The Association Innovation Blog by Jeff De Cagna

Dan Pink in February Wired

The Phoenix edition of the Center's Great Ideas Conference is coming up in just about two weeks (February 13-15, 2005), and former Fast Company writer and Free Agent Nation author Dan Pink will be delivering the Monday keynote presentation, "Giving Your Organization a New Brain."  (Dan also spoke at the Orlando edition of Great Ideas in December 2004, and I thought he was great.)

Anyway, Dan's presentation is based on his forthcoming book, A Whole New Mind:  Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, which will be available in March.  An excerpt from the book appears in the February 2005 issue of Wired magazine, and so I thought I'd bring it to the attention of TAIB readers who may be attending the conference or know people who will.

Google's at it again...

Google announced today its test of Google Video, a new service that allows users to search TV content online.  At the moment, the company has signed up only a few content providers including PBS, the NBA, Fox News and C-SPAN.  As Google's press release explains:

The Google Video beta enables users to search across the closed captioning content of a growing number of TV programs that Google began indexing in December, 2004. Entering a query such as iPod will return a list of relevant television programs with still images and text excerpts from the exact point in the program where the search phrase was spoken.

Since this is only a beta, you won't be able to view actual video excerpts online, although Google says it is working with content providers to provide this additional benefit going forward. 

Google Video is just the latest in a series of recent initiatives from Google, including Picasa (organizing and sharing photos), Keyhole (accessing satellite images) Google Print (making library books from leading universities searchable online), Google Scholar (searching academic journals and papers) and Google Desktop Search.  These applications are simply the first few elements of an emerging Google "search ecology" grounded in the company's mission "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."  In addition, while Picasa and Keyhole were Google acquisitions, the other tools are products of the company's on-going innovation effort which is so integral to their continued success..

FYI:  Yahoo has also launched its own video search tool as well...

And one more thing...I have posted a new poll about Google on the right hand side of the blog.  Please vote!

Throwing out the box

Joyce Wycoff of the Innovation Network is conducting an online survey in search of a replacement for the hackneyed old cliche, "think outside the box."  (Long overdue in my opinion.  It isn't a phrase you ever hear me say!)  You can complete the survey at http://surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=17959827411.  It will only take you a few minutes to scan and select your preferred alternatives, and you also will have the opportunity to propose your own ideas.  I suggested a few including:

• Freely contemplate the extraordinary
• Consider what's beyond the world of your own assumptive design
• Think through the intersections and beyond the boundaries

If you offer any of your own ideas on the survey, please also post them here in the comments section.  While you're at it, and if you're so inclined, please post other innovation-related phrases that you think should be jettisoned in favor of new options.  Thanks!

Heard at PCMA II

I attended a session yesterday during which a speaker on negativity in the workplace suggested that we stop using the word "why" when asking questions. She mentioned some research that contends "why" questions induce a physiological reaction of defensiveness.

To be honest, I'm rather skeptical of the research claim and in profound disagreement with the speaker, because I believe very strongly in the importance of asking the hard "why" questions. In my view, it is the failure to ask those questions that creates most problems for organizations and their leaders today.

I've done a little quick searching on Google and cannot find the study to which she referred, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. If you are aware of this research, please e-mail me using the link just below my photograph. I want to blog on this subject more, but would like to do so with more complete information because I think it is very important.

All in all, PCMA's meeting in Honolulu has been a great success. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here, although I am looking forward to returning to DC. BTW, it's about 80 degrees here once again...that part I will miss when I leave tomorrow morning! ;>)

T5/05: Innovation (#1 and #100)

Happy New Year from The Association Innovation Blog! I want to wish everyone who reads this blog, everyone in the association community and everyone, everywhere for that matter a very happy 2005.  I hope those of us who really care about the future of associations and who share a concern about the way things are going can find a way to work together to make 2005 a remarkable year for this extraordinarily important community of ours!  I look forward to using TAIB as a vehicle for advancing those efforts.

Before I get to the actual post, let me just add a quick plug for my 100th post to TAIB.  Tomorrow, I will have been blogging for exactly 16 months (my first post was September 2, 2003) and I am going to keep on blogging in 2005.  In fact, I hope I will spend more time writing (and recording...sorry text lovers!) this blog, because it is something that I genuinely enjoy.  Thank you all for reading and listening.  I greatly appreciate your continued support. 

I don't think anyone will be shocked by my choice of innovation as the top issue for the association community in 2005.  Perhaps the first four issues--the (impending) death of best practices, competition, new science and technology and intangibles--were actually clues designed to guide you toward this final choice.  (Hmm...am I that clever? ;>)  And I suppose it might seem like a bit of self-serving choice, since innovation is "my thing."  I might even willingly plead guilty to that charge.  But I know deep inside that this is the work we must do and that we're meant to do.  I know that in the 21st Century, associations are destined to transform the landscape of society for the better, and our only hope for seizing the initiative and setting that agenda is devoting ourselves to the whats, whys and hows of innovation today.

T5/05: The (impending) death of best practices (#5)

For me, #5 of the Top Five Issues of 2005 in the association community is the impending death of best practices.  If I sit in one more meeting and hear someone say, "Oh, and maybe people can share some 'best practices'," I think I am going to SCREAM!  Best practices are a concoction of some consultant, somewhere who wanted to try to sell some more consulting.  I suppose on that basis I should love them.  BUT I DON'T!  I do admit, however, that the "impending death of best practices" may be more wishful thinking on my part than anything else.  Still, let me start making my case and give others the chance to join the chorus or excoriate me for being wrong!  ;>)

Giving the Gift of Blog

Okay, well I'm feeling in the holiday spirit these days so I'm going to do something very special this month for one lucky reader of The Association Innovation Blog!  TypePad, the service that hosts TAIB is suggesting that its current subscribers "give the gift of blog."  I am going to take them up on that suggestion and I will pass along this wonderful gift to the TAIB reader who gives the best response to the following:

On my association-related blog, I would write about...

Please submit your entries as comments to this posting and be sure to include the intended title of your new blog.  All entries must be received by Monday, December 20 at 5 pm EST and the winner will be announced with a blog post from me on December 23, just two days before Christmas!  The selected blog will launch in January 2005 and will be featured in a post on TAIB when it goes live.

Keep in mind that this is intended as an individual and not an organizational gift.  It is required that the blog you submit for consideration be connected to the work of associations and/or the association community, as well as be something on which you know you will follow through.  Be creative and have fun with it!  Remember, though, that my decision is final.

Great Ideas Conference Thoughts: Part I

I don't have much time today as I need to catch up on some work before I travel again tomorrow, but I did want to apologize for not posting yesterday from the conference.  My overarching impression of the conference is favorable.  I thought it was well done and a good first-out-of-the-gate conference event from the ASAE/The Center team. (I don't really count the Annual Meeting in Minneapolis as the first since it was planned before the merger was completed.)   

The sessions I attended were interesting and did include some great ideas.  All of the content leaders did a great job.  What I found especially nice was the casual, conversational style of most presenters, which is a nice change of pace.  For me, the Great Ideas Conference was a welcome opportunity to relax a bit and learn from others, since I was not leading a session myself.  I will be offering a session at the Phoenix edition of the Great Ideas conference in February and I hope TAIB readers/listeners will join me in the Desert Southwest for some high impact learning at that time.

In the days and weeks ahead, I'll try posting more thoughts on the conference, as well as on some of the issues that came up in Orlando, including community, value, intangibles and other "great ideas" that are near and dear to my heart.

An article to read and plans for Great Ideas

In this audio post, I recommend an article in the December 2004 issue of Harvard Business Review and announce my intention to blog from The Center's Great Ideas conference in Orlando beginning this weekend.

It All Started with "Yuppie"

This item, titled "It All Started with 'Yuppie'," appeared in the March/April 2004 issue of Across the Board, the Conference Board's bi-monthly magazine. The item is by Ben Schott, a British-based author of several books on miscellany. It is attributed to Schott's Original Miscellany, published by Bloomsbury in 2002. I talked about it on the July 6th edition of Inside Associations.

It All Started with "Yuppie"
by Ben Schott

BOBO--Burnt Out But Opulent
BUPPIE--Black Urban Professional
DINK--Dual Income, No Kids
DINKY--Double Income, No Kids (Yet)
DUMP--Destitute Unemployed Mature Professional
GOLDIE--Golden Oldie, Lives Dangerously
GUPPIE--Gay Urban Professional
LOMBARD--Lots of Money but a Real Dickhead
OINK--One Income, No Kids
PIPPIE--Person Inheriting Parents' Property
PUPPIE--Poncy Urban Professional
SCUM--Self-Centered Urban Male
SILKY--Single Income, Loads of Kids
SINBAD--Single Income, No Boyfriend, Absolutely Desperate
SINK--Single, Independent, No Kids
SITCOM--Single Income, Two Children, Outrageous Mortgage
WOOPIE--Well-Off Older Person
YAPPIE--Young Affluent Parent

Obviously, some of these are definitely tongue-in-cheek, but it may be worth asking how many of each of these types of people (or other types) you have in your association. You may be able to gain some powerful insights!