Posts Tagged ‘case study jam’

... or IS it?

I get lots of invitations to events related to public relations, usually from local chapters of professional associations like CPRS or IABC or business groups like the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce, or from companies like Ragan Communications. Quite often, the pricing structure for an event – a breakfast, a webinar, a professional development session, whatever – goes like this:

• Members $40
• Non-members $55
• Students $20

For example, Ragan says on its site

“Ragan Select members always get the lowest prices & access to all ragan.com content.” (emphasis theirs)

This is a sensible structure in some ways. Members pay a membership fee, so this is pitched as one of the benefits of membership — reduced admission costs to events. Makes sense. Also makes sense to give students a break on attendance. I didn’t have much money when I was a student.

But I was thinking about this as a way of recruiting new members. Associations cost money. Unless you’re a student, joining CPRS will run you nearly $400; IABC is a bit cheaper. And unlike the old days, there are a ton of PD events out there that don’t require a membership: Social Media Breakfast, TEDx, Case Study Jam, Third Tuesday, Ottawa Brain Drain, Podcasters Across Borders…

So if you’re an association, and you want to bring in new members, is the best way to recruit to charge people more? Might you not be better served by holding special “non-member events”, where you gave the noobs a discount? Or an event without a charge at all? And for that matter, given the negligible amount of revenue that student attendance at these events likely brings in, might it be worth it to not charge them at all?

If you don’t change your pricing structure, do you risk losing people who want to pay “à la carte” for their professional activities? Is it the membership fees that pay for things like the massive research library that IABC offers (to members and non-members, at different prices)? Without those fees, what happens to the research? Or to the associations themselves?

It feels like a truism to say that the pace of change in public relations and communications is break-neck. The advent of social media has accelerated that pace crazily. Many people in the industry are having difficulty with the way the practice and principles of public relations are being challenged by new media tactics and by the move to make “symmetrical two-way communications,” to quote the Grunigs, approach reality.

The local chapters of associations are led by dedicated volunteers looking to make connections, and in some cases names for themselves. Is the “way forward” now to volunteer for associations, or to do “personal branding?” Is the way forward going to make PR professional associations irrelevant?

I don’t know the answers. But I find the questions interesting.

We’re coming up on the third Case Study Jam in a week. I’ve been involved in these events since Joe Boughner brought the idea to me and a few other people (Della, Nick, Melanie, and Joe’s wife / co-conspirator Amy), and now that we’ve had a couple under our belt, we’re hitting that gawky adolescent phase, I think.

Case Study Jam is a simple concept. The site describes it like this:

Case Study Jam is a place for communications practitioners to come together and share their stories – successes and failures. How are on-the-ground, front-line folks using social media and, more importantly, how are they integrating these tools into overall communications strategies and practices? Oh, it’s also an online repository of these stories. But more on that later.

The idea for this meetup was to set ourselves apart from events like Third Tuesday, Social Media Breakfast, Ignite, and professional development events organized by IABC, CPRS, Canadian Women in Communications, etc. After all, why do the same thing as something else?

The difference? One, the world-cafeish format. Another, the focus on presentations about failure as well success. And third, a focus on case studies, as opposed to theory and principle.

The first two jams have been successful on a number of counts, I think. People have met there, ideas been exchanged, some interesting presentations made.In fact, there’s talk that the model may start up in a second city soon.

Cheryl Gain of Ottawa Tonite emotes at CSJ1

We’ve also found a number of things that we’re tweaking as we go along. For example, we’re giving presenters more structure to follow in their presentations, and we’ll be pushing for more table hopping and shifting in the upcoming jam to encourage discussion.

But one thing we’ve noted is a certain topping out on attendance.

A week out from Case Study Jam 3 (or should I go with the Super Bowl Roman-Numeral Scheme and make it Case Study Jam III?) and we’ve got about 15 people registered. The room holds quite a few more, and we’d quite naturally like to see a full room. And my competitive spirit looks at more mature events like Third Tuesday or Social Media Breakfast and their full rooms and goes waaahhhh!

A bigger crowd would be great. But So there are a number of things that come to mind as to why we’re not filling our rooms yet.

• We’re new, they’re not.
• We don’t have super giant name speakers
• There’s not an infrastructure behind any one of the organizers pushing attendance from colleagues/clients. It’s organic in the extreme.

I suspect that we may be a little impatient. Or you may think we’re missing something. If so, tell us. Or if you want to make me feel better, why not come by next Thursday? I highly recommend the Lindenhof Apple Fritters for dessert and the conversation for a main course.

Case Study Jam 3 will feature Constable Nathan Hoedemann (right) of the Ottawa Police Service, Theresa Woolridge and Jennifer Jager of Emergency Preparedness Canada, and Dan Blouin of National Defence as they talk about the successes and failures they’ve experienced in their projects, and as always, you get to pick their brains afterward.

See you there?

If you care, here’s what I’m gonna be doin’ this afternoon. Thanks to EVERYONE for their generosity, from the individuals to the folks at Case Study Jam – including La Roma – who coughed up $100+, to Laura Payton (@laurapayton) who organized the Parliament Hill / Press Gallery canvas and has a crapload of stuff for me, to Ian Capstick, who started the ball rolling, to Lori Mellor at the Preston Street BIA…

Ottawa, you are generous. Well done. I’ll post pictures of the booty as I pick it up.

UPDATED: This is what generosity looks like:

$110 in bus tickets.

Fit full of stuff

Pickup #3

I missed out on delivering the clothes and other goods to The Well. But I did get the bus tickets, $125 in cheques, Tim Horton’s cards, gift cards, $100+ in cash, and toiletries and other goods to Cornerstone’s temporary location.

So if you have stuff, send me a message. I’ll get it over the weekend and deliver it with the other stuff on Monday.And if you want to donate online, you can do that through Canada Helps, right here. Just click and give. You’ll be glad you did.