Steal This Idea From the Software Industry

What if members could vote on the next new benefit your association launches? How would this affect engagement?

I'm adapting the idea of voting for new benefits (or features, changes, content, topics, events, etc.) from the software industry. Actually, this is a very special segment of the software industry that is near and dear to our association hearts because I first experienced this idea at the Novi AMS Summit (spoiler alert—the participants absolutely L😍VED this.)

Each year, the Novi team invites participants to tell them about the new features users want the staff to code into the software. The process at the summit looks a little bit like this:

Photo credit Tacy Briggs-Troncoso

The development team takes the best/most often mentioned ideas and determines how many development hours each of these top ideas will need.

At the next conference, each idea is presented along with the corresponding development hours, and clients vote (i.e., their clients are association rock stars like you! 🤩). For example, let’s say Novi has 200 development hours to allocate to these projects; roughly four projects, each taking 50 hours, could be developed.

Knowing the details of each potential new feature and the development hours, the participants vote on which of the top ideas they want to be developed. Here’s a photo of the voting in action (unfortunately, you can’t hear all the cheering as ideas rapidly switched places and people’s favorite ideas moved toward the top.) People were laughing, cheering, and calling out their favorite ideas.

When voting closed, the staff vowed to launch the handful of top new features voted on by their clients. This feature ranking exercise was last on the summit agenda—talk about ending a conference on a high note!

Associations are not software companies, but associations are constantly developing new benefits, exploring new topics, launching new things, and completing special projects. What if members could suggest new benefits, features, content, topic ideas, events, etc.? What if staff could set aside “development hours” for a few top ideas? What if all members, not just the board, could vote on the few top ideas they want to see developed?

Novi’s brand promise is “For associations, by associations.” Adapting this idea could make your members feel like your association is even more “For members, by members.”