On Wednesday, January 7, 2009, from 2 pm-3:30 pm EST, I’ll be leading a brand new FREE P.I. Briefing on “Top 2009 Trends for Association Leaders.”  I hope you’ll be able to join me.  You can register for this briefing right now at http://2009trends.eventbrite.com.  The complete session information is below.

“The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.”

The words of the great thinker, Eric Hoffer, have never been more true.  There is simply no question that 2009 will be a watershed year in the history of the United States and, quite possibly, the world. An unprecedented global economic crisis is unfolding before our eyes, and there is growing momentum for fundamental change. As these forces of paradigm shift continue to accelerate and intensify, your association must prepare to shape its future by anticipating and acting on emerging challenges and opportunities today.

To get your association’s strategic conversations going in the right direction next year, join Jeff De Cagna–the association community’s leading voice for innovation–for a fast-paced exploration of the key issues and trends that will shape our society and the association world in the coming year and beyond. This high-impact virtual learning opportunity will push your thinking, and inspire you to imagine what is possible!

IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS P.I. BRIEFING IS EXCLUSIVELY FOR FULL-TIME ASSOCIATION STAFF.

Before you complete your free registration for this unique briefing, please consider one of the following upgraded participation options!

If you want access to session resources…choose Association Staff Plus!

Participants interested in receiving a package of powerful resources from the call, including the session audio recording, a PDF of the session slides, a discussion guide for using these resources with your board and Jeff’s Top Five 2009 Innovation Forecasts, should select the “Association Staff Plus” registration option. You will receive these resources within two weeks of the call.

If you need more focused advice…choose Virtual Advisor!

Associations seeking more focused advice from Jeff should choose the Virtual Advisor option. You will participate in the January 7 briefing AND Jeff will schedule a 30 minute follow-up conference call with your staff and volunteer leaders to consider the implications of the trends for your association. PLUS you’ll receive the package of resources from the January 7 P.I. Briefing for FREE!

Please share this information with association staff colleagues who think would benefit from the session.  And if you can’t personally participate, consider registering as a site for your association.  This is going to be a great session!

1.  STOP reacting to each daily dose of bad news–It’s appropriate to be serious and sober about what’s going on today, but don’t overreact to every wild stock market gyration or new government report.  Focus on integrating today’s data into your long-term view.

2.  STOP looking for shortsighted ways to retrench–It’s appropriate to conserve resources by eliminating unnecessary expenditures, but investments in building staff and organizational capabilities do not fall into that category.  Focus on value creation as your top strategic priority.

3.  STOP redoubling your efforts as a defensive strategy–It’s appropriate to concentrate on serving members well when they most need us, but the overused “doing more with less” rallying cry is a tired and unrealistic approach.  Focus on your ability to deliver what’s most important.

After Thanksgiving, I’ll share my “start” doing list for association leaders wondering what they should do during these uncertain times.  Until then, I hope everyone has a very happy and safe holiday!

Yesterday’s P.I. Briefing on “Five Strategies for Capitalizing on Uncertainty” was a great success!  Association executives from around North America participated in the one-hour briefing, and they gained fresh, counterintuitive insights into what it will take for their organizations to succeed in challenging times.  To put it another way, “doing more with less” isn’t the only approach (or even the best approach) for leading associations right now.

Intrigued?  Good!

I invite you to purchase the audio recording and a PDF of the slides for less than $100. It is a worthwhile investment!

The briefing is free, and there are a couple of very affordable upgrade options.  To learn more, go here.  To register, go here.  And you can use the new “Tell” function just below to easily share this post with colleaagues who you think might be interested as well.  Thanks!

As a reader of the P.I. Blog, I hope you will be able to join me, but if your schedule doesn’t permit your participation, please pass the word along to others in your organization.  The call is FREE (with low cost upgrade options), and it will last for only one hour.  Let me urge you not to miss this important strategic conversation.  Please let me know if you have any questions!

From The Daily Stat by Harvard Business Publishing (October 9, 2008)

Social Networking Goes Mainstream

25% of Internet users in the U.S. spend time on social networking sites, according to the Conference Board’s Consumer Internet Barometer, and about half of them visit these sites multiple times per day. Employers can relax — for now: “Home” is the most common place where networkers log on (more than 75%).

From The WOMMA Word daily newsletter (October 15, 2008)

Facebook Now Has Over One Petabyte of Photo Storage

Okay then, what is a petabyte, you ask? It’s simple, really. A petabyte is 2^50 bytes, or 1024^5 bytes, or about 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes. For some context, consider that one photograph on Facebook takes up about 50,000 bytes. Why does Facebook require such a massive amount of storage? Simply, because it’s single-handedly eclipsing all other photo sharing websites with over 10 billion photos, and counting.

[First issue of TV Guide from April 1953; Desi Arnaz, Jr. is the cover boy.]

Some P.I. Blog readers tell me they still can’t see the revolution that I’ve been writing about here.  Okay, maybe this will help make it a bit clearer:

Rupert Murdoch paid $3 billion for TV Guide back in 1988. But things have changed: Macrovision has sold the magazine to OpenGate Capital for one dollar. That’s one American dollar, folks. Macrovision also threw in a $9.5 million, low-interest loan. It is, however, keeping the online TVG franchise.

Please take a moment to consider this development.  The venerable TV Guide franchise, which has been around since 1953, has lost $2,999,999,999 in value in the last 20 years.  And, actually, it’s more when you consider the nearly $10 million loan the previous owner is giving to the new one.

Revolution means that nothing lasts forever.  I hope I’ve made it more clear.  Let me know.

(Hat tip: Stephen Abram) 

Everyone in the association community should read and comment on the draft “Guiding Principles for Associations in Social Responsibility,” one of the project outcomes from The Global Summit on Social Responsibility, sponsored by ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership earlier this year.  (FYI, the window for submitting comments on the draft principles closes tomorrow.)  And when you read the draft principles, here is one word you won’t find anywhere in them: poverty.

I attended the Global Summit, and there was precious little discussion of poverty over the three days of our gathering.  I’m not sure why.  Perhaps its because global climate change and “going green” are much higher profile and sexier topics these days.  Regardless, the goal of eradicating poverty is just as important as any other issue of social responsibility.  Consider the following realities from within our own country:

+The number of U.S. jobs paying a poverty-level wage increased by 4.7 million between 2002 and 2006, and the number of low-income working families increased by 350,000.

+Poverty-wage jobs increased during this period in part because 2.5 million new jobs paid poverty wages; additionally 2.2 million jobs that paid greater than poverty wages in 2002 became poverty-wage jobs by 2006, as pay failed to keep up with the cost of living.

+72 percent of low-income families work, with adults in low-income working families working, on average, 2,552 hours per year in 2006, the equivalent of one and one-quarter full-time jobs.

These numbers are staggering–and, quite frankly, embarrassing–for the world’s largest economy.  So what should associations do about poverty?  My advice is to do something that can make a lasting difference.  Specifically, I suggest that associations stop treating poverty as a series of community service projects, and start engaging with solving the problem as both a moral and strategic imperative.  From my point of view, both are quite clear.  Associations are a part of the fabric of civil society, and our organizations should regard poverty for any human being as fundamentally incompatible with a compassionate and well-functioning social order.  That is the moral imperative.

The strategic imperative is to view the nearly 10 million low-income families in the United States as the loyal and engaged members, customers and contributors of the future, but only if we can meaningfully and respectfully support their efforts to grow personally and professionally, climb the income ladder and achieve the dreams they have for themselves and their children.  This strikes me as a compelling opportunity for socially responsible innovation, another phrase that, sadly, is not found in the draft principles developed by ASAE & The Center.

I invite you to share your thoughts on what associations should do about poverty, both here at home and around the world.  Please post your comments below.  There are still a few more hours left in Blog Action Day 2008.  Please get involved.

To help answer these critical questions, I’ve decided to hold a FREE conference call briefing, Five Strategies for Capitalizing on Uncertainty, exclusively for association staff on Wednesday, October 29 at 2 pm EDT.  Here is the description of the briefing:

As we approach the year 2009, the unfolding economic crisis is creating new uncertainty for association leaders trying to figure out what’s next.  But the rapidly shifting environment also presents a unique and compelling opportunity for association CEOs and senior executives to rethink their current approaches and lay the groundwork for future success.

Join Jeff De Cagna, the association community’s leading voice for innovation, for a conference call briefing on five powerful strategies associations can use to capitalize on the current marketplace uncertainty by reducing costs and creating new value for members, customers and stakeholders.

The conference call briefing is free, and there are a couple of very affordable upgrade options available as well.  More details can be found on the registration site.  I hope you’ll join me on October 29 at 2 pm EDT for this timely and important conversation!

Here is the Wordle from the recent strategic planning debate on Acronym.

What do you think?  What do you notice?  What does it mean?