Socitm Blog

I have been involved in a lot of internal stuff which will, quite frankly, be so dull for external readership that you would soon lose interest and I wanted to post piictures on the blog but for some reason it does not allow me to....although I have been using my private blog for more interactive stuff.

I have had an interesting meeting with a new person who has arrived in the Cabinet Office (won't use names because I haven't asked permission and I suspect the CO could get sensitive about that) to work on professionalism generally, but an initiative called 'Partners in Professionalism' in particular. Partners in Professionalism is a 'coalition' (good word) of groups, including Cabinet Office, Socitm, BCS and Intellect, who are seeking to raise the profile and importance of professionalism and professional development in our respective sectors and organisations. Like many of these groups there is the 'gut feel' that we are probably doing something of worth but aren't quite sure what that might be (yet)....but it was a really positive meeting and I think it will help give us some positive steer, so i'll report if this is the case after the next meeting.

 We are now starting to get to grips with the specific areas that our new 'Heads of' are involved in and particularly the Commercial role. I am beginning to hear some concerns about our membership expansion into the 'supplier' sector. The concerns go something like this ' the Society will chase hundreds of supplier members in order to boost membership income and we will be flooded with people trying to sell us stuff'. Often, in a communications vacuum people will be reduced to worst case scenarios, and before long it's 'fact'.... It is our fault for not communicating more clearly.....When i studied media and communications (another lifetime ago) I learned a basic principle that if people are not hearing what you think you are communicating the problem usually lies with the communicator.....

We are beginning a process whereby we can offer a range of options to our supplier community that meets a wide range of their needs, not all of which will be membership based. A new 'Corporate Membership' category is being explored which will include designing a menu of appropriate options that will enable an organisation to engage with the Society in ways that fit their buisness objectives. It will also include, is some cases, the opportunity to design a program of engagement over a prolonged period. This will be a managed process that should provide for the needs of all our members. If you are part of our supplier community and would like to talk about corporate membership please e mail karl.grundy@socitm.net . Of course any person can join as an individual member from the public or third sectors or suppliers to those sectors, quite independantly of any corporate scheme.

On another note we are also discussing 'organisational membership' with a number of our public sector members. This will include individual memberships and will be focussed around professional development / CPD as well as offering added value to the organisation through bundled or discounted access to other services. We will give further information about this, and contact details, when the planning has progressed a little further.

I am off to the Intellect Annual dinner tonight, at the Dorchester, with Greg Dyke speaking - suppose somebody has to do it...