What happens when you set up a booth at ASAE’s MMC+Tech and ask association professionals candid questions about their data, digital tactics and department pain points?
You get honesty. Brutal honesty. The kind that doesn’t show up in board reports or annual reviews but should.
This past week in Washington, D.C., we had conversations that reminded us why this event matters: it’s where association professionals take off their game faces and talk shop about the real challenges under the surface. And spoiler alert: it’s not just about AI or shiny new martech tools. It’s about access, alignment and actually doing something with all the data we hoard.
Let’s unpack it.
Logging In Shouldn’t Feel Like a Tech Support Call
One theme hit us over and over: logging in is still a barrier.
It wasn’t just one person. It wasn’t even just a few. Attendees shared how members struggle to access association websites—sometimes because the login process is clunky, sometimes because passwords are forgotten and often because the UX feels like a time capsule from 2004.
“You have to give them the instructions on how they login again and again and again.”
And let’s be real. How many of us have not heard that exact line in a member support email? It’s a design problem, a user experience problem and ultimately a trust problem. If your digital front door is locked—or worse, rusted shut—people will stop trying to walk through it.
Clean Data Is Still a Dirty Word
When asked about their biggest data headaches, people didn’t flinch:
“We don’t collect the cleanest data.”
“Pulling all your data from all these disparate sources is nearly impossible.”
“We don’t make data-driven decisions because we don’t have time, the tools or the cleanest data.”
It’s a vicious cycle. We’re all sitting on goldmines of potential insight: member behavior, event analytics, advocacy engagement. But those mines are cluttered with bad formatting, inconsistent entry practices and tech stacks that don’t talk to each other. And let’s be honest, half of what we collect never even gets used.
“It’s the amount of data we collect and why we collect it, because half of it doesn’t get used.”
That alone could be a keynote session. What if instead of chasing more data, we focused on better data and built processes (and staffing structures) to do something with it?
“Secretly Obsessed With…”
We had some fun with this question: What tool or tactic are you secretly obsessed with right now?
Answers ranged from practical to delightful:
- Time management tools. Because let’s face it—many of us are in survival mode.
- Adobe Fonts. Yes, seriously. Fonts. Because the creative folks need joy too.
- Jasper AI and Future proof your business with GTM AI — AI tools that are actually getting traction in comms and content workflows.
And that’s the thread here. The real wins are small but powerful. No one said “our new CRM changed everything” or “we just implemented a 14-system integration.” Instead, they shared the daily tactics that chip away at chaos.
What Members Really Value (And Boards Still Don’t Get)
We asked: If your association disappeared tomorrow, what would members miss most? The answer?
Community. And surprisingly? The print magazine.
Yes, in a world of TikTok and ChatGPT, members still value a tangible, curated experience that shows up in their mailbox. Associations that lean into that kind of emotional connection—not just transactional engagement—are winning.
But some frustrations still linger where it matters most: the boardroom.
“Our board doesn’t understand that the future of sponsorship revenue is in sessions and lead gen. They’re scared of letting for-profit companies speak to our members.”
This isn’t a new conversation, but it’s becoming a louder one. If you’re still selling logos on lanyards, the runway is short. The next-gen sponsor wants thought leadership and pipeline impact. And members? They want relevance, not just another tote bag.
Final Thought: We’re Not Alone—But We’re Not Aligned
The most refreshing part of the booth conversations wasn’t just what was said. It’s how consistently people said it. Different associations, different titles, same pain points:
- Data fatigue
- Member friction
- Lack of alignment with leadership
- Burnout from being expected to do it all
We might not all have solutions yet, but we’re clearly not alone. And maybe that’s the point of MMC+Tech—to remind us that the real work is messy, the answers aren’t easy and progress often starts with saying the quiet part out loud.
“If someone solved data cleanup, we’d all be on a beach right now.”
Maybe next year, we’ll meet you there—with cleaner data, faster logins and leadership who finally gets it!
