Associations: Worth It or Not?

Yowza... just read this post from Kevin Holland's Association Blog which I believe illustrates the 'old' vs. 'new' views of the importance of association membership.

Old:  83% of Canadian hiring managers “cited involvement in industry or trade associations as beneficial to an employee’s career.”

New:  Seth Godin: "I belong to hundreds of online communities and zero associations."

The above Godin quote was from an email conversation with Shawn Lea, VP strategic communications for the Mississippi Hospital Association.

Regarding the Canadian study, Kevin opines:  "...some association folks may read studies like this, pat themselves on the back, and decide that what they’ve always done is still relevant, after all. That’s not necessarily a good thing, because it’s not necessarily true."

Some thoughts: 
1) Seth Godin has earned a position of celebrity status where associations may simply be superfluous.  Given what he does, what benefits will an association membership get him?  He doesn't need to join an author's association.  His books do quite well without one.  He doesn't need to join the AMA - he's light years ahead of them in marketing thought.  It doesn't appear he cares to be on the forefront of any lobbying group (although it's apparent he doesn't approve of the meat industry).  So what's in it for him?  The only answer I can think of is "sharing his contributions to advance knowledge", which he does online anyway so that all can access his thoughts, not just paid association members.  (I had assumed Seth was involved with the EFF, but guess I was wrong on that).

2) As I've recently experienced, associations are often out for themselves more than for their memberships.  There are jobs to protect, revenue to earn.  The definition of "conflict of interest" can be altered and rationalized to fit the association's need.  The prevailing association model is one of bureaucracy, not democracy.  The online community model is built on democracy, thus may be much more appealing to activists whose views are not in line with their association leadership's.  However, all groups need some form of hierarchy in order to be effective.  Somebody's got to make the suggestions on how to behave.  Somebody's got to start the wiki or blog.  And by default, that person becomes a "leader", whether they like it or not.  With leadership comes responsibility to members, whether they're paying dues or not.  As leaders in online communities are not getting paid, is this a viable model for the long term?  Is this model one of a constant crisis of anarchy which gets reigned in temporarily only to become anarchic again at the first hint of disagreement?

3) Associations often have to defend positions.  This is why we see groups like ASAE and CIC take stances on attrition when in a true market-driven scenario, the concept of attrition wouldn't even exist.  Attrition isn't the only example out there, but it's the easiest to pick on.  To eliminate the concept of room blocks would be to go against the large number of members who make siginificant revenue from managing these blocks.  But we're not in the hotel block management business, are we?  Shouldn't the energy that goes into dealing with attrition be used for purposes that actually benefit members instead of the association?  I'd tend to think the members would like to pay a bit less for their rooms and get more value from attending.  But we don't think that way.  Turning an association is like turning a B-52. 

4) Shawn forgot to ask Seth Godin an important question:  if there were no associations, who would do the lobbying?  Online communities can design, adopt and promote standards and practices.  They can share ideas freely and build upon them in ways associations are afraid to adopt.  But at present, online communities do not represent a viable option for interaction with government and legal entities for the purposes of influencing law.  Until that changes, associations are here to stay.

I've often thought about starting an association for event marketers.  During the past five years I've had several companies approach me and offer seed money to start one.  It's certainly doable.  But I don't think I'm the association type.  Too many details getting started.  On a personal level, I'd prefer doing it online.  I know that I learn more that way. 

In our business, belonging to an association is still viewed as a positive.  At a CXO level, showing up at SISO is almost a requirement, not dissimilar to the old "if your competitor is there you have to be there" mentality of many exhibitors. 

On a personal level, I cannot deny that gladhanding at IAEM and SISO helps my business.  But I think we can do better regarding distribution of educational content by breaking out of the confines of association-driven agendas.  "Open source" is no longer a term reserved just for software.  I believe that if the best thinkers in our industry published more often to outlets that were not controlled by our associations and were available to anyone, we'd raise our collective levels of intelligence, efficiency and collaboration. 

Who wouldn't be for that?