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Just the other day, the Acronym blog posted the response to a question that didn’t make it into the final version of the article “The Future, Here and Now” that was published in the October issue of Associations Now. While the article itself is full of great information, it is this question about “what it means for an association to design its future” that really resonated with me. He states:
We deliberately chose the word “design,” because design is all about making a series of choices, about form, about functionality, and about how you assemble the components. That was very much what we wanted to get the associations thinking about—a design-led approach rather than a formula-led approach.
The nature of design is, you ask yourself a lot of questions on the journey, and you make a lot of choices. So, we wanted [association executives] to think about that and to recognize that this was all about making choices, asking yourselves tough questions about every aspect of what you do and then making choices about how you’re going to respond. That’s why we chose this notion of designing your future rather than implying there was simply a future to be chosen. You could create it, and you have the power to create it.
This is exactly what we have been advocating here at AssociaDirect. As an agency, we strive to gain insight into every project so that we may find those areas where improvement is not only needed, but will produce the best results. This is done through the asking of tough questions, and making choices. However, very often we face uncertainty from the organization because they have never done the proposed approach that way in the past.
I have purposely highlighted part of the quote, because I feel that it helps explain my point. Organizations and their marketing are not about what they are now, it is about what they have the potential to become. Many people forget that marketing is about choice. The ability to choose what it is you would like to achieve. It is about obtaining the correct growth, that which is wanted and sustainable.
The first step of creation is finding out what you hope to become, which more often than not is the hard part. Often times it is realizing that you can create it and have the power to, is all that is holding many organizations back. This was a great post, and a great article that accompanies it. I encourage you to give them both a read, as they were both very inspiring to me.
Lisa Junker
Anthony, thanks so much for the link to Acronym (and Associations Now)! I’m glad to hear that post resonated with you—it did with me as well. I think a lot of us make a lot of choices that shape our future without realizing we’re doing so … what a difference it could make if we made those choices intentionally!
October 23rd, 2008 at 5:47 am