January 28, 2026
Okay, hear me out.
Association content should work the way Blockbuster used to.
Think back to the first time you walked into a Blockbuster. Maybe you were 10. Maybe you were 24. Maybe you were 36 and just wanted something easy to watch on a Friday night. Whatever the age, the feeling was the same—curiosity, anticipation, a little excitement.
You didn’t walk in confused. You didn’t need instructions.
Everything was clearly labeled and intentionally organized. Kids’ movies were in their own corner. New releases were front and center. Drama, comedy, horror—each had a defined place. When video games showed up, they didn’t just get dumped on a shelf. They were grouped by console. You knew where to go.
You came in with an idea of what you wanted, and the store helped you get there. And even if you didn’t know exactly what you were looking for, it was easy to browse. Everything lived in one place, and the layout invited exploration.
Then there was the bargain bin.
Up by the front. Wire racks. No real organization. Older titles tossed together. You had to dig. Sometimes you found something great—but it took effort, patience, and a willingness to settle.
Now, think about your association.
Think about all the programming you offer members. We tend to call it “content,” but it’s really the same thing—education, insight, expertise, value.
Where does it live?
An LMS.
A video platform.
A podcast host.
Your website.
Your journal.
Your magazine.
Your social channels.
Now imagine if Blockbuster worked that way.
Comedy movies in one building. Drama across the street. Kids’ movies in a third location. Video games somewhere else entirely. And if you wanted to browse? Good luck.
Would you have gone out of your way to rent a movie like that? Even in the 90s, probably not.
So why do we expect members to do this now?
Google is free. It’s fast. And for over two decades, it has trained people to expect immediate, organized answers. If your association doesn’t offer a clear, centralized way to access its thinking, its education, and its expertise, members will default to whatever is easy.
This isn’t about content volume. Most associations have plenty of it.
It’s about experience.
When content is scattered, even great programming starts to feel like the bargain bin—technically valuable, but hard to navigate, inconsistent, and not designed for discovery. Members don’t stop caring about the topic. They stop trying to find it through you.
Blockbuster didn’t win because it had better movies than everyone else.
It won because it made choosing easy.
You didn’t need instructions. You didn’t need five logins. You didn’t have to guess where things lived. You walked in, found your section, and trusted that what you were looking for was there.
Most associations already have the equivalent of full shelves. The challenge isn’t effort or expertise—it’s whether members know where to go once they arrive.
If a member showed up today looking for one clear answer, one moment of insight, one reason to stay engaged—would they know where to start?
The good news is this isn’t a failure. It’s a visibility problem. And visibility can be fixed.
For many teams, the first step isn’t changing platforms or rebuilding anything. It’s simply pausing to look at the experience as a whole—and starting a conversation internally about what’s clear, what’s scattered, and what might be getting in the way of member value.
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