The ISA (International Society of Automation) is facing a challenging time. As I prepare to attend the Fall Leaders’ Meeting and ISA Expo in a few days, I know that major cuts and dramatic changes are in store. Depending upon how you look at it, I am personally either blessed or cursed not be part … Read more
Note: This post is part 1 of 4 in a series of posts. The parent article is “ISA: One Member’s Vision.” Many thanks to Jim Pinto for bringing this into focus for me with his recent InTech article, “Sell scarcities, not abundance.” I’ve taken the liberty of expanding on his thesis by leveraging the concepts … Read more
Making membership free will not, in and of itself, build an effective army. First, they must be recruited. This is where the long tail comes into play. Next, they must be equipped with the latest technology, afforded competent and inspiring leaders, and trained in effective tactics.
Content is the fuel for this new paradigm’s engine. A wide variety of interesting, thought provoking, authoritative, and even mundane content will increase member engagement and improve search engine results, driving more and more web search results to ISA. However, under the current publication infrastructure this is difficult if not impossible to realize. That’s because the current approach is to filter, then publish. The alternative is to distribute, then filter. In other words, the long tail of the membership should be enabled to become content providers.
Let’s talk about email. This has been a controversial subject for many years and for several reasons. The mistake here is that ISA has been wrestling with the best way to interrupt people, sort of like looking for the friendliest way to insult somebody. The solution is, once again, permission-based or opt-in marketing.