Overcoming apathy: keys to attracting and maintaining society membersI can’t recall the date, exactly, but it was around four or five years ago that I let my membership to a professional society lapse. I’m a member of a couple of societies, so it wasn’t like I was left entirely unaffiliated, but I remember this one in particular because, every couple of months, I…

Three kinds of societiesAs part of our Membership Matters week, we invited Seth Kahan, author, change agent and founder of Association Transformation, to comment on his experience of working with societies and the different business and membership models he has encountered.  Don’t forget to dowload our recent Membership Matters whitepaper for the results of our recent membership survey. …

Publishing partnerships: five tips for a happy "marriage"As the world’s leading publisher for societies with over 900 membership organization partners, Wiley is in a great position to talk about the formula for a successful "marriage" between publisher and association. My first experience of a partnership agreement was signed in 1996 with the International Organization for Migration. This was a whirlwind romance which…

Actions and insights for societies from our membership surveyTo close our Membership Matters week, Lorna Berrett, Director, Society Marketing at Wiley presents some initial thoughts from society executives on how they might apply the results to their organizations. A couple of weeks ago we invited our Society Advisory Board (SAB) members to a preview of the Wiley Membership Survey results.  We were especially…

How can scientists better communicate with the public?At Sense About Science, we see early career researchers - members of the Voice of Young Science (VoYS) network - standing up for science. They take an active role in public debates about science: tackling misconceptions, challenging pseudoscientific product claims and responding to misinformation in all kinds of media. But what about the rest of…

Ask about what doesn't work- a guide for peer reviewers"A negative result is still a result!" is a common, if slightly ironic, utterance that can frequently be heard around the ivory towers. I must say that I agree with this sentiment, and I agree with it to the extent that I think everyone who reviews a scholarly paper should be asking about what doesn’t…

"The Bones of a King": breaking down walls between the Humanities and SciencesThe dramatic story of Richard III, one of England’s most notorious and enigmatic monarchs, captured the world’s attention in February 2013 when the Grey Friars Research Team, led by the University of Leicester, identified "Skeleton 1" as Richard, a King whose remains had been lost for over 500 years. Last week, to coincide with King…

How can I use Google Scholar Citations for scholarly profiling?Google Scholar Citations is one of many scholarly profiling services available,  allowing researchers to easily and conveniently profile their scholarly products, promote their work, connect with potential collaborators and view scholarly metrics. It’s also a great way to keep your scholarly record up to date. Once you are set up with a Google Scholar Citations…

See how Kudos can impact citations of your publicationsAlmost 18 months ago, I wrote a post for this blog about Kudos, then a pilot service to help researchers and their publishers increase the reach and impact of publications. The pilot was a success, with basic analysis indicating that downloads of full text were 19% higher for publications explained and shared using the Kudos…

Career center networks-why are societies and associations still using them?So what is a career center network? Essentially it is a large pool of candidates and job ads ‘owned’ by a third party vendor which can be plugged into a society website with a ‘career center’ interface. As the members of that society start applying for jobs via this system, their details become the property…