Chapter Communications: Get Wired!
By Russ Finney
1999 Austin Chapter President
March 1999
One of the most important factors influencing the success or failure of a local chapter is COMMUNICATIONS. If your chapter is striving to be the voice of your city's IT community, efficient and fast communications are essential!
Fortunately, that's exactly what information technology is all about, right? If any national organization should be "leading by example" in this technology area - it is AITP. We have a myriad of modern day communications technologies to put to our own use. We have the people in our association who are the IT experts. Put these technologies and people to work in building your chapter's communications infrastructure!
I continue to be amazed by the number of chapters who are still "paper based" in their communications. These days, this practice has three direct negative effects:
1. It fails to take advantage of the tremendous LEVERAGE and REACH that electronic communications provide.
2. It burns out the valuable chapter board member who has to deal with the mailing administration.
3. It is expensive.
With the advent of modern day communications technologies, I am strongly advocating the following approach for our local chapters:
Establish a Local Chapter Mailing List
This is by far the most powerful tool at your disposal!
Building an organization which represents your local IT community requires direct monthly communication with hundreds (or thousands) of IT professionals in your local area. This level of communication is now possible with the advent of email, the internet, and email clients with list capabilities. Take advantage of it.
Priority One - Collect Email Addresses
You should obtain an email address from every visitor to your meeting who wants to receive your chapter announcement. You should publish your "subscribe" instructions in every electronic meeting announcement you send out, as well as any newspaper meeting listings you have published. You should invite visitors to your chapter's website to subscribe. You should offer to "subscribe" your friends, business associates, and vendors for them as a courtesy. In short, your email database becomes your direct connection to your city's IT community.
Then put it to use. Every month send out a professional announcement. Before you know it, you will be getting a ONE to TEN return in meeting attendance to number of announcements! Your database may be small at first, but within a year or two, you will find you have built a very important resource for your chapter. If you don't know where to get a good email list program to start your database, see the URL at the end of this column.
Establish a Chapter Website
This doesn't have to be anything fancy, but it does need to be accurate, current, and findable. Here are the basic elements you should include on your website:
1. Next meeting details.
2. Email address for inquiries (new members and speakers).
3. Subscribe instructions for your announcement.
4. A link to the national site.
5. Instructions for joining.
You should also link to our national on-line membership application form at this URL:
http://www.aitp.org/membership/apply.html
Optional things which you can add for credibility:
1.List of officers / email addresses.
2.Calendar of upcoming meetings.
3.Links to the companies and vendors with members in your organization.
Your chapter's website will become the virtual meeting point for your membership. Depending on your level of effort, your local website could also become an important resource for your city at large. If you choose to register a domain for your chapter, you may what to consider using this format:
http://www. cityname aitp.org
Examples:
http://www.austinaitp.org
Having a registered domain also gives your chapter the flexibility to move the website between internet service providers without disrupting your published website address. Another part of a professional image.
Frankly, as a part of a leading information technology association, a chapter not having a website is really making a subtle negative statement about the technical prowess of the local membership. Like it or not, this has become a credibility issue for your chapter. If you need help or resources in order to create your website, see the URL at the end of this column.
Get Voice Mail
How does your membership make meeting reservations? One good option is to establish a voice mail box for your chapter. This can be done through a local service, or you can ask if a member participating in your chapter can obtain one of their available numbers on their company's voice mail system for your chapter's use. Either way, this is another tool which adds credibility and increases the communication avenues for your members.
Join the AITP Leadership Listserv!
If you are serving on a local AITP Board of Directors, you really owe it to yourself to join our national AITP Leaders Listserv. This is your director channel to the hundreds of other chapter leaders in our association. It's a great place to share you ideas, or to get great ideas from others. Simply send an email to:
aitp-leaders-request@bnetmd.net
with "subscribe" in the body of the message.
Please share your thoughts and comments regarding this feature. You can do so by posting to our AITP Members Forum or by writing me at webadmin@itmweb.com.
Copyright © 1999, Russ Finney, All Rights Reserved. Originally written for The Information Executive.
