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Thoughts from the day
Last week in Hammersmith was the excellent Membership Solutions Day: The connected membership organisation, which included speaker sessions and networking around shared experiences of integrating technology, data and member experience.
If you missed the interesting event, I wanted to share my key takeaway themes that could be useful as many of us are planning what 2027 looks like.
From a forum with working practitioners, four priorities surfaced to help guide the event’s subsequent discussions.
- Member experience first– this was the key to engagement. Right from the first contact to the final thank you.
- Data structure second – the important plumbing that makes relevant delivery possible is often a challenge of disparate systems and process.
- Understanding personas third – knowing who needs what, and when, making it relevant as well as generic.
- Culture vs change – storytelling your journey so your own culture shifts with member expectations and purpose.
Aside from CRM systems much of the technology showcased on the day is heading towards reframing the problem of relevancy from “publish more content” to “deliver the right knowledge or experience into the member’s working day”: on WhatsApp, through an agent, inside a project, at the point of a problem. Underpinned by CPD and accreditation, how can we maintain standards and relevancy beyond our current systems?
The challenge however, is the focus on data being the core asset and championed across the organisation by the senior management team. The connected culture starts from the top.
Turning archives into assets
Connecting the dots across data unlocks more value. This is where the thinking is heading: data itself can also be the product.
Membership organisations already sit on deep backlists of insights, reports, surveys, case studies, research outputs. By structuring that knowledge, embedding traceability, and provisioning it intelligently, professional bodies can transform their archives into data-driven IP driven services. That shift unlocks new possibilities:
- More tailored member experiences
- Integration with AI Agents, MCP services and other tools
- Influence over how knowledge is used, not just published
In summary, it keeps professional bodies relevant in an economy that’s increasingly defined by data and connectivity. This includes now thinking about serving AI answer engines, Agents and MCP connectors.
Key takeaways from the day
Nine ideas from conversations resonated with me. Each one is a need a membership body can’t meet with a website alone. Dots need to be connected to bring it all together.
1. Integrated member experience: The ‘outside in’ offer – the voice of the member and how more services could sit inside their world.
- Delivery into existing channels and workflows.
2. Persona relevance: Members have different profiles and need relevant, as well as generic, information.
- CRM and content tagged and filtered to role, sector and stage.
3. CPD from usage: Automated records of what members have called (via tools) and assign CPD points.
- A trusted log of each member’s knowledge use, linked to CPD rules
4. Work-assist tools: How AI can help people and process. The Agents, the desktop and mobile tools members use.
- Governed answers from the society’s own corpus, in conversational channels.
5. Outcome as a service: “A taxi for a purpose, not buying a car” analogy.
- A managed service with low ownership burden.
6. The logical air gap: A layer between disparate internal systems and the outside world, with permitted access. A second brain.
- Controlled, permissioned exposure of internal knowledge.
7. Storytelling the journey: Tell members the story of their journey through the proposition
- A clear narrative of what the member gets at each stage.
8. Connecting the dots: Link information across the society to build relevance.
- Relationships between content, not isolated documents
9. Liquid content: Content that adapts to the member, their project or problem, and delivers support.
- Content broken into reusable components and reassembled per need
Other blogs are available around the day, but I hope this helps with planning the future of integrating technology and data to help your members find you in new tools beyond your website.
Thanks to the Memberwise team for organising the day. See you at the Membership Excellence 2026 Conference back at the Novotel Hammersmith on 19th November.
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