Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Final day of ASAE Annual Meeting programming

Learning Made Portable (Monday, August 23)
I found this session to be quite engaging in terms of discussion and in terms of content. The speaker had a great amount of resources from her association and crowd sourced for additional examples. Below are a few summary thoughts.

Spend a lot of time exploring mobile. This is an untapped opportunity as traditional workspaces are changing. People are combining personal and professional into the same workspaces. Smartphones are engaging more individuals in more places outside of the office. Consider using smart phones for test preparation and make it game play. Make it ridiculously easy to do in a short amount of time.

Put ratings and reviews on your products. More and more of the online model is about sharing and obtaining customer feedback. This is especially true in my personal life. My wife and I are preparing for the birth of our first child and are pouring over customer reviews of baby products. What worked well, what didn't, what do users wish the product had, etc... How neat would this be for members in terms of Publications, products, services, and online self-study course offerings.

Measuring success- what are key goals of organization? Need to be measurable (increased subscribers or percentage, click throughs, etc) make sure it's tangible and in aligament of strategic plan.

What will you share with your association? I plan on asking my association if they are considering the development of any apps for our scientific journal. We could certainly take our journal to a mobile app with the ability to rate articles, comment in the virtual space, hyperlink to references in the article, access videos and clinical images, and embed our podcasts which are produced on a weekly basis. Think about the opportunity this provides. Do we need to go through red tape and approval processes for the letters to the editor? What could this do for mobile advertising? Could we work with companies to link to their sites, videos, and other content within the app? How about opportunities to tag the articles and link to other articles within that specialty? Could we offer a link right from the mobile device to a website to complete a form to obtain CME? Accept or reject articles when asked to peer review prior to publication?

These are a few of my thoughts and questions, more than answers. Please share how you are gluing mobile and some of your successes and challenges with the process.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing your notes. I would love to see ASAE develop a mobile app for the CAE exam. It would be great if it was not only for the iPhone but also Blackberry, since many offices only support BB. It could be a multiple choice quiz application where you answer questions from only one domain, or all domains, or all with emphasis on a selected few. Answers would be supplied with a brief explanation as to why it's the correct answer. I would have loved to have something like this while studying -- perfect for waiting in line or trying to fall asleep!

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  2. I couldn't agree more. I'd love to see my association develop this for our membership. For most of our study materials and continuing education questions we have rationale for each response. This would certainly be nice on multiple mobile platforms (blackberry included) and would be a very efficient and productive way to pass time.

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