The Common Thread

I’m back from the ASAE Annual Meeting. I’ve already done recap posts on the SocialFish blog and the Get Me Jamie Notter blog, so I wont do one here. But I do want to comment on a post by Marc Mestdagh on the Acronym blog. Marc is from Belgium and has been doing a few guest posts on Acronym. He and some other Belgian association executives came to the Annual meeting this year, and he had an interesting insight after his trip:

If I look back now at my trip, it surprises me to see that on the one hand there seems to be a greater awareness of the importance of associations (the Power of A) and all issues concerning thoughtful leadership, innovation, social media were omnipresent throughout the conference. But if you talk to attendees and look closer to what is really done in practice, I had the impression that what seems to be perceived as strategically important are foremost rather basic issues of association management (membership issues, dues, education programs, etc.).

This worries me a bit–that we talk the talk about cutting edge association leadership, but when we get back to the office we mail out the dues invoices and plan the next networking event. Not that there is anything wrong with dues invoices or networking events, but are we actively connecting what we learn at our conferences to the daily work of our jobs? We certainly pitch this to our members, right? Come to this year’s conference and learn practical skills you can use today! Are we doing that when we go to our own field’s learning events?