Peggy Hoffman is president of Mariner Management & Marketing LLC, an association management company.  She twitters at @peggyhoffman and blogs at the Idea Center.

A couple of months ago I happened to “stumble” on ASAE & The Center’s get involved page and was wowed by the diversity of options and intrigued by the open volunteer opportunity. Then I noticed at the top of page that “get involved” was listed as #3. Get Started and Get Connected were steps #1 and #2.

To even an old-timer like me (I’ve been a member since 80’s) this felt very welcoming. As a plugged-in volunteer, this felt more inviting than the regular volunteer page. I wanted to know more which is how I came to meet and talk with ASAE’s somewhat new Manager of Engagement and Retention, Alyssa Thomas. Check out her title again because in it is the clue to the 1-2-3 project.

The 3 steps are part of the “Get Trilogy” project which Alyssa explains is designed to “help engage people at all the points along their membership. There is much more to the project that the simple 1-2-3 steps. What was happening behind the scenes was a shift in how they looked at the membership cycle and rethought engagement. From my conversation, I took away several lessons for associations.

1. We know that engagement drives retention but to drive engagement we need to view the membership cycle differently. Trilogy started was one of those “aha” moments where the staff realized that they had a traditional mindset that focused energy on the acquisition process and the billing process.  With their focus on the two end points, it meant you didn’t know there was a problem with satisfaction until renewal time. But what if the middle part of the cycle became a focus?  What if engagement was an going priority.

2. If we’re serious about an engagement strategy, we need staff for it. The traditional membership staffing model focuses on member acquisition and member services.  Generally speaking the first is marketing efforts and the second customer service.  Engagement falls somewhere in between. Putting engagement in the title and engagement metrics in the plan will shift this. One step further is to create  a position that serves as the connector. Alyssa’s title is manager of Engagement and Retention and her role is connecting members and staff to do the work of the association. The Medical Group Management Association recently established the position of Director, Member Engagement & Component Relations as part of their re-engineering to focus on engagement.

3. The door to engagement has to be easy to open. One of the things Alyssa noticed in her process was that are a lot of places to plug in but many aren’t clearly visible. From the launch of the project at 20099 Annual Meeting, the goal has been to make it as easy as possible to plug. Under get started for example, you’ll find 5 simple things to do today.

4. None of this changes the fact that membership is an organizational effort. To create the richest pool of opportunities for member engagement, it takes touching every department. Buried within the association are “odd-jobs” that can encourage members to connect and in doing make the outcome of our work richer. (Check out the jobs of choice gathered from association volunteers through a fun meme and add your own!)

5. To have an engagement strategy you have to have an engagement definition. I recently suggested in a post that we have a far too narrow definition. I would suggest that each association will ultimately create its own definition.  To find the right definition, we need to broaden the conversation to include both staff (as ASAE did) and members.  We shouldn’t miss asking members since they know best what connections create value.

We’re sure to get learn more lessons from the Trilogy project as Alyssa was quick to point out that this is an evolving effort. In 2009, they built a foundation to “get our minds wrapped around the idea.” This year they are wrestling with getting measurements in place (you can’t truly fix what you can’t measure) and getting the word out.

ASAE’s journey offers an interesting case study on remixing the membership strategy. How are you remixing?