Member Generated Contests

Building on a previous post about Google Answers, two blog writers discuss a concept they’ve labeled “consumer generated contests” or “social contesting.” The basic premise being that one of your users, members, customers, etc. could start a “contest” explaining what they’d like to have happen or what they’d like to have created, put up a bit of money up front for the “winner” and invite others to contribute to the pot if they’re interested too.

This seems to have implications in content development, marketing, member/customer satisfaction, etc. Like Google Answers, it’s a matter of setting up the “engine” in which these types of things can take place – making it easier to connect people and build upon their collective wisdom and ideas.

Research on Student Nurses

Bernarnd Hodes Group partnered with CampusRN.com in 4th quarter 2005 to examine issues in the health care professions from the student nurse population. The purpose of the study was to better understand the characteristics of future health care employees. The research sought to understand what attracts the new generation of health care professionals to the field and how they obtain positions. The research delved into what information these students look for when researching employers, what details about positions and employers are important to them, and how they go about looking for jobs.

Key findings:

• A desire to help people was their major motivation for pursuing a health care career.
• Employer fit, followed by loan forgiveness and employer size are the key considerations in job selection.
• The Internet was the most frequent means of learning about jobs, cited by 70 percent of respondents.
• Over half (58%) of respondents said they planned to return to school for an advanced degree within five years of graduation. Two fifths (42%) anticipated working at a local facility in a staff capacity, and one fifth each planned to get into education/training (22%).

Community Tools

Share Your Story, a website of the March of Dimes, is a centralized place where people can participate in the community (in this case, premature babies, NICU families, etc.) It appears that participants have two main ways of sharing their stories – through “short stories” which function like message board posts that allow for follow up comments and discussion, and participant-created blogs. Visitors to the site can also read through the existing short stories and blogs and participate that way.

One of the main creators for the site, Nancy White, has shared the story or “case study” of how the site was built and launched.

It seems like this might be a way of creating communities by providing members the tools without actually forcing it upon them or taking a top down approach. Maybe this could be a member-driven way of deciding what gets talked about and how the community evolves?

Flickr

Flickr, which was recently acquired by Yahoo, is a Web site that allows you to store, sort, search and share your photos. With each photo you upload, you can assign an identifying tag, which allows for organizing and sorting pictures associated with that keyword(s) and also for the searching and discovery of other pictures by other users using that same keyword tag.

For example, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) recently held a conference in Florida. Here are all of the photos submitted by individual attendees that have been tagged with “womma.”

Would there be a benefit to coming up with tags for our events and conferences? Lots of attendees bring their own cameras. This would allow everyone the opportunity to share their pictures in one place. Might it help build the community?

Book Trends, Data & Insight

TitleZ, currently in beta, is a free tracking and reporting service of book sales figures from Amazon. As described on the site, some of the benefits include:

Small Publishers: the big guys spend tens of thousands of dollars every year on competitive research before they publish their titles. With TitleZ, you can make smart, informed decisions about the books you’re planning to publish, too.

Acquisition Editors: With TitleZ, you can enjoy fast, easy access to information about how a particular subject or author is performing. Pick the competitive titles that are most relevant, and quickly print out a TitleZ Report on each.

Marketers: Use TitleZ to assess how certain subjects/categories/authors perform over time. Discover the best time to release books, what words or phrases perform best in a title, and more.

Top Issues Confronting Hospitals

The American College of Health Executives conducted a survey of hospital CEOs towards the end of 2005 asking them about the most pressing issues facing their respective hospitals.

Personnel shortages, primarily registered nurses, ranked as the second most pressing concern behind financial challenges. The percentage of CEOs citing this issue (36%) has declined, however, from 2003 when 58% did so. Of the 36% that cited personnel shortages, 85% rated registered nurses as their number one area of shortage.

Health Statistics

Globalhealthfacts.org, a project of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, provides free, up-to-date data by country on many key health and socio-economic indicators. The data are displayed in tables, charts, and color-coded maps and can be downloaded. Among the data – nurse population estimates for every country.

Generations and the Future of Association Participation

The William E. Smith Institute of Association Research, part of association management company SmithBucklin, published a report entitled Generations and the Future of Association Participation.

The report focuses on how generations affect association membership, studying how different population groups participate (or do not) and suggests appropriate messages for reaching these groups. Additionally, the purpose of this research is to evaluate whether Generation X and Y workers truly present a serious danger for the future membership ranks of trade associations.

Among the key findings:

• There are fewer Generation Xers in the workforce than Baby Boomers, but the differences are not large when accounting for the fact the Baby Boom (1946-1964) was nearly twice as long as Generation X (1965-1975). Correcting for generation length, the working age population proportions are Baby Boomer 28% and Generation X 27%.

• The supposed behavioral difference between generations (Gen X are not joiners, etc.) is a function of age and not generation, per se. As Gen Xers move into their peak professional years, they show every indication of joinging associations at even higher rates than Baby Boomers. (This could indicate an important need to follow up with lapsed members as they move into their peak years.)

• By combining the effects of population projections and behavioral trends, the number of association members can reasonably be expected to rise over the next 10 years, from about 51 million members to about 55 million by the year 2015.

Even with positive data projections, the report recommends strategies to combat unexpected membership declines among younger and older workers. Among them:

• Younger: The question to ask for younger workers is this: What kinds of returns do younger people seek and demand in return for emmbership? Possibilities include – tangible member services, high levels of accountability to members, identifiable career advantages from membership, a sense of professional community, and opportunities to serve within associations.

• Older: The key dimensions are the retirement age and the relationship between retirement and association membership. Strategies to maintain membership include enhancing work and career satisfaction among older workers, finding semi-retirement employment options, and keeping retired workers involved in association communities.

Event Resources

From Eventageous:

Budget Break Even Calculator
Event Budget Calculator
Room Capacity Calculator
Room Size Calculator

Free legal resources:

Conferon e-Specs archives
MeetingsNet legal column archives

How Women and Men Use the Internet

The Pew Internet & American Life Project published How Women and Men Use the Internet, a 54-page report (PDF) that provides a wide-ranging look at the way American women and men use the internet and how their use of the internet has changed over time.

Among the highlights:

• More than men, women are enthusiastic online communicators, and they use email in a more robust way. Women are more likely to feel satisfied with the role email plays in their lives, especially when it comes to nurturing their relationships. And women include a wider range of topics and activities in their personal emails. Men use email more than women to communicate with various kinds of organizations.

• Women are more likely to see the vast array of online information as a “glut” and to penetrate deeper into areas where they have the greatest interest, including health and religion. Women tend to treat information gathering online as a more textured and interactive process – one that includes gathering and exchanging information through support groups and personal email exchanges.

• In emailers’ working life, women are more likely than men to value the positive effects of email for improving relationships, from expanding their circle of colleagues to encouraging teamwork. Women also value email for a kind of positive, water-cooler effect, which lightens the atmosphere of office life.

• Sixty-nine percent (69%) of women have a high speed internet connection at work compared to 48% who have it at home.