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I am delighted to hear colleagues around the world on the blog. In one comment, Gary from Australia notes that:

There is so much embedded US culture in associations that it will take a lot of work and sensitivity to move forward (for example US-centric stuff like '401k', SOX, holidays).

It seems to me that the learning is: 1) global moves will take a lot of time, 2) there is no substitute for people living in the other culture.

But it applies to people of all cultures. The perception and image of the U.S. is as dysfunctional and skewed from "the global news as our perceptions in the U.S. of other countries is because of our news. Generally, we look at the world through our own experiences and what we perceive or see. We need to find ways to bridge that gap. Sam Palmisano, the current CEO and Chairman of IBM, wrote a compelling article (PDF) about the globally integrated organization. He said that the future organizations should be focused on managing different operations, expertise and capabilities to provide clear value locally, no matter where it is. It isn’t about going “glocal”, but rather being “local,” using expertise and capabilities that can help craft a value proposition that is pertinent in the area. It means accepting that there isn’t one business model that works everywhere.

It also applies to associations. We can’t take our models, whether U.S. or Australian or Indian, and shop them around the world to find a good host. But rather, we need to understand the value proposition in a given area and “plug in” to managing the operation locally to deliver on the value proposition. Like Jeff De Cagna said in his Principled Innovation blog, technology will let us do it better today than we ever could in our past…we just need to be creative with new business models.