Acronym

The following is a guest post from Peggy Hoffman, CAE, president, Mariner Management.

I have to say my head is still spinning from the last day at ASAE11. In particular, it's spinning from "Collective Intelligence: A Community Innovation Challenge." In a very quick 75 minutes, we explored a very timely topic - volunteerism - and an innovation process. The session was set up as a truly experiential learning opportunity. We were tasked with developing a prototype solution to the question: "How can the volunteer experience be designed to address the evolving skill, knowledge, and time needs of associations and the interests of individuals?"

We were given 4 steps of an 8-step innovation process to work through. We had a facilitator, Marsha Rhea, CAE, president, Signature i, to keep us on time and focused. We had a great group of executives who were respectful and creative.

What made this session so powerful though was what went before it and the promise of what is to come. And, this is perhaps one of the best learnings from the event. You see, sitting in the airport awaiting the homeward bound flight, a group of us talked about how learning should not be a discrete event.

This event began before ASAE11 as part of the Innovation project. The idea is to encourage innovation talks and even to begin to define a process associations can use. Staff reached out to members and asked for challenges that could be tackled in the innovation talks at the annual meeting. Volunteerism was a popular topic. Following this session, ASAE will be continuing the conversation through Collaborate where a group will be set up to further work on the ideas our groups sketched in this Tuesday morning session.

Do you see the whole picture? Tie a new project to a session, engage input in that session before you get to town, then continue the work virtually. So stay tuned to more info. Be prepared to join the conversation on Collaborate.

Let me leave with three lessons learned in the session about crafting a successful innovation conversation:
1. Start if off strong - we began with the Beatles' song "Revolution."

2. Set up the conversation in parts with distinct time periods. We began with exploring current challenges, future assumptions, and strategic opportunities followed by defining the problem to overcome; then brainstorming innovations and solutions, and wrapping up with designing an initial prototype of an innovative solution or strategy.

3. For effective brainstorming, practice the 2-minute pause. Take 2-minutes for everyone to write down their ideas. Then share in a rapid-fire fashion.

Let's get our collective "I's" on.