Principled Innovation LLC

Mobile apps ARE NOT a waste of time for associations

November 11th, 2010

Earlier today, my friend and colleague Lindy Dreyer argued in a blog post that mobile apps are a waste of time for associations.  It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to P.I. readers that I see it differently.  Below is the comment I posted in response:

Provocative post Lindy, but I completely disagree with your take. Mobile app development is not at all a waste of time for associations. On the contrary, I think it is a critical element of 21st century association strategic thinking and business model innovation. Let me briefly respond to each of your points above:

1. This summer, the Apple App Store reached 5 billion downloads and the current count of app downloads from the Android Market is more than 2 billion. So I guess I don’t see any actual evidence of barriers to use.

2. There is a long tail marketplace for mobile apps, and associations don’t really need to be concerned about competing with “lifestyle” or gaming app developers who want to be at the head of the tail. The goal of mobile app development for associations is to create a meaningful mobile presence that delivers unique and enduring value to its stakeholders. Association apps will always be niche offerings, and that’s not a problem as long as they are well done, useful and serve a strategic purpose.

3. We cannot say with any degree of certainty that association members aren’t using apps, but we can say that there have been fewer smart phones in use than feature phones. According to comScore, as of this summer, more than 50 million smart phones were in use in the United States, and while feature phone use is on the decline, smart phone use is growing dramatically. As the number of smart phones in the marketplace increases over the next few years, I would expect to see significant increases in app use (see below), which makes this exactly the right time for associations to create apps that serve their stakeholders.

In addition, while texting is a convenient and very popular communications tool, it does not offer a rich experience to users. It is the pure mobile equivalent of e-mail and listservers. It’s ubiquitous because it is simple, but it is clearly insufficient for building deeper relationships.

4. It is premature to declare that native mobile apps will be in decline in the next few years. This summer, Juniper Research reported that mobile downloads should reach 25 billion per year by 2015. The arrival of app-based tablets in the marketplace is likely to spur new growth in apps as well, and thus new opportunities for associations. Web app development with HTML5 is definitely a promising direction to explore, but the experience with apps developed in this way is not as seamless and rich as native apps. The technology will improve in the years ahead, but during that time, the native app marketplace will continue to grow.

5. We agree that associations should do a complete exploration of the mobile space to determine the best opportunities for meaningful value creation. I wholeheartedly endorse the idea of gaining more information on their members mobile behavior and I have created a list of 12 questions that associations can use to get this kind of information. Those questions can be found online at http://bit.ly/12mobilequestions. Until we build our understanding in this area, I don’t believe we should be rejecting mobile app development out of hand.

Let me add that we cannot overlook apps for tablets, the growing adoption of iPhones/iPads in the enterprise or the equally impressive growth of mobile outside of North America. All of these trends create new opportunities for associations willing to invest in mobile app development as part of their strategy for value creation.

Lindy, I can recall a time no so long ago that we were all looking at data showing the low adoption of social technologies, and yet we were rightly arguing to associations that they should embrace these tools because they were going gain more traction. Given the huge growth and innovation in the mobile space, I believe that associations will benefit by being more proactive now instead of playing it safe, which is the default setting of most organizations in our community. We need to encourage more disruptive innovation in associations, not less of it, and I am convinced that mobile app development is a important part of building a future in which associating is mobile.

What do you think?  Please share your thoughts as comments below.

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Entry Filed under: Principled Innovation Blog