I want to (re)set the expectation that reinventing STC is not an event, it’s a process—and one that will take years, if ever, to complete. I say this because while we’ve made dramatic change already, we continue to seek more substantive change now and continuous improvement always. I often wonder exactly what the average STC member thinks about how quickly and how dramatically things should change. Oh, I know what our vocal minority is thinking because they willingly tell me. What I also want to know is what those who are not vocal are thinking. A few have written to me directly (and thank you for that); many others remain silent. Some think we should be done by now; others are deeply concerned about the changes already made: are they too little too late, too much too soon, not enough here and too much there? I’ve gotten feedback that wide-ranging. That, when I think about it, is to be expected, as there are wide-ranging differences among STC members themselves.
The differences among STC members include educational backgrounds, skill sets, comfort (or lack thereof) with communication technologies, and specialties and subspecialties in the various communities of practice. STC members also work for a wide range of manufacturing or service industries, government, nonprofits, and academia. Functionally, this leads to a wide range of opinions of what skills professionals need to master. It also leads to sharp differences in what members expect from their association.
So, these differences among members, then, lead to some difficulty in determining “what members want.” Even surveys cannot necessarily uncover this, because only a certain subset of any membership likes to participate in surveys. It’s interesting to note, however, that STC members are very willing to respond to surveys, with typically 6-10 percent of members responding compared to a 1-2 percent response rate for other associations. And STC’s timeframe for response is much faster, with the vast majority of answers received within a week of posting the survey, compared to a more sluggish response rate in other associations. This means that STC can gather member opinion rather quickly through a survey when we need to—which is good to know. And, for at least three years now, STC has being using Knowledge Based Governance (KBG) surveys quite regularly to help gather member feedback on various topics. The Board of Directors now relies on KBG surveys prior to many board meetings for fresh member input on agenda topics.
The challenge for the Board of Directors is how to determine what our diverse members really want and need now, versus what they may want and need in the near or longer-term future. STC’s role as a professional association is to define the profession first, and then to provide the opportunities for learning that help prepare practitioners for their future jobs, not just for the ones they have now. The art of association management is attempting to find consensus so that there can be a clear course of action. Finding consensus, to me, is STC’s biggest challenge.
I’ve spent countless hours (and more than a few sleepless nights!) thinking through all the changes we’ve made and more we’ll need to make this spring based on our membership numbers (renewals are proceeding, albeit a little slower than I would like; don’t forget to renew today!) and decisions around community support.
I’ve seen some concern expressed about whether the new a la carte dues structure would be successful, as some doubted that members would be willing pay “more” for community membership. I’m happy to report that yes, indeed, members seem quite willing to pay more for community membership, and that so far 81% of renewing/new members have chosen chapter membership and 113% of renewing/new members have chose SIG membership. This shows strong community support. (And, it also shows that 19% of our renewing/new members are not interested in being members of a chapter.)
It’s important for communities to know now that we will fund them in 2011 and beyond, so please be assured of this. It’s the details we are working on now. At my request, Hillary Hart, Second Vice President and Communities lead, has just formed a task force of community leaders to work on community funding and support. It is my hope that this task force will work cooperatively and collaboratively with the board and staff to provide input to the funding and support plans we put in place for 2011 and beyond. (Hillary will provide more information on this task force in an upcoming blog post.)
STC is in a better place than we were last year thanks to all the community participation through funds reallocation, a courageous board making some very difficult decisions, and an experienced staff working diligently to cut additional costs and stretch the dollars we did have to make it all work. I’m happy to state that we are no longer in “crisis” mode; we have moved down a notch to “high alert.” And we continue to track our progress quite closely and will continue to keep you updated going forward.
Until next month …