Associations Now asked me to contribute an essay, Visions for the Future of Associations, for its January cover story about what associations will be in 2030. Crystal ball gazing is fun and, by 2030, I will be in my 80s so no one will be able to point out whether I was right or wrong.
I think the future of associations is open-source. Members will create the experience they want. As Erick Peterson, senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and head of the Seven Revolutions Initiative, says “Information should be not only available to all, but also modifiable by all.”
This means that associations will be:
- Able to delegate more of the management of innovation to outside sources
- Characterized by interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary collaborations
- Less vertical
- Organized into multiple administrative models to meet the needs of a diverse array of challenges and opportunities
- More flexible and better able to rapidly redeploy resources when and how members need them
An open-source association would expand its current volunteer infrastructure to the full industry or professional ecosystem—vendors, customers, suppliers, labor force, etc. With better, Web-based tools and a secure environment in which to work, they will form a third party platform with no stake in the outcome.
This will necessitate a huge cultural shift that I think is already under way. To use open source, you have to be open. The products and services developed by the open-source community need to be vetted by the larger membership so that everyone can reap the benefits. But you can’t control the process. You have to be open to the possibilities.
An open-source association brings a lot of smart people together and gives them a problem worth solving. The association expands in ways we’ve not seen before.
Read the full article: Visions for the Future of Associations
