Audit seeks to improve Society's communications efforts

Benedict Bahner
ASME News Online

In an effort to make ASME's communications efforts as effective as possible — and align them with the Society's strategic objectives and Balanced Scorecard initiatives — ASME has been conducting a study to determine how well it disseminates the Society's strategic messages and other information to members, volunteer leadership and staff. The final phase of this project is expected to occur in the next two weeks.

The communications audit, which is being conducted by the Plexus Consulting Group, was commissioned by ASME to determine how effectively the Society's strategic messages and initiatives are communicated among the its key stakeholders — the Board of Governors, volunteer leaders, grass-root members, the Executive Management Committee, and staff — using existing communications channels such as Mechanical Engineering magazine, ASME News Online, e-mail messages from ASME's Executive Director, Virgil Carter, and speeches and presentations by ASME President Terry Shoup and senior volunteers and staff.

The audit has been conducted in three phases. The first phase occurred in January, when ASME members and staff were invited to participate in an online quantitative survey to rate the effectiveness of several existing communications vehicles. Respondents to the survey included 1,783 members and 91 members of ASME staff, representing a response rate of 10 percent from membership and 17 percent from staff.

The audit's second part, also conducted in January, included further qualitative research in the form of one-on-one interviews with a group of 20 ASME members and staff who were asked to provide more detailed opinions to questions such as: How can ASME increase the effectiveness of its communications vehicles? Has your role in the new ASME been communicated effectively? And, Do you feel that the strategic objectives adopted by the BOG have been clearly communicated?

The third phase of the initiative — focus groups — began last month with input from 30 ASME staff members. The final two focus group studies with ASME members will be held in the next two weeks.

Initial findings from the survey and follow-up discussions appear to indicate that there are some weaknesses in ASME's communications structure, said Steven Worth, president of the Plexus Group who is leading the study.

"It's clear that ASME is not getting the word out the way it should be," Worth said. "When you've got an organization that has been around as long as ASME has, communication problems are bound to occur. It's not just a matter of putting something in writing and hoping that people read it. We want to create a true exchange of thinking."

For example, preliminary results of the online survey suggested that ASME was confusing its message by offering too many communications channels that were either unfamiliar to respondents or were found by them to be not particularly clear, useful, timely, or satisfying to the reader. Of the various ASME communications vehicles, only Mechanical Engineering magazine received consistently high marks in the survey.

Follow-up phone interviews with 20 volunteers and staff members, whom Plexus identified as "opinion leaders," largely supported these findings. Many of those interviewed indicated that ASME's communications vehicles were not efficient and that information from ASME did not always reach the intended reader because it wasn't distributed in a uniform way.

Worth noted, however, that, "it is important that people don't view this as a report card for the various communications vehicles. What we are trying to do is determine the best ways for the BOG to communicate their strategies and priorities to the Society. We want to make sure that the Board's messages are received and understood by all Society stakeholders, including volunteer leaders, the Executive Management Committee, staff, and ASME members."

The final report, which will include results of the audit and recommendations for enhancing the Society strategic communications, will be presented to the ASME Board of Governors at its meeting in June.

To find out more about the ASME Communications Audit, contact Mel Torre, director, Communications by e-mail at torrem@asme.org.

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