NPR interview : “Time for Associations to Trade in Their Past?”

Anyone who follows this blog knows that for quite some time, I’ve been putting out a message through a variety of meeting, event, and association publications, that many asssociations really need to pick up the pace in ensuring that they stay relevant to their membership base.

NPR just ran an article, “Time for Associations to Trade in Their Past?“, which covers the issue and quoted some of my observations from a recent article on this issue.

Futurist Jim Carroll, author of Ready, Set, Done: How to Innovate When Faster is the New Fast, says, “Many associations came together to represent a particular profession, area of interest or sport, or for some other reason. Yet that very reason is changing at a furious pace.”

In 2010 Carroll wrote that many of the trade groups “remain stuck in a rut of complacency. They deliver the same old program. They focus on the same old issues, generate the same old knowledge, plan the same old conference, and have their agenda managed by the same old membership has-beens.

“Meanwhile, they bemoan the fact that membership is declining; that the Millennials seem to have little time or inclination to join them; and that the world is just becoming, well, too complex to deal with.

“So they form a committee, hire a consultant, study the issue, and lull themselves into a false sense of future-security.

“By doing so, they are almost guaranteeing themselves a march into oblivion.” If an association “doesn’t evolve at the same pace,” Carroll says today, “or doesn’t keep up, or doesn’t define the future, it risks becoming obsolete.”

One solution: An association must be in the business of providing “just-in-time knowledge” to its members, Carroll says. He defines it as “the right knowledge at the right time for the right purpose for the right strategy, all revolving around the fact that the knowledge is instant, fast and transitory.”

I certainly spend time with a lot of associations; probably half of the keynotes I do are to open or close major association events. I certainly see many who are making great progress in ensuring that they evolve with the times; however, I also see many that aren’t, and I worry about their future.

It’s a theme I’ve covered liberally here, and you can go through my Association Trends page