Principled Innovation LLC

Initial thoughts on Boston

August 22nd, 2006

Well, the ASAE & The Center Annual Meeting, for which I have been preparing quite literally for months is nearly over. I am sitting in the final general session right now, and I’m in something of a reflective mood, so I thought I would share some of my initial impressions about the meeting.

Overall, I think the ASAE & The Center staff did a fine job pulling this meeting together. The word of mouth is very positive on the meeting, although it doesn’t rise to the same level of enthusiasm as last year’s meeting in Nashville. On the other hand, if the Nashville meeting had a commonly-expressed shortcoming, it was in the quality of educational sessions. That has not been an issue this year. The buzz on most sessions–general, thought leader and concurrent alike–has been quite positive.

During yesterday’s general session, Bill Taylor, formerly of Fast Company magazine and co-author of the new book, Mavericks at Work, used a phrase familiar to anyone who is paying attention to what is happening on the Web today. The phrase, “architecture of participation,” originated with well-known digerato, Tim O’Reilly, and the idea captures the spirit of Web 2.0 technologies designed to include a broad variety of contributors. This morning, Pam Hemann, ASAE’s new chair, used the phrase in her first address to the audience. I very much hope this was not a casual mention, but a serious statement of ASAE & The Center’s intention to leverage the talents, energy and passion of the organization’s members. In my capacity as chair of ASAE & The Center’s Executive Management Section Council, the architecture of participation is a top priority for me, so I’ll be writing more about this idea as it applies to associations.

Playing off that last point, let me offer one final thought for now. I will leave Boston tomorrow morning with the distinct sense that there is a sea change emerging in the association community. On this blog, I have posted many of my thoughts within the category of “extreme makeover,” and my informed intuition tells me that the tipping point for such change in associations is rapidly approaching. Below the surface of this meeting, I have picked up both weak and strong signals that association leaders are finally fed up with the head-banging frustration of the status quo, and they are preparing to take decisive action in their organizations. I don’t know if what I am feeling is real or just wishful thinking, but I am energized and optimistic about what we can achieve together.

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Entry Filed under: Principled Innovation Blog, What's New?, Social Media, Innovation, Associations, Extreme Makeover, Random Thoughts, Simplicity, We Have Always Done It That Way