I came across a post recently on TechCrunch that really appealed to me because I saw it as especially useful for association folks, especially those that are involved in new product development, technology, process improvement, member services, or really any role that is involved in creating any type of member value. The article was a summary of advice for start-ups given by Loic Le Meur, a pretty successful businessman in his own right. Le Meur shares a wisdom-packed ten-point list of advice that he has acquired while starting his own companies (uBlog and more recently Seemisc). Granted it is written from the perspective a start-up business venture, but the message seems especially relevant and more broadly applicable to the association community as well.

1. Don’t wait for a revolutionary idea. It will never happen. Just focus on a simple, exciting, empty space and execute as fast as possible.
2. Share your idea. The more you share, the more you get advice and the more you learn. Meet and talk to your competitors.
3. Build a community. Use blogging and social software to make sure people hear about you.
4. Listen to your community. Answer questions and build your product with their feedback.
5. Gather a great team. Select those with very different skills from you. Look for people who are better than you.
6. Be the first to recognise a problem. Everyone makes mistakes. Address the issue in public, learn about and correct it.
7. Don’t spend time on market research. Launch test versions as early as possible. Keep improving the product in the open.
8. Don’t obsess over spreadsheet business plans. They are not going to turn out as you predict, in any case.
9. Don’t plan a big marketing effort. It’s much more important and powerful that your community loves the product.
10. Don’t focus on getting rich. Focus on your users. Money is a consequence of success, not a goal.

As I think through each item on the list I can see examples within my own association where the advice could/would be extremely valuable in making the shift from Association 1.0 to Association 2.0. Let’s take a look at each suggestion in greater detail:

1. How often do we waste valuable time looking for the “next big thing” when our time would be better spent looking at how to improve existing programs, products, processes or services? What if we were to shift our attention to incremental change instead of using our most valuable asset: our time, trying to create new products or services that may or may not meet our members needs?
2. Are you sharing ideas with those who could help you the most or are you stuck in the Web 1.0 paradigm of hoarding information thinking that secrecy provides you with some type of strategic or competitive advantage? If you haven’t taken the time to expose new ideas to your stakeholders, customers and those who have a vested interest in the idea’s (or your organizations) success how can you be sure that it is going to actualize it’s true potential?
3. First and foremost, see point 2 above. Points 3 & 4 can be grouped together and are part and parcel of any association or organization’s success. If the true potential of crowdsourcing and tapping the wisdom of the crowds are lost on you, I suggest spending some time reading (or re-reading) Wikinomics, Smart Mobs, The Wisdom of Crowds and more recently We Are Smarter Than Me (more on this book/concept in a future post) to gain a better understanding of how organizations are fostering and tapping into communities to create and sustain competitive advantage. I think it’s safe to say that this idea has moved beyond novelty and into the realm of an essential business practice. If you aren’t doing it it’s likely that your competitors are.
4. As someone responsible for your associations success it’s essential to reflect on your hiring practices and selection criteria. Are you putting the right people into the key roles within your organization or on project teams? Are you really hiring or selecting those that your organization or initiative could benefit most from. I’ve seen too many instances in my career where a truly effective hiring/selection process is obscured by self-preservation (e.g. fear of being replaced by a hiring a person smarter than you) and those responible for hiring default to selecting the “safe” hire, as opposed to the individual who really help lead/take the organization to the next level. See point 3 above as well. Are you making members/customers part of the team? If your mission is to serve them or create value you should be.
5. All too often pride gets in the way of admitting when we are right or wrong. This is as true for organizations as it is for individuals. Are you sharing your successes and failures? If not you may be missing a great opportunity. If your true intention is improvement and innovation then mistakes are going to be an inevitable part of the process. Getting it wrong isn’t a problem but not communicating and taking accountability for the mistake and furthermore learning from it is. As a society we need to reconsider how we perceive success and failure. Perfection is a myth, but the pursuit of success should be our goal even if it leads to some mistakes.
6. I don’t necessarily agree with Le Muir on points 7, 8 or 9, but that doesn’t mean that they are irrelevant or we can’t benefit from the concepts he espouses in the ideas. I believe that knowing your market and customer is essential to success, with that said however, I also believe that the pace of change and dynamics associated with each of our markets and associated membership make it extremely difficult to capture each and every finite detail. I think the key point on research is to not only know when enough is enough but also when and how to use your communities as a source for that research.
   
   With regard to business planning (the spreadsheet comment), I also disagree. I hate to use a cliche, but “fail to plan, plan to fail”. However, I also think planning only gets you so far. You only have access to so many details and given that details change regularly and rapidly, it’s all too easy to become so consumed by the process of planning that it becomes a full time job itself. Personally, being involved in the project management profession I much prefer the idea of “progressive elaboration” or the concept of creating, modifying, and building upon the raw ingredients of your project, in an organized way, as you go in order to achieve the project’s specific goal. This allows your initial thinking to be modified in a manner that is consistent with reality.
   
   And on the topic of marketing, I do agree with his thoughts to some extent but also feel that especially in the early days of a company, initiative or product launch, a coordinated/unified marketing effort is essential. That’s not to say that it has to be completely disingenuous or scripted, but rather it should be organized and cohesive to ensure that you are communicating your core message to your intended audience.
7. Finally, his last point is totally spot-on. Obviously the purpose and objectives of a not-for-profit association differs pretty greatly from that of a for profit corporation, but the idea of focusing on users, or in our case members, seems to be rock solid advice.

There are some really solid ideas contained within the advice and the bottom line is pretty simple. You can be proactive and be an agent of change or you can be reactive and respond to the change negatively. Regardless of your position or perspective you can’t control the fact that change happens, you can control the way you perceive and respond to it.

I have been interested in social media / web 2.0 long before there were fancy names affixed to the use of technology to bring people together in an attempt to encourage participation, collaboration and to share content, opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives, and media. That’s not to say that I had any foresight into just how big it would become or realized it’s true potential, rather I simply knew it was an important phenomena but couldn’t put my finger on whether it was simply a fad as so many things related to the internet have been or a lasting trend that would ingrain itself into the fabric of our culture and society.

However, now that we have seen the entire social media movement mature, grow and move beyond something that is more than just a flash in the pan over the past few years, I am still struck by how little people know and understand about it holistically. It’s more than just about killer web apps (MySpace, Facebook, flickr, Twitter, Del.icio.us, etc.), bringing people together and catchy buzzwords, and many people seem to have a difficult time getting their heads around the idea as an aggregate. It also seems like the buzz surrounding the idea hasn’t subsided either as individuals, organizations and associations are now, more than ever, looking to leverage some or all aspects of social media to create more unique, lasting, and valuable interactions with other individuals, customers and members.

As such, it’s often useful to revisit some of the basics just to keep things in perspective. As I was cleaning out my feed reader, I happen to come across a blog post that does a good job of focusing on the essentials. It was written almost a year ago and discusses the habits of highly effective Web 2.0 sites. Granted, it is written with more of a technical bent, but at the same time it does provide a solid list of attributes that are really essential to creating relationships as opposed to conducting transactions.

• Ease of Use is the most important feature of any Web site, Web application, or program.
• Open up your data as much possible. There is no future in hoarding data, only controlling it.
• Aggressively add feedback loops to everything. Pull out the loops that don’t seem to matter and emphasize the ones that give results.
• Continuous release cycles. The bigger the release, the more unwieldy it becomes (more dependencies, more planning, more disruption.) Organic growth is the most powerful, adaptive, and resilient.
• Make your users part of your software.They are your most valuable source of content, feedback, and passion. Start understanding social architecture. Give up non-essential control. Or your users will likely go elsewhere.
• Turn your applications into platforms. An application usually has a single predetermined use while a platform is designed to be the foundation of something much bigger. Instead of getting a single type of use from your software and data, you might get hundreds or even thousands of additional uses.
• Don’t create social communities just to have them.They aren’t a checklist item. But do empower inspired users to create them.

As I read through the article, and specifically this list, I couldn’t help but see some similarities between it and what Jeff De Cagna proposed in the August 2007 Associations Now article The Ungovernance Model. Specifically, I believe there are commonalities in the following areas: simplicity of activities, distributed accountability/responsibility, and diversity of thought.

The name of the game is convergence and change. There are lots of examples and lessons that exist in seemingly unrelated areas that we can learn from and not only to how we think about governance, but also how we do just about anything with/for our associations. The key is to be on the look-out for them, even in the most unlikely places.

Web 2.0 is more than just technology empowering people, it’s about challenging conventional thinking and long-held beliefs. It’s also about identifying and creating value for stakeholder groups and getting and holding their attention. This shift is forcing organizations/associations and individuals to take a good hard look at what they are doing and why they are doing it. Status quo, as much as it has worked in the past and may still be working today, may no longer be enough.

I am not trying to make any sort of intellectual leap in comparing this information to Jeff’s article on Ungovernance. They are obviously two separate topics that happen to share a few common themes. And much as Jeff’s article was simply a starting point, so too are the principles listed above. The question is: are you (or your association) ready to take a good look at what is happening around you and react in a way that might be different than the way you are operating today? Are you willing to embrace change or rise to the challenge of thinking in a new way? Chances are, if you aren’t someone or some other organization or association is.

One of the biggest stigmas that social media has been, and continues to, contend with is the fact that it’s a time sink and harmful to productivity. Ben Martin shared an article with me a few days ago (Facebook surfers cost their bosses billions) that related the findings of a study of Facebook users within Australia. The authors findings: Facebook users who keep a close watch on their profile page were responsible for costing their employers approximately $4 billion USD a year. From the report:

“Facebook is shaping up as every boss’ nightmare as the social networking Web site urges its members to hook up with workmates online. That means millions of corporate dollars could be lost as workers manage their online social life via Facebook, rather than being productive in front of the screen.”

Based on the dollar amount alone, this is a startling and staggering revelation, but I believe it’s misleading and not entirely accurate. Additionally, studies and finding like these only make it harder for the productivity, community and communication enhancing effects of social media tools and technologies to be demonstrated and validated. This in turn makes it rather difficult to suggest or adopt technologies within organizations because public opinion is obviously clearly divided.

In a recent posting titled: “Facebook Is Not a Waste of Worktime” on the Digital Edge blog Beth Lawton seemed to echo very similar sentiments in defending the merit and value of social media technology in the digital media field. In constructing her argument she cited reasons such as (I created the categories, her thoughts are quoted):

• Know Thy Users: “As a newspaper online editor (or any digital media exec), you should be looking at these sites to figure out why everyone is playing with these sites.”
• Diversify Your Approach: “you may want to find out how you can either Work with the sites’ capabilities or partnership programs to get your content in front of your target audience or incorporate some of the cool elements from these sites and networks into your own digital media outlet.”
• Know Thy Competitors: “especially with Facebook platform, a ton of publications, digital media outlets and companies are working to gain access to consumers in creative ways.”
• Network, Network, Network: “Digital media groups, alumni groups, localized industry groups, etc.

Beth finishes her thoughts with the following statement:

“if you work in digital media and you are not “wasting” time on Facebook, MySpace and other Web 2.0 outlets – where your content consumers, potential content consumers and other digital media people are spending their time – you should be there.”

In looking at this from an Association perspective, I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I’d be willing to go so far as to suggest removing digital media from the statements above and filling in your own association or industry/field/etc. that your association is trying to serve.

Bottom line: you need to be where your members are, and understand where your members go in order to serve them effectively and provide them as much value as possible. If you are not, they will either go and do it themselves or go and find it somewhere else. In either case its the association who loses out, not the individual. Social media is a great connector, and while not without its faults, does have many more positives than negatives. Lets start to try to highlight it’s strengths so others can learn from our successes while we also take a close look on it’s weaknesses so we can figure out how to fix/correct them. Saying that social media is a waste of time is the easy way out…it’s just lazy.