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A couple weeks ago, a new speaker was announced for the opening general session at ASAE's 2011 Annual Meeting & Expo. The only bad news is that this change renders moot my previous post about the topic of the opening general session, but the good news is that it offers the opportunity to discuss here another big challenge facing associations.

Tina Brown, editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast and Newsweek, will deliver the opening general session keynote. She has a lengthy and varied experience in journalism and publications, and her current role gives her a first-hand understanding of multi-platform publishing.

Associations are getting in on multi-platform publishing—print, web, mobile, tablet—but few if any associations have the resources and scope of a major consumer publication. So, the name of the game is efficiency, and that's the question I hope Brown can shed some light on:

How can associations deliver content to their members in multiple formats without also multiplying work and resources?

It's a complicated question with complicated answers. I'm increasingly doubtful that creating new, tailored content for every platform that comes along will ever be a cost-effective strategy. But with that said, I struggle to make the connections between content created for a print publication and useful repurposing for a smartphone (or vice versa, or for tablets, or for the web).

Brown may have some interesting ideas about efficiency in publishing, but that will be just the beginning of the conversation. I'm eager to hear from fellow association professionals, as well, about what has and has not worked for them so far as they navigate the new publishing environment.