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Appreciate you posting this Mark and clarifying your perspective. I'm not sure though that the previous conversation needs to be thought of as traditional associations versus social media or even the sweet spot about the two. I perceived it to be a conversation about community, connectedness, and learning and people choosing different pathways for accomplishing those goals. Talking about it on those terms (for me) helps us stay in the sweet spot that I think you are suggesting.

Well said, Mark. The complexity facing associations and their membership is enormous. The value add of social media is a significant advance to our work and offers up a fresh, new landscape on which member ideas can and will flourish. The good news is association have a critical role in interpreting and interpolating those mediums to deliver even more value to members. For example, while many believe using paper is detrimental to the environment, if you love clean air and water, you want to be certain new trees are planted regularly to sequester carbon from earth's atmosphere and cleanse the water aquifer that sustains life on our planet. So print and paper are good for the environment, right? Our challenge in today's saturated information and social media stream remains the same---helping our members sort it all out by taking a closer look at what matters and helping them thrive as a result.

Nice post, Mark! I agree that turning the issue into an "either-or" debate is misleading and unproductive over the long term.

Thanks for that perspective, Jeffrey. Breaking concepts down into systems (traditional or virtual) is intellectually useful for analytical purposes but creates an artificial paradigm. It isn't how people actually function. No two participants "play" the same way on a field that includes both traditional associations and online communities. It is keeping common cause despite all these individual differences, rather one system "winning" over another that leads to success.

A number of weeks ago, before this conversation got started, I wrote a blog post on the Membership Marketing Blog titled, "Innovation through Collaboraton".

In short, I think a sometimes forgotten benefit of the membership and association model is the platform that it provides for collaboration and innovation.

The power of collaboration that is provided by an association in a particular field or industry is not unlike what Edward Glaeser, author of "Triumph of the City”, highlights in a much larger sense when looking at the collaboration arising not out of sharing in an association, but because of the physical proximity of people to each other in a city environment. He says, “So much of what humankind has achieved over the past three millennia has come out of the remarkable collaborative creations that come out of cities. We are a social species. We come out of the womb with the ability to sop up information from people around us. It's almost our defining characteristic as creatures. And cities play to that strength. Cities enable us to learn from other people. They enable us to become better, in a sense, by leveraging the talent of the crowds around us. When you think about all the great inventions that human beings have made -- from Athenian philosophy to Henry Ford's Model T's, to Facebook -- they were always collaborative.”

Interesting observation, Tony.

In The Power of Pull, Brown, Davison & Hagel talk about ease of access (whether through physical proximity or social media or formal organizational efforts) creating a network of like-minded individuals in which serendipitous collaborations occur: you make a connection that answers a question before you even know quite what you are asking; you find information you didn't even know you were looking for.

You can't just sit around waiting for serendipity to occur, though. The book talks about highly intentional if open-ended efforts to create so many connections and so much information exchange that you maximize the potential for such happy accidents to occur.

Before travel and communications were easy, physical proximity was the only way to establish such "creative commons." Associations maximized that potential as travel and communications got easier, but still were far greater obstacles than they are today. The web has made communications and proximity and just "putting yourself out there" easier still.

Mark, thanks for updating us on your previous post and for clarifying your stance. I am a hardcore advocate for associations and have the volunteer hours to prove it, which is why this issue is so important to me. I'm involved in all three of the social media resources that the blogger you referenced above identified as replacing the need for a traditional association, yet I still argue for the value of the association.

Recently, there was a discussion on the freemium model for organizations. Some people think it is impractical (how to replace the lost revenue of dues?) and some see it as inevitable (when people can organize online for free, why pay dues?). I know that for me, association membership has been an invaluable, irreplaceable part of my career development. I can't imagine I'd be where I am today without it. But there is a huge hurdle to get beyond a new member and what their perceived value is compared to the actual value available to a more recognized, longstanding member. My biggest benefit when I started out with ASAE was the listservs. It was how I got to know people, how I began to recognize the who's who, how I learned about things that would help me out in my job.

For a new member today, he/she might find a lot of that same value on Twitter or as part of an online open community for association professionals. Are they looking at the listservs? I am, but are the younger association members?

I realize I'm just hashing out the same old arguments here, but I guess it's because I do care so much and I am concerned about how we can impart the importance of belonging to a professional association. I'm also concerned about how we can make up for what may have become duplicitous benefits that may be found elsewhere.

Someone posted a tweet to the freemium discussion that said they valued their association for the research that couldn't be found elsewhere. Is that one example of an area to grow in so that we can make up for lost ground? Information is power - how can associations leverage that in order to stay relevant?

Deposit: 2 cents (plus tax).

Everyone here talks about ASAE as if its this thing that is suppose to do something for us and transform our lives without any effort on our part.

THIS is the comment I most resonated with over there. I hear that all the time from my OWN members -- it's sort of like an Ab Roller. You can buy it and put it in the corner and then be shocked when you don't have rock hard abs in a week like the infomercial promised. It requires effort.

I love ASAE. I don't have unlimited funds but if my employer stopped paying for ASAE membership, I'd still be a part. I think that's because I engage myself though, through volunteering and blogging here and being on committees. I also think the CAE is invaluable and plan to pursue that here in the next couple of years.

IDK. I think you get out of ASAE what you put into it, just as our own members do. I think it's a shame for ANY person in the association world to not put their money where their mouth is: how can you tell your OWN members that they need to join YOUR association if you won't even join the association for your profession?