Ann Oliveri

Intention Deficit

Mistakes were made, as we say in Washington.

Speaking in Baltimore at the Membership and Marketing Conference, I defined my goals for the session at the outset, but failed to provide sufficient context for my large and varied audience.  (Only a handful identified themselves as marketing professionals.)

So what disclaimers can I make next time to get us all on the same page?  Imposing the rigor of Twitter's 140 character limit, I distilled my point of view about the practice of association marketing, organized like course prerequisites in a college catalog.  Is this sufficient warning?

Association Marketing 101:   It's about their lawn, not your grass seed. Discounts and a directory are features, not benefits. Promise possibilities. Find out who cares.

Association Marketing 201:   Members are your products. Differentiate them from their competitors.  Build trust.  Grow leaders.  Reduce time needed to master practice.

Association Marketing 301:   Marketing is a perspective, not a title.  Get the right people in the room, united by one mission, yet free to design their own experience.  

Post-Doc:  Put it all into play on a larger stage. Advocate SR--shared responsibility. Start where you are. Engage members and those members serve.

Maybe speaker introductions should capture the speaker's POV--point of view--not their bios.

Where Will You Be In 18 Months?

(Dis)Engagement

 How can we engage members in our work if association employees are leaving the better part of themselves at home?  For all the lip service given to "engagement" these days, I am amazed by the lack of engagement among association employees. 

Recently, I was hitting a brick wall of stony indifference with the senior management of a well known association, so I peeled them off for personal interviews.  One on one, I was impressed with each exec's energy and ideas, but when restored to the group, everyone shut down and spoke like robots.

The behavior was not a product of the recession--fear of losing one's job--this was the culture, engineered by the CEO to maintain an illusion of control.  The result was a senior team that quit long ago, but are still on the job. 

There is an alternative, one neatly articulated by Henry Mintzberg in the July-August Harvard Business Review on "Rebuilding Companies as Communities." 

Mintzberg argues for an alternative form of leadership, "a more modest form of leadership that might be called engaged and distributed management," what he calls communityship.  "A community leader is personally engaged in order to engage others, so that anyone and everyone can exercise initiative."

To create community at work, Mintzberg recommends that you:

1. Start with small groups of committed managers.
2. Take time to reflect on shared experiences.
3. Use insights from these reflections to trigger small initiatives with potential to become big strategies.
4. Model behavior for others in the organization.
5. "(C)ommunityship is firmly established when the members reach out in socially active, responsible, and mutually beneficial ways to the broader community."

"(H)ealthy organizations take corporate social responsibility seriously and gain significant benefits in return. Employees of a company that barely functions as a community can hardly be expected to care about any other community.  But members of a company that has a robust sense of community realize how much their organization depends for sustained success on constructive engagement with the communities around it."

Do less. Be more. Engage members through opportunities to learn and grow, professionally and personally, reflecting on shared experiences in a community of practice, pursuing social justice while making a living.  And do it in every single activity you offer.

That's engagement.  The rest is empty promises of features and benefits in a brochure.

Infectious Disease Cruise

Flipping through the new Fast Company, I started to pay attention to the NOW calendar listings, including the entry for July 12: Infectious Disease Cruise Conference.  Setting sail from Italy, this conference is a University at Sea(R) Cruise, promising Credits While You Cruise! for healthcare professionals.

Tongue in cheek, FC notes: "One tip to avoid the spread of infectious diseases: Don't gather in confined spaces.  Like, you know,  a ship at sea."  But this isn't this conference weirdly appealing?  Think of the promotion opportunities?  But maybe it's a lesson for all of us these days.

If you can't fix it, feature it.

O Canada

For a terrific demonstration of responsible association leadership, see the press release posted by the consultant to a project supported by Industry Canada and the Canadian Society of Association Executives today on CSR Wire.

"The Canadian Society for Association Executives (CSAE), advised on the development of the CSR/Sustainability Roadmap and will introduce the tool to its members through a new sustainability education and resources section of its website.

"This is the kind of business-enhancing tool we like to offer our members," said Bob Hamp, Director, Communications and Advocacy, CSAE. "Each of our association members represents many organizations; so by equipping them with the Roadmap, we can help spread sustainability awareness and action throughout the marketplace."

The Sustainability/CSR Roadmap for Associations and the companion article, CSAE Members Lead the Way: Integrating Sustainability into their Organizations, are available free of charge at the consultant's web site: www.corostrandberg.com.

Congratulations to Industry Canada and the leadership of CSAE for identifying social responsibility as the key strategic move for making associations relevant in a global economy.  Now if only...

Get A Life Foundation

What would you do with the money if you won the lottery?  One friend claims winning the lottery is her retirement plan.  As for me, I would set up the Get A Life Foundation and serve as its executive director.  Proceeds would fund friends' visits to Italy, to get a life.

Until that happy day, we are happy to find our way to Tuscany each year and work on living Italian style.  If you forego city hotels for rural agriturismo accommodation, it's cheaper to live in Italy for three weeks than it does to stay at home. 

This year, family and friends totaled 20, including Rogier and Esther's bambino, Gjs.  For a few photos, see the album for Italy 2009.

The 2009 cultural highlight was the della Robbia exhibit in Arezzo.  Never really focused on just how many artists named della Robbia there were until now.  The ubiquitous glazed terra cotta sculptures were produced by three generations of artists, losing favor only when oil painting emerged the winner in the arts and crafts wars.

The real find was getting to the Bialetti store in Florence when it was aperto! Difficult to find gaskets for 10-cup Bialetti coffee pots at home so Bill brought his pot with him to make sure we got the right size.  We later discovered the Bialetti outlet store at our exit off the A1--the only real shopping we did besides the local markets. 

And, most importantly, we finally learned why the sunflower fields of Tuscany are disappearing--the government subsidy was eliminated! Photographers now must settle for endless golden fields interrupted by roads lined by cypress.  Such a tragedy.