetite. To start planning today, visit meetspc.com. Stephanie Alexander-Priakos: I want to go back to the Don CeSar Hotel, which is another iconic property that we have on St. Pete Beach. [00:17:00] They are 98 years old, and are gonna be celebrating their 100th anniversary soon. Mm. And both properties have really great history to it, because both of them were actually used as hospitals during World War II, and they've been renovated, and they just look amazing. They look fantastic. The Don CeSar just opened a brand-new ballroom with 7,400 square feet, so they have some really good meeting space, too. Our newest hotel is the Opal Sol, part of the Opal Collection. That's up in Clearwater Beach. Very nice. As they have a connecting walkway across the street to their sister property, the Opal Sands Hotel. So we got really excited because c- the two- Mm-hmm ... properties, it's almost 500 guest rooms and 80,000 square feet of meeting space. So even though we are a tier two destination, we still can host some of those larger groups. Sharon Pare: I was just about to ask that, so thank you for segueing yourself into that. Okay, good to know. Okay.  Stephanie Alexander-Priakos: Yeah. So again, like we said, between the Opal [00:18:00] Sol and Opal Sands, up to 500 guest rooms. TradeWinds is our largest hotel on St. Pete Beach with 768 guest rooms. They can also be very creative because they can put tents on the beach, too, as does the Sheraton Sand Key up in Clearwater Beach. And TradeWinds actually held an event over there with 4,000 people. It's rare that we do something like that, but the ca- capabilities are there. I think the maximum that Sheraton Sand Key has done has been about 1,200 utilizing those tents out on the beach. And that's the wonderful thing about this destination, is that they can utilize different things, meeting all day and then go have their reception or their dinner on the beach with their toes in the sand and a drink in their hand, perhaps. And also, one of the other things that a lot of the groups seem to really enjoy in our destination is that they get the hotels to themselves. So I- I've heard the phrase they like to be a big [00:19:00] fish in a little pond So rather than being in one of those hotels that may have five, six, seven plus meetings going on at the same time, they literally have the whole hotel to themselves. And that's one thing that they really enjoy doing. And then we're also renowned for the different things that we have available in our destination. So we do a lot of, uh, pre/post room nights for the groups because of that bleisure like Jill was talking about. They do like to stay at the end of their conference or at the beginning of the conference. They'll have their family with them or just wanna relax for the weekend after the conference has finished. And we have different places like Tarpon Springs is our Greek sponge docks, and that actually is known for the world's largest Epiphany celebration. And they go out and they will dive for the sponges, which are natural. And oh my God, the food is amazing. It really is . We love our food over here, too. And then we've got Dunedin, which is our little [00:20:00] Scottish village over there, and every April they host the Highland Games. We just had the Valspar tournament up at Innisbrook, which is another r- resort of ours, and we had golfers like Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka, and Justin Thomas that were playing there. We have had Tiger Woods play there as well. We just closed up our Sugar Sand Festival on Clearwater Beach. That's 17 days of celebrating Clearwater Beach's most natural assets, the sugar sand and the sunsets. And there was over 1,000 tons of sand and 24,000 square feet of art exhibits. We also just had our Firestone Grand Prix in Downtown St. Petersburg. A little bit like Monaco, they close off the streets of Downtown St. Pete and have the race over there. They literally close down the streets and they build that racetrack in Downtown St. Pete. It goes past the Dali Museum. We did actually get 1.6 million viewers at the Firestone Grand Prix. [00:21:00] So yeah, we have some really cool things that go on down here, and I'm gonna just segue into the Dali Museum because that's one of, one of the other things that we are famous for. We have nine museums in Downtown St. Pete, including the Dali Museum, and Salvador Dali chose Downtown St. Petersburg for the only museum that he has outside of Spain. We also have the Chihuly Museum. Chihuly Museum is the only one outside of Seattle, which is where Dale Chihuly lives. And if you're not familiar with the Chihuly Museum, if you've ever been to the Bellagio in Las Vegas, it's where all the glass art is just everywhere. Beautiful, too. Yes, these are really good. And we have 600 art murals in Downtown St. Pete right now. It's very much a vibrant, just an amazing destination. But you can't beat the beaches, like I said. So you have so many different choices of options, places that you can be I've done site tours with so many clients, and the more I get to know them and feel [00:22:00] what they're looking for, I'm gonna be, "Okay, downtown St. Pete is gonna be for you, St. Pete Beach is gonna be for you, or Clearwater Beach is going to be for you." And that's another thing that we do at Visit St. Pete Clearwater. We live here. We know our destination, so we can help planners like Jill, if she's not quite sure what's gonna be the right fit, we can make recommendations for them. We really can put the two things together. We can help our meeting planners as well find offsite venues. We've got some great offsite venues from sunset dinner cruises. We have some really cool boats that we can take up to 350 people for a dinner cruise right now at Starlight Cruises. We just had St. Pete Athletic Club opened up, and that is pickleball. But their meeting space, believe it or not, is phenomenal. They literally have 18,000 square feet of meeting space in a pickleball venue. So again, we've got restaurants that we can do offsite venues. Clearwater [00:23:00] Marine Aquarium, oh my goodness me. They call it the Wall of Wonder because you can actually place your tables and your chairs in this particular area, and then you havethe whole glass aquarium where you can see the dolphins swimming past while you're having entertainment, while you're having, again, food and beverage for your group. So we have some very cool venues. We can help the planners select everything like that. We highly encourage site visits for everybody. We want them to come down and see the destination. Our planners know their clients, and we know the destination, so you put the two together and it's a perfect combination. And we will assist. We will arrange private transportation from the airport for the clients. We arrange all the accommodations, and we arrange the whole itinerary. And one of our amazing team members will literally take your client from A to B to C to D and be with them for the whole time and answer any questions that they may have. And then like Jill was [00:24:00] talking about as well, we do have a lot of complimentary services available. One of the things that we have is a welcome sign at Tampa International Airport, so it can be "Welcome such and such group." And that's gonna be the first thing that they see when they arrive into our destination. And there are 80 direct nonstop flights into Tampa within the domestic United States, and there's 20 direct nonstop international flights. So Tampa, again, a really easy airport to fly into. Voted the number two airport in the United States. We're very proud of that too. And you are literally 25, 35 minutes to get from the airport to the beaches. And just coming from a couple of conferences myself in Los Angeles and San Diego, boy, that traffic's bad. You're not wrong. So it's a lot easier and a lot faster to get to our beaches, that's for sure. And then the other thing we do with the complimentary services, we have a lot of media and videos available. We even send [00:25:00] out postcards if people want to go to the clients saying, "Save the date. Can't wait to see you in Clearwater. Can't wait to see you in St. Petersburg." Not many people get nice things in the mail anymore, but you can get a really great picture of the St. Pete or the beaches in our destination. And we do have a few incentives available. So if it helps secure the group in our destination, reach out. That's what we're here for. We want our hotels to secure the business. We're there to help both the hotels and the planners. So anything that we can do, we're here for you.  Sharon Pare: That's awesome, Stephanie. So thank you so much for that. I wanted to shift over to a little fun section. A few things I wanted to ask about St. Pete Clearwater, and basically give our listeners a cheat sheet for some of the things they should do. Stephanie, you gave us a wealth of knowledge around the things to see, the Guinness Book of World Records, the new hotels. Even Jill didn't know about one, and you gave her the news today, right? You heard it here [00:26:00] today. So Jill and Mihai, I want you guys to participate as well, but I wanna have a little bit of a fun time with this. And Stephanie, I know you've been in St. Pete Clearwater for about 19 years, so you might be our expert on this, but I'd love Jill and Mihai's take as well. So beaches, if you all had to pick one, one at a time, which one would you go to? I-  Stephanie Alexander-Priakos: I'm gonna jump in real quick over here. Like I said, I've been to so many different countries, and this is absolutely my favorite because of the beautiful white pure sand that we have. We have 35 miles of it, so I can't pick exactly which part. You've gotta pick one, though, Stephanie. Gotta pick one. We g- we need to see a cheat sheet. 35 miles of beaches from St. Pete to Clearwater. How's that? Okay. All right. Jill, what about you? Jill Stone: I like the Gulf areas of Florida 'cause their sand is beautiful. When I actually did take a few minutes last year with my client being at the Wyndham Clearwater, I had five minutes. Yeah, and it was beautiful. And so I gotta say [00:27:00] Clearwater. It really does- That's Clearwater Beach ... and it's not painful to walk on- Right ... when you're trying to get to the water.  Sharon Pare: How about you, Mihai? Your eyes lit up earlier when I said, "What is that one beach?"  Myha Gallagher : Yes, that one beach absolutely is Clearwater Beach. I am a California girl, grew up in SoCal. And so I never made my way out to Florida until we started working with St. Pete Clearwater. I went out for a meeting, stepped out onto Clearwater Beach, and I was like, "I get it. This is why everyone loves this place so much." Yeah. The sugar sand, that is such a perfect description for it. It is ethereal, soft, amazing. Can't wait to go back.  Sharon Pare: And the sunsets too, right? Everyone forgets, like, y- you can't catch that sunset on the east side of Florida, but just make your way out west, you'll watch a dolphin- jumping through on the, in the water and watching that sunset all at the same time, right? Okay, next. Rooftop. Is there a rooftop, a hidden gem rooftop that you would recommend? [00:28:00]  Stephanie Alexander-Priakos: The Canopy at The Birchwood, Downtown St. Pete. There we go. Start. All right. Canopy at The Birchwood. All right. Meha, how about  Sharon Pare: you?  Myha Gallagher : You know, I haven't been on a ton of rooftops in St. Pete/Clearwater also, but someone from the Visit St. Pete team did take me to this speakeasy where you had to walk through... It looked like a laundromat, and then you had to walk behind the laundromat, and you go into this- That's cool ... beautiful speakeasy. I don't remember the name, so if you're listening to this and you wanna go, hit up the Visit St. Pete/Clearwater team.  Stephanie Alexander-Priakos: It's actually called Dirty Laundry, and it's a really cool place because it looks like a laundromat, but they have a secret door that takes you into the speakeasy. So another great place that we have in Downtown St. Pete.  Sharon Pare: That is very cool. That's why it's a speakeasy. Favorite local coffee shop. Stephanie, looks like this one's for you.  Stephanie Alexander-Priakos: Kahwa. It's K-A-H-W-A.  Sharon Pare: Beautiful local really tasty coffee. [00:29:00] Okay. Awesome. All right. Famous landmark. Stephanie, I know you mentioned the Dali Museum. If you had to pick a number two, any other famous landmarks that people should be looking at while they're there? Stephanie Alexander-Priakos: Oh my goodness me, you're gonna ask me to pick one. Hang on a second. Just one. Just one. First come to mind. I'm gonna say the pier on St. Petersburg. It's relatively new. It's absolutely stunning. There's so many restaurants over there, just so many different things to do on our pier. And again, you can hold a meeting there as well. They actually have 10,000 square feet of space at the pier that you're surrounded by water again- Yep ... on the Tampa Bay Area. Stunning. How about you, Jill? The Don  Jill Stone: CeSar. Mm, you see that- Don CeSar ... pink building and you know where you are. Uh, and I, yeah, I was j- like I said, I was just there last year and as soon as we saw it, I was like, "Oh, I know where we are." So again, yeah, [00:30:00] my, one of my favorite landmark anyway. Okay.  Myha Gallagher : Meha? I would say the Chihuly. The glass art pieces are incredible and otherworldly and, like Stephanie said, the only other place to see them is either at the Bellagio or in Seattle. And yeah, it's a can't-miss if you go to St. Pete/-Clearwater.  Sharon Pare: All right. This one's gonna be a tough one for all of you. Your favorite restaurant. Meha, I'm gonna start with you this time Oh gosh We'll leave Stephanie for last.  Myha Gallagher : Um, I gotta say, every restaurant I've eaten at in St. Pete/Clearwater has been fantastic. But the most memorable dining experience I had was actually, it was outside of the Sandpearl Hotel. They had set up those outside tents, and we were dining on this seafood buffet out on the beach, and it was just so incredible. My CEO and I talk about it [00:31:00] all the time because we're big seafood fans, and it was just so special. So any restaurant, and then also dining on seafood on the beach.  Jill Stone: Okay. Jill? You can't beat the beach and the seafood. I, uh, actually, the Wyndham's restaurant was really good. I know it sounds crazy to eat in a hotel. But some ... But it was ... They also have a, a patio that is right on the beach. And so we got a chance to do a little bit of both. So I really liked that restaurant.  Stephanie Alexander-Priakos: Stephanie? One of my personal favorites is Caretta's on the Gulf, and it is actually inside the Sandpearl Hotel. But I love their buffets that they do. They do a brunch. They'll do a Thanksgiving. They do a Christmas over there. And the attention to detail and just the standard of their food is superb.  Sharon Pare: All right. We're about coming up on time. But what I wanted to ... Some final thoughts, right? So if an association planner listening today is considering [00:32:00] trying a secondary market for the first time, what would you want them to know about St. Pete-Clearwater?  Stephanie Alexander-Priakos: I would just tell them to just come down and see for themselves. Jill, Meha, anything from  Jill Stone: you two? Stephanie's right. They should see it. They should also really consider that because what they've been spending, maybe in some of the larger cities, they could get so much more in a smaller destination. So they really should. And again, the beach. Can't beat it.  Myha Gallagher : I'd say St. Pete/Clearwater is a slice of heaven. It turned a California girl into a Florida lover, and I can't say that there's any harder task than that. Thank you all.  Sharon Pare: Jill, Meha, Stephanie, this has been such a fun conversation. I appreciate you all joining today and sharing your perspectives. And honestly, it's really exciting to see St. Pete-Clearwater make a name for itself on the map and become a major player [00:33:00] in the meetings and events space. So thanks to everyone for listening to this episode of Associations NOWw Presents: Industry Partners Series. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals, discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today, and highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy, the US, and the world. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts And for more information on topics impacting the association space, visit Associations Now online at associationsnow.com.

From Data to Decisions: Helping Associations Better Understand Members

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents: Industry Partner Edition, guest host Sharon Pare of HighRoad Solutions sits down with Georgina Donahue, Director of Community Innovation and Strategy at Higher Logic, and Rachel Mace, CAE, Director of IT and Database at the National Pest Management Association, to discuss how associations can better understand members and use that insight to drive smarter strategy. They explain how most organizations have plenty of data but little usable intelligence because systems don’t integrate and staff lack a unified, individual-level view across programs, leading to decisions based on gut instinct and missed warning signs like “silent churners.” The guests distinguish reports from behavioral signals and patterns that predict engagement and renewal, share examples of targeted outreach and pandemic-era webinars boosting recruitment and retention, and discuss using engagement scoring, dashboards, and guidance to act at scale. They recommend auditing where data lives, focusing on high-signal sources, and making incremental improvements rather than chasing perfect data. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/QCQXIDc_cYI [https://youtu.be/QCQXIDc_cYI]   Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings [https://associationbriefings.com/].   Transcript Sharon Pare: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of Associations NOW Presents: Industry Partner Series, an original podcast from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Sharon Pare, Partnerships Director at Highroad, and your host of this series throughout the year. This episode is sponsored by Higher Logic.  Today, we're excited to welcome Georgina Donahue, Director of Community Innovation and Strategy at Higher Logic, along with Rachel Mace, CAE, Director of IT and Database at the National Pest Management Association. Our conversation today is about how associations can better understand their members and turn that insight into smarter strategy. Georgina, Rachel, welcome to the show.  So I think this is something a lot of associations are quietly dealing with, so why don't we jump in? So let's start with something most associations don't want to say out loud. Most of them are making decisions about their members based on very [00:01:00] little actual insight. Why is that, and how common is it?  Georgina Donahue: I think that most associations have more data than they've ever had, right? They have data coming in from all over the place. They have their AMS records, their event history. They have a community platform. They have email opens, right? So they have this huge bulk of data, but the problem is that almost none of it actually talks to each other, so they end up flying blind even though they have this embarrassment of riches, but they can't access it. They don't know which members are thriving and which ones are drifting, which ones are gonna silently churn in a couple months from now. And the problem actually is not just small organizations who don't have the resources to wrangle the data. It's large, sophisticated tech stacks see this problem as well because the data exists, but it's just really siloed  Rachel Mace, CAE: Yeah, I would have to echo that. There's a lot of silos. [00:02:00] Almost every time I start a job at an association or even at a vendor that services associations, the first thing we have to deal with is untangle the glut of information that they have, what they want to actually access and use. And then we also have to talk through, okay, once we decide what we're gonna use, how are we gonna get it there? Integrations remain such a huge problem with most associations. We find that our data lives in completely separate places, and that data doesn't pipe into new places very easily. So that's been a big issue, and it's not the association staff's fault. We are not integration engineers. We are not high-level data scientists. We came here to work in the nonprofit industry and serve our members. We don't have a background in that expertise. So that data mess exists everywhere, large associations or small associations, and we find that more and more association professionals, whether they like to admit it or not, are starting to realize that they can't make decisions based on the gut anymore, which is how we were making decisions.[00:03:00]  I can even recall way back in the 20-teens encountering a situation where an association professional said, "I have an idea. We're gonna use the power of social credit, so to speak, to get people to reach out to each other and encourage them to join the association." But the problem was this professional was working in a trade association environment, so the other member associations or prospect member associations were competitors, and it's very hard to convince a competitor to join the same association as you. But their gut said, "I've seen referral campaigns work throughout the private sector or in professional societies where it's the individual that's the member." So they went with their gut, and that campaign didn't work out, and they thought this is a personal failure. It's not. It's just you didn't have access to the insights and data that you needed to safely feel you could experiment with those types of campaigns in a way that's a bit more controlled with a bit more information behind it  Georgina Donahue: Yeah. I think the other thing that we're seeing in the space is that [00:04:00] as our industry standards for social interaction and for engagement with for-profit brands, for social brands, anything, it rises, right? We're used to having the Netflix algorithm know exactly what show we want to watch next. We're used to logging into a new platform and selecting our content preferences immediately, and then having really sophisticated algorithms understand who we are, know who we are. So at the same time that our association professionals are trying to sort through this, sometimes relying on that gut instinct, the base of members, their standards are rising because they're used to it in other areas, right? And so that gut instinct is becoming less and less effective for them because there was some grace, there was some buffer there, right? And now members, because of what they're experiencing in the consumer space, do not have [00:05:00] that grace that they're willing to offer. They're a little bit more frustrated, and they expect us to know who they are, and they expect us to tailor and segment our message specifically to their journey  Sharon Pare: I wanna dig into the gut instinct part a little bit later, but you, Georgina, talked about something you call the silent churner. Can you explain what that is? Is that like the quiet quitter? I- is that a little bit similar? Tell us a little bit about that. Georgina Donahue: It kind of is. It is. It's the most dangerous member that you have, because everybody has the members that are squeaky wheels, that maybe they're frustrated, maybe there's some dissatisfaction, and they are telling you the areas that they would like to see improvement. While sometimes a sassy email might be difficult to receive in the moment, they are giving you very clear instructions about what they need in order to continue to receive value from the association. The silent churner is the most dangerous. They just go quiet, and then by the time they don't renew, they've already made the decision not to renew three or [00:06:00] four months ago, and they've already been quietly stepping away, so they stop attending events, they stop posting in the community, they stop sending sassy emails asking for their hopes and dreams to be fulfilled, right? And many associations don't find out that a member has churned until the renewal doesn't come through, and it's way too late to make a change because there's already a history of taking a step back and looking for other resources for support.  Rachel Mace, CAE: And this is an area where I feel like associations, their gut actually is probably correct. They already know who's not gonna renew inside. We know that if you're a new member and you don't do enough with us in that first year, you're probably not going to renew. We know if you're an existing member and your engagement falls off, we know you're not going to renew. We know if you're nearing retirement, you're not gonna renew. So we in our guts understand and know who isn't going to renew, but the challenge is identifying them proactively and being able to do something about it six months before that renewal cycle [00:07:00] hits. Because once you get to the renewal cycle, it's a little too late to ask someone to open up their wallet and invest in membership again. So we really need intelligence to tell us, "Hey, I've flagged these bottom 20% of engagers. I need those people to do something, anything." And what they really need, I've always told this to people, is you need to put them in a low barrier to access activity, not something that's gonna require a huge outlay of cash. If I'm new to ASAE, I'm not gonna tell you to go to the ASAE Annual Conference. That's a huge outlay of cash. But I might say, "Hey, why don't you go into ASAE Collaborate and ask a burning question? It's a private, safe space where you can ask something that maybe you wouldn't wanna ask on LinkedIn or publicly." It's a great way to get me engaged, give me something sticky to do, and maybe I will think about that as I renew next year. It's not the big ask, it's the ask that's practical and reasonable for me, a low engager. But we as association professionals, [00:08:00] we know that the low engagers, those are the ones who are gonna silently churn, if anyone  Sharon Pare: I want to unpack this a little bit more, and I know you started to dig into this a little bit too, Rachel, but what's actually causing this? Why can't most associations see the full picture of their members?  Georgina Donahue: I think the reason why it's so endemic across the entire sector is not because association professionals don't want to have a better view, or it hasn't occurred to them that a better view would be advantageous. I think that they're really, they really want this. But the tools that they use were never designed to talk to each other by default, right? And a lot of times you're making really the decisions about your technology choices, about your technology s- stack. You are choosing best-in-class tools, right? And the best events platform and the best member management platform and the best education platform, but they weren't designed together. They were designed separately. And so it means that [00:09:00] no single staff member has a unified view of the individual member, right? The membership team sees one thing, the education team sees another thing, the events team has a different perspective. It's all broken up, and it's organized by program, right? I can see which events had the most attendees, but it's not broken out by the individual human, by the person. I don't necessarily just want to see, okay, which event topic was the most popular. I want to see, okay, who are my bottom 20% and which events did they say no to or yes to, and what kinds of conversations in the community pulled them in, and what kind of emails were most valuable to them? It's this lack of a unified view by individuals across programs is just really elusive. Rachel Mace, CAE: Yeah, and it's not a problem with the association staff, although they often take the blame and feel guilty when they talk about this issue, but the actual issue is [00:10:00] an architecture problem. These platforms are sold to you, and one of the things that they're trying to give you is the best possible user experience. So they want you to have the best possible user experience. So their investment when they deliver these tools to you, these best-in-class tools, is often on that user experience. Integrations is often a place where th- we forget, hey, we have to integrate this data, or we have to pull this data into some sort of central mechanism where we can see the whole picture of the whole member, and that's often thrown by the wayside because we wanna make sure that, A, member-facing things are good, and B, association staff user experience is good. But when I worked in the vendor space, a lot of times integrations were the most frustrating things we had ever had conversations about because we had everything we needed to give the association staff what, what they were asking for, but then we would get held up by simple things like, "Oh, we can't integrate that data because that data doesn't really exist there. It's a calculated column." And I'm like, "We can't get that calculated column?" And they're like, "No, we have to create a new [00:11:00] table." And you would go down these rabbit holes of these crazy blockers, and you're like, "Wow, how is it 2020 whatever, and I still cannot integrate my data relatively seamlessly?" And it's something that I'm not even seeing AI do a good job of addressing. These integrations still continue to be a challenge. And I know that when I worked at American Bankers Association, when I first got there, I thought, "Well, I will have so many more resources to integrate the data and see that big picture of the member." And I remember walking in there at that big association with all the investment they can make in technology, and it's worse. They have more systems, more layers, more silos. I'm like, "Wait, I can't even figure out who's engaging with each other in the community, and I work in membership." So I-- it can be even worse at big associations because you have layers of silos of people that are like, "I'm not gonna make you an admin in my system," or, "That's my system, and I don't really wanna pipe that data back there." So we have this huge problem, and it's compounded by [00:12:00] silos. It's compounded by architecture. It's compounded by integrations. So even in 2026, where we expect AI will solve all our problems, this is something that I'm not sure that AI at this point can solve.  Sharon Pare: So it really sounds more less a people problem and more of a systems architecture problem, right? So I guess let's build on that. There's a difference between having data and having insight. What does member intelligence actually mean in practice, and how is it different from just pulling a report?  Georgina Donahue: The data points that you gather are just the stuff that your systems log, right? The logins, the registrations, the email opens, all of that, right? The signals and the insights are the story that multiple of those data points together paint for you, right? And you need to be able to pull from many different mediums in order to see the story that those data points are telling you. So behavioral signals are what actually predicts [00:13:00] engagement and renewal, and that's the narrative insight that you're really looking for. So the signals that matter most aren't demographics or clicks or logins or sessions or anything like that. They're the patterns, right? The login frequency, the types of content that's being consumed. And so that's the difference between data and intelligence. It's the context. So a login, if you tell me a login to an online community, I can't really do very much with that. But if you show me a member who logged in every single week for six months and then stopped logging in at all three months ago, that's a signal. Did the email go dead? Did you get a new job? Are you starting to feel like this is not the right place for you? Are you feeling boxed out? Is there a clique going on that you don't wanna enter into, right? Things like that. And so those are the types of insights that we're looking for. I'll give an example, and I know Rachel has a really good example of [00:14:00] this too that she'll share. So I previously worked for an education organization, and we provided educational sessions and training, and there was an online community for all of the alumni of that program. And we had resources about each of the courses in the community, and we were able to manually, mind you, because the architecture wasn't supporting us either, we were able to pull a list of everyone who had reviewed community library content on topic A, and then we cross-referenced it with everybody who had taken the course on topic A. And we found about 50% of the people who were viewing those library resources hadn't taken the course, and we wanted to drive education. So we created a targeted outreach campaign and said, "Hey, I can see that you're really interested in this topic. I would love to support your development and ongoing education. I have a course for you. It was so successful, Sharon. It was crazy. We were all [00:15:00] delighted. We had a 50% close rate and success rate on that course, and people were genuinely grateful and so happy. And so that is a story that we built from the data, and then a success-driving approach that we used to bring something really personal that came from that, that we never would've gotten from just how many people viewed library documents, right? I know that Rachel has examples of this as well, when we finally wrangled the data enough to paint that picture.  Rachel Mace, CAE: Yeah, and I'll lead with the example. So I had the privilege of working with American Bankers during the pandemic, and I say privilege because what I witnessed in terms of how they came together to serve their members was nothing short of jaw-dropping. So as we went into the beginnings of the pandemic, we had some staff members become subject matter experts on what was going on with the virus, just general stuff from the CDC, and really being thoughtful about how they delivered that messaging. It was a [00:16:00] source of comfort for the staff and a source of kind of that predictable, what's the next step? Where are we going from here? Is there a plan? And that person and the people supporting that person realized that this was so beneficial to the staff. The staff were giving a lot of good feedback. They took that feedback and said, "Maybe we should be offering this to our members." And they started these webinars offering that to that m- to those members. And as we're seeing these members hop on these calls, we're also seeing that non-members are hopping on the calls, 'cause we didn't feel, at that point, it was a crisis, we didn't feel we should be exclusionary. What happened was a lot of these non-members getting on the call saw our commitment to delivering timely, relevant, and good information to our members. They became members. We saw a jump in our retention rate and a jump in our recruitment rate as a result immediately during and following the pandemic because they were like, "Look, this is an organization that's going to support us even through the worst of times." And because we were [00:17:00] providing these resources and being intentional in how we evaluated that data, are we getting non-members coming? Are we getting members coming? Okay, these five non-members came. Can someone give them a call? Because we were taking action and being very agile in what we were doing with that data, we were able to break records that I don't think even the highest level of management thought were possible, and that's because data is not about reporting. It is not about sending a metric to your boss and saying, "Okay, we're up 200 members this year." Great. Awesome. It's about informing. We're up 200 members this year because it appears people really love the webinar series we did about the state of the industry. That's the story. That's the why. And if you cannot isolate these things to the why, and you're just reporting, you'll never move to that next step of growing. And associations do need to grow because there's a lot of competition out there. And Georgina said earlier, the expectation is that you're listening to your members' behaviors. You're watching [00:18:00] what they do with you and adjusting your strategy to match that energy of what they're expressing to you via behaviors what they want. Sharon Pare: Let's take a quick break for a word from our episode sponsor, Higher Logic. Higher Logic unifies your community, marketing, learning, events, and more into one connected engagement platform so every member touchpoint feels personal. With AI-powered campaigns and vibrant online communities, your members feel seen, supported, and excited to engage every day. Because everything works together, your team spends less time managing technology and more time advancing your mission. Plus, you get built-in strategic guidance and hands-on support to boost retention and turn passive members into passionate advocates. See how Higher Logic is revolutionizing engagement by booking your demo at higherlogic.com. So we talk about that bottom 20%, [00:19:00] so let's flip that for a second. On the flip side of the at-risk members, you also talk about power users, your most engaged members. Are most associations actually leveraging those people?  Georgina Donahue: Yes, many are, but many wish that they were able to do so to a greater capacity, right? Because engagement data is not just gonna tell you about who to save, and we've talked a lot about mitigating risks so far in this conversation. But engagement data is not just about who to save. It tells you who to invest in further, who to really give extra love and care and development to because they are really ready for it, and there's a benefit to your member, and there's a benefit to the organization as well, right? And so the real heart and the real strength of any association is absolutely its members. And so everybody wants to find a way to leverage members for advocacy, for mentorship, for volunteer pipelines, for peer-to-peer recruitment, for board [00:20:00] leadership positions, anything, right? And that's where the real strength and kind of flywheel of success comes from. So when you can identify the top 5%, 10% of engaged members, it's really likely that you are looking at a list of your next committee chairs, of your conference speakers, of your community moderators, right? And so if we can find a way to identify them and then throw more and more engagement opportunities to help level them up in their engagement maturity, then that is a win-win for everybody. It feels really good to members to be recognized for your investment and for your desires to grow alongside an association, and it strengthens the organization to have more insight, more knowledge directly coming from the member base.  Rachel Mace, CAE: And we at the National Pest Management Association do something I actually don't see at associations very often, but it's modeled a little bit after [00:21:00] DELP. But I don't want to say modeled after DELP, because I don't want to not give them credit. They have done this phenomenal thing, and this is where they identify people who are relatively engaged, and they put them into a program that prepares them for leadership in a board or volunteer leadership in general. It moves them to the next step educationally so that they always have an incoming class of people who are ready to be the leaders of that industry for the next generation. So one of the things that you wanna look for when you're looking for who might fit well isn't, "I've checked all the boxes." That's a big thing, especially at Association Linux, we would get clients that say, "I'll look for someone who's done a little bit of everything." That doesn't necessarily mean that your pool of volunteers should come from there. Sometimes your pool of volunteers comes from somebody who attends the annual meeting many times. Sometimes that pool of volunteers comes from somebody who always attends your legislative day. You don't wanna misinterpret that the fact that someone's not engaging in all [00:22:00] the pieces of the pie as some sort of signal that they're not ready to engage as a volunteer leader. It's a very big problem I think we have, because we're used to wanting to see parts of a whole, and we're like, "Okay, if you complete all five things, you're ready to go." Mm. But you need to meet people where they are. So when you look into your data, you wanna discover patterns. Rachel Mace goes to annual meeting every year, and sometimes she pops into MMCT, but she doesn't always go on to Collaborate, or she doesn't always attend webinars. Does that mean that she can't be an effective board member? No, it means that maybe she values more in-person encounters than digital connection. So it's very important when you're looking through engagement data to realize that there's always going to be some level of interpretation here. Am I looking for somebody who checks all the boxes? Probably not. You're looking for somebody who's engaged, and engaged in the way that fits best for them. And that's how you'll discover, when you go through this process, you're gonna have a hidden gem pile, where you're like, "Oh, wait a minute, [00:23:00] this person, we would have never considered as a volunteer, but they really should be a volunteer because they are participating in a meaningful way. It's just maybe they're an introvert, and they're the inverse of Rachel, and they only want to participate digitally." They can still be an effective leader, even if they're more of a digital participator than an in-person participator. So it's very important as you look at your engagement data not to get too, I call it perfectionist. Like, with your, with, check all the boxes and do all the things. No. Look for those hidden gems. Look for those insights where somebody is almost all digital. Think about different ways to look at that data, not just, you did an annual meeting, you did the Collaborate, you did this, you did that. Think of it more of, is somebody clustering their engagement in a certain modality? Are they clustering their engagement in a certain season? Because they could still be an amazing and effective volunteer or a highly engaged member that helps build your membership further.  Sharon Pare: So you've described a data problem that's really an architecture problem. Everything is siloed, right? We've talked about that at the beginning of [00:24:00] this podcast. What does it actually take to fix that? Where does that technology come in?  Georgina Donahue: It's a really good question. It's one that I am really excited about and think a lot about. We've talked a lot about how most associations, the reason that they're data dark isn't a lack of motivation, it's architecture, right? These tools are not designed to share information. You can have five great platforms, and you still have a zero unified view of who your member is, right? And so it can be very tempting to be like, "Okay, my tools aren't talking to each other. I need different tools," right? The fix is not to replace everything. The fix is not to rip out all of your tools and try to slot in new ones. It's convergence. It's creating a single space where all the signals from your existing systems can really come together so that then you do have the ability for an individual staff person to look at one screen and see the full member picture, right? And so at Higher Logic, we [00:25:00] know this is the path that is required, creating that converged space for existing tools, because we've invested so deeply in customer partnerships. So at Higher Logic, we spearhead something, a group that's called the Customer Innovation Lab, and we have enlisted our members, our association members and customers, to really deeply co-create with us so that we're building exactly what they need, right? And so at any software organization, you need to know exactly what the problems are and exactly where the sticking points are in order to provide a solution that is actually going to create meaningful change. One of the most exciting things about my role and the way that I interact with associations is by participating in this Customer Innovation Lab and co-creating alongside, right? And because of the fact that we haven't just assumed what's necessary, we're using feedback and ideation sessions that are fueling Higher Logic to [00:26:00] develop a new product. We are creating a 360-degree view of your member, so a single source of truth that pulls together all of your members' activities across Higher Logic tools and systems, and every other system that your association uses, right? So you pull in the data from your AMS, from your email platform, your event tools, anywhere that you are gathering data and any surface area where those interactions are happening with your members. We have built this tool with integrations at the center and visibility at the center. So for the first time- You can come in and you can look at one record, and you can see the complete picture of that member. And so you can finally know your member as well as they expect you to and as well as you want them to. So you have your community behavior, your event history, content consumption, all of it in a single place. So I'm really excited to have [00:27:00] worked so closely with our customers and with association professionals to craft this solution and offer it back to the people that are doing such important work.  Rachel Mace, CAE: And with that being said, you're giving us something new to work with, but the onus is on the association. We're seeing this shift where vendors are like, "We want to give you what you're looking for." Then when we get what we're looking for, we as association professionals have a big job to do, and that first job is to make sure that our staff, 'cause architecture is a problem, but silos are, too. Our staff need to understand, hey, here is this new tool. We don't need to silo our Higher Logic or our AMS. We don't need to silo these tools. We need to encourage staff members to get into these tools and start using that data. And if you sit in a role like I do, information technology and database, which is a big many hat role actually, your job also is to serve just like you would serve a member, is to serve your [00:28:00] staff and say, "Look, here is a tool you can use. Here's what you can get from it. Let me know where the gaps exist," and encourage them to take some experimental leaps into these tools and start making informed decisions. Because a lot of times you'll deliver a tool to someone, and I know this from the vendor side, and they'll say, "Okay, now what?" The “now what” is you, and we need to find a way to come together as association staff. It's not, "This is my member data over here" anymore. It's, "This is our member. How can we each make a difference serving them?" So part of the role of an IT professional in the association space is to socialize using that data, starting to experiment with that data, and making informed decisions using that data. It- the onus has to be on someone. Someone has to take ownership of that, or that data will just sit there. You'll have an amazing tool, and that data will just sit there. So it's ex- incredibly important that as we get tools like this, not only do we [00:29:00] use them in the roles that are like the community manager, but we encourage the rest of the staff at large to take part in using these tools. And then as we get using these tools, if there are deficits, rather than stop using the tool, it's important to relay back to our partners, like Higher Logic or other partners in the space, "Hey, you've built this tool. I really like this tool, but here's where it's not serving me." Because if you don't give that feedback to these vendors, they can't possibly know what you want. They'll just know that you stopped using it, but they won't know the why. So it is on us also to give data back to them and say, "Okay, I'm having a hard time getting my membership and meetings team using this data because..." and then you answer that question.  Sharon Pare: So now you have a unified member view, but most asso- associations have thousands of members, sometimes maybe tens of thousands. How do you actually act on all that data at scale? How do you go from visibility to strategy?  Rachel Mace, CAE: So this is something that frustrates me as an association professional because [00:30:00] a lot of tools will get you right to that point. I've even worked with several very brilliant people on a predictive tool, and it hands you on a silver platter the data. It says, "Oh, these are the people that are likely to renew. These are the people not likely to renew." You get that, and then your customer said, "Okay, now what?" You're like, "Well, do something with it." They're like, "What do I do?" And this is because association professionals have a very unfair lot in life because they are expected to be data scientists, strategic professionals, executives. They're expected to be so many roles, all those hats we always talk about. But at the same time, when you get all this data, you're like, "I don't want to put anything at risk by making a decision I shouldn't make, and this is a little outside of my normal purview." So you have this discomfort with what do I even do with this information? Georgina Donahue: And I completely agree with Rachel that visibility is step one, but then what are you supposed to do with [00:31:00] it after? Once you have the information, what's the next step? And so the answer there is really surfacing and support. And we, as a vendor that supports associations, think a lot about that. Not just how do I hand the data over, but how do I fully support this group of professionals and help guide them through the best choices based on the data that we have, right? So one of the things that we've been working on, and that I have the honor of working on directly, is using dashboards and engagement scoring to let the data tell you where to focus. So you shouldn't have to dig through every single record. The system should show you. The system should say, "Here's your at-risk members, here's your power users, here's your enga- engagement that's trending, and here's the next step. Here's what most people tend to do when they have these types of results. Here are the best practices for how you fix this problem. Here [00:32:00] is the triaging phase," right? "Your data shows this. Here's the diagnosis. Here's the most likely approach that is going to create a positive outcome for you." So that's one of the things that we're building with Higher Logic's new suite of dashboards, specifically for the community product, is really surfacing all of the engagement signals that matter across your full community member base and pairing them with the actions and next steps, right? We don't just want to give people a chart. We want to give them a pathway, guidance on how to interpret your data, validated recommendations for next steps based on years of community data from our user group, HUG, right? All of the next steps, the signals, the things that point you towards the areas to focus next. And that way you can really support your membership base without burning out your staff, asking them to do 200 different jobs at an A+ level 100% of the time. Of course, support is [00:33:00] required.  Rachel Mace, CAE: And I'm very excited about this development because a lot of associations, even big ones, don't have a really big community staff looking at that data, working with that data, fostering the engagement in the platform. So having this is like having an unpaid assistant on your staff. Now you have somebody kind of serving up this information to you so that you can just be action-oriented. More actions, more experimentation, more work, as opposed to more chasing numbers or reporting numbers. So I'm extremely enthusiastic to see what comes out of this. Sharon Pare: Because visibility alone isn't enough, right? You want to actually do something with it. All right, so let's make this real. Rachel, let's turn this to you. Let's talk about what actually changes day to day for association staff when they have this kind of member intelligence. How does a job look different? Rachel Mace, CAE: So one of the things that we were working on in Association Analytics, myself and Heather were talking through what do we inform people about what their job will look like? Because a lot of [00:34:00] times there's a little bit of fear. Okay, I have all these tools now that are doing part of my day-to-day. It's painful work. No one loves doing VLOOKUPs all day, but at the same time, you're like, "What am I going to do next?" I want to give you hope. This means that you get to use the whole part of your brain. Your job is no longer reacting to data, reacting to numbers. Now you're proactive. Now you get to be strategic. You get to grow, you get to experiment. You get to actually move the needle on what members want and value. And if something doesn't, you can factor in, "If this doesn't work out, we'll pivot to this." Factor in your pivots. This will make your career so much more robust. Now you're becoming an expert in these types of decisions, as opposed to a reactor who reports numbers. And if you really want to grow as a professional, it's important for you to get ahead of reaction and start thinking proactively about doing something new. One of the things that really attracted me to NPMA was that even though they have data challenges, they're extremely proactive. They're like, "Let's get [00:35:00] ahead of this. Members seem to be talking about this. I see enthusiasm behind this." They look out at the marketplace, and they react to those inputs, even though they have to do a lot of it manually, because they are essentially a member-driven decision engine, not a member-driven reporting engine. And they spend less of their time digging and sifting through numbers, and now that they've hired me, I can dig and sift a little bit for them so that they can actually get some validation behind these programs. But they run on all cylinders member facing. Member facing is the ultimate and first priority, and I would love to see more of that in the association space, because a lot of times we get stuck in our job or we're just reporting internally. We're almost invisible. But once you get out there, your entire staff is fostering relationships with the members that they serve, you're going to see that your members become obsessed with your association. They're like, "This is somewhere I want to be. I want to be a part of this." Naturally, just by you engaging in that way with your members, your membership will start becoming more sticky. [00:36:00] Your meetings will have a feel of authenticity and enthusiasm that they didn't have before. So it's important to embrace that part of that slugging through reports may be a p- a thing of the past. Embrace these tools and get out there and start producing things that your members can see and give you feedback on, ultimately value.  Sharon Pare: For an association that's still flying blind right now, no unified views, decisions based on that gut instinct we talked about earlier, what's the one thing you'd tell them to do first? Georgina Donahue: I think they're gonna take this advice, Sharon, because the picture and the beautiful vision of the future that Rachel just painted is so exciting, and I'm betting that folks are gonna be really galvanized by that. I would say that the first step is do an overview, take an-- Start with an audit of where your member data actually lives today. And I'm not talking about the kind of hopeful interpretation of where it should be or the vision of the [00:37:00] future just yet. Where is it actually? And list every system that knows something about a member that you use to make decisions about serving your members, right? And then ask which of those systems has the richest signal source. Where are you getting the insights from? Where does the story start to jump out at you from in terms of those systems? For most associations, it's community behavior that is the m- that is the richest, the logins, the posts, the replies, and also event data, what people are attending, because those signals are reflecting active engagement more than passive receipt, right? So that tends to be where it will come from. But of course, look at what makes sense for you. It might be different in your association, so look at that. And then, of course, I also recommend keep an eye on us. Keep an eye on Higher Logic. This is gonna be a really exciting second half of this year, and I am so jazzed to bring this to the space, [00:38:00] because that unified view of your member that is deeply built on visibility, highly sophisticated integrations that you're supported through, as well as dashboards and data that walks you through the next steps, is gonna be an incredible game changer. And there's all sorts of, of kind of fun and really powerful features that are in there. Dynamic list building, show me everyone who this story applies to, those types of things, as well as automations. And of course, there's a little AI mixed in there, too, as every new product has. And so I'm really excited to see what types of changes happen there. But for today, start with where the data actually lives. Look for the systems that are giving you the richest signals and the most compelling stories.  Rachel Mace, CAE: I totally agree, and I will add a piece of advice that I have said for years and I wish that more people would take to heart. And I'm talking to myself first because this was a hard point for me to change in my own personal professional journey. [00:39:00] I am the culprit of this more than probably anyone else, but stop chasing perfection in data to make decisions. The longer you slug over validating data, the longer you go through the process of, is this the right data? Is it perfect? Most people also are fighting over the last 5% of data and then not making decisions because the last 5% isn't correct. Instead, enough for a trend, that's all you need to start making decisions. Stop chasing perfection. Get good enough to make an incremental improvement and make those incremental improvements, observe, and then improve more. I have a prioritization board right now, and it's all based on incrementalism. I'm not looking to reinvent the wheel with our tech stack overnight. It's let's use this one feature. In fact, I'll be finding people at Higher Logic Super Forum to ask a couple of questions to make the user experience for our staff members better on the Higher Logic side because I want incremental improvements so we can continue progressing how we use these tools. [00:40:00] So today you could go look at your members up for renewal if that's the time of year for you, or if this is the time of year where you're opening up registration for a major conference in the fall, look for one incremental improvement you might be able to make to that process. Can I send a better letter to my members before I even invoice them? Can I send them a quick survey or some sort of communication? Can I normalize talking about what we've done throughout the association throughout the year before I send out the invoice so they know, hey, I'm not just asking you for money, I have delivered for you this year. Do one thing, monitor it, look at it. Don't wait for perfect data and say, "Look, data's pointing to this being pretty effective. Let's expand on that." Incrementalism, stop chasing perfection, and I think you will see a huge payoff from that effort.  Sharon Pare: Rachel, Georgina, this has been a really incredible conversation. I know we could talk more about it, and I know you've got a big conference next week to be able to really [00:41:00] dig into this with your users and of course your clients as well. There's a lot of really practical insight here for associations, so again, thank you so much for taking the time today. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks to everyone for listening to this episode of Associations NOW Presents Industry Partner Series. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals, discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today, and highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy, the US, and the world. We want to give a big thanks again to our episode sponsor, Higher Logic. For more information or to book a demo, visit higherlogic.com. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And for more information on topics impacting the association space, visit Associations Now online at [00:42:00] associationsnow.com.

What geopolitical disruption means for associations

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP, CEO of the Risk and Insurance Management Society, is joined by Francisco Gómez, Founder and CEO of Factum Global, and Pietro Macchiarella, MBA, CAE, Senior Director of Data and Insights at YPO, for a timely conversation on how geopolitical disruption is reshaping the association landscape. They explore the slowdown of trade globalization, increasing travel and visa challenges impacting events and engagement, and the growing tension between taking action and staying silent as political issues intersect with mission-driven work. The discussion emphasizes the importance of clear, grounded communication with boards, along with practical strategies like scenario planning and tabletop exercises to prepare for uncertainty. The group also examines how associations can stay agile without compromising their core mission, including the role of AI in monitoring trusted information sources and the value of incorporating diverse global perspectives. As the conversation unfolds, they point to a more fragmented, multipolar world, rising cyber and data risks, and evolving member expectations—offering insight into how association leaders can navigate what comes next. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/hc8BmpdGDhw [https://youtu.be/hc8BmpdGDhw]   Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings [https://associationbriefings.com/].   Transcript Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: [00:00:00] Welcome to this month's episode of Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Gary LaBranche, Chief Executive Officer of RIMS, the Risk and Insurance Management Society. I am delighted to be joined on this podcast with Francisco Gómez, founder and CEO of Factum Global, a boutique consulting firm specializing in international expansion, market analysis, and strategic growth. Also, joining us is Pietro Macchiarella, senior director, data and Insights at YPO, the world's largest community of chief executives that come together to become better leaders and better people. I've said a little bit about each of you, but if you could tell us a little bit more, starting with you, Francisco. Francisco Gómez: Thank you, Gary. Pleasure to be here with you and Pietro. As you said, I founded Factum Global, a firm that [00:01:00] specializes in helping both for-profit companies as well as associations and nonprofits expanding internationally. We focus on truly helping organizations understand where to go, how to do it, and how to sustain that growth, and doing this for the last 20 years or so, and delighted to be here. Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: Excellent, Pietro.  Pietro Macchiarella, MBA, CAE: Thank you Gary. I'm Pietro. Good to be here with both of you. As you said, Gary, I work for YPO, which is the largest organization of CEOs. We have 37,000 member members in hundred 40 countries, so as international as it gets. And myself, I am very international. I've grown up in Europe, I've lived in three different countries in Europe and then moved to the US about 20 years ago. I'm also the chair of the ASAE International Association Advisory Council, which right now is a great place to be because we are the center of, of the storm in a way, supporting associations in their international experience or trying to international.[00:02:00]  Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: Fantastic. Both of you obviously have a tremendous non-North American experience, and I'm just curious. Currently the world is experiencing what we, in the risk management community, call geopolitical disruption, which is a fancy way of saying chaos is abounding in the our current world today and associations and corporations. Consumers and people in business have to try to navigate all of that, and that's uncharted territory to say the least. Pietro is, your group is international as it gets. What does geopolitical disruption mean? How are you in seeing it impact YPO?  Pietro Macchiarella, MBA, CAE: So first of all, disclaimer from the lawyers: These are my personal opinions and not the ones of my employer. I will say the one, some of the assumptions that we are taking for granted up until now are gone. If you look at it as being a constant. Since the, at least the 1990s, uh, I think the, [00:03:00] there is an index, I think it's the World Bank has an index that shows the trade ness where you look basically at the imports and export globally. And you divided by the, the GDP, the global GDP and the index has been growing like crazy. In fact, I think it's being twice as fast as, as a global GDP growth in the past 20 years. And so. We went from, again, trade being about 30% of global GDP to being 60% or more. And then suddenly this has come to a halt. Everything is being questioned again. And so obviously there's a, this has an impact on any membership organization. In fact, I feel like we are actually more impacted than our members. Uh, because if you think about the, the true political uncertainty affects the, the members themselves. So their companies, if you're a trade organization or in our case a business organization affects the way you operate the, the association and also affects all the members interact with each other. So it's a, it's a triple head and [00:04:00] obviously that that impacts everything that you do. At the same time, I'm the eternal optimist and one thing that I do say is the problems are often opportunities and if very often we are. Nice to have for members, all of us in the association space. But when there is a crisis, we become actually a must have if we are relevant and if we are relevant to what they need at the moment. So I do think that right now what I see is actually a bigger relevance for organizations like ours because we are, we are helping members when they need us.  Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: That's interesting. So if you are truly valuable, uh, and relevant, you'll be more valuable and relevant in times of poly crisis or chaos, or when the world is not going according to what we had thought it would. Francisco respond to that. Are you seeing that in your practice?  Francisco Gómez: Yes, of course. I do think that the main thing, however, is that for associations, your political disruption is truly no longer [00:05:00] something that is happening out there. I think we used to see that as a side thing where we're gonna keep this in scenario planning and we're gonna think about the what ifs, but it was not as real and it is now showing up in a very practical ways. When you think about travel decisions, event planning, member expectations, partner relationships, sanctions, they are privacy concerns. Reputation, right? So it's all over the place. And what makes it especially difficult is that associations have traditionally tried to stay away from politics. But today I think that this is much harder because there is risk not only in taking action, but also in not taking action. And that creates tension because associations want to focus on policy and not politics, but in a lot of cases it are now intertwined. So the real challenge is not just whether to speak. But how do we speak in a way that is consistent with mission and values? In the past, many associations tried to stay away and above [00:06:00] politics, but today's silence can be read as a statement too, right? So that's something that I think most associations are wrestling with right now.  Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: So you touched on two, I think, very important pieces there. One. One is that external issues really are internal, even down to when and how we travel. That's a pretty internal, pretty internal issue. And then secondly, the whole idea that you, by not engaging, you are saying something by not speaking out, by not engaging with the chaotic world as it is that can be read, can be viewed as negatively as if you said something. And I think that's especially true the more. That the association presents to the world, the more engaged with the world. So I was thinking as you were talking, I was thinking for RIMS, one of the ways that we primarily relate to the world is through our certification program, which is growing more rapidly outside of North America than inside North America. Uh, but also through our convention, which we call Risk World, we bring about [00:07:00] 11,000 people together every year. And Risk World just isn't an educational conference. It's a commercial marketplace. It is the world's largest commercial insurance B2B marketplace, and people from all over the world come there to place their insurance, to buy insurance, the commercial insurance. So it's actually a very critical part of the whole value proposition to the commercial insurance world. But this year we're seeing a definite impact on some people not being able to get. A visas or not being able to get visas in time to come to the convention in, in Chicago, uh, in Philadelphia also, one of our students, we student groups, we have a, with our partner, Spencer Educational Foundation, we provide a platform for, uh, international student competition in risk management and one of the universities from Africa. I'm not able to get a visa so far. So we're trying to work through those issues, but this, this constant chaos that we're seeing, the changes [00:08:00] of rules, regulations, consumer preference in, in the case of Canada, we're also seeing significant pullback from our Canadian friends who just don't want to deal with the American economy right now. How are you communicating those kinds of risks to your stakeholders, to your leaders and board members and others that are important to your organizations?  Pietro Macchiarella, MBA, CAE: So I think that there is a difference between maybe concern and panic, and I think panic happens when there's no plan. My, my opinion of that's when leadership to step in, when, particularly when talking to the board, it's really about transparency and having a plan. So do some scenario planning. Look at what we know, what we don't know, what potentially the consequences of things will be. These are, I think this is the way you moderate some of the risks. Uh, otherwise, again, panic kicks in and that's never a good thing because usually decisions made under panic are not ideal.[00:09:00]  Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: That's interesting. Uh, Francisco?  Francisco Gómez: Yeah, I think I agree with everything. Uh, Piera is saying, I think the key is to communicate in a way that is candid but not alarming. The boards are, and the stakeholders in general do not need drama. They need context. They need scenario thinking. You were talking about that piera and clarity about what the organization is watching. I usually think in terms of three questions, what is the risk? What is the potential impact? What are we doing about it? It really, that is the conversation you wanna have with the board. And within that question of what is the risk for those watching that may know me, I talk extensively about the risk of inaction, right? And is related to what we spoke about earlier, is acting has a risk, but not acting has also a risk. And in many cases, that risk could be greater for certain organizations. That helps turn uncertainty into management, and it also helps people understand that risk is not always a reason to stop. In 2025, I saw a lot of organizations stopping. [00:10:00] Sometimes they were just thinking that things are gonna get back to normal, or let's see what happens in 2026. I see the same organizations realizing this chaos that Gary, you were talking about earlier, is just the world we live in, and we need to learn to live with that and figure out how to proceed more carefully. The goal is not to eliminate uncertainty, but the goal is to make it manageable. Those of us that have been dealing in international business for years and have been working in countries that are less sophisticated in terms of rules and regulations and those types of things, we're used to that kind of chaos. So we need to bring that thinking to everything that is happening now and understand this is really not new. It's new in this context, but it is nothing that we haven't faced before. I like the fact that I'm seeing that mentality shift in executives in the association world, and I see them taking action, which I think is very important. Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: As you were speaking, I was reminded of a [00:11:00] quote by Peter Drucker, one of the greatest writers on management theory and management practice, Peter Drucker. He said The danger in times of turbulence is not turbulence. It's. Thinking and acting with yesterday's logic in mind, right? So we have to retrain, relearn our approaches because we can't solve the problems of tomorrow the same way we helped create those problems yesterday. So that turbulence is not the problem. The problem is the way we think about turbulence or don't think about turbulence.  Pietro Macchiarella, MBA, CAE: Yeah, no, I love what you both said. I was gonna add that I think there is, there's one thing that is non-negotiable, which is the mission. That's what we do. That should not change no matter what the crisis is or whatever the context is, how we do it, that changes and that's the flexibility that I think becomes much more important under the current circumstances. And I think that's what sort of where I see that the majority of the impact is really now we do things and for example, you were talking about [00:12:00] the having an annual event where. It becomes much more difficult to get, and these, for example, from different parts of the world. So maybe the next step is to regionalize some of these events. And I've seen some organizations associations actually do that. So maybe duplicate that one big event in the us, one in Europe and suddenly you're not dependent on one big event anymore, but you have now the option for members to attend either one. And so again, that how we do it is where you can actually, the biggest impact. Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: Hey, I was wondering, as you're talking and I'm listening and processing what you're saying, I'm curious, have you ever done a desktop exercise with your stakeholders, your board members, your management team, desktop exercises for, or our listeners? Uh, our scenarios that you make up in advance, you craft a scenario in advance. I just used chat GPT yesterday to create one on geopolitical shock plus supply chain and market disruption. It spit back out to me. [00:13:00] Scenario overview with some key stress points and then some exercise objectives, and that it takes you through a 60 to 90 minute process, including things that you drop into the exercise as shockers or stressors to the systems, things like that. Different timed injections where key decisions have to be made. Have you ever worked with any of those type processes?  Francisco Gómez: Yes, we do it all the time. As consultant, helping organizations expand internationally. You can imagine the scenario planning is a huge part of it and it keeps evolving though, and in an environment like this, the thinking also needs to be evolve. It used to be that we would sit down with boards and try to come up with a five year strategy, and it would be a beautiful, shiny piece of paper that boards and executives would use to communicate this is what we're gonna do in the next five years. That is no longer as useful as it used to be. Yes, you have to have a north, you have to have a vision, understand where you want to be in the next [00:14:00] several years, but the pathways to get there are very different, and you need to understand in advance what happens if, right? So what happens if we go into our preferred pathway and A or C happens then? Where are we going next? Are we going to the V pathway? Are we gonna run some pilots in parallel? How do we start testing some of these avenues to make sure that our strategy is resilient to those changes? So it's not about, and we said this earlier, it's not about avoiding the chaos, we're avoiding the changes that are happening around us, but is how do we build an organization that is adaptable and nimble so that when things start to show up, we're monitoring. We can see where things are starting to, to look like they're gonna come our way, and we have a plan to navigate those things because we have discussed those possibilities. It's impossible to predict everything that may happen, but I think you can predict certain things. [00:15:00] And what happens if there's a war? What happens if there's another pandemic? What happens if all of a sudden our number one source of revenue goes away? We have several associations in 2025. That loss substantial revenue when the U-S-A-I-D agency will disappear, they, the appendant is on the contracts in that organization and they found themselves in a situation that they were not anticipating. So what happens? They could have anticipated that, right? We have X percentage of revenue attached to a single source. What happens if that source goes away? So we could anticipate U-S-A-I-D was going to be disappearing, but we could have anticipated that something could have happened that would jeopardize that source of revenue and we should have been preparing to navigate and try to diversify and get away from that dependency etra. Pietro Macchiarella, MBA, CAE: Yeah, likewise, I work for an organization that objectively is extremely healthy. We have [00:16:00] 95% renewal rate, 96% we have, we grow very healthy and everything is great. But the good thing is also I work for some business leaders. So they are used to being paranoid a little bit and what could happen potentially will disrupt our model. So this is basically my daily life. But it's very interesting how we are gonna see also from, from like how the external environment potentially can impact competition. So what competition potentially can come out of nowhere that we are not expecting. So this is an exercise for example, that we're doing right now where we are looking at how, again, the external environment. Potentially creates new competitors. So that's, so that's something that is very interesting and I, in fact, I advise anybody who's listening to, to think about that, even if things are going great, just think about potentially what are your, your core competitive advantages and which ones are also the ones that can be disrupted more easily by existing or a new incoming competitors. And [00:17:00] just see how you can evolve to protect them.  Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: So I work for. Bunch of risk managers. Professional risk managers, so risk awareness is front and center in, in all things at all times. Although I, I always, when people say, oh, it must be terrible working for people who are just always worried about risk, it's, it's much more nuanced and strategic than just worrying about. Bad things that can happen. It's, it really is thinking through the different scenarios and looking for the opportunities and meshing that into our overall strategy. We have a formalized enterprise risk management process where we're constantly and certainly annually, a, a deep dive, but. Continuously evaluating our potential risks and how we might mitigate those or transfer those risks or reduce their potential impact to us. So it's been fascinating working with them, and I've always been amazed at how willing they are to take thought through [00:18:00] strategic risks, because anybody in the risk management will tell you, but part of the reason that companies and hospital systems and university systems engage in risk management is to grow. So getting back to this opportunity for where can we find the growth opportunity in these times of chaos, I think is important. Before I forget, I did wanna throw in a couple of things for our listeners. There's a lot written out there about risk, trend, trends and risk and that sort of thing, and we just wanna point out a couple every January, the World Economic Forum. Publishes an annual global risk report or risk survey, and this year it was issued on January 14th, 2026, about six weeks before the current war in Iran began. And interestingly, the number one expected issue was. Geopolitical confrontation, which was seen more as an economic issue, tie it back more to the [00:19:00] tariffs and that sort of thing. This, but the number five of the 10 expected risks for 2026 was in fact. State-based armed conflict or war as we think of it today. Very interesting that in January, and this is a survey of hundreds and hundreds of, uh, risks in business professionals, that geopolitical risk, geopolitical conflict was very high on the list. They also asked what are the longer term risks 10 years out, and almost all of them. Were, or the bulk of them were environmental related, major weather risks, that sort of thing. And only one or two, one or two were, uh, social issues, inequality and that sort of thing. And a few more were technological, but none. Geopolitical or armed conflict, which I found to be very interesting. Short term, a lot more potential conflict, longer term, more climate change kinds of issues. So there's a number of these indexes. Aon, [00:20:00] the insurance broker publishes one BlackRock. Publishes a geopolitical index and that sort of thing. Mark on your calendar at the end of the fourth quarter every year, just start doing Anu some searches and get an AI agent out there looking for some of these and maybe provide you with a summary report of what the consensus views are of, are there out there, where do you guys go for your, uh, information? What sources do you go to manage your way of thinking to guide your analysis?  Francisco Gómez: Have, one of the things that we advise our clients is to stay on top of technology, and I have to try to leave the same principles that I preach. I build some agents with AI to help me stay on top of, rather than new them, strict guidelines as to which kinds of sources. You mentioned a Capital World Economic Forum, United Nations, certain news outlets that I trust and it, it feeds me the information on what's. [00:21:00] Happening and then I can go and follow up and try to see what else is out there. So today it's very easy to stay on top of this. It used to be the this thing of trying to look for things, but now you have a way to serve, very easily build agents for information that is gonna be coming to you at the right proper time. So I highly recommend doing that. I also wanted to mention very quickly, since you were talking about some of these resources, I am part of the A SAE. Executive Management advisory Council, and they recently put out, and I'm talking about in the last two weeks, my colleagues developed a discussion guide on navigating politicized issues. I highly recommend it. I think it's a 11 or 12 page document. That is helping associations think through this. You can find it on my own LinkedIn. I shared it on ASAE Collaborate or simply reach out to ASAE. I'm sure they'll guide you to the right place to get the guide, but I think it's association leaders helping other association leaders think [00:22:00] about some of the issues that we're discussing right now. Pietro Macchiarella, MBA, CAE: Yeah, very cool. Francisco. I can add something like that as well because we, as the International Association's Advisory Council, we actually provide a lot of content to members as well. So we have almost a, pretty much a monthly webinar on hot topics. So if anybody's interested in anything international and associations, please keep an eye on our webinars because there is a lot of content. In fact, we just did one on. When to speak up, for example, when it was extremely hot topic. But going back to your original question, Gary, one thing I love what Francisco said about basically having AI gather, gathered some uh, news sources for you. One thing I also to do is to look at different perspectives on news. So one of my daily routine is actually when I wake up, I look at European newspapers when I'm still in bed, I read different, luckily I speak different languages so I can see how they tackle some of the issues and then. In the evening, I usually read Wall Street [00:23:00] Journal or some American media just to see the different perception of, and the relatively importance of different issues that maybe for us are not as as important. So I also recommend if you can look at the international perspective a little bit, see how other countries are reacting to different pieces of.  Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: Get out of your own bubble, then get out of your own echo chamber and look for those diverse sources and resources that you know might not stumble over in the normal course of events. Francisco Gómez: A hundred percent.  Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: Interesting. Francisco, do you have something to add?  Francisco Gómez: No, I just say that that's critical because it's harder and harder to just get the news these days. They come with opinions. So  Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: yeah,  Francisco Gómez: we have to make sure that we look at different sources to try to get our own idea of what's actually happening. Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: Thinking about that for a second, thinking about the longer term, as we start to bring this podcast to an a conclusion, think about another, a different time horizon of say 24 months or thereabouts. Where's your head at [00:24:00] and where would you suggest other association professionals ought to start thinking about the next series of trends or the continuation or cascade effect of these trends? What do you see in the future that we should be thinking about today?  Francisco Gómez: There are a few, right? Obviously, one is the direction of US policy and trade, whether we like it or not, that is impacting the world. This serve continued geopolitical instability is something that we have to think about. You were mentioning Gary travel and vision friction. I think those issues are going to continue to be increasing with everything that is happening. But I, I do wanna say that. A lot of economists out there for years. Were talking about de-globalization and everybody just going inward and staying away from the world, and we have disagreed from the very beginning. I don't think that's happening. I don't think that will happen. What we're seeing is a reconfiguration of how we do global business. We see new alliances and partnerships and [00:25:00] trade. Routes that are emerging, and so this global trade will always be there, but we have to take a look at those frictions that we're looking at. Aside from that, I think obviously cyber and data risks are huge and how AI is changing member expectations and operating models, and this is something that should be at the forefront of any association thinking is not whether we like it or not, is when will your. Operating model, be truly impacted by all of this, and how do you anticipate it and take advantage of those things. And more broadly, I think leader should prepare for a more fragmented world. Fortunately, like I said, we're gonna see some of these alliances happening. That's gonna create a lot of opportunity, but it's not going to be as easy to navigate as it one was. It's not about being pessimistic, it means being ready. The organizations that do well. We'll be the ones I think that can adapt quickly without losing sight of who they are. [00:26:00] Pietro was talking about mission. I think that's critical. I think the future will reward associations that are globally aware, strategically selective, and operationally resilient, which I think is very important, is how do we go from strategy to execution and how do we do that properly? Pietro Macchiarella, MBA, CAE: Francisco, I think you've said it so well. I don't know if I can add anything more so eloquently, but I will say that I also see, I think the sort of polarization of the world, the creation of different regional interest areas, and I think that's part of the thing that will impact how you, you do business around the world. I also think that there is probably some economic pressures that will happen depending on the different. World economies go and people know. I tend to be still optimistic about the US economy, not so much about maybe Europe. I think that the interesting thing about Asia is that is probably being affected at least short term by oil right now. And so I don't know what will be the long term impact of that. [00:27:00] Of course, I think you mentioned Francisco technology. I think AI is also sort of, it's an opportunity. It's a great opportunity, but it's also a concern. I was on a call yesterday where as an alman was one of the speakers, and I could see actually in the executives, so AI executives, even some concerns from themselves, meaning this can be a. Thing from Manco, but it can also be potentially a threat if we don't manage it well. And so that obviously has an impact also on associations and how we manage it for our members and in the interaction with members. Yeah, I think these are my main points.  Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: Thank you. You've both touched on something that's been on my mind and on my radar, and that goes back to the, the, the Trump administration's national Security Strategy white paper, which really explicitly said, we're no longer gonna be us in charge of everything, right? We're gonna be in charge of our stuff, and you all be in charge of your stuff. So bringing to an end the era of a US [00:28:00] dominated world order, and going back to, I think both of you touched on the idea of multipolarity. In other words, there'll be different regions of influence around the world. Engineer the way supply chains work, the way sourcing works, the way workflow proceeds, where migration patterns happen, all of those things and that, and also where knowledge flows. So that will be, I think, very interesting for those of us in the association space. So that multipolarity concept, to see where that takes us long term. We've all, we've spoke, spoken about AI and I couldn't agree with you more I think. It, it's not, in my view, it's not a question of will AI impact us, but to what degree will AI reshape the world of work and reshape the kind of the relationships that we have as individuals and the synergy or collaboration or lack [00:29:00] thereof or lost thereof between organizations. I think AI and now it's about the impacts of AI on all on, on all of that. And then think lastly, the, the idea of we as individual leaders. How are we adapting and changing to the challenges that are in front of us? Because going back to Drucker, the problem with turbulence is not turbulence. It's the way we think about turbulence and the idea that we have to change our mindset in order to keep up with this new deck of cards that we're being presented through. Whether it's geopolitical, chaos, or the new world that we're looking at, I think it's gonna be especially true if GDP grows at 2% versus 3%. If US GDP grows at 3%, we have an entirely different, very optimistic forecast in front of us. If we grow at 2% or under it, things get a lot tougher, a lot quicker for a lot of people. That's it [00:30:00] for us. We gotta wrap this up. So let me just say thanks to everyone for listening to this episode of Association NOW Presents. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today. And highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy, the US and the world. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And for more information on topics impacting the association space, visit associations now online at associationsnow.com. Thank you all very much for listening, and thank you to my panelists, Pietro and Francesco. Many thanks for your help in trying to decipher and discover where we're going in the future. Appreciate it. Thank you all. Have a good [00:31:00] day.

Why Associations Must Rethink Learning and Community Together

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents: Industry Partner Edition, guest host Sharon Pare of HighRoad Solutions sits down with Kurt Heikkinen, CEO of Forj, to explore how to connect learning, community, and member value into one cohesive experience. Drawing on member experience research, Kurt highlights a core insight—members join and stay for two primary reasons: to learn and to connect with peers. When those experiences are separated, engagement suffers. The conversation unpacks how expectations are shifting, particularly among early-career professionals who expect personalized, always-on access to content and community, not just isolated touchpoints like annual events or standalone courses. Kurt makes the case for rethinking how associations deliver value—moving away from fragmented systems toward unified, AI-enabled platforms that bring learning and community together. He shares real-world results from EcoAmerica and offers a clear takeaway for association leaders: start with the member experience, break down internal silos, and design for connection, not just content. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/J0QxOGuP6Ks [https://youtu.be/J0QxOGuP6Ks]   Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings [https://associationbriefings.com/].   Transcript   Sharon Pare: [00:00:00] Welcome to Association NOW Presents: Industry Partner Series, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Sharon Pare, director of Partnerships at High Road Solutions, a HubSpot Solutions and implementation partner, and your host of this series throughout the year. Today, we're exploring how associations think about learning and how that connects to renewal. I'm joined by Kurt Heikkinen. Kurt has built and exited multiple SaaS companies, led mergers and acquisitions, and raised more than $150 million in venture and private equity capital. He's helped companies grow from startup to over $50 million in recurring revenue, and today he's focused on helping associations and organizations rethink how they serve and engage their members. Kurt, welcome  Kurt Heikkinen: Sharon. Thanks so much. Excited to spend this half hour with you and the audience.  Sharon Pare: Absolutely, [00:01:00] and thank you so much, Kurt. You've spent much of your career building companies in fast moving markets. I'm curious what drew you to the association space?  Kurt Heikkinen: Yeah, great question, Sharon. As I entered the space and started to learn more about the mission driven nature of these organizations, I was just compelled to help. After meeting with dozens and dozens of executives, I heard both. Their passion and mission, but also the challenges they face. And so after a couple decades serving the corporate space, I felt compelled to jump in and really help leaders of mission-driven organizations realize their full potential.  Sharon Pare: Why don't we jump into it? So when I hear association leaders talk about value, connection, and education, it always comes up. I think renewal conversations are still happening everywhere, and sometimes I think about it like Netflix versus Instagram, right? Netflix gives you a huge library of content and [00:02:00] then Instagram keeps you coming back for more because it feels dynamic. It feels social, even though I think the influencer community might be dying a little bit. So I'm wondering if associations sometimes operate more like a content library than a living network. So my question for you, Kurtin, from where you sit, what truly keeps members coming back year after year and what do associations tend to overestimate? Kurt Heikkinen: It's a really great question, and I think you can see some of the parallels from an experience standpoint between Netflix and Instagram. But when you think about the core of associations, many of them view themselves as the trusted place, the trusted resource for their members, as some describe themselves as that community of practice. Their members truly care. They want a sense of belonging and they want a place where they can not only progress in their career, but share and give back. And so we do research every year. We call it the state of member [00:03:00] experience, a research report, and we launch it every year at the annual ASAE annual event in August. And for the last five years, the prevailing answer to the question, why do you join and why do you stay, has been. One for the peer-to-peer connections and two for the ongoing learning. And so that is at the core of the member value proposition. Do I belong and can I connect with peers like me? And is this an environment and a place where I can continue to learn and grow? And so those are the key factors that drive engagement and ultimately retention.  Sharon Pare: If learning and community are structured separately, what does that do to the member experience?  Kurt Heikkinen: Yeah, it creates a fractured and siloed experience. When you think about our own experience as consumers, when we're interacting with a company or a product, and the experience is different from the time we bought it to the [00:04:00] time perhaps we're asking for service. It becomes frustrating if they don't know us and they don't demonstrate that they understand who we are and what our needs are from one step to the next. And so having those experiences separate can only lead to frustration, and that's what we hear over and over again. So what's the difference? What's the answer? An experience that is seamless, that's personalized, that's unified, where the member, the learner, feels like you know them throughout every step of the journey.  Sharon Pare: So are you saying that one of the shifts that you're seeing is mostly generational in how they're learning now?  Kurt Heikkinen: I think by far one of the shifts is the expectations of early career members. You think about the expectations of early career members, the concept of membership is even foreign to them. They've grown up in an on demand consumption, subscription based world. That's their world. Whether that's in academia or whether that's from an entertainment standpoint. [00:05:00] You cited Netflix earlier, so that is one of the major shifts. But for all of us, regardless of what generation you're in, where you are in your career. The last 10 years has informed our own expectations regarding experience and what does a modern experience look like, and personalization is at the core of that. If we as consumers, let's just separate learning and look more broadly in our everyday life as consumers, if we don't experience something that's fast and easy and relevant where the entity we're interacting with. The service provider or the product company doesn't know us and doesn't demonstrate they know us and understand our needs immediately and guide our experience, we opt out. And that's regardless of age. Anyone who has been using a mobile device for the last several years has experienced that and now knows what good looks like. But furthermore, back to career [00:06:00] stages, we've also studied a lot. What are the attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs of professionals by stage. There are expectations that early career members have. They wanna know immediately, do I belong here? Can I connect with peers like me who have solved and encountered some of the things that I'm. Experiencing early in my career for those individuals mid-career, they wanna know how can they take the next step in their career? How can they climb the ladder? How can they advance in their domain? Um, they might be considering a pivot. And how will this community help them learn and grow vanguard? And many times for those latent career they wanna give back. They wanna share their wisdom and their expertise from the last two or three or four decades, and they want a forum, a learning community to do that. So when learning and community aren't together, when it's fractured and siloed, you miss out on so many opportunities to engage your learners, your professionals, your members that meet them where [00:07:00] they are, and truly tap in the power of community. Sharon Pare: So it sounds like continuity may matter more than isolated moments, and having these two together really matters more. So I think it raises a bigger question about how learning actually works. And you've already mentioned that adults and different generations don't learn in isolated events. It tends to happen over time, conversation in context. Again, as you mentioned, a lot of this education is still structured around single programs. What do you think leaders most often misunderstand about learning value is actually created today?  Kurt Heikkinen: Yeah, it's interesting, Sharon, because we meet with hundreds of clients every year and prospective clients, and I think intuitively they understand. That the learning paradigm has shifted. I think they do understand that it is more social in nature. It needs to be more on demand. Micro learning needs to become a part of this, that individuals don't have the time or energy [00:08:00] and to sit down and take hours of courses by themselves. They are looking for that connectedness, but some of them are struggling to understand how to make that happen or they're. Largely dependent on a couple primary sources of revenue for their organization. A single annual conference, a couple main courses that drive 60 or 70% of their revenue that consumes their time and energy every year. That prevents them from moving beyond and innovating beyond that, and most often and why organizations come to Forj is because the technology they're using is holding them back or experience how today's technology better enables that breakthrough. Better supports that type of more dynamic social cohort based learning through the concept of a learning community as opposed to isolation. And there's still a place. There's still a place of course, for so many of these courses that lead [00:09:00] to credentials and certifications that help ensure that individuals are qualified in their field. But there are many opportunities to engage in learners and advance their career. Capture their expertise outside of those in single one-time events.  Sharon Pare: What would you say are some of the risks that will show up when learning is treated with those one-time transactions, that annual event, that one big main course, what risk will usually show up for an association? Kurt Heikkinen: I know our clients are already seeing that. In the form of churn in membership, many organizations in the association spaces have retention numbers that aren't what they want them to be. Their retention might be 70% or 75 or 80%. So that's the first place to look is if you're not delivering a continuous always on engagement, that's the first thing that's gonna be impacted. Where in your one primary course that they are mandated to take [00:10:00] is the breadwinner. You've invested so significantly in other pieces of content. We hear this problem statement over, and it sounds like this. We have great content, but it's underutilized and under consumed. We hear that over and over again, and so the way to help our clients reimagine. A move away from a one-time experience. We ask them to talk about what makes their annual event so great. Or we ask the more broad question, what is the highlight of community vibrancy or vibrancy in your membership throughout the year? And inevitably they highlight their annual event or confide. They describe with superlatives how great it is, how individuals are connected, how they're sharing best practices, how they're learning, they're growing, how excited they are, and they can't wait for it to happen next year. And then the risk is if you're over indexed on that single event, that single source of revenue, you miss out the other 360 days a year. [00:11:00] And why not? Why can't you? And you can, our clients are. Creating that always on engagement, where that same sense of vibrancy, the same sense of engagement, that content that you've invested in that gets overlooked, is being unlocked. It is being captured. It is being founded. It is being utilized 365 days a year. That's the power of a learning community.  Sharon Pare: So really it's less about delivering content, more about creating that context.  Kurt Heikkinen: That's just it. It's all about relevancy. Most of our clients don't need more content. They need a form and they need technology to enable it, to ensure that content is served up through a personalized experience in a relevant way. So members don't have to go search for it and find it. And think about how frustrating it is when you have to go two different places to search, let alone one, but you shouldn't have to search. When you think back about our consumer experiences, whether that's on Netflix or Spotify or Amazon, how much searching do we do versus [00:12:00] how much serving up is done? How much content is presented to us based on the fact that we're known? That same thing should exist in a learning community. Members deserve to be known to understand past behaviors reflected, and whether that's content or connections or conversations, that's the power of an AI driven learning community. So it's no longer about searching across two different sources where you have to log in twice, but it's more about the relevancy of content, connections and conversations being served up to me.  Sharon Pare: So you're talking a little bit more about conversations and communications and connections, and this just brings us directly to community. Let's use Peloton for an example, right? I don't do it a lot, but when I do, there's something fun that I love about it. You do the workout, but there's this leaderboard in community, right, where you just stick to it. So it's not just you doing the workout, but now you're like, you know what? I've gotta beat Callie Girl [00:13:00] 3 1 2, because she's on the lead award and she's number two and one. Right? There's just a sense of engagement that you get from that type of experience, and there's a shared experience there. So I think what I'm saying is associations have already potentially built that within their members, but it's not always activated intentionally. Right. Kurt, my question for you is, why does pure connection create a kind of learning value? That content alone simply can't deliver.  Kurt Heikkinen: Yeah, I think you said it. You used the freight shared experience. If it were just about you getting on the treadmill and consuming a course or content, it would be different than knowing that you're going through that experience together and in associations more than just general social communities. There is a passion around the subject matter itself. There's a deep passion around advancing the body of knowledge, and so communities unlock shared experience and shared [00:14:00] expertise and done right. It's not just about dipping in and dipping out and taking a course or reading a document. It really is about how can I learn side by side from my peers. Informally as well as formally, and how can I also contribute to that body of knowledge or that community of practice?  Sharon Pare: Is there something that separates organizations that truly leverage community from those that just simply provide the space for it?  Kurt Heikkinen: I think that's a really great question. Really, when we first start working with a client, these are organizations who have come to us who are not yet clients of Forge. We see really three different profiles. We see individual organizations who have never used community before. They're just exploring for the first time. Maybe they had a listserv, but not truly a community. We have organizations who have tried to adopt community, and in their minds it's a check the box member benefit. They have it because their members ask for it. [00:15:00] So they check the box and they say they have it, but they wouldn't describe it as vibrant. And they often say We struggle with engagement. And then we have organizations who come to us where they would describe their. Community as having engagement, but they struggle to really associate, tie it to the member value proposition. And they're wanting to think more broadly about the value of community and tying it to business outcomes. And we're seeing a shift. Those who really get it, think about community through the lens of what business outcomes does. A vibrant community. Generate. And if you can quantify and measure engagement, truly measure it not by logins, by vibrancy in your community, and tie it to outcomes such as retention. Attraction of new members, the generation of additional non-dues revenue, or the increased consumption of content that you've had for [00:16:00] some time that has been stale or under consumed. That's really where the power of community and learning community comes in, and that's how we see more and more leaders thinking about community. Not a check the box member benefit, but a real driver for value and member value proposition.  Ad Break: Let's take a quick break with a word from our sponsor. Do you have members who finish a course and then just kind of disappear with Journey by Forge? Learning doesn't stop at course completion. The real ROI of learning happens after the course. Members move seamlessly from formal coursework into a connected community where they can apply what they've learned. Ask real world questions and continue the conversation with peers who understand their challenges. It's not just an LMS, and it's not just a community platform. Journey by Forge brings learning conversation and insight together in one seamless experience. So [00:17:00] instead of isolated courses, you create an active social learning environment where growth actually happens to see how it works. Visit forge.ai. That's F-O-R-J-dot-AI.  Sharon Pare: You worked with EcoAmerica where courses and community originally lived separately. Could you walk us through what was happening there? Kurt Heikkinen: Yeah. They train thousands of climate ambassadors every year. When you think about that these individuals are there 'cause they have a passion for the cause. They're not required to fill this role. This is not a course that they have to take to maintain a certification in their field and to maintain their employment. So experience matters in those instances, A as in most. And so they had two separate experiences and what they know they were really trying to drive not only [00:18:00] education, for someone to be deemed and qualified as an ambassador. Create a sense of how best to fulfill that role through the learning from your peers. And so previously what would happen is they had a community and they had this course, and individuals inevitably would go take the training 'cause they wanted to support the cause and get the certification to be an ambassador. But that's when the experience would stop. They would never log into community 'cause they saw no purpose or meaning for that. And many times they didn't come back to update or refresh their training. And so through the power of Forge by unifying community and learning together, that's where we unlocked great potential. And so now you look at an experience where a pre, during and post, you're actually engaging in conversation with your peers. It makes learning social, it makes it interactive. It's not just a course that you check the box on. You have a [00:19:00] shared experience and a shared purpose. What has happened now as a result is their community has grown significantly. They're recruiting more and more climate ambassadors and in, and a higher percentage of those individuals are coming back over and over again to update their training. So really great testament and story around the power of community and learning, uh, being a unified experience.  Sharon Pare: So it sounds like learning became something that the members were a part of, not just something that they finished, not just stripped off the box. Kurt, why is it important for associations to understand and evaluate the difference between integrating community learning and technology intentionally built for unified community and learning? Kurt Heikkinen: Yeah, that's a great question and one of the things that I think is really good news for our industry is we've seen a rise in RFPs, request for proposals, that ask for community and learning together from a technology standpoint. And thankfully we've also seen [00:20:00] competitors in our space talking about it as well. And there's really been an increase in understanding of the why behind the value, and I think it's really important that. Buyers are able to discern the difference between integrated solutions and those that are intentionally built to unify that experience. And so here's probably the simplest way and the word of caution that I would offer. If you have an integrated solution where it's two separate technologies still, yes, you'll get the benefit of single sign. You may get the benefit of a basic personalized experience because now you can tie a discussion thread to a course or a course to a discussion thread, but you're missing significant opportunities that only get unlocked when it's a single unified solution. It starts with a unified experience. It continues with AI driven personalization and a unified experience. [00:21:00] We know every click. We know every conversation. We know every piece of content that has been consumed. We know every area of interest, and it gets back to serving up that experience, guiding that learner or that member through their journey. You also get deeper insights that don't exist when you have two separate solutions that are simply integrated. And those insights unlock understandings of your members, their needs and their interests in ways that you didn't previously have access to, or other content ideas or program ideas. 'cause now you know. What your members are talking about and what they really crave and how they enjoy learning. Beyond that, you simplify your tech stack and you reduce your costs. And so the difference between integrated. Integrated gets you partially the way there. A fully unified solution is where the true power is unlocked. Sharon Pare: So what organization or mindset shift most often unlocks this kind of connected experience? I know you've touched a little bit about it, but can [00:22:00] we dig deeper into that?  Kurt Heikkinen: Yeah, please. I actually grew up on the client side buying and selecting and implementing software from vendors and I talk about my experience. I say I stopped 29 years in counting. It's my 29th year over and over again. So I've been around a little bit, and there's data that shows regardless of buyer community or technology vendor, upwards of 40% of B2B buyers. That's what we're talking about here. B2B, buyers associations buying services or technology experience, purchase regret within the first 60 to 90 days. Why? Because now that they're going through implementation, they're realizing that the solution they purchased. Doesn't adapt to their current or future anticipated needs. And so to your question, what is that though? Does that mind shift or organizational shift? It starts with one, start with a member experience in mind. Don't dust off your old RFP from the last time you bought an [00:23:00] LMS or community solution. And use that as your requirements. Start with a mindset shift around member experience in the moments that matter too. Identify a business champion as the stakeholder. It is great. They do a great job of helping to validate how things will work. You really should have a business owner driving and sponsoring the evaluation and tying it to business outcomes. And third, break down the silo. Stop buying technology where it's just one department or the other. Don't buy an LMS without engaging the membership team. And don't think about an upgrade to your community solution without engaging your learning team and your marketing team in that experience as well. Sharon Pare: You bring up three really great points, and I think a lot of associations are still measuring learning by how much the content they offer, but as you said, that's just not the most meaningful metric anymore. So what's one assumption leaders should seriously [00:24:00] rethink right now?  Kurt Heikkinen: Yeah, and I meet with dozens of CEOs a year and over. I hear a concern around future relevancy. It's not. This year or next year, it's five and 10 years out. So the risk isn't assuming that you'll always exist, and the risk isn't assuming that your members will always want to be members. And so the biggest fundamental way of rethinking about your future is the challenge of competition that has increased exponentially over the last five to 10 years in so many industries. Your members have mind share and wallet share that they're making choices around every day, and if you do not create the experience that is meeting their expectations, you will lose relevancy and you will lose your place as the trusted place for them to come and stay.  Sharon Pare: Kurt, I really appreciate the conversation. It feels like the future of association learning [00:25:00] isn't just more content, it's more connection. I appreciate you sharing your perspective today.  Kurt Heikkinen: Thank you so much. And if I could leave one quick thought, because I know change is sometimes hard. It could sound overwhelming. Many of our clients have a staff of 10 or 20 or 30, and so the thought of changing sounds like too much. Here's a mind shift in terms of changing vocabulary internally instead of saying our LMS. Or our community or our education, start to adapt the vernacular of our learning community, whether that exists for you or not today. Start using that vernacular, our learning community and see how it starts to change the conversations inside of your organization and how you receive the feedback from your learners and your members. Sharon, thanks so much for your time. I appreciate it. It's been a great, great time together.  Sharon Pare: Thank you, Kurt, for the final words. Appreciate it. Learning community. You've heard it from Kurt. Thank you. Thank you.  And that does it for [00:26:00] this episode of Association NOW Presents:  Industry Partner Series. We'll have these special episodes throughout the year, and please make sure to join us each month overall as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals, discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today, and highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy, the US and the world. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Visit associations now online at associationsnow.com. Thank you everyone.