When I stood as a candidate for the Manchester Digital council, I said I’d “work to massively improve Manchester Digital’s external communications”.
I felt Manchester Digital could do a lot more to improve how it communicated with members and needed to reach out to work more collaboratively with the local digital community.
Therefore, as part of my role on the council, I’ve taken up the mantle to lead the PR, marketing and communications working group. This group will meet to discuss and improve the way that Manchester Digital communicates externally, identifying problems, challenges and coming up with solutions.
I strongly feel that we – Manchester Digital – can do more to engage digitally with our membership and improve our relevance as the trade body for the north-west digital sector. I hope this group will play a key part in making that happen.
Any member of Manchester Digital is welcome to attend. This will be part of a series of meetings, that I will try and move around so as to accommodate varying availability. Also, I hope to open up some of the discussions online, so people who can’t attend can also engage with the process.
Event details:
Tuesday 21 September, 6-7 pm
MDDA, Portland Street (map).
Add to 
Email me technicalfault-at-gmail-dot-com if you plan to attend or have any questions (and please drop a comment below too).
Just wanted to leave a note here about my experience of being a member of Manchester Digital, since you’re looking at improving communications with members.
I completed the signup form in 2008, but didn’t receive any conformation emails or a login to use the website. Two weeks before tickets went on sale for the Big Chip Awards I received an invoice, back-dated 8 months. I paid the invoice, even though there was only 4 months left to run on my subscription, but still never received any login details for the website. So I paid for membership to an online resource I couldn’t access and received no concession or refund for letting them know – not so much as a password.
The folowing year, exactly the same experience. A back-dated invoice two weeks before tickets went on sale for the Big Chip Awards and still no pasword after 20 months. This time I told them to stuff it and have never been back or recommended anyone join.
Worst membership experience ever.
DM, thanks for your feedback – regrettably, your story is not an isolated one. It’s a pretty poor impression for any organisation to give out that it doesn’t value its members.
I believe that Manchester Digital does value its members, but we need to get much better at communicating this and a big part of that is getting out systems right. I think the ‘back office’ stuff is improved now, but I know that a lot of people will have lost confidence in us as a result of the poor experience that they may have experienced.
We’re launching a new website and membership system very soon, and I’ll make sure we talk about how to promote the improved experience at the working group, as well as make sure we clearly communicate the benefits of membership.
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