Daily Buzz: Help Employees Embrace New Technology

A digital transformation across an organization can be a slow, difficult process. Barriers such as employee skills, lack of senior-management awareness, cost, and inadequate infrastructure often stand in the way of seamless tech adoption.

To combat this, leaders must create a culture that drives more effective tech adoption, write Frank-Jürgen Richter and Gunjan Sinha in Harvard Business Review  (opens in a new tab).

“Building such a culture requires different types of approaches across industries, but a time-tested strategy is to incentivize technology use,” Richter and Sinha say. Companies can create incentives with gamification apps like Kahoot that make tech training and onboarding more engaging.

Organizations must also focus on their infrastructure. Employee buy-in is important, but your tech also has to be simple and easy to work with for end users.

“Another requisite for creating a culture of technology adoption lies in making the infrastructure around it—including IT networks and systems, software, processes, and practices—supportive and user-friendly,” Richter and Sinha say.

In addition, reskilling and learning should be part of the tech adoption plan. Employees probably won’t respond well to the expectation that they work with new tools without getting used to them first. The plan must also go beyond short-term solutions.

“A piecemeal approach to tech adoption and implementation may feel like short-term progress but will not lead to the creation of a digitally focused mindset, and it will not result in a clean departure from legacy systems or attitudes,” Richter and Sinha say.

Building Your Virtual Sponsorship Program

The first step is to collect all of the pertinent information, interview stakeholders and team members, and lay out your strategy: https://t.co/uaZithTmIg  (opens in a new tab)#associationhustle  (opens in a new tab) #associations  (opens in a new tab) #assnchat  (opens in a new tab) #associationmanagement  (opens in a new tab) #virtualevents  (opens in a new tab) #sponsorships  (opens in a new tab)

— Big Red M (@bigredmco) August 24, 2020  (opens in a new tab)

With the transition to virtual events, have event sponsorships disappeared? Though associations have had to shift their strategies, sponsorship opportunities are still available.

“Data is one of the major benefits of virtual event sponsorship programs that can be delivered to sponsors in larger numbers,” says JP Moery  (opens in a new tab) on The Moery Company’s blog. “The data is better than what they have received in the past walking around or meeting people at a reception.”

Other Links of Note

Sometimes board members can get stuck in a rut. Help them by allowing them to play different roles  (opens in a new tab), says Smooth the Path’s Amanda Kaiser.

The event industry’s recovery timeline is changing, says Julius Solaris on the Event Manager Blog. He breaks down  (opens in a new tab) the latest developments.

Quality blog content is more vital to the success of your nonprofit’s digital campaigns than it has ever been, says a recent post  (opens in a new tab) from Nonprofit Tech for Good.

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