One of the challenges that web 2.0 developments face is how to justify investments – at the heart of this challenge is identifying sources of value. Some sources of value that Institutes have achieved (or are close to achieving) are:

1. Expected growth in membership through increasing engagement. there are many quantitative measures on engagement and volume of traffic. Their value rests on the assumption that increasing membership engagement will increase membership  – be it retention rates or recommendations to join.
2. Cost reduction through more effective governance and consultations. Examples include less face-to-face Governance meetings and using a wiki to consult with members.
3. Revenue generation through raising visibility on search engines. Mentions on web 2.0 are important to Google’s rankings and achieving the first page of search results. There are quantitative measures on key words used by visitors and % coming from search engines in the case studies.  Value here rests on the assumption that increasing the number of visitors to your website will increase sales of your products or services; this is similar to an assumption used in the retail sector  – that the sales at an individual store is related to the number of people walking past that store. 
4. Advertising is the major source of revenue in the commercial sector and, while there are issues about using this in the Institutional sector, several Institutes have raised revenue from corporate sponsorship of videos.
    
5. Contextual linking can highlight the value of membership, communicate it and reduce lapse/churn rate. The role model is an Amazon book search where the visitor receives additional suggestions based on what other customers bought or based on their previous visits. Value comes from the Institution having more opportunities to show the member services that are relevant to that individual and this reduces the chances of them leaving the Institute. 
6. Developing direct links between web 2.0 activities and some revenue generating activity.  Institutes could Tweet a special offer on an event and note how many are booked. Dell, for example, are reported to have made $3.5mn in 6 months by sending tweets on special offers.
7. Content creation could be important. Wikipedia is a well known example. Potentially, this knowledge could be developed and packaged into a commercial offering in the future.

 Have you more examples of how value has (or can be) achieved?