August 11, 2005
Annual Meeting Preview at Associations Unorthodox
As some of you know, I produce and act as "resident heretic" for the Associations Unorthodox podcast, the world's first podcast for association leaders. I have posted my Annual Meeting preview show to the podcast blog. (The RSS feed is available here.) I hope you'll check it out. If you're not familiar with podcasting or didn't know there is a podcast specifically for you, here's your chance to experience it!
Posted by Jeff De Cagna at 04:20 PM | Comments (0)
August 10, 2005
Question Answers
Shawn wrote a great post earlier on the importance of "questioning," using as an example Blockbuster, which decided to get into the movie business when an executive asked the CEO in the elevator, "Why do we need to go to the studios to buy movies? Why don't we go to the filmmakers?"
But that just makes me wonder why someone else didn't step on to that elevator and ask, "Why do customers need to come to our stores to rent movies? Why don't we send the movies to our customers?" If someone had asked that question, and been taken seriously, Blockbuster might not have been caught off guard by, and had to play catch up to, that young upstart Netflix.
There's been a lot of talk on this blog about the questions you're bringing with you to the ASAE Conference. Sure, it's a great place to meet people who do similar things and ask questions like, "How do you manage your email marketing programs? Do you send letters with your invoices? Is meeting attendance up or down? Are you as frustrated with your database as we are?"
I have no doubt I'll be asking questions like those. But I can't help but think that the better questions to ask -- of each other and ourselves -- are the deeper ones. The ones that challenge our assumptions about the fundamentals of what we do. The ones that aren't about new business plans, but new business models. The ones that sound kind of crazy. The ones that make us uncomfortable.
Last week I was caught in a typo in the office when I meant to write the phrase "get your questions answered" and accidentally wrote "get your answers questioned."
Here's hoping we all raise some questions about each other's answers at the conference in a couple days.
And hey, did you hear they're going to have 45 bars at the opening reception?
Posted by at 11:55 PM | Comments (2)
Extreme Questioning - Or All About My Date with Drew
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I'm reading Patricia Ryan Madson's Improv Wisdom right now. In the prologue she talks about a paperweight she keeps on her desk all the time that says, "What would you do if you knew you would not fail?"
I just kind of tripped over it at the time - yeah, yeah, yeah, bumper-sticker psychobabble. Sounds good - but how would I put it to use at work, etc. etc.
But then I'm reading an article by Jia Lynn Yang in the August 8th issue of Fortune magazine - and it brought home that sometimes when you ask those questions, it does work out in the "real world."
Most of you have probably heard rumblings about a new indie documentary released Aug. 5, My Date with Drew, about one man's quest to win a date with Drew Barrymore. But did you know that the company that produced it, DEJ Productions, is an offshoot of Blockbuster Vidoeo?
DEJ Productions was formed six years ago as a way for Blockbuster to bypass the studios and go straight to the filmmakers when filling its shelves. It has acquired close to 400 movies, mostly at film festivals around the world. Most go straight to DVD, but some have enjoyed box office success, including Charlize Theron's Monster and this year's Crash.
And how did it begin? With an extreme question, posed by Dean Wilson (now head of business development) to CEO John Antioco on an elevator ride: Why do we need to go to the studios to buy movies? Why don't we go to the filmmakers?
Now that you have an example of someone who asked an extreme question and didn't get fired - what are the extreme questions that we need to be asking our CEOs in the elevator? (I knew there was a good reason I take the stairs.)
Posted by at 04:18 PM | Comments (1)
August 09, 2005
How hot will it be in Nashville?
Packing for Nashville? Looks like it'll be "xtremely" hot next week. The staff at ASAE and the Center is recommending shorts for the outdoor events.
Posted by at 05:35 PM | Comments (0)
August 07, 2005
Less than a week to go...
Less than a week to go before the Annual Meeting, and the excitement is building. We hope you're excited too! We can't wait to see so many of you, our friends and colleagues, onsite in Nashville. And for our friends and colleagues who won't be with us in body, we know you'll be there in spirit. Rest assured, the XtremeASAE Bloggers and X-Blog Contributors are going to do their level best to cover as much of the Annual Meeting experience as possible for you. We hope you'll join us in the conversation.
Don't forget that our iPod Shuffle Contest begins in just a few hours, at 12:01 am EDT tomorrow. It's very important that you read yesterday's post about it so you know exactly how you can enter to win!
Posted by Jeff De Cagna at 10:24 PM | Comments (1)
August 05, 2005
Thought leader interview poll winner: Jim Gilmore
Thanks one all for voting in our thought leader interview poll. We're pleased to announce that Jim Gilmore, co-author of The Experience Economy, was chosen by XtremeASAE Blog readers as the thought leader session speaker you want us to interview. Congratulations, Jim!
Jim's session will take place on Monday, August 15 from 3 pm-4 pm. We are going to attempt a brief recorded interview that will be posted as an audioblog to the XtremeASAE Blog on Monday evening.
Don't forget to vote in our general session extended blogger coverage poll that is currently going on, and stay tuned for more information on how you can win an Apple iPod Shuffle. We're coming down to the wire and the fun has just begun!
Posted by Jeff De Cagna at 12:25 AM | Comments (0)
July 19, 2005
Share your burning questions!
As we approach the Annual Meeting, the XtremeASAE Bloggers are interested in learning about the burning questions you hope will be addressed during the meeting. Whether or not you plan to join us in Nashville, please help us help you and your colleagues from around the association community by sharing some of your burning questions as comments to this post.
To come up with your burning questions, reflect on the following inquiries:
+What is the most challenging issue you deal with on a daily basis?
+Looking ahead, what issue concerns you and your association most?
+In the back of your mind, what new ideas are your percolating?
Please share your views with this emerging community. Keep in mind that all comments to this blog are moderated in order to control spam, so please be patient as we approve them for posting. Thanks!
Posted by Jeff De Cagna at 08:38 AM | Comments (2)
July 18, 2005
Flat companies
Laurence Prusak, in an article in the Harvard Business Review (June 2005), explains the popular success of Malcolm Gladwell's Blink as a "refocused attention on the perennial issue of intuition versus reason."
The age of the computer has led to the belief that the best decisions are rational. Add to that a newfound romanticism of leadership, starring the Hero Leader - making decisions, rationally, by himself, at the top.
He sees Blink and James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds as a backlash to this rational ideal. Surowiecki asserts that the many, when informed, make better decisions than the one. (Consider the success of "whisper numbers," which often predict companies' future earnings better than individual analysts do.)
Prusak believes an instinctive faith in hierarchical leadership is baked into our genes, but it's an instinct we must fight. Leaders play a role - inspiring the troops, building teams, representing the organization - but they cannot be the sole decision makers.
He ends with the thought that organizations should look to America's national motto for guidance, E pluribus unum: From many voices, one better decision.
Flat company, anyone?
Posted by at 03:31 PM | Comments (3)