The tough economic climate may be unfavorable for
most associations, but some are thriving:
At the
Turnaround Management Association annual
meeting a bankruptcy lawyer is quoted as saying
“We’re all salivating.” (WSJ 10/31)
“Their business
is flying. They are doing absolutely fantastic.
The only problem is keeping up with the work” says
the president of the Shoe Service Institute
representing 7,000 shoe repair shops (USA Today
11/24).
“This industry
just keeps growing, but especially during slow
times, says the executive director of the
1,000-member National Association of Resale and
Thrift Shops (WSJ 11/4).
Management of
the National Pawnbrokers Association says
their members are seeing a lot of first time
customers (USA Today 11/10).
Not so for the
Mortgage Bankers Association. Protestors
picketed the annual convention and charged the stage
during panel discussions demanding a moratorium on
foreclosures (WSJ 10/23).
The shift from
print to digital appears to be accelerating:
The Christian
Science Monitor will become the first national
newspaper to stop its daily print edition and
change to online distribution (Boston Globe
10/29). “Many newspapers struggle with how to
make money online, where the advertising revenue
generated is a fraction of ad revenue from their
print editions.”
Time, Inc.,
facing “a loss of readership and advertisers to
the web,” is cutting 600 jobs and reorganizing;
Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the
nation, is laying off up to 3,000 people (NY
Times 10/29).
“I said you
don’t know anything. You don’t read the newspaper.
You don’t watch the evening news. What hope is
there? She puts it back to me. She says, well,
it’s true that I don’t read the newspaper. She
says, but have you seen one of those things? Like
they come out once a day and they don’t have
hotlinks and they’re not multimedia and you get
this weird black stuff all over your fingers…I
like to know what’s happening all the time. I’d
like to know what the candidates are doing now….I
just got a Twitter. Obama is in Jacksonville,
Florida…I can go over to a live feed of the video
and watch him giving his speech (Don Tapscott,
author of “Grown Up Digital” NPR Talk of the
Nation 11/3).
QUESTION:
What is your print to digital strategy?
Country music was a
“commercially endangered species” in 1958, but the
Country Music Association has “played a key
role in the decades since fostering that reversal of
fortune.” “It was pretty miraculous, really, the way
all of the different facets of the industry were
able to come together” said the first executive
director (for 33 years). The association’s initial
priority resulted in the growth of country radio
from 150 stations in the 50’s to over 2,000 today.
COMMENT: A
strong executive director was critical to their
success.
The International Dark-Sky Association
advocates for reducing light pollution, pushing for
legislation to turn down lights in city office
buildings and on billboards (NY Times 11/2).
The association publishes a 9-point “Bortle Dark-Sky
Scale” which rates cities on light pollution (New
York City is a 9; Tucson, which has stringent
outdoor lighting codes, is a 5).
The Sierra Club’s endorsement of Clorox’s
Green Works cleaning products is a case study of
internal politics on nonprofit green initiatives (FAST
COMPANY 9/2008). One key committee says it was
not consulted, another committee voted against the
arrangement, but the board rejected their
recommendation and proceeded anyway. When the
35,000-member Florida chapter’s leadership opposed
the deal, they were removed from office and the
chapter suspended for four years.
GREEN: Extremely complex. Proceed with
caution.
Consumers in the
18-27 demographic use the Internet 13 hours a week
compared to
watching 10 hours of TV (WSJ 11/19).
Everybody is
multi-tasking – or are they? “Multitasking is
shifting focus from one task to another in rapid
succession. It gives the illusion that we’re
simultaneously tasking, but we’re really not. You
cannot divide attention like that. It’s a big
illusion.” says Edward Hollowell, the author of
“Crazy Busy: Overstretched, Overbooked and About to
Snap!” (NY Times 11/25).
QUESTION: Do
you allow directors to use Blackberries and cell
phones for email and text messaging during board
meetings? I wouldn’t.
Twitter (twitter.com)
is hot and going mainstream. The simple online
service focuses on one thing: “What are you doing?”
(WSJ 10/27) Originally designed for keeping
up with friends, now businesses and others are using
the technology. The International Facility
Management Association is using Twitter to count
down to their annual conference and exposition (Forum
10/2008).
COMMENT: IFMA
has a new position: Media and Social Networking
Specialist.
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