Smooth The Path

Member Informed Strategy, Innovation & Marketing

  • Home
  • Speaking
    • Presentations
    • Upcoming Events
    • Happy Event Organizers
    • Happy Participants
  • Services
    • Clients
  • Resources
    • Associations of the Future
    • New Member Engagement Study
    • Association Industry Innovation Research Study
    • New Strategies for Member Onboarding, Engagement, and Retention E-book
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact

July 21, 2015 By Amanda Kaiser

What Members Really Want from Professional Development and Networking

professional development and networkingMembers will say that they join associations for the professional development and networking. Professional development and networking are two socially-acceptable corporate words that are actually code for:

  • I want to belong
  • I want to be worthy
  • I want to make friends
  • I want to be seen
  • I don’t want to be lonely
  • I want to matter
  • I want to be smart
  • I want to appear competent
  • I want to be respected

The words themselves: professional development and networking bring to mind very different pictures than how we really mean them. When you hear professional development and networking do you think super-cooled conference rooms and sweaty handshakes? We need to be so careful with program design because the words we (and members) use sanitize the real feelings we feel and the real needs we are trying to fulfill.

Related:

  • Helping our members matter more
  • Our members want to give us feedback
  • The big benefit associations are not providing enough of

Filed Under: Member Experience Tagged With: alone, belong, belonging, connections, events, matter, networking, professional development, worthy

Follow

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Sign up for member insights & association inspiration.

Work With Me

Recent Posts

Association Strategy
Association Marketing
Association Innovation
Association Leadership
Association Value
Member Experience

Member Engagement
Member Research
Member Insights
Conference
Membership

Member Research

Blog

About

Happy Clients

Speaking

Popular Presentations

Contact Us

More Resources

Copyright © 2021 Amanda Kaiser