by Mark Sklarow, Executive Director, IECA

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend an “Executive Forum” of two dozen association CEOs.  While it was a diverse collection based on both size and professional representation, education groups dominated.Being invited to participate provided me with a wonderful opportunity to speak with leaders of groups with whom we share an interest in education and adolescents. Among others, I had the opportunity to discuss possible collaboration with the executive director of the National Association for Gifted Children and began a dialogue with the CEO of the National Association of School Psychologists, among others.  A hat tip to Marriott for sponsoring the gathering.

Among other things I learned during the day, I was most excited by how far in front of other groups we have been in embracing social media. This blog, our Facebook page, our formal training during conferences and our 1:1 tutorials put us well ahead of other groups who are just now moving into this area or who are ensnared in Board policy debates. Diane Geller (president of the Independent Educational Consultants Association) recently noted that IECA’s successes have come in part because of our nimbleness and agility.

Throughout the day we explored topics ranging from legal changes, cost-saving moves and revenue generation. However, it was the presentation on social media that seemed to engage the attendees the most.

I learned that in the association world, at least 94% of members who join in social media, do so as “lurkers.”  They may read or casually observe, but they do so without actively participating. Here too, IECA has broken the mold as hundreds of our members have created their own Facebook professional pages, written for our blog, or posted comments. Nationally, fewer than 5% of organization members get so involved. My goal is to increase that by 5-10 times the participation rate…particularly as we look for new opportunities for our affinity groups, committees, an IECA wiki and more.

As I mentioned at the membership breakfast in Charlotte last month, we do not expect everyone in IECA to follow and participate in every avenue we’ve created. Rather, our goal is to create opportunities so that every member is able to find the one or two communication tools that works best for their needs and interests.

Of course as CEOs, we also explored the new legal world that social media has created and we will need to look at regulations to ensure we meet federal laws, including anti-trust legislation.

I look forward to continued discussions with the other educational groups with whom I spent the day. Opportunities for webinars, educational sharing, and more are to be explored in the coming weeks. I hope that one benefit of IECA membership is our ability to interact with the educational organizations headquartered here in the DC area and around the country.

Related posts:

1. A Look Ahead to 2010: View from Educational Associations
2. Social Networking Assistance
3. What Does it Take to Put on a National Conference?
4. How May We Engage You?
5. IECA’s 34th Year Comes to Close with an Eye to the Future

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 3:00 pm and is filed under IECA, IECA Charlotte Conference, Social Networking Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.