Membership Platforms & Technologies.
Hi entrepreneurs - I have a research project I am wondering if you could help me with. I have long been frustrated with my options for building membership platforms and online communities and would like to learn how others are addressing this.
To start at the most basic level I have a local neighborhood group of self-employed folks - I will use this post as an excuse to post a picture from our last meeting. As you can see, the “real world” part of this group is going fairly well, however I would also like there to be a “virtual” component where people could learn more about each other and easily communicate if needed - plus a way to easily manage member information and communication. Even for a small group like this, managing member information is a real pain in the ass.
When I started this local group, I realized I wanted good contact information right off the bat. I had made an earlier attempt where I didn’t collect this information and it was a nightmare - everyone had only partial contact information, much of it on different social media platforms, and everytime I wanted to talk to someone it became a miniature research project. Now, I use Google forms to collect the basic info, and have connected that to a Google Contact Group by IFTTT. Then I manually transfer this information to a Google Groups Group which is linked to a Google Calendar. It is messy, but it basically works - when I announce the meetings most people get alerts directly on their phones, and there is a good “opt out” system.
That is really a ton of work though, and there is lots it doesn’t do. Google Groups has decent user controls, but the profiles aren’t very good and “screen names” can’t be changed. I’d like something that :brings this all together” - including a simple member directory, without being too complicated. Does such a technology exist?
Beyond my tiny neighborhood group, and have been thinking a little about what “membership” really means. I am interested in economic development and assume that at some point in the future there may be “regional collaboration networks’ - or perhaps big networks organized by industry. How will these be designed? How will they start? I have been looking a little at different “business directory” technologies that have a “claim listing” function. This would allow a developer to “pre-load” a directory without it really being “opt-in” but giving each ‘member’ the option to take editorial control of the listing / profile.
Is anyone working in this space. Even if you have a small group - as I do, I would be interested in what technologies you are using to manage it, and if you have a bigger community - or a plan to build one, I would like to know what technologies you are considering.
