Archive for November, 2007

November 19, 2007

View from the Ivory Tower, Part 1

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Scott argued that associations should strive to “lead” rather than “serve” over at Acronym earlier this month. I actually agree with him, to a point, but also tend to agree with Virgil’s comment, that the discussion was interesting but not actionable. For an organization of any breadth or depth in membership, figuring out what members “want” or deciding what you think they “need” is much easier said than done. And in fact, I think wants and needs are very related, and perhaps not even different things. It is not possible to hazard a guess as to what an industry or profession “needs” until you firmly understand what its practitioners “want.”

I remember several years ago at a conference, someone I used to work with created a workshop featuring some Washington types talking about Very Important Things that will seriously impact the members (deep voice) In the Future.

Five people came. The staffer gnashed his teeth. “This is Very Important! The members need to hear this!”

Actually, no, they didn’t. These are adults, and they chose to attend workshops that seemed like a more valuable use of their time. (Since no one came, he suggested that we get the same speakers to talk about the topic at a general session, and, you know, force everyone to listen.)

We’ve all experienced this: The committee chairman (or department head, or Board of Directors) for whom it’s not enough to post something on the website; it has to be on the front page. Because it’s Very Important. And the rest of the members need to know about it. In fact, we should probably send them a special letter in the mail about this Very Important topic. Because it’s so important they might not notice it.

This isn’t leadership; it’s management by anecdote. It’s using personal experience, and personal passion, and assuming that every other by-god member should have that same personal experience and should share that same passion. It’s also why suggesting that associations should “lead” rather than “serve” is merely an endorsement of the status quo, because that’s what most associations think they already do. They don’t really know what members need (or even what they want), because they are not using data properly to figure them out.

Here’s the thing: You should know what your members want and need to know about more than they do themselves, because unlike them, you should have a treasure trove of data about the online behaviors of large numbers of people just like them. You should know what articles get read, what links get clicked, what files get downloaded. And you should also know what articles don’t get read, what links don’t get clicked, what files don’t get downloaded.

Most people think of “data-driven” decisions as those based on surveys or asking people “what do you want?” I’ve always preferred to rely on real data about real behavior. With e-newsletters and dynamic websites, we have more of this data than we ever dreamed possible — and many associations don’t even bother to use it! With a few years worth of this information under your belt, being able to tell what your members want becomes second nature. Until you know and truly understand what it is that your members want, it is simply impossible for you to push through the other side and begin deciding what they need without introducing biases based on your own passions and experiences (or the passions and experiences of a limited number of members).

But, if you understand what your members want, you can give them what they need, in a way that they want to get it.

In Part 2: Does what your members “need” seem suspiciously similar to the sorts of things your association already does (or the sorts of things you’re really interested in?)

November 15, 2007

Why I Voted “Yes”

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Perhaps there’s a slight irony in the fact that if a few people (Jill Cornish in Trends, Ben here) hadn’t argued so passionately for voting against ASAE’s proposed bylaws, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed that such a vote was being held in the first place. (ASAE, bless ‘em, are so bad at email marketing that about 99% of the emails I get from them get deleted without being read, so this one would have just slipped by.)

While I respect greatly the differing opinions on these issues, I did in fact login to the website and vote “yes”. (Since I just slammed ASAE on emails I will give them kudos for the simplicity of the online voting process.)

I don’t particularly care about the new membership categories, and am almost always in favor of a smaller Board for any organization. And while I appreciate and respect others’ concerns about the fact that this change would make it the last such vote to occur (vesting power to change governing documents in the Board itself), I support that proposal. I’ll explain why with one of my trademark sweeping generalizations:

In most cases, as they are usually written, the governing documents of an association are 80% irrelevant to the practical realities of the association’s operations, and 100% irrelevant to the association’s success.

Now, when I say they are 20% relevant to operations, that doesn’t mean they are relevant in a good way. I just mean that association staff and leaders all too frequently waste a lot of time and energy having to check and see if something is being followed according to vague prescriptions laid out 25 years ago by people who probably had a very good reason for doing something a certain way, though not necessarily a very good reason for deciding that’s the way it should always be done.

And I say 100% irrelevant to success because no association ever became a dynamite innovative organization because of their well-thought-out amendments procedure. Just as no one ever wrote “I Balanced the Budget” on their grave marker, they will never write “I Satisfied the Requirements of Section 9.7b” either.

The best kinds of governing documents an association can have today, in my opinion, are those that are flexible, adaptable, and short. Which is how I read ASAE’s proposed bylaws, and why I voted yes.

Others have argued that changing the documents so that only the Board can vote to change them removes the “power” from the members to control their organization. The word “disenfranchisement” has been used. Again, I appreciate very much the passion these people have invested in their association, but I must disagree.

First of all, these documents are so innocuous that I can’t imagine them needing to be changed on any regular sort of basis (other than the tendency of us association folk to tinker). More importantly, focusing on governing documents, or even the Board of Directors, as the “seat of power,” in my opinion misinterprets what organizations have become today.

Your power as a member (and your members’ power over your association) no longer lies in traditional old-school “things” like bylaws and prescribed leadership ladders. Your power lies in your own participation, not necessarily within the association as a structure, but within the sphere of activity in which the association also resides. Setting aside the fact that I hate “web 2.0/social media” hype, this is exactly the sort of thing that “web 2.0″ and its culture influences.

Ben’s exactly right when he says boards tend not to be representative of their organization’s members as a whole. It has ever been thus; the sorts of people who gravitate to board participation have more in common with people in other industries/professions who gravitate to board participation, than they do with the people in their own industry/profession who do not.

That doesn’t make them bad people, and lack of a “representative” nature doesn’t necessarily make them bad Board members. But what if they do turn out to be bad Board members? What if they suddenly start approving willy-nilly amendments that in a rare turn of events actually have an impact on the organization’s operations? Will the poor disenfranchised members be reduced to wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth?

Of course not. If people actually care about a decision that has a real impact which they feel is negative, then … They’ll start a blog! They’ll send nasty emails! They’ll make phone calls and start a network on MyFace or Spacebook or whatever those things are. They’ll get passionate and if they have a good point and care enough about it, they’ll find other converts who’ll all do the same thing.

If they get really ticked off, they can just start an organization of their own. It’s a lot easier to do that these days than it used to be. (An organization that, by the way, doesn’t have to compete with the original association. It could just as easily be an “association” designed merely to push a dissident viewpoint within the greater association as a whole.)

In the end, the barriers to influence have already been lowered beyond the abilities of any association to control. I have no idea what the ASAE Board intends with their bylaws. Whatever those intentions, I think the net result will be a more flexible organization that may perhaps be able to respond more quickly to the changing dynamics of our market. But I also believe that the audience of members raising their voices, and influencing those activities, will continue to grow, as well.

They might not be able to vote on bylaw amendments. But in the greater scheme of things, that’s just chump change.

November 8, 2007

Deep End…

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This is one of the big projects currently taking up all my time.

November 7, 2007

Busy Signal

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No, I haven’t taken another one of my semi-permanent blogging vacations. Just deeply embroiled in a few big projects, will hopefully re-emerge soon.