Acronym

Here's a little fuel for the fire in the debate around the future of associations and membership organizations.

Some of you might be aware of a very young outfit called Inside the Third Tribe. If you're not, you might be familiar with some of its founders, who are all experts in internet marketing and/or social media.

You should take a few minutes to read the background on Inside the Third Tribe, but here it is in a nutshell: a bunch of bloggers decide they want to share professional expertise, network, and learn from each other, so they start a membership organization that offers educational sessions and webinars, Q&A sessions, and discussion forums. It costs $47/month to join.

Sound familiar? They're not calling it an association, but it's close.

I'm not sure whether the founders are making money from this endeavor (making it a for-profit enterprise) or if they're devoting all the revenue back to generating programs and services (making it more like a nonprofit), but I think this might be a compelling study to follow in the future, for a few reasons:

• The people. As the story of Inside the Third Tribe explains, this is a network of bloggers who have decided that money is important to them and that information isn't necessarily free. They have actively separated themselves from the widespread philosophy among bloggers who talk about "relationships, community, and value . . . and yet seem to have taken a vow of poverty along the way."
• The money. This is not a free organization. The fact that the founders, particularly given who they are, have chosen a paid-membership model is evidence that that model still holds weight. It points to the notion that, while the free exchange of ideas is cute for a while, eventually it becomes apparent that staging high-quality education and networking programs costs money and that those who seek them might have to pay for them in one way or another.
• The timing. The organization is barely a month old. It was born in 2010, not 1910. Not only can we watch it from the start, but we can watch it as it starts among modern societal, technological, and economic conditions. If you've ever wondered whether Association XYZ would survive without its century-old advantage of a wide, firmly established membership base, here's an example to watch. 

Inside the Third Tribe could flame out quickly, or it could last and grow for years. I'm not going to try to make any predictions. And to be fair, it's not the first time social media people have formed an association of sorts (look here, here, and here), and it likely won't be the last. But it is one more example—and a paid-membership example, at that—to keep an eye on.