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Listening to Members

May 17, 2012

Mark Athitakis has an interesting post over on Acronym that is about the role of the CEO. I think the most interesting part of the post, however, is not actually about the CEO role: it’s towards the end when he talks about the need for associations to improve their monitoring skills.

He says that associations are basically built to monitor the environment:

An association’s role is to listen to members in the aggregate, gathering information about where the growth opportunities and threats are. Not every association does a great job of gathering that information, or presenting it back to members so they can act on it, but the antennae for detecting what’s coming next is built into association DNA.

In today’s rapidly changing environment, Mark argues, we need to build our capacity to do this monitoring. He thinks it’s arguably the biggest challenge associations face right now.

I agree that monitoring is a serious challenge. I think I disagree, however, with his assessment of Associations having monitoring their environment built into their DNA. I think they all try to listen to their members, but too many associations are actually very weak when it comes to deep understanding, insight, and learning.

In Belgium earlier this month, I heard a great presentation by Kristin Zhivago about better understanding your customers. She was speaking to a corporate audience, but her message was important: most companies have a very weak understanding of what the customer actually wants. We design processes for our customers that are mostly based on what WE the company want and need, not what works best for the customer.

One reason we’re bad at this is because we are not very good at asking our customers what they want and need. Now, some may protest, arguing that they talk to their customers all the time. Okay, but I have an important question for you: when you talk to them, are they telling you the truth?

People change their message when they are talking to YOU about your company. They’ll change their message if they have to express it within a group of fellow customers (like in a focus group). They’ll change their message if they are currently being sold to. We talk a lot to our customers, but that doesn’t mean we’re getting the full picture. The truth, it turns out, is a complex thing and not easy to get at. Kristin actually makes a living by interviewing YOUR customers so you can actually understand what they want when they buy from you (and then you have to change your processes to make it easier for them).

Are associations any good at this? Some are, I’m sure. But too many are not. Too many rely on member surveys where we force-fit our members to answer questions based on OUR thought processes, rather than theirs. We rely on input from Board and volunteers who have their own personal egos on the line at the Board or Committee meeting where we ask for their input. We’re getting data, but I’m not sure it’s necessarily the RIGHT data. Are we really getting truth? Do we really understand our members?

My deep concern about associations is that piece of our DNA that is coded to gather data from members. It was a genetic trait that we adopted back twenty, fifty, or one hundred and fifty years ago, when organizations could be successful with fairly simplistic data in hand. That DNA that served us well in the past could very well be leading to our extinction now. I agree with Mark that monitoring–uncovering and understanding important truth about the system–is a critical challenge for associations today, and I think we need some seriously Darwin-like adaptation if we’re going to stay in the game.

Posted in Membership, Strategy | Leave a Comment »

Deeper Issues Behind ASAE General Session Speaker Choice (long post)

April 18, 2012

Okay, time to weigh in on ASAE’s choice of Karl Rove and James Carville as the opening general session speakers at this year’s annual meeting in Dallas. There have been several very good blog posts about this topic already:

I’ve also had LOTS of conversations with people about it, beyond just those bloggers. I feel like the negative reactions can be bunched into groups.

Group 1: Anger. “How dare you bring that evil bastard in here.”

The angry people I’ve heard have all been liberal, so their anger is directed at Rove. He’s just in a different category for these people. There are plenty of conservatives that they would come and listen to (even if they disagree with the content), but not this guy. He makes their blood boil. I’m not sure if conservatives have the same reaction to Carville, but the bottom line is that this session pisses some people off. They’re either not coming or somehow wish they could disrupt the whole thing.

Group 2: Boredom. “Seriously? I can see these guys on TV for free.”

There is a category of people that either don’t care about politics, or view these two as not bringing anything new to the discussion. ASAE says it needs to give politics more attention (since that’s a major part of association work), but if that’s the case, this group of people is confident you could have picked better speakers (or they just say “meh” about the whole politics topic to begin with).

Group 3: Frustration. “Exactly what will anyone actually LEARN from this session?”

We as ASAE members do what ASAE does: we plan conferences and general sessions and care about education. We think about this stuff. It’s our job. So there’s a group that looks at this general session and is frustrated with its design. It’s weak in terms of education: you don’t learn a lot when the situation is intentionally polarized, and it doesn’t seem connected to other politically focused learning in the conference. It’s also blatantly NOT addressing the much-emphasized priority of diversity and inclusion (yay, two more white men!). This group is frustrated, because we feel we can do better than this.

Hmmmm. So what do we do about all this? There are obviously groups of people who dislike this program choice for pretty different reasons. And I’m sure there are other groups that I haven’t identified, too (not to mention the groups of people who, I assume, are very happy about this program). It seems like an impossible demand to make everyone happy, right? Is this actually a problem we can solve?

True. It should NOT be ASAE’s job to make everyone happy. When that’s your goal, you end up with the lowest common denominator. But maybe that gets us to the deeper issues here.

What is ASAE’s job? Better yet, to take the attention off ASAE for a minute, what is YOUR job as an association executive? I know that’s kind of a “big” question, but let me propose a controversial answer for your consideration:

We have no freakin’ idea what our jobs are as associations.

Now, I can hear the protests in my mind:

Oh, get off your consultant high-horse, Jamie. We do too know our jobs. We’re a big community and most of us are doing just fine, despite the bad economy, and we’re delivering value to members and making a huge difference in our various communities. We know our jobs, and we’re doing them, thank you very much. You can stay in your theoretical bubble about what our jobs are as associations all you like, but here in the real world we have to get stuff done.

I hear you. I didn’t mean you were incompetent. You’re doing your job. ASAE is doing its job too. What I mean is, I fear that this community is really doing the job that was required five (or more) years ago, but we’re not shifting to meet today’s needs at the same time. Think US auto industry in the early 70s.

Our “foundation is cracked,” as Maddie said in a post linking to these discussions, but we’re focusing on what’s right in front of us instead of addressing the real problem. We’re making sure the paint is perfectly polished on that huge gas-guzzling sedan that’s rolling off our assembly line. Great.

In my mind, the Rove/Carville thing is an illustration of that bigger picture issue. ASAE’s job is not just to put on a good annual meeting with big name speakers that get a 4.0 or above on the evaluation. That’s old school: deliver good content and produce a nice experience for people, and you win.

I think the rules have changed. We can all get great experiences and great content in so many different places now. Do you know how many mind-blowingly good presentations I can hear during my lunch hours between now and Dallas at Ted.com?! Certainly more than the sessions I will attend in Dallas. I don’t think we’re really letting that reality sink in. We are planning our conferences and picking our speakers with an outdated vision of success: good evaluation scores and good attendance.

Today’s member wants more. Sure I want good speakers and good experiences, and of course I don’t expect to be thrilled by every choice you make. You don’t have to be perfect. But boy, when I see something outrageous, I’m going to jump up and ask for engagement, and I will expect you to respond. I expect you to change and shift and offer alternatives. I expect you to negotiate with me. I expect you to be transparent about why you made your choices and engage in this conversation, even if it makes you uncomfortable.

Why? Why am I being so demanding? Because it’s no longer acceptable for me to be a passive partner with you in my professional growth. I am no longer willing to simply take what I am offered when it comes to my community of professional practice. Everywhere I turn these days, I am empowered with options and customization and engagement. And I like it. My standards have changed, and they aren’t so tolerant of the centralized, scarcity approach that I think too many associations are still embracing. The one where everything narrows down to that press release where you announce your opening general session speaker, hoping for a home run, and ending the conversation right there. And I don’t think it’s just me. Our business has changed–not “is changing,” but “has changed.” And we are being too slow to respond.

In the end, I just don’t feel strongly about the specifics of the Carville/Rove issue, partly because, sadly, I gave up on American politics years ago. But mostly because I am more interested in the broader issue of how associations are adapting to a new reality and a new relationship with their communities, including my deep concern that we are not.

What do you think? Am I off base here? Too far out in front? Maybe. But if so, then I think that’s a space that needs occupying. I’m hoping that as I ride by you, with my steel bike and 45-year old legs, that I might wake you up a little, maybe even piss you off. But either way, you’ll start pedaling faster.

Posted in Leadership, Meetings | 4 Comments »

The Non-Profit Line

March 21, 2012

I’ve been working in the nonprofit world since 1992. I started in 501c3 organizations who survived by charitable donations and grants, and since 2002 I’ve been immersed in the association world, mostly as a consultant but also as an executive director. Over these twenty years, I’ve heard a lot of conversations about the difference between the nonprofit world and the corporate world.

I’ll be honest–I think a lot of it is crap. We throw huge generalizations out there about the differences between these two worlds, and it feels like most of it is based on ideology rather than experience or observation or a desire to generate any real insight. Here in the association world, the corporate world is described almost universally in negative terms. Over there they focus only on the bottom line. They only care about money and products and customers, and they’ll happily abuse people if profit is on the line. We association folk, on the other hand, are the good ones. We care about community and engagement and society, and the money is just a tool we use to accomplish our mission.

I think we’re lying to ourselves. This good guy/bad guy lens on the story is taking us in the wrong direction. It’s distracting us from the issues I think we need to face. And it contains some real inaccuracies in the story too. For example:

1. Associations (and other nonprofits) care about profit. We make it every year and we carefully design our overall program of activities to ensure we get it. In fact, we are “for” profit. We like it. Without it (over time), we go out of business. Because we have a mission that the government deems acceptable, we do not pay taxes on that profit, and we do not distribute the profit to shareholders (we keep it in reserves). But from a profit perspective, those are the only differences (no taxes and no shareholder distribution). We still have a bottom line and we pay ruthless attention to it, just like those evil corporate people.

2. Corporations care about community. Sure, not all of them do. There are plenty out there that focus on products, sales, margins, and survival and don’t give a whipstitch about community or meaning or values. But if you ask me, the ability to thrive with that approach is diminishing, and the smart companies are figuring this out. The smart companies are basically paying attention to the things we association folks have been looking at for years. And here’s the rub: there’s no reason why they can’t succeed doing that. There is no reason why WE are the only ones who can care about that stuff. We can’t draw a line in the sand and say “But we’re the nonprofits. This is the stuff WE do.”

Rather, we can draw that line, but those companies are simply going to step over it, and there’s nothing we can do about that. In fact, I would argue that there is nothing we SHOULD do about that. It’s not about being a nonprofit. It’s about elevating the community. It’s about changing the world. It’s about making a difference to people. Let’s all figure out how to do THAT better and ignore who pays taxes and who doesn’t.

I welcome push-back on these ideas. I just want to push the conversation. What do you think?

image credit

Posted in Leadership, Strategy | 9 Comments »

Face to Face Isn’t the Issue

February 15, 2012

I had a good time at the AMC Institute Annual Meeting last week in Palm Springs. It was my first time, and I enjoyed my interactions with the participants. In one of my conversations about social media, someone mentioned that he had heard that there was research showing that the younger generation was moving back towards valuing face-to-face interactions, rather than virtual ones.

I can’t speak to that research (I haven’t seen it), but I think the whole question is missing the point. I don’t think Social Media brings with it a de-valuation of face-to-face. It never has. I am connected to a lot of people who are deep, deep fans of social media. We are “in the bubble.” And guess what: we all LOVE face-to-face interactions. We’ve all been engaging in face-to-face interactions our whole lives. And if anything, social media has led to MORE face-to-face interactions (or at least more satisfying ones) than ever before.

I know I hear complaints of how people sit at a conference all staring at their phones rather than talking to one another. This does happen, and before social media/smart phones, it didn’t. I get it. But here’s the rub. That’s just one moment when they are not talking to each other. Just because you spotted a moment when people aren’t talking to each other, doesn’t mean that “talking to each other” is declining. I know in “your day” that was a moment when people would be talking to each other, but it’s still just one moment. It’s just that the pattern has shifted. But face-to-face is absolutely necessary for deeper relationship building, and deep relationships are just as needed in today’s society as they were before computers. We just build these relationships using different patterns now, but I don’t think face-to-face ever went away, nor will it.

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Posted in Marketing and Commmunications, Meetings | Leave a Comment »

Tips for Twitter Chats

January 18, 2012

With the release of Humanize, I’ve been invited to be a part of several new Twitter Chats. I’m starting to really enjoy them, though they do have their limitations. A twitter chat is made up of three things: a hashtag, a specific time, and a host. In the association world, the primary chat is the weekly #assnchat, hosted by Kiki L’Italien (yes, for those of you who are new, it is actually called #assnchat, which stands for Association Chat). It’s Tuesdays at 2pm. At that time Kiki starts tweeting, adding #assnchat to her tweets so people can start following the conversation through a twitter search. Other twitter chats I’ve been following lately: #swchat (Social Workplace Chat, Thursdays 4pm eastern) and #leadershipchat (Tuesdays 8pm eastern).

I will admit, though, that engaging in twitter chats has taken some getting used to. Part of it is obvious and easy. The host asks questions throughout the chat, and then the participants answer them and respond to each other. But when the chat gets large, the volume of tweets grows, and it becomes hard to follow along. Then on top of that, I’m trying to figure out how to respond to a complex conversation in a sentence or two that is less than 140 characters. Here’s how I manage it all to make the most of twitter chats:

Use TweetChat. This is a site where you can log into your twitter account and add the hashtag you’re following and then all you see on the screen is the stream of tweets on that hashtag. You could do the same with a twitter search, but the best part of tweetchat is that it automatically adds the hashtag when you post something. Remember, with each tweet you have to add the hashtag or others on the chat won’t see it.

Strategic RTs. With lots of people saying interesting things, you don’t have to say it all yourself. Re-Tweet (RT) the good ones right when you see them. I find it interesting to watch which tweets get re-tweeted the most. It helps define the flavor of the chat.

Embrace the Constraint. I know it’s hard to say intelligent things in only 140 characters sometimes, but I embrace that constraint rather than feel limited by it. I take more time to post my tweets, because I force myself to be clear using fewer words. I don’t stress out that the question I’m responding to  is no longer visible on the stream. I take the time to get clear. I’ve enjoyed developing this capacity.

Build relationships. Twitter can feel pretty random at times. People follow me every day, and I follow new people every day, and for many of them, I never really get to know them. But the real value of Twitter (learning) is enhanced when the relationships grow, and chats are a great way to get to know people a little better. The people I follow on these chats are often the people I engage with more on a regular basis.

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Posted in Marketing and Commmunications | Leave a Comment »

Get on the Mobile Bandwagon

December 9, 2011

I was at the ASAE Technology conference this week, and from the opening keynote to several of the sessions I attended there was a key theme when it came to association technology: mobile.

I actually lost track of the many different sources on the huge increase in accessing the internet via mobile devices, but I think we’re at the point where if you need the proof, your behind the curve. Use of smart phones is going through the roof. Use of PCs to access the internet in some cases is actually going down. The desktop use won’t go away, of course, but if you’re ignoring how your web presence interacts with mobile devices, you’re in trouble.

But the point about mobile internet use that really stuck out for me came from the opening keynote, delivered by Luke Wroblewski. He pointed out that the constraint of a smaller screen has required web designers to have some discipline in their design. They have to limit what they show, forcing them to focus on what matters. This is Southwest Airline’s home page on the web:

A little distracting and all over the place, don’t you think? And this is what their mobile version looks like:

Let me be honest. I like the mobile one. I like that it just gives me what I need. I like that it doesn’t give me a lot of choices. In fact, as a general theme, I’m growing tired of choices. The institutions that will gain my loyalty are the ones who are both smart enough and bold enough to offer me fewer choices.

That’s no easy task. Offering fewer choices requires some really brutal clarity. That’s something that many organizations simply don’t have the discipline to achieve. But given the explosion in mobile use, I think we all better get on the clarity bandwagon too.

Posted in Marketing and Commmunications | 1 Comment »

Recap of #ASAE11

August 11, 2011

Well another ASAE Annual Meeting is in the books. As usual, I had a phenomenally good time hanging out with friends from all over the country that I typically only get to see at ASAE events. Here’s a quick post of highlights from the event before I get too deep in digging out from five days out of the office.

ASAE Listened

ASAE caught some flack after Los Angeles last year and they had an important choice. They could have written off the complaints as coming from people who “don’t get it,” and kept doing things exactly as they had done them, or they could have listened, owned up to the fact that some of their choices weren’t right, and try different things this year. Fortunately, they chose the latter path. There were more sessions. There were fewer General Sessions and they were more about content than association business. They added deep dive sessions. They added a room where anyone could sign up to do an unofficial session. Maddie and I did a conversation on the last day with about 15 people on the Humanize book there. Even little things, like moving the Online Engagement Lounge to nearly the very center of where the sessions were (last year it was way off in a corner) made a big difference. Some of these changes were subtle, but the fact that they listened-and showed us that–is very important. Thank you, ASAE.

Good Content

You never know what you’re going to get with content at an ASAE meeting. The same is true for all our meetings, I think. It’s hard to know which sessions are going to be great ahead of time. So maybe I just got lucky this year, but I had NO sessions that let me down content-wise. And judging by the tweets, the OTHER sessions I wanted to go to in each block looked pretty good too. Joe Gerstandt’s Freak Flag Session was phenomenal. His insight about the power of authenticity really hit home. When you make people leave parts of themselves at home before they come to work, you get, well, less of them at work. The “What Innovation Looks Like Here” panel with Chris Busky, Mark Anderson, Dave Zepponi and Mark Nelson was truly inspiring. It was great to hear of associations who were investing in new possibilities, creating new lines of business, and doing things most decidedly NOT the way they had always done them. Shelly and Mark Alcorn’s session on the power of language led to some very interesting table discussions about what our most basic association terms really mean to us–and some of the challenges of coming up with new ways to describe what we do. Honestly, I don’t usually have THAT many sessions that are that good.

YAP is Just an Acronym

I had several different experiences related to “Young” Association Professionals this year. As usual, the YAP party on Monday night was a big hit. We packed a lot of people into into Jive and Wail, a dueling pianos bar a couple of blocks from the Convention Center. I left “early” (about 1 am) and we all had a great time. Also as usual, it wasn’t only people who would count as “young,” necessarily. But what really blew me away this year was the generosity. One of the central figures in our YAP community is KiKi L’Italien, and her hometown is Joplin, Missouri, which as everyone knows was devastated by tornadoes this year. So we decided to add a fundraising twist to the YAP party this year. Not a huge campaign–just asking people to make small cash donations at the party. We made a few announcements and literaly passed a bucket around for people to drop a $5 or $10 bill in.

Except a couple of people (literally) dropped $100 bills in. And there was a fat stack of $20s too. And by the end of the night, we had raised…get this…$1,318 in cash. YAP had already committed to match $1,000 in donations, and now an anonymous donor has stepped in to match the other $318, so our total donation is going to be more than $2,600. Way to go, YAPstars. Thank you everyone for stepping up and helping out.

My other experience with young professionals was in facilitating a Young Association Executives “Town Hall” during one of the sessions. We probably had about 40 or 50 people there, and about one third self-identified as NOT young. They broke into table discussions on topics like, finance, getting involved in ASAE, career development, and generational differences. The conversations were fantastic, and it reinforced what I said prior to the session in the “Daily Now” publication on site: the qualifier of “young” in “young association executive” is more distracting than helpful. They are simply association executives, and when we put them in the “young” box, I think we tend to discount what they bring to the table. Their insight and understanding were impressive. And even better, they had lots of questions. They were curious. They didn’t assume they already knew the answer. It is amazing how questions and openness can fuel a fantastic conversation. But if everyone around the table already knows the answer (I’ve seen conversations like that at ASAE events), the conversation is usually less rich. So maybe we shouldn’t even mention that the Y in YAP and YAE stands for Young. Let’s just invite them into the conversation and see where it goes.

Posted in Announcements, Meetings | 3 Comments »

Book Writing v. Blog Writing

June 27, 2011

Okay, I haven’t been posting here as often as I should, but it’s because I’ve been a bit pre-occupied with writing a book. Maddie Grant and I are in the final editing stages of a book called Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World. The book was born out of conversations that Maddie and I were having for about a year, both online and offline, about the “social organization.” Social media is a big deal for organizations, but not just for marketing and communications. It is changing the way we run our organizations.

But as we started writing the book, we realized it’s not really even about social media. Social media just shines a light on the fact that we have been running our organizations like machines for at least a century, and that is no longer serving us. We argue that being human–being open, trustworthy, generative, and courageous–was one of the keys to the success of social media. More importantly, though, those elements also provide a set of organizing principles that can guide the way we run our organizations that is much more powerful than the status quo.

In the book we dig into each element in detail, discussing how human organizations address each issue at the levels of culture, process, and individual behavior. Once the book is out (in September), we will also have a set of worksheets that you can download–one for each of the four main chapters on open, trustworthy, generative, and courageous–to help you get started changing things, no matter where you are in the organization.

The book is available for pre-order now, and we do have the book website set up (though the worksheets won’t be there until September) at www.humanizebook.com. And I promise now that the book is done, I’ll have more time for blogging!

Posted in Announcements, MSP News, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Social Media Policies

April 28, 2011

Interesting conversation this morning on the ASAE Executive Management Listserv about social media policies. It seems a consultant to an association said something on his personal Facebook page that the Board didn’t like one of the questions put to the list was, should the consultant be fired? Was it actually a violation of policies? Could it be objectively considered poor judgment? Interesting conversation.

And one of the follow up questions was, what is your association’s social media policy? Um, that’s assuming you have one. I posted the link to the SocialFish white paper on the subject. It’s a good read. We’re actually in the process here of developing policies, and I’ll report back on it when we’re done.

Anyone out there who’s already done policies have any insights to share?

Posted in Management | Leave a Comment »

Are You Still Collecting Dues?

March 29, 2011

There was an interesting conversation today on the twitter-based Association Chat (with the snicker-laden hashtag on Twitter of #assnchat) that was putting in question the membership model for associations. There is a good article by Erin Fuller in Associations Now on the topic as well, and there was a great session at the Great Ideas conference on the topic just a few weeks ago. Of course a few months ago the association blogosphere was quite busy discussing  Joe Flowers’ public declaration to not renew ASAE dues. I had a post in that flurry about “just what are we joining.”

There, that should keep you reading for a while!

But also check out the twitter stream on today’s conversation (search for assnchat on twitter and scroll down; it was an active discussion). There was a lot of back and forth, though I’d say most were supportive of the idea of dues becoming less important, and there was support for the “freemium” model where basic membership is free, but you can upgrade to get more service.

I thought it was interesting that there were questions about how the organization would “pay” for getting rid of dues. Do you raise prices on other things? How will we “fund operations” without dues? Comments like me make me raise my eyebrow a little. What do you mean how do we “fund operations” without dues? You fund operations with revenue. Dues is a kind of revenue. But that question almost sounds like you HAVE to have dues simply because you have “operations.” That implied sense of entitlement is one that that bugs me in the dues conversation.  It’s circular. We have to collect dues, because if we didn’t, how could we pay people to collect the dues?

Now, I know no one literally thinks that, but I do think the comments I saw are evidence that our community needs to shake up its thinking about dues and membership. Here was my only comment in the discussion:

 

 

 

To be clear, I’m not anti-dues, and I do think there are plenty of places where we should charge them and members will gladly pay because they get such clear value out of belonging. But it’s not to pay for operations, because in today’s decentralized world, centralized operations don’t have as much default value as they used to. So what’s the trend out there folks (particularly my AMC brethren)? Are dues on the way out?

Posted in Membership | 14 Comments »

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