Charles Drayson

Mar 14 · 5 min read

Professional associations aspire to promote the collective interests of their members. Associations will not be heard if they do not have a wide membership to provide both critical mass and funding. On the other hand, spanning a wide prospective membership means the constituents will have differing needs, concerns and scale. The members ostensibly work in the same field, but they don’t necessarily see themselves as having much in common. Associations must engage with members using benefits that manifestly have wide application, but without looking trite.

Associations protecting interest groups ranging from agriculture to legal services, from manufacturing to financial services, tend to be a focal point for compliance, legal and regulatory issues imposed on all members as a condition of being recognised as a professional grouping. Discharging those requirements is generally subject to competitive interests, and there is a manifest advantage if they are seen to adhere to the same modes of operation.

Commonly, members will adopt terms of business promoted by professional bodies, or will operate the same procedures for client onboarding. There’s a cost to compliance, but it’s better for clients and for healthy competition if the costs are proportionate, equally distributed (relative to size) and do not impose unreasonable barriers-to-entry for worthy new entrants.

If it was possible to fully automate all the processes and documents pertinent to professional organizations, it would mean the human workers could press a few buttons and get on with their day job. Attractive at first glance, a regime that doesn’t demand human input is a regime that will have little or no effect on the services provided by the professionals.

A better regime augments the work of professionals. A better regime brings the relevant requirements immediately to hand at the time they are needed rather than relying on a professional to read and remember the content of long policy documents. A better regime is not a tedious cut and paste process requiring no intelligent judgement. A better regime creates outputs that clients perceive as customised, thoughtful and relevant.

Professional associations are optimally placed to identify technologies (invariably cloud-based) with appropriate information security to provide members with access to industry-specific solutions. They can deploy with out-of-the-box content unique to the association, but extensible for organizations who want to add their own content. The content will be maintained up to date, conferring value throughout a member’s subscription period. The correct tools will benefit member organizations and their clients. Industry ‘standards’ can be promoted, but intelligently configured for each member.

If the solution is cloud-based, it doesn’t matter if the members are PC users, Apple users, office-based or field-based. If the solution is designed by subject matter experts rather than developers, the solution will be intuitive and will not require undue training or support overheads.

If it is maintained by subject matter experts, it will be relevant this year and in future years. It would be a member benefit that cannot be readily copied by non-members.

Professional associations aspire to promote the collective interests of their members. Associations will not be heard if they do not have a wide membership to provide both critical mass and funding. On the other hand, spanning a wide prospective membership means the constituents will have differing needs, concerns and scale. The members ostensibly work in the same field, but they don’t necessarily see themselves as having much in common. Associations must engage with members using benefits that manifestly have wide application, but without looking trite.

Associations protecting interest groups ranging from agriculture to legal services, from manufacturing to financial services, tend to be a focal point for compliance, legal and regulatory issues imposed on all members as a condition of being recognised as a professional grouping. Discharging those requirements is generally subject to competitive interests, and there is a manifest advantage if they are seen to adhere to the same modes of operation.

Commonly, members will adopt terms of business promoted by professional bodies, or will operate the same procedures for client onboarding. There’s a cost to compliance, but it’s better for clients and for healthy competition if the costs are proportionate, equally distributed (relative to size) and do not impose unreasonable barriers-to-entry for worthy new entrants.

If it was possible to fully automate all the processes and documents pertinent to professional organizations, it would mean the human workers could press a few buttons and get on with their day job. Attractive at first glance, a regime that doesn’t demand human input is a regime that will have little or no effect on the services provided by the professionals.

A better regime augments the work of professionals. A better regime brings the relevant requirements immediately to hand at the time they are needed rather than relying on a professional to read and remember the content of long policy documents. A better regime is not a tedious cut and paste process requiring no intelligent judgement. A better regime creates outputs that clients perceive as customised, thoughtful and relevant.

Professional associations are optimally placed to identify technologies (invariably cloud-based) with appropriate information security to provide members with access to industry-specific solutions. They can deploy with out-of-the-box content unique to the association, but extensible for organizations who want to add their own content. The content will be maintained up to date, conferring value throughout a member’s subscription period. The correct tools will benefit member organizations and their clients. Industry ‘standards’ can be promoted, but intelligently configured for each member.

If the solution is cloud-based, it doesn’t matter if the members are PC users, Apple users, office-based or field-based. If the solution is designed by subject matter experts rather than developers, the solution will be intuitive and will not require undue training or support overheads.

If it is maintained by subject matter experts, it will be relevant this year and in future years. It would be a member benefit that cannot be readily copied by non-members.

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