The Competition Within

2 Process Top 2 learnings from each person Broke into sub-categories with related questions –Value proposition, Brand, Membership, Membership Engagement, Metrics, International/Collegiate, Personalization, Involvement, Success/Competition/Partnerships, Governance –Spend 2 minutes discussing those we don’t think are critical and 10 minutes discussing those we do think are critical –Parking lot additional topics for community discussion Select critical topics and assign owners to prepare updates at BOD2 Circulate notes and obtain more feedback in community in Sept and Oct Develop action plan at BOD2

3 Value Proposition What is our SWE value proposition and does it need to be updated? –How do we communicate it in 7 words or less so it becomes an “elevator speech” for all our members? –How do we articulate the value for international, collegiate, middle mgmt, etc? How do we account for member value and brand in our budgeting and P&S assessment processes? How do we leverage our sections/regions to convey our brand consistently? What services are valued most by members, corporate partners, etc? –PD, conferences, local section meetings, outreach tools, etc? Could we have members pay for more services and reduce both membership price and what it includes for free? –What happens to life members? –How do we get revenue from volume – advertising to all our members who frequent our website daily?

4 Brand What does our brand convey today? –Inclusiveness; professionalism What do we want it to convey? How we can we enhance our brand and be consistent in it’s usage? –Members use SWE signature –More member engagement in communities and website –Consistency in all our publications and presentations What is our quality and dependability and are there ways we can improve them? –Should we offer a certification in leadership or another area? –Do we know how many members will take advantage of our CEUs?

5 Membership How do we determine what members want? How do we better retain members? –How do we provide them with a competitive advantage? –How do we help members communicate this advantage to their employer for sponsorship or make it easier for them to support themselves? –Is SWE’s success important to members because of impact on the women engineering community? Do members feel they can contribute to this success? How do we grow new members? How do we attain more executive members as they may have more influence? How do we augment upgrades? Do we care if people become members or only if they continue to participate in our events/communities? Can we track them if they are not members? Are we taking advantage of all current contacts for conversion? –Should we offer free membership for scholarship recipients? –How many years should we follow up?

6 Member Engagement How many new ideas for products or services were received from members? –How are we receiving these? How do we generate more –What’s the success rate for these? Do members provide suggestions for improving quality and are we able to implement? How do new members hear about SWE? –Do we know how many non-members come to our website and the demographics from these people and if not, how can we get this info? (register with incentive to get something free) –Are there other organizations we should partner with? Are there ways we could partner better? What other orgs do our members participate in and what needs are met thru those groups? How do we ignite/sustain member passion? –Does this vary for checkbook vs active members? What other types? What are other member needs we can enable cheaply or free? Mentoring; career center; best practices on retention; global network

7 Member Engagement Metrics What is our conversion rate on new members? –Come to our website? Attend webinar? Do specialized offerings help? –Attend conference and stay member? Recommended by friend (can we incentivize this)? Why do members decide to become leaders? Why do leaders drop out? What is our retention? –Why do members stay? –Are there factors that affect this like participation? –Do we follow up with members who don’t stay to find out why? Is the average time of membership in SWE increasing or decreasing? –How do we recognize membership milestones? How often do members share SWE information? –What info do they share and how? (forward newsletters, mention SWE online) –How can we better enable this? –Does this lead to more participation/membership?

8 Metrics How can we gather more information from our website? What information do we want to gather? How can we leverage the info we have in the member database? How often should we survey members and what should we ask? What have we learned when we last surveyed members and what have we done about it? –Keep magazine –Publicize public policy more How can we get data on what non-members want that would convert them to members? How do we demonstrate that we are utilizing the survey feedback so members know it’s worth their time?

9 International/Collegiate International: What are our target markets? Are there other groups we could/show benchmark/partner with? PMI? How can we provide services at the right price and still be profitable? –Digital magazine What is our value proposition and how is this different from that for our US members? –How do we tie into social responsibility? Collegiate: How can we provide services at the right price and still be profitable? How do we communicate changing value propositions for professional? We’ve piloted several improvements – have they worked? How do we know? How do we get more upgrades?

10 Personalization How do we currently meet needs for subsets of membership (products and services)? –How do we do this better, faster, cheaper, more effectively than anyone else? What can we learn from FIGs? Should we set up more FIGs and if yes, how and on what topics? –How do we make them easy to sustain? –Do we need a method to determine their effectiveness so we can pick the critical few to focus on? What should our goals be for participation and how can we drive more? –# people engaged, level of engagement –Is it same people so we need new programs or can we leverage what we have with new audiences? How do we find ample resources to develop niche solutions?

11 Involvement in website and events How can we encourage more people to be facilitators of the community? –Facilitator ongoing training Can we engage more people using virtual tools linked to our conferences/ training? –Are there other places we could have certifications? –Could we have a virtual career fair? –Are the virtual BOD, CPC meetings effective (cost savings)? What is our goal – to get 10% of our members to use our website daily? What is our goal - to get 50% of our members to participate in at least one event per year? How do we know if our members are satisfied with our events and our website? Are there more services we can offer virtually?

12 Success/Competition/Visibility How do we better share our successes? How do we use our Community to better engage members? –Linkage to facebook, linkedin, etc for discussions –Are there ways to make it easier to see who is online, see upcoming events and add comments (should we post all our webinars on facebook), post pictures, etc How can we expound on our successes to engage more members, generate more revenue? –2 nd conference; more webinars? Who is our competition? –What do they do better than us? What do we do better than them? –What do their goals look like? What does their structure look like? Do we have any IP? How do we get SWE to come up more in Google search? How do we get more PR and search engine optimization? Where are there market gaps that SWE can address?

13 Governance Where do we need to leverage Roberts Rules and where can we be more progressive to drive faster and more strategic decision making –Electronic vote How do we engage BOD members as SMEs vs functional focus? –Why have we not had full success with Special Directors? How do we include member/CPC value as part of P&S assessment process? How do we evaluate new ideas to determine how many members will take advantage of them for prioritization? How do we separate what companies are willing to pay for individual vs what an individual will pay? Leadership training, awards, etc