Boards are concerned with setting objectives which involves discussions, debates and consensus building that can be time-consuming and somewhat less than precise. If board members are willing, it’s a good idea to quantify the decision-making process and it can be easily done with a fixed-sum preference scale.  

A fixed-sum preference scale measures both preference and intensity which makes it preferable to simple rankings. Each person is given 100 points to spend among several issues. It works best to have four, five, or ten issues. When they are finished, you add up all the points given by all the board members and see which item receives the highest number of points, which item receives the next highest number of points, and so on. You may find, for example, that developing a national ad campaign is considered three times more important than influencing legislation, or vice versa. Here is an example.

“There are several issues that the board can address in the next meeting and we’d like to know which you consider the most important. To indicate the relative importance of each issue, assume that you have 100 points to spend on the list. You can spend 100 points on one issue or any other combination. If the statements are of equal importance, each would receive 20 points.”

_____  Increasing non-dues revenue

_____  Redefining some governance issues within the Association

_____  Influencing legislative affairs

_____  Gathering industry statistics

_____  Developing a national ad campaign

This column should total 100 points.

For more info call 703-772-5263 or e-mail AllegianceResearch@gmail.com

The Virginia Society of Association Executives has invited Dr. Dale Paulson, President of Allegiance Research Group, to their Annual Conference in May 2010 to give a presentation on member segmentation and target marketing. This is in Northern Virginia and is a good chance for those of you in the Washington, DC Metro Area to attend an association conference without incurring the cost of traveling a long distance. No need to go to the West Coast or to Canada! Great information is right here in the Metro Area.

For those interested in consumer psychology, take a look at the recently-published book “Brick & Mortar: Shopping in the 21^st Century” that includes a chapter by Dr. Paulson describing his pictographic research. He describes cartoon sequence research and addresses the mystery of consumer decision-making and rationale. This book is edited by Tina Lowrey, Ph.D., Professor at the University of Texas in San Antonio, and has its foundations in the 25^th Annual Advertising and Consumer Psychology Conference of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Consumer Research.

Free Fact Sheets! Just give us a call or send an e-mail and we will be glad to send some to you. There are over a dozen and a list of all of them is at our Web site at www.AllegianceResearch.com The most popular are:

YTheyJoin™ - nine member types and target marketing

Determining Confidence Level From Sample Size Using Your Calculator

Developing Effective Survey Questions

Prioritizing Objectives of Board Members by Using Fixed-Sum Preference Scales

If you would like more info about research call us at 703-772-5263 or e-mail AllegianceResearch@gmail.com