By: David Grindle, USITT Executive Director
The toughest part about being an organization with technology in your name is technology.
This has been a conversation amongst USITT’s leadership at all levels. We need a better website. We need the ability to connect more effectively. We need to have an online experience that is beneficial to our members and gives them what they need from the Institute.
This month begins the first step towards the improvement of our technology and online experience. We are launching a new member management system that is based in Salesforce. This means that members will now have a MUCH easier way to get to the member data and to update it. It brings Community Hubs so that the commissions and interest groups can have an online conversation that isn’t based in social media. And it gives you greater control over your information.
This is the first step. The membership committee will be meeting this month to explore more about ways to reach out and find out what your needs are as a member. Every association in this country is asking this question. The days of needing a printed directory for your membership investment are pretty much gone. If you need someone, most people Google them and away they go. There are also privacy concerns about things like printed directories, which are being hotly debated in the association world.
Please respond to questions from the membership committee and the office in the coming months. We are seeking your input to provide an online space that meets your needs and connects you to one another and to information. The full benefits of our new system will take quite a while to roll out because we need to hear your voices in how you want to use and interact with the system.
This year, the Conference website was rebuilt to be fully responsive, so we hope that your feedback from that will help us plan and build a more useful organization website in the future.
People tell us that networking is the number one benefit of USITT. I hope that this the beginning of a new and improved way to help people connect through the Institute online and in person.
