And that’s fine. Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t like telling poeple what to do (maybe even to a fault). But when I started doing the work, I ended up focusing too much on the “tread lightly” advice. I was quiet, and didn’t speak up, and waited for them to give me things to which I could react. In short, I was passive. And that didn’t serve me or the Board.

I realized, in retrospect unfortunately, that in my quest to not offend or control, I effectively removed all of my power from the equation. There is an important difference, it turns out, between being powerful and being controlling. There is a difference between being strong and dictating.

In general, we need more strength in our organizations. We need more people being powerful–not controlling or dictating–but powerful and strong. This is true of Board members, consultants, and the people whose boxes are at the bottom of the organizational chart. Play your cards. Speak your mind. Make your contribution. Get it done. You can do all of these things while still “treading lightly” if you are aware of the others in the system and engage them respectfully. But holding back and playing small and waiting until later, in most cases, is not the path we need.

(On a side note, this is what I absolutely LOVE about blogging. I read one blog post, that sparked me to share a fairly brief idea, that sparked Scott to share something… So much insight is generated this way, that just didn’t happen as easily before social media. But I digress…)

I love Scott’s ideas for figuring out new patterns. My favorite was his fifth one: imagine that in 24 months your dues revenue will be down by 75%. What would you do? How would you shift to draw in revenue that was not an obligation that needed to be “renewed” every year? You know you’d need to drop programs with such a dramatic cut in revenue, so which ones would go or be transformed? For everything that is “subsidized” by dues, who are the people that really value it? Would they pay? I think these kinds of questions are excellent ones to answer and would probably prompt a lot of pattern shifting, even if your dues were increasing.

David presents an “engagement acceleration curve” that clarifies the different levels of engagement and, more importantly, demonstrates a progression from less engaged to more engaged. Often, particularly in small associations, I think we just look right to the end. Who can we get on the Board? Who can we get as a major sponsor? These are very high levels of engagement, which really require a progression through other levels. We might intuitively know this, but I think it helps to be more explicit about it, so we can effectively feed the funnel, so to speak.

I look at some of the associations that I manage and I realize that we are not offering enough effective engagement opportunities at the lower end of the scale. And when we do offer them, there isn’t a clear next step, other than to join or come to an event, which are bigger steps. I also find it interesting that in one case, coming to an event (we do them monthly) one would think would be an easier step than joining (which costs between eight and twenty times the registration fee of one event), yet nearly all of our attendees are members. Hmmm.

Thanks, David, for helping me to think more clearly about these issues in concrete ways!

I just added a page for NARI Metro DC, one of the associations I manage. I just put in our Facebook Page and our twitter account. Some of the other associations on there have more detailed listings including stories of why they started social media.

So if you’re just dipping your toes into social media, check it out and see what others are doing. And if you’re actually doing social media, then create an account and make a page! (Hint: if you’re nervous about the coding, just find a page you like and copy the source code.)

According to Maggie’s post, they started the Fan page about  eight months ago with no goals and no plan, and today it has 20,000 fans. Now, ASHA is a big association and it has a large student base, so I doubt all associations will get this kind of growth, but it points out a key lesson when it comes to social media: get out there before you are clear on what you are going to do in social media. I don’t mean jump into all the tools because they are the newest thing. You still need to develop a strategy. It’s not “if you build it they will come.”

But you are not going to have your strategy all developed first and THEN you launch your initiative. You’re going to be developing it (in part) on the fly because part of the essence of social media is that the users actually get a say in how it develops. But the longer you wait to start and get out there, the longer it will take for you to get the results.

Strategic opportunities and crises are both blissfully unaware of our calendars and how busy our elected leaders are.

You need to change your mission at the precise time you need to change your mission.

The question isn’t how often you talk about it. The questions is how would you even know that your mission is no longer cutting it?

There are parts of a strategy process that can be scheduled, but understanding the core value you deliver to members, customers, or clients has to be continuous, because it is constantly evolving. And it’s not just understanding the value you delivered yesterday, it’s also figuring out what the value will be tomorrow. The fact that this work must happen all the time is precisely why you can NOT limit it only to the elected leaders or the top of the org chart. Big decisions can be centralized, but deepening our understanding of strategic value must happen everywhere, or we’ll end up missing opportunities.

We should change our organizational habits in ways that more information to flow to all parts of our system about what is valuable, what is working, and why. We can still make strategic choices and implement programs based on a plan, but questions of strategic value need to be addressed as we choose, do, and, learn, rather than at the beginning or end of an x-year cycle.

One of the basic points of our presentation is that the way we manage our identity has changed. In the “analog” age (before the social internet), we were able to divide our individual identity into separate pieces. There was the part that I shared with my family and very close friends, and there was a part that I shared with work colleagues, and there might be separate parts that I only share with other smaller communities related to my interests or hobbies. When you applied for a job in the old days, you were able to present a fairly thin slice of who you were (via a resume and some hand-picked references), and, more importantly, you got to control what that slice looked like.

Today it is different. We create online identities by leaving our mark on Facebook, Linked In, Delicious, Flickr, YouTube, etc. We review books on Amazon, we comment on blogs..there are many ways that our identity shows up on line. It is still true that we have some control over how we present ourselves. Like many people, my linked in profile has a more professional tone to it, and my Facebook profile is more personal and casual.

Yet we can’t keep all those different identities as separate as we used to, because one search on Google and all those pieces can be listed next to each other, not to mention what other people are saying about you online. If anything, the trend is toward EXPECTING to find a diverse identity when searching for someone.

So what do do about all this? There’s no one right answer, but it does require some clarity on your part. I know a lot of people who simply won’t create a Facebook page because they don’t want their work friends to have access to their personal lives. That’s fine. But this can be a big challenge for people who work in AMCs. For example, I have several clients who each have either a Facebook or LinkedIn group, and I want to be connected to those conversations. Do I have to create a separate account for each of those identities, or can I handle the fact that the Historical Archaeologists will realize that I am also connected to Remodeling Professionals?

I have chosen to keep it mixed. We will see how much “confusion” it creates, though I suspect it won’t be much. And sure, I’m careful about what I post or say on Facebook because I know everyone (related to all my separate identities) might read it. But I also have concluded that I am human and I don’t need to hide that.

You don’t have to do it that way. You can keep things separate, or not reveal as much. But I think that should be a clear strategic choice on your part. Have you thought about the implications of your choice?

Each webinar will be an open conversation among three panelists. This Thursday it will be me, Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation, and Ken Wolff from the consulting firm Achievance. But the conversation is not limited to the webinar itself. TMA has set up a blog just on this topic. I’ll be posting to it later today, as will many of the panelists, and there is also a twitter hashtag: #beyondrelevance.

Come join the conversation!

But when I get neck deep in the work, I forget it. I send the emails out, or we have the Board meeting, or I have the conversation, and then it’s out of my head. I have checked that box. I did my job communicating. I forget that in a week or two I need to send the same message out. I forget that my staff will perform better when I share more information than I think is necessary.

It is particularly important when an association has a decentralized committee structure. A lot happens at the Board level that is assumed to have been communicated down to the Committees. And it was, it just wasn’t communicated enough. We need to remind our leaders (both staff and volunteer) that when you get to the top positions, the decision-making responsibilities are often dwarfed by the communication responsibilities.

Then we should tell them that again.