Electronic communications
Where are we going?

Association Trends, December 2, 2005

By Susan B. Waters, PHD, CAE, CEO,
Sextant Consulting, Half Moon Bay CA

When I was a child, we had a telephone, but it didn’t have a number or a dialing mechanism. You just picked the phone up and the operator would answer and ask who you wanted to call, then she’d connect your lines. I have no idea how long distance calls were handled, but then you only made long distance calls if someone died. And, no, I’m not a centenarian!

Today, I have a phone, fax, cell phone, conference phone, Internet access at home, in hotels, and via my PDA. I make international calls using voice-over internet protocol. I e-mail, I blog, am executive director of a virtual assn with members in 15 countries, and just produced a six-day conference conducted completely online and using open source technology. I can take pictures with my cell phone, upload them to my laptop, and then send them to an online photo shop and receive the prints in two days. So, where are we going with electronic communications in the assn world? I believe that electronic communications will continue to improve and proliferate in the future. First, let’s start with the easy stuff.

Most assns will move communications to an electronic format, perhaps keeping one paper journal. Members want their assn news electronically for many reasons. First, they are increasingly mobile, and don’t want to have to be in any certain place to get the information they want. Members can read and discard, print and more easily organize retained information using folders in their e-mail systems or by saving to their hard drives. In short, members want to control their information protocols and not have the assn dictate systems to them. On the assn side, the savings in printing and mailing costs can be huge.

Electronic communications also allow assns to be more creative with their information offerings. Daily or weekly clipping services with links for more information are easy to establish and can pull from many sources, most of which are also electronic. Legislative alerts can be distributed instantaneously. Specialty newsletters can be crafted for different membership segments. We are only limited by our imagination. Many committee meetings are now conducted via conference call. I believe that in the future many of those conference calls will go online because online meetings allow document sharing, not just “push” documentation by the assn. This capability might democratize committees far beyond what we are accustomed to today because the power to centrally control information flow will be diminished.

Listservers are already in very common use by assns. In the future, more and more members will want to use technology to create their own communities within the assn structure. Those assns that try to prevent or control these self-forming groups will likely find their members go around the assn and create their own communities. The technology to do so is available, inexpensive, and easy to use. And assns that attempt to stifle this growth will give groups another reason to form: to criticize the assn for trying to control their access to each other and to assn information.

Assns might enable members to blog from the assn’s system ­ and announce in electronic newsletters any blogs that are created ­ allowing members who want to communicate to do so, and permitting other members to select those they want to receive and those they want to ignore.

Education also will be transformed. Static online courses are one thing, but courses conducted asynchronistically are quite another. I can envision courses in which documents are uploaded, lecture (if any) is videotaped, and discussion occurs over a period of days or weeks, with an ending date that permits participation by people whenever and wherever they prefer.

Virtual seminars that are today based on teleconferences will be moved to the internet. In-person education will always be important for the human interaction and networking it provides, but when people want “just the facts” types of education, they will want it "on demand." Also, many people are becoming comfortable with virtual relationships, and can form communities with people they have never met in person.

We might see much greater use of open source technologies because they enable the construction of documents and collaboration among people without time and space constraints. Wikis, podcasting, laptop to laptop meetings, and blogs all exist today and are being used more and more by assns and their members. Open source technologies are good because they are free; they suffer because they are works in progress. In the open source world, flexibility is required, so is ingenuity. But, there is much energy out there in cyberspace, and not much hierarchy. This is contrary to current assn structures, and will change those structures rather than conform to them.

As electronic communications become easier to use, assns need to consider the competing issues of enabling communications and respecting members’ right to choose which communications they receive. Most electronic communications today use push technology, and the public is responding with spam filters and legislation against spam is imminent.

Assns also will need to accept the fact that the ability to control communications is a thing of the past. We no longer will be able to limit access to assn information, elections or other happenings, because they all will be there in cyberspace. Likewise, power will be much harder to concentrate. With electronic communications, assns could see more challenges to nominating committee slates, and more people winning those elections. Electronic communications and voting will mean that anyone can get out the vote, not just the central assn office.

Ultimately, electronic communications and the Internet are democratizing forces. We claim that assns are essentially democratic and, compared to other organizations, they are. But, internet communications technologies and information sharing will force assns to be much more democratic than they have ever been in the past. We need to prepare for more openness, greater community and more communication presented with greater speed than we have ever seen before. It is an exciting and potentially threatening trend, but it will not be reversed, so get ready!

Waters is a former assn executive who consults to voluntary organizations to achieve vision, clarity, focus and authenticity. She works with assn staffs and boards on strategic planning, leadership development, governance, business assessment, conflict management and trust building.