APS Takes a Look in the Mirror.

Every so often, individuals and organizations should spend time in self-reflection and analyze what is working and what is not, what the challenges, are and how these can be turned into new opportunities. Last fall, the American Physiological Society (APS) took just such an initiative. APS employed a branding firm from Chicago, called Minding Your Business (MYB), to evaluate the way APS does business, to improve our brand and to better promote physiology as a whole to our constituents. This particular group was chosen because of their belief in Simon Sinek’s view that “mission driven positioning is best served by defining the belief that motivates and inspires your audience ” (from MYB presentation). As Sinek says, “The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have, the goal is to do business with those who believe what you believe” (1). This strategy has worked very well for many major manufacturers, most notably Apple, Nike, and Coke. Using a variety of forums, MYB set out to evaluate APS by conducting surveys of members and non-members and interviewing APS staff, leadership, and stakeholders. They also attended Experimental Biology 2016 (EB) in San Diego, where they talked to APS members and non-APS attendees, undergraduate and graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows engaged in “physiology” research. Finally, they organized a focus group at the APS Council meeting at EB, at which various interactive group scenarios were used to explore our own views of our society and identify its diverse goals. Using data collected from these different venues and sources, MYB presented their conclusions during the Summer Council meeting held in July 2016 and made several recommendations. We are happy to report that there were many positive conclusions. Not surprising to us was that both members and non-members alike view APS as being “trustworthy,” “well respected,” and “reliable.” However, 50% of these individuals thought that APS was “innovative” or “dynamic.” This is especially important in view of the fact that the number of APS members has not increased since 2004. MYB data showed that we do fairly well at attracting new members, especially graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, but we also lose members, some of these same groups, at the same rate every year. It is, therefore, important to understand why members leave the society and what can be done to retain them more effectively after they choose to become part of APS. A major challenge that APS faces is that members and non-members alike believe that national funding agencies and even the leadership at their own institutions do not see the importance of physiology as being the basis for medicine and life science. Unfortunately, only 25% of both members and non-members claimed that they were able to obtain funding for their research! However, it is difficult to assess whether this figure is specific for our own discipline or could be generalized to all in view of the current funding percentiles at NIH and elsewhere. Another caveat is that there was no breakdown for trainees vs. established investigators in these numbers. A further positive finding from MYB data is that 50% of the APS membership believes that “APS leadership clearly communicates objectives to its members.” However, 65% of our members were unaware that APS supports research conferences outside of Experimental Biology. In reality, APS provides significantly more funds for each conference than is allocated by FASEB or the Gordon conference organization for their meetings. Similarly, 50% of our members were aware of 20 of the 23 specific awards totaling over $1 million that are available through APS each year. In the graduate student category, an even smaller number of members (only 25%) were aware of 21 of the 23 awards available from APS! MYB identified several factors that could explain this troubling finding, including our website (the-aps.org) being less than intuitive; e-mails not targeting members who could best use the information; and APS Connect often has too much non-relevant information before the important message is displayed onscreen, causing members to delete the messages without reading critical information (note to APS members: please remember to scroll down!). Although APS does well at sending out press releases, often highlighting new discoveries published in our journals, 60 – 70% of APS members either don’t make use of or are unaware of the APS blogs, videos, Twitter feed, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, podcasts, and other social media. At least some of the reason for this could be generational. The average age of our current membership is 53 years, most likely due to lack of retention of younger members but also related to the increased longevity of established APS members. Because NIH and other funding agencies are now favoring more translational projects, basic researchers more and more frequently collaborate in teams with clinical investigators. Perhaps because of this shift, societies that are outwardly much more specialized than APS are becoming more popular with investigators. With regard to the relevance of APS membership, non-members cited that their specialty societies met their needs better, EDITORIAL Jane F. Reckelhoff (President), Dennis Brown (President-Elect),2 and Patricia E. Molina (Past President)3 University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi; Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts; and Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, Louisiana PHYSIOLOGY 31: 384–385, 2016.