Archive for January, 2005

When you live and breathe "the association world" — when you spend most of your waking minutes trying to figure out new ways to evolve member services and adopt emerging business models — it’s easy to forget how natural and instinctive the impulse toward association is. Those of us who chose this field as a career — or were chosen by it — can forget how exciting (and really, how easy) it is for two people with a common interest to talk to one another and impulsively say, "Hey, we should start an association."

Case in point: the Professional Bloggers Association, in its embryonic stages as we speak. A group of 20 or so bloggers, led ably by marketing expert Paul Chaney, came together and rapidly began developing the framework for an association of bloggers and blog consultants who work with businesses and organizations to develop and write blogs. (Though I don’t consider myself a professional blogger, you’ll find my name on the list of founding members — Paul asked me if I’d participate given my background in associations, and the whole "association blogging" thing, and I said sure, for what little it’s worth!)

It’s fun watching the group come together. They moved to quickly elect officers when they realized that twenty people talking back and forth isn’t the easiest way to make decisions. They’re moving ahead to build the organizational framework and decide the all-important questions around, "What will the association do?"

The association impulse is messy, indescribable, and undeniable. Even in a world where individual entrepreneurism is more celebrated than ever — where we spend our time "bowling alone," as the book said — associations are formed every day.

Of course, many of them fail every day, or don’t get out of the formative stages. I think they fall prey usually to either a) internal bickering, b) lack of business savvy (yeah, associations need to be entrepreneurial, too), or c) market problems (either trying to focus on too small of a membership market, or opening up too wide and trying to be all things to all people).

But there will always be more starting up the next day. While assocation professionals debate the future of our organizations, and evaluate new competitors and practices, I think the association impulse will continue. The question is whether or not "associations" as we know them will continue to be the answer to that impulse in the future, or if new, unforeseen communities will emerge to take their place.

A message on the ASAE membership listserve yesterday asking about membership growth/loss and retention percentages prompted me to create a quick little online survey on the topic. I’ve always thought it would be useful to get some real-time benchmarking information on membership trends (and once suggested to an ASAE staffer that they create some sort of scientific ongoing "Membership Index" that would allow organizations to compare their performance with similar organizations).

People who complete the online survey will also get the results. If you aren’t a member of the membership listserve and didn’t get my message with the survey link, send me an email and I’ll send it to you.

Shawn Lea over at the Mississippi Hospital Association told me that their organization has launched another blog — it’s third (I discussed the first two in a previous post).

Shawn says:

I just wanted to let you know that we launched a new blog yesterday, Mississippi Hospitals Today. It can be found at http://mshospitals.blogspot.com . It will complement a Web site under construction, www.mshospitals.com . The Web site and the blog are going to be Web sites geared towards the public, rather than our hospital personnel.

In addition, Shawn has launched a blog for her local chapter of the Public Relations Association of Mississippi, at pramcentral.blogspot.com. Shawn is really a good walking example of the ways in which different kinds of associations can use blogs!