We welcome your ideas! What is your future vision for UXPA Chapters? What are your challenges?
UXPA Discussion
Discussion forum for the new User Experience Professionals Association
We welcome your ideas! What is your future vision for UXPA Chapters? What are your challenges?
My vision for UXPA is that local chapters are the heart and sole of the organization. The “international” organization’s #1 purpose is to make the local chapters successful. Think global & act local.
I think that would require some changes in budgeting and finances. Changing a focus from other things that have value (like publications, annual conference).
It probably mean investing in infrastructure (like membership management) that each local chapter struggles with. It could mean content development (like a touring speaker program) for local chapters. It might mean giving them money to host lots of social/networking get-togethers.It might mean a shared calendar platform.
And I think this all starts with understanding the needs of the local chapter leaders. I believe that process has been triggered by the name change. There might be some legacy local-leader scenarios and use cases and other artifacts from UXnet activities from a while ago. But the world has changed since then, so they would only be somewhat useful (mostly to see which things are newer problems and which are tried-and-true challenges).
Keith:
All really good points — thanks for taking the time to share them.
We got similar feedback from the chapter leaders we spoke with at conference, and I and the other regional directors are moving forward with plans to greatly enhance information sharing between chapters. We’re putting together a shared speaker’s bureau list, descriptions of our most successful events, centers of excellence for things like mentorship programs, etc. Initially we’ll be using the old UPA Basecamp site for sharing, then we’ll move over to the new website once it’s up and running.
I’ll follow up with you separately to make sure that you and your chapter are represented. We’re still trying to get an accurate list of chaptter leaders to make sure that everyone is aware of the new tools and announcements.
Yours,
Kathryn Campbell
North American Regional Director of Chapters
Keith,
I couldn’t agree with you more. I love all of those ideas, and the Austin chapter would definitely be helped by the suggestions you’ve made.
Kathryn, is there an ETA on the things you mention?
Thanks,
Candice
I just noticed a typo above – “sole” instead of “soul”. Made me laugh, since I guess it was a Freudian slip. Local chapters are where the “rubber meets the road” so they are both the “soul” and the “sole” of the organization. Or at least, they should be, IMHO.
Nice save! LOL
Thoughts from working with my local chapter from 2006 to 2011″
The thing that was pretty clear early on working in Michigan’s UPA chapter was that we could have been named anything, been called anything, and it wouldn’t have mattered. The chapter existed because there were people willing to put the energy into it. As far as support from the UPA went, we received:
* Use of the UPA name
* Occasionally, if we asked, leftover promotional items for the UPA conference and back issues of UX Magazine so we would have -something- to help us promote the UPA
* The UPA would give us a list of registered members in our state so we could reach out to them at election time
Things we were on our own to do:
* Create our own website, including design and infrastructure
* Figure out how to contact our membership
* Finance our meetings
* Attract speakers for our meetings
And more–there was plenty of operational stuff that our chapter was on the hook to do that pretty much had to happen on the local level. I bring up that list above not because I propose that UPA SHOULD have been helping on all those points, but to emphasize how cut off from the UPA we were.
More on that point: I was president of our chapter for years before I went to my first UPA conference. We often were asked why one should join the UPA, and we never really had any explanation for why someone should join the UPA, unless they were really interested in going to the conference or really wanted UX Magazine. At the local level, you would get a discount on our events, but we usually didn’t have enough events in a year to pay off the expense of joining the UPA.
The biggest challenges continue to come from finding people willing to put in time, and I don’t think that’s something the UXPA could really help with in a direct way. Obviously, to the extent the UXPA is successful and attractive, it makes it easier to attract volunteers locally.
The next biggest challenge is infrastructure. Not only does it cost money to maintain the website (and redesign it – thanks for that huge surprise!), it costs money to get people who can do things like put together a website if you don’t happen to have a volunteer willing to put in that kind of time.
Beyond the website, we have settled on MailChimp, an email marketing tool, as the repository for our membership list and way to contact them and GuestList for online registration. At this stage, our membership management works pretty well, but it was painful for a long time. Is there a better way to do it? Maybe, but who has time to find out? Our officers (we only managed to get THREE people to run for the board this year) have their hands full planning meetings, writing our email announcements (which is way too hard of a job once you go to the HTML newsletter format), and keeping up with other chapter activities.
Knowing how much goes into maintaining our local chapter, I cannot imagine starting a new chapter. It would involve figuring out how to solve a lot of problems that I find, frankly, boring (such as membership management and website maintenance).
So what kind of infrastructure support can the UXPA offer its chapters?
Michael:
I feel your pain! Our experience in LA was much the same. That’s why I decided to run for the North American Director of Chapters position — to try to offer new chapters more help than we got.
One very pleasant surprise from this year’s Leadership Day meeting with chapters from around the world was realizing that many tools that would be very helpful are not actually that hard to create. Things like a shared speaker’s bureau list for chapters to consult, regular conference calls to share best practices, a listing of events that have worked well for other chapters, tips on creating more flexible and effective bylaws, etc. Nigel, Adriana, Toy and I (the four regional directors) are working on rolling those things out over the next couple of months.
In terms of chapter websites, the plan is to create a standard site template that chapters can adopt. However, we have been really struggling to get the new site for UXPA International finalized, so realistically I don’t know when we can commit to having the chapter template ready. All I can say is that it’s “in the works.” In the interim, UXPA is willing to pay for the new domain names that will be required due to the name change, just let me know.
Membership management is another hot topic, and has risen to the top of the list (along with the revamped website) as a priority. We’ll be following up with chapter leaders to confirm your needs and announce the new tools as soon as we’ve selected them.
We welcome your input, appreciate your patience, and would cherish any volunteers who want to help us with getting these new support tools ready for chapter use!
Best always,
Kathryn Campbell
North American Director of Chapters
uxpa-northamerica at uxpa.org
Great feedback Keith & Mike! Kathryn already stated very eloquently how we’re thinking about Chapters and we welcome ideas on what we can do to make Chapters as effective and engaging as possible.
My biggest concern is helping the Chapters to do succession planning. Unfortunately, Mike’s Chapter is not alone in having difficulty finding volunteers to lead. I’ve watched as otherwise healthy chapters did themselves a disservice by not cultivating their future local leadership.
Here are some quick guidelines for succession planning:
- Enact term-limits and pass healthy Chapter’s to new leadership. Avoid creating a long legacy of over-achievement which can create a situation where no one will volunteer because they don’t want to be the “failure” after a successful leader.
- Leaders should make sure they are delegating as much as possible to the volunteers around them so that there is a broad feeling of ownership and responsibility of the Chapter.
We welcome leaders who “retire” from their Chapter’s to take on more responsibility at the regional or international level!
Warm regards,
Carol Smith
UXPA Vice President
vp2012 at uxpa.org
I see the call for Regional Directors is out: http://usabilityprofessionals.org/about_upa/leadership/nominations.html
I wanted to point it out here so people can comment on the role that these regional directors might play in creating the future of UXPA chapters.
One of the key responsibilities include:
represent the interests of members of local chapters and members of UXPA International
One thing I really liked about the call was an explicit statement of time commitment: 5 hours per month. I think that is key when asking for volunteers. Is it REALLY only that little – that is 1 hour per week, basically. That does not seem like enough time to create and sustain a culture of change. I know everyone is busy, and volunteer jobs like this are a Catch-22: the people who are good in these roles are already too busy. Still, I am hoping that volunteers for this role can commit more time than that – and help move UXPA chapters forward faster.
Keith you make a good point. The Regional Director role represents not only Chapters but each of their members as well as helping to develop new chapters – it could probably be a full-time job.
The current Regional Directors have done an excellent job of keeping the board informed about what is going on in their Regions and have worked hard to improve communication between the board and chapters. Some I’m sure have put much more than just 5 hours per month.
These positions are an excellent way to bring local concerns to the international level and to make sure that our local members are finding out what they need to about what is happening at the International level.
While online communication makes it easier to keep in touch with people all over the world, having someone local who can attend events and who has an intimate understanding of the culture is a huge asset to the UXPA.
- Carol Smith
Interesting discussion, particularly since there’s a meeting on Feb. 27th to determine if there’s enough interest here to form a Houston chapter. Carol, thanks for the succession planning guidelines. I’m contacting a couple of presidents of existing chapters to see if they have any advice for us.
- Susan Tacker