By , Head of Strategic Research
Those of you familiar with our recent report Membership Organisations: Big challenges, Digital Answers and our accompanying seminar series will know that one of the actions we propose is to digitally enrich the membership magazine.
Our recommendations seek to make organisations think of ways, other than pdf and page turning software, of making the membership missive more interactive, content rich and accessible, as well as easier to distribute.
In our seminar in June, Michelle Richmond (IET Membership Director) told a story about how the IET had decided to distribute its magazine electronically in India as a means of streamlining delivery in order to circumvent a notoriously inefficient and costly postal method. This was a short lived venture since the IET managed to upset their young Indian members who like to leave the magazine ‘lying around for their parents to find’ as a means of demonstrating their membership of a respected international professional body.
Of course the IET were unaware of this self-promotional use of their printed magazine, but their motivations were clear; reduce print and distribution costs and increase efficiencies.
At the same seminar Michelle also revealed that the IET had developed a trial iPad version of its magazine. This provoked debate among delegates around the merits and demerits of the associated cost savings, or otherwise of digital magazine production. (more…)
