At the inaugural ACE Symposium two weeks ago, one of the topics we discussed was the
future of new value creation in associations.
One of our speakers, Jami Lucas, Executive Director/CEO at the American Academy of Otolaryngic Allergy & Foundation, admonished us to go beyond asking members what they want. She pointed out that members don’t know what they don’t know. She encouraged us to “be like Steve” and create things people don’t even know they need.
But I think that may be the problem for lots of organizations, perhaps especially including associations: how do you know you need an iPod until it exists?
When we got into the post-presentation conversations, what I mostly noticed is that people were trying mighty hard to use new sounding words to describe the same stuff we’ve been offering for 50 years: education, advocacy, networking. We end up talking about the same old shit all the time and can’t picture anything outside our existing ruts.
We distract ourselves with hamster-wheel “doing” and don’t imagine enough.
What are you doing to bring truly new ideas into your association?