I went to the SLA Winter Leadership Summit held January 28 and 29, 2010 in St Louis. The goal is to be viewed as an organizational asset not as a liability. HQ discussed the new fee structure as a response to the depressed economy. HQ has let five full time staff go and everyone is doubling up on the workload, so we can expect slower response times. They stress that there is no cut back in service levels to members. (Is that a contradiction?) Dues pay 25% of costs. Income from a typical member is $138.00 and cost/services are $573.00. That's a $440.58 difference.
Chapters and divisions compete for the same dollars as well as against other associations. There's a long list of benefits available to the members and as leaders we should convey to the members what a bargain membership is.
SLA President Ann Caputo discussed trends in the profession. We are at a tipping point. There are 31 billion searches performed annually, and change is constant. Flexibility matters and attitude is everything (rah rah). We need to be the information tribe and be positive, interesting, inventive and persistent. There is globalization, a depressed market, and disruptive technology and all this leads to disintermediation or a trend for requestors to go get their own info. Our response is to provide the insight that Google never can. We should review the alignment findings and utilize the taskforce of workplace tools. We need to focus on growing the membership and spread the word on differentiation benefits.
There were several PR gurus that advised that HQ is working on new goals and mission statements. Their blog contains actions we can take now. They are creating a uniform visual identity and common language guidelines (new logo and tagline). They pledge to communicate with leaders and the public relations advisory council to promote the profession (rah rah). They provided tips for surveys: be organized into twitter length "bytes", Don't offer them this-or-nothing like the alignment, provide timely responses, tell them what kind of feedback you want, give it a consistent name in the email headers and twitter subjects, so if they get the same message from different formats they will recognize it. Offer prizes, and have dine-arounds. The audience felt that association should create a form for members to respond to so there will be consistent responses. The association should monitor discussion lists and twitter feeds so they can get feedback directly.
After lunch, there was an excellent keynote speaker, James Kane, who discussed the concept of leadership. Stay tuned to the blog for a writeup of this session by SLA-SCC President-Elect Robin Dodge.
In the afternoon of the second day, there was a group discussion about commonly shared problems. In comparison, we are doing very well and are one of the most active and wealthy chapters.
Lastly, the SLA HQ answered specific questions from the chapters and divisions, mostly about the cuts in staffing. HQ re-emphasized there were no cut backs in service, but we should expect delays in responses.
The Summit in photos, by Bill and Robin
Bill and Robin at Busch Stadium (underground by the dugout):
Busch Stadium, covered in snow:
The dugout:
View from Bill's hotel room:
The Gateway Arch:
Shadow of the Gateway Arch over the Mississippi River:
The beautiful Union Station, where the Summit took place:
Inside the Summit:
There were a lot of opportunities for networking:
They bribed us with delicious food to keep us around and keep us focused. It worked.
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