The Association Innovation Blog by Jeff De Cagna

Another podcast at Associations Unorthodox

An update to TAIB readers...I have posted my latest podcast at Associations Unorthodox.  We're coming to the end of our discussion of The Future of Work by Tom Malone.  I hope you'll listen to my thoughts on the application of markets to associations, a subject I blogged on briefly during the Top 5 issues of 2005 posts toward the end of last year.  I have two more podcasts on the book to post, including an interview that Amy Smith and I did with Professor Tom Malone for our Internet radio show, Association Foresight.  The interview will be up tomorrow!

Coming up on March 18, some very cool stuff at Associations Unorthodox.  Join me then and listen carefully! 

Update on technology project plans

Just a quick note to say that in my recent Association Foresight interview with author Nicholas Carr (link to the audio archive of the show), I mentioned that I am going to launch an informal project to inquire into the strategic advantage created by technology for associations, and I asked people to check out the blog today for more information.

The short story:  we will pursue this project through The Center for Association Leadership Technology Community.  There will be more to say about the project soon, but I at least wanted to get the word out there.  If you're interested in this project, send me an e-mail or post a comment to this blog.  If you're interested in joining one of the Center's learning communities (in addition to technology, there are learning communities for professional development, large associations, small associations, senior staff and emerging leaders), please send an e-mail to Anne Blouin at The Center for Association Leadership.

Stay tuned...

Join me in my return to Internet radio

You know, I've completely forgotten to mention to TAIB readers that my Internet radio show is back on the air, with a new name and a new format!  I'm very excited about it and I hope you will make it appointment listening!

The new show is called Association Foresight on the Association Internet Radio Network.  It is also a segment that will air every other week as part a show called Association Nation, hosted by AIR Network Founder and CEO Kevin Murphy, on WMET 1160 AM Talk Radio For The Rest Of Us every Sunday morning at 10 am EST.  Two Association Foresight shows/segments, with authors Frans Johansson of The Medici Effect (10/24) and John Beck of Got Game (11/7), are already available online at the show's Internet archive link just above. 

You can actually listen to Association Nation and Association Foresight on the Internet this coming Sunday morning (10 am EST) for another segment of Association Foresight.  This week, I'll be interviewing Boston University professor Anita McGahan about her new book, How Industries Evolve:  Principles for Achieving and Sustaining Superior Performance.  It's a fascinating new book and I'm sure that we'll have a very rich discussion.  Future Association Foresight segments/shows will air on WMET on Sunday, December 5, Sunday, December 19 and Sunday, January 2, 2005, so please stay tuned!

Many thanks to all of you who tuned in to Inside Associations during the summer.  I apologize for the long hiatus, but I'm very excited about the new show and I hope you will be as well.  If you have feedback on show, questions or suggestions for authors you'd like me to interview, please send me an e-mail.  I look forward to hearing from you!

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!

I'm back!

Sorry for the lack of posts in the last two weeks, but I was on vacation for the last week of June and I'm just getting back into the swing of things. I will be posting again today in anticipation of tomorrow's edition of Inside Associations at 1 pm EDT. I hope you'll tune in and check out the blog as well.

By the way, I just learned this weekend that for its first three shows, Inside Associations has a rolling average of 400 unique listeners! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT! I'm very excited by the response and I hope we'll keep it up. We're going to take a summer break for the next few weeks, but the show will be back on again on August 17 and I hope you'll tune it again at that time!

An open letter to the association community

This is an open letter on the ASAE-ASAE Foundation-GWSAE-The Center for Association Leadership proposed merger to the association community that I am reading during the June 22, 2004 airing of Inside Associations on the Association Internet Radio Network.

Dear Colleagues:

In a matter of just eight days, we will arrive at what I consider to be a watershed moment in the history of the association community. The final member vote on the proposed ASAE-ASAE Foundation-GWSAE-Center for Association Leadership merger will be completed and announced at a special meeting on the evening of June 30. Unfortunately, my schedule does not permit me to attend this meeting, and my standing as an association business partner does not afford me a vote even if I were able to attend. But as someone who cares deeply about the future direction of our community, I feel compelled to share with you my final thinking on the merger proposal. To the extent that anyone listening today or in the days ahead finds my perspective informative or useful as he or she strives to decide how to vote on the merger, I’m glad. But mostly, I’m sharing my thoughts today with you, my association colleagues, because I care what happens to you, your organization and our community, and I’m hoping that my words can help to re-frame the dialogue in which we are currently engaged and that we will continue to have about the future of our profession going forward.

Before I dive into how I’m thinking about the merger proposal today, I believe it is important for me to establish the context of my thinking from the outset of this process. Like many people in our community, I learned at ASAE’s Annual Meeting in Honolulu last August that ASAE and GWSAE had formed a joint leadership team to open the channel for dialogue between two organizations that had been competing pretty hard against each other for just about ten years. It was only through my network of contacts in the community that I began to put together, piece by piece, the real story about what was under consideration in those discussions. To me, at that time, the notion of consolidation or merger or whatever was anathema. As someone who had worked twice for GWSAE, is an ASAE Fellow and an active contributor to both organizations, it was crystal clear to me that the very idea was a grievous strategic error. And it was precisely that message that I delivered in a one-on-one conversation with Susan Sarfati last fall, months before the actual merger proposal was approved in concept by the four boards and subsequently announced to the community.

I must confess that on the day of the merger’s initial announcement back in January, I was deeply disturbed by the news. I sent Susan and John Graham a tersely worded e-mail with ten questions about how the decision to move forward was reached that read more like a set of interrogatories you might receive from an attorney in a lawsuit than a meaningful inquiry designed to better understand the process. My frustration with the possible merger grew after I attended the January 28 Town Hall meeting at the Ronald Reagan Building. Let’s just say that I did not feel that meeting presented the idea in the most complete and forthright manner possible. The overarching message of the presentation that night seemed to be, “Trust us, we’ve thought of that, and we’ll take care of it.” At that particular point in time, I was not ready to accept the wisdom of the merger as an article of faith, and I was not alone. Although I chose not to speak up during the meeting, others did, both those in favor of the idea and those expressing reservations. It was the beginning of what I think has been a necessary and frequently difficult conversation for our community.

Over the ensuing months, there have been further Town Hall meetings, further requests for input from the community, further work on the merger proposal by the staff-led Integration Steering Committee, and further discussions of the Joint Organization Leadership Team (JOLT) and among the four current boards. There has also been much reported on the process by the community’s media outlets, some of it based on facts and information, some of it grounded primarily in rumor, innuendo and gossip. Political issues and agendas have been playing themselves out and advocates on both sides of the issue have sought to position themselves and frame the choice on the merger in ways that are suitable to their desired outcomes. Of course, none of this comes as any surprise to me, and I sure to not to any of you either.

What has come as a surprise to me is that over this same period of time, I have changed my mind about the merger. While for many months I thought it was, quite simply, a terrible idea, I now believe it is the best opportunity we have to change the future of an association community that has deep emotional equity invested in sustaining its past. I don’t think there is any assumption or hyperbole in saying that many associations face an uncertain future. The fundamental and rapid change we are experiencing along multiple dimensions today strongly suggests that our organizations must get on with the business of re-thinking why we exist and how we create value for our members, customers and stakeholders and for society. To challenge ourselves to move beyond the tried-and-true, the well understood and the familiar, we must create the conditions for original thinking and innovation in our community. Although the ASAE Foundation, GWSAE and, more recently, the Center for Association Leadership have sought to play this role and enjoyed some success along the way, their efforts have gone neither far nor deep enough. We need something more and I believe that the merger gives us the best chance to bring forward that intangible “something more” in the months and years ahead.

Now, let’s be clear about something. Like many people in our community, I’m not satisfied with the merger proposal as it is written. I think it is a flawed document, the result of what was certainly a highly political negotiation process. But the fact that it is flawed doesn’t make it bad by definition. Sure, I wish the proposal included a more complete discussion of how the merged organization will relate to other societies of association executives around the country and around the world. Absolutely, I wish the proposal was more clear in recognizing the profound difficulty of cultural change in the merged organization, and more specific on how that work will be pursued. Certainly, I wish the merger proposal contained that one really big idea that made everyone say, “Oh, of course. Why didn’t we think of that before?” But none of those things, and I’m sure many other things we wish we it had, are in the document. At first, I was concerned about these omissions, but I have since decided that it is okay, because it sets the table for what must come next in this process.

So what’s next? Well, for me, what’s next is also the reason why we need to re-frame the terms of the merger discussion. For me, what’s next is building a genuine shared commitment among everyone who cares about the future of the association community to make the merger work should it be approved. This is a critical point. Part of the reason why I’ve changed my mind about the merger is the realization that WE should not be ones relying on John and Susan to make the merged organization great, but that John, Susan, the staff and the boards should be the ones relying on us to invest our time, attention, energy and intellect to make sure that the new ASAE and the new The Center for Association Leadership achieve greatness far beyond our wildest dreams. It’s the recognition that only through our efforts as positive contributors can we transform a flawed document into a flourishing reality. It’s the understanding that “the big ideas” will come from those who devote the passion and the vision and the commitment to the task of bringing them forward for collective consideration and action. In short, whether the merged organization ultimately achieves everything I know we want and need from it will depend primarily on US and not on someone else. Whether we like it or not, we ARE this merger. At this time and in this place, there can be no more “us and them.” There must only be we.

Now, of course, there is alternative path that the community can choose to pursue. The merger could be rejected on June 30 and, presumably, we would be right back where we started. It is a path, however, that I hope we will avoid. In my view, the rejection of the merger proposal will have profoundly negative if unintended consequences for our community. It will send a powerful signal that association leaders are unwilling to embrace change, and that they are more interested in politics than in possibilities. I am concerned that the defeat of the merger will set off a chain reaction of criticism and recrimination that will distract us from the important work we have to do. In short, I do not believe our community can afford the setback that rejecting this proposal will deal to the four organizations and their leaders.

So, instead, I urge us to capitalize on this opportunity to announce what we’re for, rather than what we’re against. I’m not claiming that this idea is perfect and that it doesn’t contain significant risks. Indeed, I would admit that it is profoundly imperfect, which is what makes it so powerful as a platform for engendering our commitment. I would also admit that approving the merger is a risky proposition, but then again, so is defeating it. All that’s left, then, is trust and faith. But it isn’t trust and faith in others or in circumstances. It is trust and faith in ourselves, in our abilities and in our desire to prevail. If it is to work, we will make it work together, because that’s the only way it can. I hope everyone will join me in supporting the ASAE-The Center merger proposal, for the good of both our community and our legacy.

Thank you,

Jeff De Cagna

I want to hear from YOU!

Yesterday's posting did not go out to regular subscribers and so I thought I'd post again today to let everyone know that I put something up. Please check it out.

One thing I neglected to mention in yesterday's posting about Inside Asociations is that I really want to hear from you about the show, about the merger and about any issues in the association community. Please send me your e-mail at [email protected]. I will be doing a regular segment called Feedback and, not unexpectedly, it is easier to do if I actually receive your feedback! So please do e-mail me! Your voices are important!

Listen in...

I'm pleased to let you know that you can now listen to archived audio of my first two "Inside Associations" show. The inaugural May 25 show and the June 8 show that was pre-empted due to technical difficulties are now up on the Web. I hope you'll take the time to listen in.

In addition, I really want to encourage you to join me next Tuesday, June 22 at 1 pm ET when I will offer my advice and guidance to GWSAE association professional members as they consider how to vote on the proposed ASAE/The Center merger proposal on June 30. In the beginning, I admit, I was vehemently opposed to this proposal. Put simply, I thought it was a terrible idea for a variety of reasons. Over time, however, I have come to see some of its possibilities and I have been encouraged by how the leaders of the four organizations have allowed some of their thinking to evolve since the initial announcement back in January. Still, like many other people in the world of associations, I have misgivings about whether this idea is the best thing for the association community as a whole and for GWSAE members in particular. There are arguments on both sides and I continue to sort them out even now just weeks before this decision will be made by GWSAE's association CEO and professional members.

I've discussed my thoughts and feelings on this very important issue during my first two Inside Associations shows and now the time has come to take a position, as leaders are expected to do. And so I will on June 22! If you have any interest in what I think about this watershed moment in the history of the association community (and it's okay if you don't, I don't mind :>), then you should absolutely tune in at the Association Internet Radio Network one week from Tuesday at 1 pm ET!

If there is one piece of advice I can offer to all GWSAE members who are eligible to vote it is this: VOTE! I strongly encourage you to visit the merger website, download the proposal and read it carefully. Check out my May 31 posting for thoughts and questions to ask about the proposal. And, above all else, please either attend the June 30 meeting to cast your vote or request an absentee ballot. (Absentee ballots must be submitted by June 29, 2004 at 5 pm ET.) It is only a very small fraction of the GWSAE membership that will determine the course of our community and so it is incumbent upon EVERYONE who has the right to vote to exercise that right in this situation. There is absolutely NO EXCUSE for failing to vote! You must act to ensure that your voice is heard. I hope you will.

Are you going to the Meetup session?

I'm trying to find out if anyone is going to the Meetup session on Friday, June 4 at the National Press Club. The session, featuring former United States Senator Bill Bradley, ASAE president John Graham and Center president Susan Sarfati, will discuss how associations can benefit from the emerging trend toward Web-enabled, self-organized citizen involvement.

I'm interested in this session but cannot attend due to business travel. I would like to talk about what is discussed at this session on my June 8 radio show, which I am recording this Saturday. IF YOU'RE ATTENDING OR KNOW OF SOMEONE WHO IS, please send me (or have sent to me) an overview of the session, including any especially useful insights. My e-mail address is [email protected] and I will need the report that same day (Friday) in time for a Saturday morning recording session. If you send me something, I will thank you by name on the air!

We're in the air!

Well, the first-ever "Inside Associations" on the Association Internet Radio Network was "in the air" this past Tuesday afternoon. To the left, you will see a picture of me doing my thing during the show. I want to thank those of you who listened in. Unfortunately, there may not be an archive of the audio to listen to for this show (I'll let you know), but I know we'll get that issue taken care of in the weeks ahead.

Among the issues I discussed during the show were the ASAE/GWSAE merger, the need for our community to get serious about developing the next generation of leaders by, in part, developing a master's degree in association leadership, and the importance of raising the level of discourse in our community. I hope that Inside Associations will contribute to the discussion of critical issues and questions of importance to you and our community.

The next show is June 8 at 1 pm EDT. I urge you to submit your comments, questions and topic ideas to me for upcoming shows. And stay tuned for an announcement about the new Inside Associations blog coming soon!