1. Increasing Membership

2. Two problems Getting (and keeping) paid members
Getting new representatives

3. Getting New Paid Members
Cost
Membership fees
Travel expense (this is the worst)
Time away from ‘real, important’ work
Wasted headcount
Mergers cause reduction of voting membership
Write Procurement specs instead
Make your suppliers do the work for you
Return on investment
What is the risk of not participating vs. the opportunity of participating?
Do you really need to be part of the solution? Or can you just implement what the committee creates for you?

4. Getting New Paid Members
Protect intellectual property
Don’t share
What you don’t share is your ‘value add’ in the market
Private specification organizations are preferred
ANSI, ISO, etc. are too slow
Small board can control / speed the flow
Not accredited (or accreditable)
Non-members can’t find out if they should be interested
Agendas and Meeting info is not available to non-members
Charters are often too general and abstract to be meaningful

5. Getting new representatives
Problem statement:
Reps quit or move to other companies
Reps retire with huge amounts of institutional knowledge
Nobody wants to do it
Common Obstacles
Perceived as a dead-end job: a career killer. You are no longer ‘an engineer’.
Its boring! And people argue about trivial things like commas and semicolons!
Travel for those with young families is a hardship
Who can remember all that detail?
Fear of argument and negotiation
Women view it as a ‘boys club’