Page 80 - Spring2020

ASA Standards Program
of having our standards viewed as having high value, globally read, referenced/cited, and adhered to content providing oth- erwise unavailable technically “sound” acoustical practices. In fact, our ASA Standards catalogue should be considered one of the most valuable intellectual property (IP) assets of the Society.
Classroom Acoustics Program 2009 to 2019
Since the 1990s, ASA Standards has taken a leadership role in promoting improved acoustics in classrooms. To date, there are three parts of the ANSI/ASA S12.60 Standard on Classroom Acoustics published (ANSI 2009, 2010, 2019), with a fourth cur- rently pending (see acousticalsociety.org/classroom-acoustics). A sponsorship program was instituted in mid-2005 with 4 cor- porate sponsors paying an accumulated annual sum of $20k that enabled us to make ANSI/ASA S12.60, Parts 1 and 2, available for immediate download at no cost, with the intended goal of attracting users and bringing greater visibility to the standards work we were doing in classroom acoustics. A secondary goal was the promulgation of the standard to consultants and local authorities, with the eventual aim of getting the tenets of ANSI/ ASA S12.60 into the building code. This goal was largely accom- plished between 2017 and 2018. In total, we have provided, at no cost, over $1.6M worth of classroom acoustics standards during this period. However, since 2016, sponsorship for this program decreased to a single $5,000 donation that finally ended in 2019.
The New Acoustical Society of America Standards Business Model
With the full backing of the ASA Executive Council, ASA Standards has aligned its business with practices like SDO. Because cutting back services is not an option, our focus is now revenue growth. We have renegotiated all of our distrib- utor and reseller agreements to fair and reasonable terms that align with the strategic initiatives of industry engagement, global outreach, and fiscal responsibility and the long-term financial goals of the Society. We are currently pursuing relationships and agreements with organizations that have sufficient sales and marketing to reach our customers.
As of January 1, 2020, we have introduced market pricing for national standards, competitive with other US SDOs. Prices for NAIS, however, although increased, are still below their international IEC and ISO equivalents. The program of five free standards per year as an ASA member benefit is discon- tinued. However, all ASA members receive a 10% discount on the purchase of individual standards. This is consistent with the practices of other scientific and engineering societies
who also offer their members a similar discount on standards but typically have a substantially higher annual membership fee. The free classroom acoustics standards program was also brought to a close at the end of 2019. In place of these free standards programs, we have introduced discounted stan- dards “bundles.” Current standards bundles on offer include room acoustics, audiology, and classroom acoustics, but we expect to introduce additional bundles going forward. Cus- tomers are also free to customize a bundle (mix and match) to suit their specific needs. We also offer site licenses on bundles for multiuser customers. For educational use, an additional discount of 33% is applied to the site license, making standards available to universities and other educa- tional institutions at low cost and hopefully also introducing the next generation to the benefits of ASA Standards.
Raising our brand awareness is also a high priority. We have redesigned the ASA Standards publication format with the new ASA logo on the front cover. Going forward, we will invest in marketing efforts that showcase the quality and value of the ASA Standards brand. We also plan to engage an independent
research firm to produce a detailed market analysis to accu- rately identify our target customers. We need to ensure that we have a presence online, in magazines (e.g., Acoustics Today), in trade journals, and on distributor sites and that we maintain up to date content on our website. A brief video with an overview of the ASA Standards program appears on our homepage (see acousticalsociety.org/acoustical-society-standards).
Going forward, this requires that we develop sales promotion material, including copy, content, and price incentives, each time a new standard is introduced or added to a package. We also need to actively engage in public relation efforts to promote our brand and highlight our offerings. In addition to participation in conferences, we would like to sponsor a networking break at a targeted industry event. These activi- ties cost time and money, so increased revenues are essential for sustainability.
We are already well into the process of streamlining and restructuring the ASA Standards Program to meet these goals. Each working group has its own ftp site for exchang- ing documents. The editorial guidelines have been extensively revised, and new templates have been created to make the development process easier. Our database has been improved, and new features have been added to better serve the work- ing group volunteers who create and maintain our content. Annual working group status reports can now be filed directly
80 | Acoustics Today | Spring 2020