Is it the time of year? Is it the economy or is it just in my head?
I am writing this on Sunday, January 11, 2009. I can’t get past the feeling that things in the association world are awfully quiet right now. The association blogs seem to be slow. ASAE listservs seem to be slow. Even the marketing emails I seem to always be getting seem to have slowed down. I don’t feel the buzz and the excitement that I am used to and I can’t figure out why.
It does appear that more and more organizations, for-profit and non, are shutting down between Christmas and New Year’s. Does this lead to employees needing longer to get back in the swing of things upon their return? Obviously the majority of organizations, again for-profit and non, are worried about the economy and the impact it will have on their business. Has this lead to employees being more internally focused and spending more of their time running potential scenarios and having meetings internally? Or, is this all a perception in my head and because of the 2 things I just listed and more I notice it more this year than I have in the past?
Believe it or not this is keeping me up at night. Am I over-exaggerating or are things slower than usual this time of the year and if they are, how do we start things hopping once again? Buzz, excitement and innovation within the association space benefits all of us. Therefore we all should do the most with what we have and do our part to keep things positive, exciting and fun.
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Comments
Things are hopping here. I seem to be printing all of a sudden. I think I have about 5 bids out there at the moment. Where did that come from? Maybe the silence on the listservs is lack of time.
The upside of a bad economy is I am thinking a lot more about what I am doing - how can I do this cheaper, is this worth doing, how can I do this better.
Posted by: Sarah Lawler | January 14, 2009 3:00 PM
For me personally it is the time of year. I always slow down in Jan/Feb .. I appreciate the slowness right now as April - October is really BUSY.
However on several committee teleconferences over the past week the general consensus was that folks were slow coming back from the holidays.
Posted by: Julie Hewett | January 14, 2009 3:52 PM
I'm finding the exact opposite, Scott. Webinars abound, registration is ahead of pace for my annual training conferences, and I'm getting more calls from members for advice. I think the bad economy (shh! we don't want to keep talking about it) is making people think harder about how to serve their audiences.
Posted by: David M. Patt, CAE | January 14, 2009 6:02 PM
Turmoil in the mortgage markets, daily gyrations in the stock market, clarion calls to Congress for financial bail-outs (even Independent Sector got into the act asking for $15 billion for nonprofits) and seemingly endless announcements of lay-offs both in industry and the nonprofit world. Whoa. Yet, it strikes me that most folks are simply catching their collective breath and working to re-focus their efforts on the new terrain of 2009. With the coming leadership transition of U.S. Presidents and political parties, we're all on the cusp of a change lollapalooza. Optimism will be a powerful force multiplier for 2009 and beyond.
Posted by: Kerry C Stackpole, CAE | January 15, 2009 10:29 AM
I think you are correct that things seem to be taking longer this year to get started after the new year. But as others have already pointed out, we have been reading so much bad economic news that I think we and our association clients are all being more strategic and deliberate in our efforts to ensure that we are starting the new year off in the right direction. Rather than bemoanding the economic downturn, this is a good time to reconsider what you are doing and how you are doing it to ensure your communications are effective and in line with today's climate. For those of us inside the Beltway, in particular, there seems much more of a "wait and see" attitude in anticipation of next week's Inauguration and the fresh start of a new Administration. A lot of us are hopeful that all of that will kick start the economy so that we can get on with the hard work ahead.
Posted by: Debra Stratton | January 16, 2009 2:09 PM
Hi Debra,
Your comment was great. I agree with number of things.
1. I think we may be feeling it more in DC because of the Inauguration. Most people who work in DC that I know and are not involved with the inauguration are not working on Tuesday. They are also off Monday for MLK Day so they will experience a slow down after they have just gotten back up to speed from the Holidays.
2. Now is the time to do the right things to grow, or maintain, your business, not focus on the gloom and doom of the economy. I like to say it is really time for associations to focus on the "Need to do, not the nice to do." If you have the funds for the "nice to do" that is great but the "need to do" is really the critical piece.
I am excited to announce that I did feel some of the buzz I had been missing on Thursday of last week. I went to a seminar on sponsorship held at Raffa where Lewis Flax spoke. About 20 people showed up and the vibe was very positive. Later that morning I actually spoke/facilitated at the Alexandria Brown Bag on Marketing in a Down Economy (or something like that). Over 55 people came and we had a very energetic exchange on what people were doing in the face of the current economy. Some folks shared that their organizations were down but there were also a good number of folks who said that there organizations were holding steady or, believe it or not, they were ahead of last year. Again the vibe in the room was very positive and we really focused on solutions, and how to work smarter and better, instead of bitching and moaning about how bad the economy is. It was great to see the excitement I sort of felt was missing was back.
Posted by: Scott Oser | January 17, 2009 2:27 PM