Finding Great Idea #200
The following is a guest post from Pamela Strother, CAE, principal, Sponsorship Specialists.
How has the role of knowledge management changed for associations?
When I came in search of Great Idea #200 for "Building Meeting Attendance and Revenue" at #asae11, I walked into the St. Louis Convention Center not realizing that over these few days I would witness our massive industry accept the big shift. Oh, how it pains this Gen X'er to say it. But here I go...
Associations no longer control knowledge and content. We no longer control monetizing that knowledge. And, we no longer control how people convene!
As Sheri Jacobs (@Chicagogirl27) tweeted the other day, association members are telling us: "We want what we want when we want it in the format we want it. Easy enough"
Well, not so easy. I watched time and again what felt like senior association managers giving confessionals about how they are worried that they don't have the resources to manage a shift to our new world of knowledge sharing — and frankly even about their relevance now that they don't control the information. The good news for all of us is that being association professionals has prepared us.
Dave Lutz and Jeff Hurt of Velvet Chainsaw (@VelChain) summed it up for me: We are now the curators of knowledge and information and the hub of where people come to talk about it.
We don't post tweets with the hash tag #associations, we post tweets with the hash tag #ASAE. What could be more valuable, and validating, at this moment in time? If your association is not a leader on Twitter, please make this your first priority when you get home. Your current and potential members are already talking about the cutting edge of knowledge without you in this space.
Great Idea #200 is not just an idea, it is the framework in which the next 199 ideas will bubble up from the ASAE community for each of the 199 Ideas series. I for one, look forward to contributing!
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Comments
Pamela:
Thanks for quoting us in your post and glad you attended our session. I'm so in agreement with you that association leaders need to see themselves as the curators of content and the conduits for industry-forward conversations about that content.
While some might think that seeing the association as the hub of conversation as old-school, I see it as a return to the basics. Today, so many conversations and discussions occur online. If our associations are not seen as one of the primary providers of that contextual conversation, then we have a bigger issue on hand.
Thanks again!
Posted by: Jeff Hurt | August 10, 2011 11:36 AM
Pamela, thanks for the shout out! Glad that you left ASAE with valuable take-aways. Hope our paths cross again soon!
Posted by: Dave Lutz | August 10, 2011 3:15 PM
Jeff, I am so glad you mention old-school. While I was thinking about this big take away, I had a wonderful conversation with another attendee who is both a young professional and a new CAE (@laureljake). We both shouted out at the same time, this is what people were doing when they founded associations--they sat around tables and talked to each other! We love this about associations.
Dave, I feel so fortunate to have meet you in Baltimore at AIBTM and to learn more from you and Jeff before I got to ASAE11. You really helped me to be open to the big shift.
Posted by: Pamela Strother | August 10, 2011 5:47 PM