The following is a cross-post from http://www.socialmediaclub.org/
We have been hard at work rethinking what it means to be an association in the era of ad-hoc groups, smart mobs, tweetups, barcamps and other group activities that don’t require any institutions. To this end, we have developed a plan for our online membership community that brings together the best in Social Media with the best aspects of traditional associations.
Our member site will serve many of the same purposes of typical ‘industry’ associations: to grow the industry; to look out for the better good; to discuss legislative concerns and advocate if appropriate; to educate the general public; to separate the signal from the noise; and ultimately to promote its members. With the rise of Web 2.0, there is also the added potential to leverage collaboration technology in entirely new ways, which we fully intend to do in what we think are several innovative ways.
The new Drupal based member site will serve three primary purposes.
- Connecting members in local groups with others from around the globe to learn from each other, to collaborate, to socialize and to transact business.
- Collaborating with each other in exploring, discussing, researching and ultimately creating informative media that furthers our understanding of social media and its application in different situations.
- Promoting the Social Media Solutions offered by members (products, services, time, books or even workshops) within a respected website where buyer’s turn to find the solutions they need.
In addition to local group sites which will be 10x better then Facebook groups IMHO, we are expanding on our Social Media Events Calendar and launching several new blogs which will be open for member contributions. Of greatest interest to many of you will be our Social Media Directories:
- Member’s Directory
- Speakers Directory
- Solutions Directory
- Service Provider/Consultant Directory
In support of this new member site, we are also launching a new editorial effort which is detailed below.
We now have the resources in place and the confidence in the community support we can get to undertake this important step forward knowing we are not alone in our quest. We believe this is not only beneficial for us, but hopefully for other groups and associations struggling with similar issues. We hope we can help light the way for some other organizations who are figuring out how to make the most of this Social Media and Web 2.0 technology for their members.
We are working with Samuel Rose out of Canada as the lead Drupal developer – in addition to being recommended by Michele Wolverton, Sam worked on the Social Media Classroom Project with Howard Rheingold (which we hope to support in some cool ways). It will be several months before all the pieces are in place to complete the full vision. As with any well intentioned Web 2.0 project, the process will be open to feedback from members and continuously evolve as we literally redefine the purpose of member associations.
Bold claim? I think not because I am in shock that more associations are not using these collaborative technologies for the benefit of their membership. We will launch the beta during SxSW with a limited alpha starting next week seeking your input and suggestions.
So what’s in store for members? Stay tuned… or better still, would you consider joining Social Media Club as a professional or business member? We haven’t really made an appeal such as this directly, but today we are launching our first fund raising drive so we can afford to develop this new member site and put more administrative staff in place to keep the trains running on time (which I clearly can’t do on my own despite having a great wife and partner like Kristie Wells). The cost is just $100 for a Professional membership, $250 for a Small Business membership or $2,499 for a Corporate membership.
The benefits mentioned above are just a few on an ever growing list. Please join us on our mission to improve media literacy, promote industry standards, share best practices and encourage discussions of ethics and become a member today.
Posted by Mich on February 11, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Initial thought: Brilliant!
Follow-up thought: $100 is steep!
I’ve posed the following questions in the comments section of the original post at socialmediaclub.org. I’ll let you know what they say :-)
1) Is the professional fee for individual members or chapters?
2) Do you envision this form of pay system becoming mandatory?
3) What are the benefits?
Posted by Mich on February 17, 2009 at 5:25 pm
From Kristie Wells:
The $100 Professional membership is per individual and after researching several orgs (traditional and new), we felt a decent price point to ensure the Club could sustain itself and be able to complete the goals we set out each year.
We will *always* offer a free membership option as while we need funding to support SMC, we don’t want anyone to feel excluded if they cannot pay. There will be additional layers available to paid members (more on that coming in March), and a lot of information we put out for free.