Associations NOW Presents

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP, CEO of the Risk and Insurance Management Society, is joined by Francisco Gómez, Founder and CEO of Factum Global, and Pietro Macchiarella, MBA, CAE, Senior Director of Data and Insights at YPO, for a timely conversation on how geopolitical disruption is reshaping the association landscape. They explore the slowdown of trade globalization, increasing travel and visa challenges impacting events and engagement, and the growing tension between taking action and staying silent as political issues intersect with mission-driven work. The discussion emphasizes the importance of clear, grounded communication with boards, along with practical strategies like scenario planning and tabletop exercises to prepare for uncertainty. The group also examines how associations can stay agile without compromising their core mission, including the role of AI in monitoring trusted information sources and the value of incorporating diverse global perspectives. As the conversation unfolds, they point to a more fragmented, multipolar world, rising cyber and data risks, and evolving member expectations—offering insight into how association leaders can navigate what comes next. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/hc8BmpdGDhw   Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: [00:00:00] Welcome to this month's episode of Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Gary LaBranche, Chief Executive Officer of RIMS, the Risk and Insurance Management Society. I am delighted to be joined on this podcast with Francisco Gómez, founder and CEO of Factum Global, a boutique consulting firm specializing in international expansion, market analysis, and strategic growth. Also, joining us is Pietro Macchiarella, senior director, data and Insights at YPO, the world's largest community of chief executives that come together to become better leaders and better people. I've said a little bit about each of you, but if you could tell us a little bit more, starting with you, Francisco. Francisco Gómez: Thank you, Gary. Pleasure to be here with you and Pietro. As you said, I founded Factum Global, a firm that [00:01:00] specializes in helping both for-profit companies as well as associations and nonprofits expanding internationally. We focus on truly helping organizations understand where to go, how to do it, and how to sustain that growth, and doing this for the last 20 years or so, and delighted to be here. Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: Excellent, Pietro.  Pietro Macchiarella, MBA, CAE: Thank you Gary. I'm Pietro. Good to be here with both of you. As you said, Gary, I work for YPO, which is the largest organization of CEOs. We have 37,000 member members in hundred 40 countries, so as international as it gets. And myself, I am very international. I've grown up in Europe, I've lived in three different countries in Europe and then moved to the US about 20 years ago. I'm also the chair of the ASAE International Association Advisory Council, which right now is a great place to be because we are the center of, of the storm in a way, supporting associations in their international experience or trying to international.[00:02:00]  Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: Fantastic. Both of you obviously have a tremendous non-North American experience, and I'm just curious. Currently the world is experiencing what we, in the risk management community, call geopolitical disruption, which is a fancy way of saying chaos is abounding in the our current world today and associations and corporations. Consumers and people in business have to try to navigate all of that, and that's uncharted territory to say the least. Pietro is, your group is international as it gets. What does geopolitical disruption mean? How are you in seeing it impact YPO?  Pietro Macchiarella, MBA, CAE: So first of all, disclaimer from the lawyers: These are my personal opinions and not the ones of my employer. I will say the one, some of the assumptions that we are taking for granted up until now are gone. If you look at it as being a constant. Since the, at least the 1990s, uh, I think the, [00:03:00] there is an index, I think it's the World Bank has an index that shows the trade ness where you look basically at the imports and export globally. And you divided by the, the GDP, the global GDP and the index has been growing like crazy. In fact, I think it's being twice as fast as, as a global GDP growth in the past 20 years. And so. We went from, again, trade being about 30% of global GDP to being 60% or more. And then suddenly this has come to a halt. Everything is being questioned again. And so obviously there's a, this has an impact on any membership organization. In fact, I feel like we are actually more impacted than our members. Uh, because if you think about the, the true political uncertainty affects the, the members themselves. So their companies, if you're a trade organization or in our case a business organization affects the way you operate the, the association and also affects all the members interact with each other. So it's a, it's a triple head and [00:04:00] obviously that that impacts everything that you do. At the same time, I'm the eternal optimist and one thing that I do say is the problems are often opportunities and if very often we are. Nice to have for members, all of us in the association space. But when there is a crisis, we become actually a must have if we are relevant and if we are relevant to what they need at the moment. So I do think that right now what I see is actually a bigger relevance for organizations like ours because we are, we are helping members when they need us.  Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: That's interesting. So if you are truly valuable, uh, and relevant, you'll be more valuable and relevant in times of poly crisis or chaos, or when the world is not going according to what we had thought it would. Francisco respond to that. Are you seeing that in your practice?  Francisco Gómez: Yes, of course. I do think that the main thing, however, is that for associations, your political disruption is truly no longer [00:05:00] something that is happening out there. I think we used to see that as a side thing where we're gonna keep this in scenario planning and we're gonna think about the what ifs, but it was not as real and it is now showing up in a very practical ways. When you think about travel decisions, event planning, member expectations, partner relationships, sanctions, they are privacy concerns. Reputation, right? So it's all over the place. And what makes it especially difficult is that associations have traditionally tried to stay away from politics. But today I think that this is much harder because there is risk not only in taking action, but also in not taking action. And that creates tension because associations want to focus on policy and not politics, but in a lot of cases it are now intertwined. So the real challenge is not just whether to speak. But how do we speak in a way that is consistent with mission and values? In the past, many associations tried to stay away and above [00:06:00] politics, but today's silence can be read as a statement too, right? So that's something that I think most associations are wrestling with right now.  Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: So you touched on two, I think, very important pieces there. One. One is that external issues really are internal, even down to when and how we travel. That's a pretty internal, pretty internal issue. And then secondly, the whole idea that you, by not engaging, you are saying something by not speaking out, by not engaging with the chaotic world as it is that can be read, can be viewed as negatively as if you said something. And I think that's especially true the more. That the association presents to the world, the more engaged with the world. So I was thinking as you were talking, I was thinking for RIMS, one of the ways that we primarily relate to the world is through our certification program, which is growing more rapidly outside of North America than inside North America. Uh, but also through our convention, which we call Risk World, we bring about [00:07:00] 11,000 people together every year. And Risk World just isn't an educational conference. It's a commercial marketplace. It is the world's largest commercial insurance B2B marketplace, and people from all over the world come there to place their insurance, to buy insurance, the commercial insurance. So it's actually a very critical part of the whole value proposition to the commercial insurance world. But this year we're seeing a definite impact on some people not being able to get. A visas or not being able to get visas in time to come to the convention in, in Chicago, uh, in Philadelphia also, one of our students, we student groups, we have a, with our partner, Spencer Educational Foundation, we provide a platform for, uh, international student competition in risk management and one of the universities from Africa. I'm not able to get a visa so far. So we're trying to work through those issues, but this, this constant chaos that we're seeing, the changes [00:08:00] of rules, regulations, consumer preference in, in the case of Canada, we're also seeing significant pullback from our Canadian friends who just don't want to deal with the American economy right now. How are you communicating those kinds of risks to your stakeholders, to your leaders and board members and others that are important to your organizations?  Pietro Macchiarella, MBA, CAE: So I think that there is a difference between maybe concern and panic, and I think panic happens when there's no plan. My, my opinion of that's when leadership to step in, when, particularly when talking to the board, it's really about transparency and having a plan. So do some scenario planning. Look at what we know, what we don't know, what potentially the consequences of things will be. These are, I think this is the way you moderate some of the risks. Uh, otherwise, again, panic kicks in and that's never a good thing because usually decisions made under panic are not ideal.[00:09:00]  Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: That's interesting. Uh, Francisco?  Francisco Gómez: Yeah, I think I agree with everything. Uh, Piera is saying, I think the key is to communicate in a way that is candid but not alarming. The boards are, and the stakeholders in general do not need drama. They need context. They need scenario thinking. You were talking about that piera and clarity about what the organization is watching. I usually think in terms of three questions, what is the risk? What is the potential impact? What are we doing about it? It really, that is the conversation you wanna have with the board. And within that question of what is the risk for those watching that may know me, I talk extensively about the risk of inaction, right? And is related to what we spoke about earlier, is acting has a risk, but not acting has also a risk. And in many cases, that risk could be greater for certain organizations. That helps turn uncertainty into management, and it also helps people understand that risk is not always a reason to stop. In 2025, I saw a lot of organizations stopping. [00:10:00] Sometimes they were just thinking that things are gonna get back to normal, or let's see what happens in 2026. I see the same organizations realizing this chaos that Gary, you were talking about earlier, is just the world we live in, and we need to learn to live with that and figure out how to proceed more carefully. The goal is not to eliminate uncertainty, but the goal is to make it manageable. Those of us that have been dealing in international business for years and have been working in countries that are less sophisticated in terms of rules and regulations and those types of things, we're used to that kind of chaos. So we need to bring that thinking to everything that is happening now and understand this is really not new. It's new in this context, but it is nothing that we haven't faced before. I like the fact that I'm seeing that mentality shift in executives in the association world, and I see them taking action, which I think is very important. Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: As you were speaking, I was reminded of a [00:11:00] quote by Peter Drucker, one of the greatest writers on management theory and management practice, Peter Drucker. He said The danger in times of turbulence is not turbulence. It's. Thinking and acting with yesterday's logic in mind, right? So we have to retrain, relearn our approaches because we can't solve the problems of tomorrow the same way we helped create those problems yesterday. So that turbulence is not the problem. The problem is the way we think about turbulence or don't think about turbulence.  Pietro Macchiarella, MBA, CAE: Yeah, no, I love what you both said. I was gonna add that I think there is, there's one thing that is non-negotiable, which is the mission. That's what we do. That should not change no matter what the crisis is or whatever the context is, how we do it, that changes and that's the flexibility that I think becomes much more important under the current circumstances. And I think that's what sort of where I see that the majority of the impact is really now we do things and for example, you were talking about [00:12:00] the having an annual event where. It becomes much more difficult to get, and these, for example, from different parts of the world. So maybe the next step is to regionalize some of these events. And I've seen some organizations associations actually do that. So maybe duplicate that one big event in the us, one in Europe and suddenly you're not dependent on one big event anymore, but you have now the option for members to attend either one. And so again, that how we do it is where you can actually, the biggest impact. Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: Hey, I was wondering, as you're talking and I'm listening and processing what you're saying, I'm curious, have you ever done a desktop exercise with your stakeholders, your board members, your management team, desktop exercises for, or our listeners? Uh, our scenarios that you make up in advance, you craft a scenario in advance. I just used chat GPT yesterday to create one on geopolitical shock plus supply chain and market disruption. It spit back out to me. [00:13:00] Scenario overview with some key stress points and then some exercise objectives, and that it takes you through a 60 to 90 minute process, including things that you drop into the exercise as shockers or stressors to the systems, things like that. Different timed injections where key decisions have to be made. Have you ever worked with any of those type processes?  Francisco Gómez: Yes, we do it all the time. As consultant, helping organizations expand internationally. You can imagine the scenario planning is a huge part of it and it keeps evolving though, and in an environment like this, the thinking also needs to be evolve. It used to be that we would sit down with boards and try to come up with a five year strategy, and it would be a beautiful, shiny piece of paper that boards and executives would use to communicate this is what we're gonna do in the next five years. That is no longer as useful as it used to be. Yes, you have to have a north, you have to have a vision, understand where you want to be in the next [00:14:00] several years, but the pathways to get there are very different, and you need to understand in advance what happens if, right? So what happens if we go into our preferred pathway and A or C happens then? Where are we going next? Are we going to the V pathway? Are we gonna run some pilots in parallel? How do we start testing some of these avenues to make sure that our strategy is resilient to those changes? So it's not about, and we said this earlier, it's not about avoiding the chaos, we're avoiding the changes that are happening around us, but is how do we build an organization that is adaptable and nimble so that when things start to show up, we're monitoring. We can see where things are starting to, to look like they're gonna come our way, and we have a plan to navigate those things because we have discussed those possibilities. It's impossible to predict everything that may happen, but I think you can predict certain things. [00:15:00] And what happens if there's a war? What happens if there's another pandemic? What happens if all of a sudden our number one source of revenue goes away? We have several associations in 2025. That loss substantial revenue when the U-S-A-I-D agency will disappear, they, the appendant is on the contracts in that organization and they found themselves in a situation that they were not anticipating. So what happens? They could have anticipated that, right? We have X percentage of revenue attached to a single source. What happens if that source goes away? So we could anticipate U-S-A-I-D was going to be disappearing, but we could have anticipated that something could have happened that would jeopardize that source of revenue and we should have been preparing to navigate and try to diversify and get away from that dependency etra. Pietro Macchiarella, MBA, CAE: Yeah, likewise, I work for an organization that objectively is extremely healthy. We have [00:16:00] 95% renewal rate, 96% we have, we grow very healthy and everything is great. But the good thing is also I work for some business leaders. So they are used to being paranoid a little bit and what could happen potentially will disrupt our model. So this is basically my daily life. But it's very interesting how we are gonna see also from, from like how the external environment potentially can impact competition. So what competition potentially can come out of nowhere that we are not expecting. So this is an exercise for example, that we're doing right now where we are looking at how, again, the external environment. Potentially creates new competitors. So that's, so that's something that is very interesting and I, in fact, I advise anybody who's listening to, to think about that, even if things are going great, just think about potentially what are your, your core competitive advantages and which ones are also the ones that can be disrupted more easily by existing or a new incoming competitors. And [00:17:00] just see how you can evolve to protect them.  Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: So I work for. Bunch of risk managers. Professional risk managers, so risk awareness is front and center in, in all things at all times. Although I, I always, when people say, oh, it must be terrible working for people who are just always worried about risk, it's, it's much more nuanced and strategic than just worrying about. Bad things that can happen. It's, it really is thinking through the different scenarios and looking for the opportunities and meshing that into our overall strategy. We have a formalized enterprise risk management process where we're constantly and certainly annually, a, a deep dive, but. Continuously evaluating our potential risks and how we might mitigate those or transfer those risks or reduce their potential impact to us. So it's been fascinating working with them, and I've always been amazed at how willing they are to take thought through [00:18:00] strategic risks, because anybody in the risk management will tell you, but part of the reason that companies and hospital systems and university systems engage in risk management is to grow. So getting back to this opportunity for where can we find the growth opportunity in these times of chaos, I think is important. Before I forget, I did wanna throw in a couple of things for our listeners. There's a lot written out there about risk, trend, trends and risk and that sort of thing, and we just wanna point out a couple every January, the World Economic Forum. Publishes an annual global risk report or risk survey, and this year it was issued on January 14th, 2026, about six weeks before the current war in Iran began. And interestingly, the number one expected issue was. Geopolitical confrontation, which was seen more as an economic issue, tie it back more to the [00:19:00] tariffs and that sort of thing. This, but the number five of the 10 expected risks for 2026 was in fact. State-based armed conflict or war as we think of it today. Very interesting that in January, and this is a survey of hundreds and hundreds of, uh, risks in business professionals, that geopolitical risk, geopolitical conflict was very high on the list. They also asked what are the longer term risks 10 years out, and almost all of them. Were, or the bulk of them were environmental related, major weather risks, that sort of thing. And only one or two, one or two were, uh, social issues, inequality and that sort of thing. And a few more were technological, but none. Geopolitical or armed conflict, which I found to be very interesting. Short term, a lot more potential conflict, longer term, more climate change kinds of issues. So there's a number of these indexes. Aon, [00:20:00] the insurance broker publishes one BlackRock. Publishes a geopolitical index and that sort of thing. Mark on your calendar at the end of the fourth quarter every year, just start doing Anu some searches and get an AI agent out there looking for some of these and maybe provide you with a summary report of what the consensus views are of, are there out there, where do you guys go for your, uh, information? What sources do you go to manage your way of thinking to guide your analysis?  Francisco Gómez: Have, one of the things that we advise our clients is to stay on top of technology, and I have to try to leave the same principles that I preach. I build some agents with AI to help me stay on top of, rather than new them, strict guidelines as to which kinds of sources. You mentioned a Capital World Economic Forum, United Nations, certain news outlets that I trust and it, it feeds me the information on what's. [00:21:00] Happening and then I can go and follow up and try to see what else is out there. So today it's very easy to stay on top of this. It used to be the this thing of trying to look for things, but now you have a way to serve, very easily build agents for information that is gonna be coming to you at the right proper time. So I highly recommend doing that. I also wanted to mention very quickly, since you were talking about some of these resources, I am part of the A SAE. Executive Management advisory Council, and they recently put out, and I'm talking about in the last two weeks, my colleagues developed a discussion guide on navigating politicized issues. I highly recommend it. I think it's a 11 or 12 page document. That is helping associations think through this. You can find it on my own LinkedIn. I shared it on ASAE Collaborate or simply reach out to ASAE. I'm sure they'll guide you to the right place to get the guide, but I think it's association leaders helping other association leaders think [00:22:00] about some of the issues that we're discussing right now. Pietro Macchiarella, MBA, CAE: Yeah, very cool. Francisco. I can add something like that as well because we, as the International Association's Advisory Council, we actually provide a lot of content to members as well. So we have almost a, pretty much a monthly webinar on hot topics. So if anybody's interested in anything international and associations, please keep an eye on our webinars because there is a lot of content. In fact, we just did one on. When to speak up, for example, when it was extremely hot topic. But going back to your original question, Gary, one thing I love what Francisco said about basically having AI gather, gathered some uh, news sources for you. One thing I also to do is to look at different perspectives on news. So one of my daily routine is actually when I wake up, I look at European newspapers when I'm still in bed, I read different, luckily I speak different languages so I can see how they tackle some of the issues and then. In the evening, I usually read Wall Street [00:23:00] Journal or some American media just to see the different perception of, and the relatively importance of different issues that maybe for us are not as as important. So I also recommend if you can look at the international perspective a little bit, see how other countries are reacting to different pieces of.  Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: Get out of your own bubble, then get out of your own echo chamber and look for those diverse sources and resources that you know might not stumble over in the normal course of events. Francisco Gómez: A hundred percent.  Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: Interesting. Francisco, do you have something to add?  Francisco Gómez: No, I just say that that's critical because it's harder and harder to just get the news these days. They come with opinions. So  Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: yeah,  Francisco Gómez: we have to make sure that we look at different sources to try to get our own idea of what's actually happening. Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: Thinking about that for a second, thinking about the longer term, as we start to bring this podcast to an a conclusion, think about another, a different time horizon of say 24 months or thereabouts. Where's your head at [00:24:00] and where would you suggest other association professionals ought to start thinking about the next series of trends or the continuation or cascade effect of these trends? What do you see in the future that we should be thinking about today?  Francisco Gómez: There are a few, right? Obviously, one is the direction of US policy and trade, whether we like it or not, that is impacting the world. This serve continued geopolitical instability is something that we have to think about. You were mentioning Gary travel and vision friction. I think those issues are going to continue to be increasing with everything that is happening. But I, I do wanna say that. A lot of economists out there for years. Were talking about de-globalization and everybody just going inward and staying away from the world, and we have disagreed from the very beginning. I don't think that's happening. I don't think that will happen. What we're seeing is a reconfiguration of how we do global business. We see new alliances and partnerships and [00:25:00] trade. Routes that are emerging, and so this global trade will always be there, but we have to take a look at those frictions that we're looking at. Aside from that, I think obviously cyber and data risks are huge and how AI is changing member expectations and operating models, and this is something that should be at the forefront of any association thinking is not whether we like it or not, is when will your. Operating model, be truly impacted by all of this, and how do you anticipate it and take advantage of those things. And more broadly, I think leader should prepare for a more fragmented world. Fortunately, like I said, we're gonna see some of these alliances happening. That's gonna create a lot of opportunity, but it's not going to be as easy to navigate as it one was. It's not about being pessimistic, it means being ready. The organizations that do well. We'll be the ones I think that can adapt quickly without losing sight of who they are. [00:26:00] Pietro was talking about mission. I think that's critical. I think the future will reward associations that are globally aware, strategically selective, and operationally resilient, which I think is very important, is how do we go from strategy to execution and how do we do that properly? Pietro Macchiarella, MBA, CAE: Francisco, I think you've said it so well. I don't know if I can add anything more so eloquently, but I will say that I also see, I think the sort of polarization of the world, the creation of different regional interest areas, and I think that's part of the thing that will impact how you, you do business around the world. I also think that there is probably some economic pressures that will happen depending on the different. World economies go and people know. I tend to be still optimistic about the US economy, not so much about maybe Europe. I think that the interesting thing about Asia is that is probably being affected at least short term by oil right now. And so I don't know what will be the long term impact of that. [00:27:00] Of course, I think you mentioned Francisco technology. I think AI is also sort of, it's an opportunity. It's a great opportunity, but it's also a concern. I was on a call yesterday where as an alman was one of the speakers, and I could see actually in the executives, so AI executives, even some concerns from themselves, meaning this can be a. Thing from Manco, but it can also be potentially a threat if we don't manage it well. And so that obviously has an impact also on associations and how we manage it for our members and in the interaction with members. Yeah, I think these are my main points.  Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, AAiP: Thank you. You've both touched on something that's been on my mind and on my radar, and that goes back to the, the, the Trump administration's national Security Strategy white paper, which really explicitly said, we're no longer gonna be us in charge of everything, right? We're gonna be in charge of our stuff, and you all be in charge of your stuff. So bringing to an end the era of a US [00:28:00] dominated world order, and going back to, I think both of you touched on the idea of multipolarity. In other words, there'll be different regions of influence around the world. Engineer the way supply chains work, the way sourcing works, the way workflow proceeds, where migration patterns happen, all of those things and that, and also where knowledge flows. So that will be, I think, very interesting for those of us in the association space. So that multipolarity concept, to see where that takes us long term. We've all, we've spoke, spoken about AI and I couldn't agree with you more I think. It, it's not, in my view, it's not a question of will AI impact us, but to what degree will AI reshape the world of work and reshape the kind of the relationships that we have as individuals and the synergy or collaboration or lack [00:29:00] thereof or lost thereof between organizations. I think AI and now it's about the impacts of AI on all on, on all of that. And then think lastly, the, the idea of we as individual leaders. How are we adapting and changing to the challenges that are in front of us? Because going back to Drucker, the problem with turbulence is not turbulence. It's the way we think about turbulence and the idea that we have to change our mindset in order to keep up with this new deck of cards that we're being presented through. Whether it's geopolitical, chaos, or the new world that we're looking at, I think it's gonna be especially true if GDP grows at 2% versus 3%. If US GDP grows at 3%, we have an entirely different, very optimistic forecast in front of us. If we grow at 2% or under it, things get a lot tougher, a lot quicker for a lot of people. That's it [00:30:00] for us. We gotta wrap this up. So let me just say thanks to everyone for listening to this episode of Association NOW Presents. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today. And highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy, the US and the world. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And for more information on topics impacting the association space, visit associations now online at associationsnow.com. Thank you all very much for listening, and thank you to my panelists, Pietro and Francesco. Many thanks for your help in trying to decipher and discover where we're going in the future. Appreciate it. Thank you all. Have a good [00:31:00] day.  

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents: Industry Partner Edition, guest host Sharon Pare of HighRoad Solutions sits down with Kurt Heikkinen, CEO of Forj, to explore how to connect learning, community, and member value into one cohesive experience. Drawing on member experience research, Kurt highlights a core insight—members join and stay for two primary reasons: to learn and to connect with peers. When those experiences are separated, engagement suffers. The conversation unpacks how expectations are shifting, particularly among early-career professionals who expect personalized, always-on access to content and community, not just isolated touchpoints like annual events or standalone courses. Kurt makes the case for rethinking how associations deliver value—moving away from fragmented systems toward unified, AI-enabled platforms that bring learning and community together. He shares real-world results from EcoAmerica and offers a clear takeaway for association leaders: start with the member experience, break down internal silos, and design for connection, not just content. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/J0QxOGuP6Ks   Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript   Sharon Pare: [00:00:00] Welcome to Association NOW Presents: Industry Partner Series, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Sharon Pare, director of Partnerships at High Road Solutions, a HubSpot Solutions and implementation partner, and your host of this series throughout the year. Today, we're exploring how associations think about learning and how that connects to renewal. I'm joined by Kurt Heikkinen. Kurt has built and exited multiple SaaS companies, led mergers and acquisitions, and raised more than $150 million in venture and private equity capital. He's helped companies grow from startup to over $50 million in recurring revenue, and today he's focused on helping associations and organizations rethink how they serve and engage their members. Kurt, welcome  Kurt Heikkinen: Sharon. Thanks so much. Excited to spend this half hour with you and the audience.  Sharon Pare: Absolutely, [00:01:00] and thank you so much, Kurt. You've spent much of your career building companies in fast moving markets. I'm curious what drew you to the association space?  Kurt Heikkinen: Yeah, great question, Sharon. As I entered the space and started to learn more about the mission driven nature of these organizations, I was just compelled to help. After meeting with dozens and dozens of executives, I heard both. Their passion and mission, but also the challenges they face. And so after a couple decades serving the corporate space, I felt compelled to jump in and really help leaders of mission-driven organizations realize their full potential.  Sharon Pare: Why don't we jump into it? So when I hear association leaders talk about value, connection, and education, it always comes up. I think renewal conversations are still happening everywhere, and sometimes I think about it like Netflix versus Instagram, right? Netflix gives you a huge library of content and [00:02:00] then Instagram keeps you coming back for more because it feels dynamic. It feels social, even though I think the influencer community might be dying a little bit. So I'm wondering if associations sometimes operate more like a content library than a living network. So my question for you, Kurtin, from where you sit, what truly keeps members coming back year after year and what do associations tend to overestimate? Kurt Heikkinen: It's a really great question, and I think you can see some of the parallels from an experience standpoint between Netflix and Instagram. But when you think about the core of associations, many of them view themselves as the trusted place, the trusted resource for their members, as some describe themselves as that community of practice. Their members truly care. They want a sense of belonging and they want a place where they can not only progress in their career, but share and give back. And so we do research every year. We call it the state of member [00:03:00] experience, a research report, and we launch it every year at the annual ASAE annual event in August. And for the last five years, the prevailing answer to the question, why do you join and why do you stay, has been. One for the peer-to-peer connections and two for the ongoing learning. And so that is at the core of the member value proposition. Do I belong and can I connect with peers like me? And is this an environment and a place where I can continue to learn and grow? And so those are the key factors that drive engagement and ultimately retention.  Sharon Pare: If learning and community are structured separately, what does that do to the member experience?  Kurt Heikkinen: Yeah, it creates a fractured and siloed experience. When you think about our own experience as consumers, when we're interacting with a company or a product, and the experience is different from the time we bought it to the [00:04:00] time perhaps we're asking for service. It becomes frustrating if they don't know us and they don't demonstrate that they understand who we are and what our needs are from one step to the next. And so having those experiences separate can only lead to frustration, and that's what we hear over and over again. So what's the difference? What's the answer? An experience that is seamless, that's personalized, that's unified, where the member, the learner, feels like you know them throughout every step of the journey.  Sharon Pare: So are you saying that one of the shifts that you're seeing is mostly generational in how they're learning now?  Kurt Heikkinen: I think by far one of the shifts is the expectations of early career members. You think about the expectations of early career members, the concept of membership is even foreign to them. They've grown up in an on demand consumption, subscription based world. That's their world. Whether that's in academia or whether that's from an entertainment standpoint. [00:05:00] You cited Netflix earlier, so that is one of the major shifts. But for all of us, regardless of what generation you're in, where you are in your career. The last 10 years has informed our own expectations regarding experience and what does a modern experience look like, and personalization is at the core of that. If we as consumers, let's just separate learning and look more broadly in our everyday life as consumers, if we don't experience something that's fast and easy and relevant where the entity we're interacting with. The service provider or the product company doesn't know us and doesn't demonstrate they know us and understand our needs immediately and guide our experience, we opt out. And that's regardless of age. Anyone who has been using a mobile device for the last several years has experienced that and now knows what good looks like. But furthermore, back to career [00:06:00] stages, we've also studied a lot. What are the attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs of professionals by stage. There are expectations that early career members have. They wanna know immediately, do I belong here? Can I connect with peers like me who have solved and encountered some of the things that I'm. Experiencing early in my career for those individuals mid-career, they wanna know how can they take the next step in their career? How can they climb the ladder? How can they advance in their domain? Um, they might be considering a pivot. And how will this community help them learn and grow vanguard? And many times for those latent career they wanna give back. They wanna share their wisdom and their expertise from the last two or three or four decades, and they want a forum, a learning community to do that. So when learning and community aren't together, when it's fractured and siloed, you miss out on so many opportunities to engage your learners, your professionals, your members that meet them where [00:07:00] they are, and truly tap in the power of community. Sharon Pare: So it sounds like continuity may matter more than isolated moments, and having these two together really matters more. So I think it raises a bigger question about how learning actually works. And you've already mentioned that adults and different generations don't learn in isolated events. It tends to happen over time, conversation in context. Again, as you mentioned, a lot of this education is still structured around single programs. What do you think leaders most often misunderstand about learning value is actually created today?  Kurt Heikkinen: Yeah, it's interesting, Sharon, because we meet with hundreds of clients every year and prospective clients, and I think intuitively they understand. That the learning paradigm has shifted. I think they do understand that it is more social in nature. It needs to be more on demand. Micro learning needs to become a part of this, that individuals don't have the time or energy [00:08:00] and to sit down and take hours of courses by themselves. They are looking for that connectedness, but some of them are struggling to understand how to make that happen or they're. Largely dependent on a couple primary sources of revenue for their organization. A single annual conference, a couple main courses that drive 60 or 70% of their revenue that consumes their time and energy every year. That prevents them from moving beyond and innovating beyond that, and most often and why organizations come to Forj is because the technology they're using is holding them back or experience how today's technology better enables that breakthrough. Better supports that type of more dynamic social cohort based learning through the concept of a learning community as opposed to isolation. And there's still a place. There's still a place of course, for so many of these courses that lead [00:09:00] to credentials and certifications that help ensure that individuals are qualified in their field. But there are many opportunities to engage in learners and advance their career. Capture their expertise outside of those in single one-time events.  Sharon Pare: What would you say are some of the risks that will show up when learning is treated with those one-time transactions, that annual event, that one big main course, what risk will usually show up for an association? Kurt Heikkinen: I know our clients are already seeing that. In the form of churn in membership, many organizations in the association spaces have retention numbers that aren't what they want them to be. Their retention might be 70% or 75 or 80%. So that's the first place to look is if you're not delivering a continuous always on engagement, that's the first thing that's gonna be impacted. Where in your one primary course that they are mandated to take [00:10:00] is the breadwinner. You've invested so significantly in other pieces of content. We hear this problem statement over, and it sounds like this. We have great content, but it's underutilized and under consumed. We hear that over and over again, and so the way to help our clients reimagine. A move away from a one-time experience. We ask them to talk about what makes their annual event so great. Or we ask the more broad question, what is the highlight of community vibrancy or vibrancy in your membership throughout the year? And inevitably they highlight their annual event or confide. They describe with superlatives how great it is, how individuals are connected, how they're sharing best practices, how they're learning, they're growing, how excited they are, and they can't wait for it to happen next year. And then the risk is if you're over indexed on that single event, that single source of revenue, you miss out the other 360 days a year. [00:11:00] And why not? Why can't you? And you can, our clients are. Creating that always on engagement, where that same sense of vibrancy, the same sense of engagement, that content that you've invested in that gets overlooked, is being unlocked. It is being captured. It is being founded. It is being utilized 365 days a year. That's the power of a learning community.  Sharon Pare: So really it's less about delivering content, more about creating that context.  Kurt Heikkinen: That's just it. It's all about relevancy. Most of our clients don't need more content. They need a form and they need technology to enable it, to ensure that content is served up through a personalized experience in a relevant way. So members don't have to go search for it and find it. And think about how frustrating it is when you have to go two different places to search, let alone one, but you shouldn't have to search. When you think back about our consumer experiences, whether that's on Netflix or Spotify or Amazon, how much searching do we do versus [00:12:00] how much serving up is done? How much content is presented to us based on the fact that we're known? That same thing should exist in a learning community. Members deserve to be known to understand past behaviors reflected, and whether that's content or connections or conversations, that's the power of an AI driven learning community. So it's no longer about searching across two different sources where you have to log in twice, but it's more about the relevancy of content, connections and conversations being served up to me.  Sharon Pare: So you're talking a little bit more about conversations and communications and connections, and this just brings us directly to community. Let's use Peloton for an example, right? I don't do it a lot, but when I do, there's something fun that I love about it. You do the workout, but there's this leaderboard in community, right, where you just stick to it. So it's not just you doing the workout, but now you're like, you know what? I've gotta beat Callie Girl [00:13:00] 3 1 2, because she's on the lead award and she's number two and one. Right? There's just a sense of engagement that you get from that type of experience, and there's a shared experience there. So I think what I'm saying is associations have already potentially built that within their members, but it's not always activated intentionally. Right. Kurt, my question for you is, why does pure connection create a kind of learning value? That content alone simply can't deliver.  Kurt Heikkinen: Yeah, I think you said it. You used the freight shared experience. If it were just about you getting on the treadmill and consuming a course or content, it would be different than knowing that you're going through that experience together and in associations more than just general social communities. There is a passion around the subject matter itself. There's a deep passion around advancing the body of knowledge, and so communities unlock shared experience and shared [00:14:00] expertise and done right. It's not just about dipping in and dipping out and taking a course or reading a document. It really is about how can I learn side by side from my peers. Informally as well as formally, and how can I also contribute to that body of knowledge or that community of practice?  Sharon Pare: Is there something that separates organizations that truly leverage community from those that just simply provide the space for it?  Kurt Heikkinen: I think that's a really great question. Really, when we first start working with a client, these are organizations who have come to us who are not yet clients of Forge. We see really three different profiles. We see individual organizations who have never used community before. They're just exploring for the first time. Maybe they had a listserv, but not truly a community. We have organizations who have tried to adopt community, and in their minds it's a check the box member benefit. They have it because their members ask for it. [00:15:00] So they check the box and they say they have it, but they wouldn't describe it as vibrant. And they often say We struggle with engagement. And then we have organizations who come to us where they would describe their. Community as having engagement, but they struggle to really associate, tie it to the member value proposition. And they're wanting to think more broadly about the value of community and tying it to business outcomes. And we're seeing a shift. Those who really get it, think about community through the lens of what business outcomes does. A vibrant community. Generate. And if you can quantify and measure engagement, truly measure it not by logins, by vibrancy in your community, and tie it to outcomes such as retention. Attraction of new members, the generation of additional non-dues revenue, or the increased consumption of content that you've had for [00:16:00] some time that has been stale or under consumed. That's really where the power of community and learning community comes in, and that's how we see more and more leaders thinking about community. Not a check the box member benefit, but a real driver for value and member value proposition.  Ad Break: Let's take a quick break with a word from our sponsor. Do you have members who finish a course and then just kind of disappear with Journey by Forge? Learning doesn't stop at course completion. The real ROI of learning happens after the course. Members move seamlessly from formal coursework into a connected community where they can apply what they've learned. Ask real world questions and continue the conversation with peers who understand their challenges. It's not just an LMS, and it's not just a community platform. Journey by Forge brings learning conversation and insight together in one seamless experience. So [00:17:00] instead of isolated courses, you create an active social learning environment where growth actually happens to see how it works. Visit forge.ai. That's F-O-R-J-dot-AI.  Sharon Pare: You worked with EcoAmerica where courses and community originally lived separately. Could you walk us through what was happening there? Kurt Heikkinen: Yeah. They train thousands of climate ambassadors every year. When you think about that these individuals are there 'cause they have a passion for the cause. They're not required to fill this role. This is not a course that they have to take to maintain a certification in their field and to maintain their employment. So experience matters in those instances, A as in most. And so they had two separate experiences and what they know they were really trying to drive not only [00:18:00] education, for someone to be deemed and qualified as an ambassador. Create a sense of how best to fulfill that role through the learning from your peers. And so previously what would happen is they had a community and they had this course, and individuals inevitably would go take the training 'cause they wanted to support the cause and get the certification to be an ambassador. But that's when the experience would stop. They would never log into community 'cause they saw no purpose or meaning for that. And many times they didn't come back to update or refresh their training. And so through the power of Forge by unifying community and learning together, that's where we unlocked great potential. And so now you look at an experience where a pre, during and post, you're actually engaging in conversation with your peers. It makes learning social, it makes it interactive. It's not just a course that you check the box on. You have a [00:19:00] shared experience and a shared purpose. What has happened now as a result is their community has grown significantly. They're recruiting more and more climate ambassadors and in, and a higher percentage of those individuals are coming back over and over again to update their training. So really great testament and story around the power of community and learning, uh, being a unified experience.  Sharon Pare: So it sounds like learning became something that the members were a part of, not just something that they finished, not just stripped off the box. Kurt, why is it important for associations to understand and evaluate the difference between integrating community learning and technology intentionally built for unified community and learning? Kurt Heikkinen: Yeah, that's a great question and one of the things that I think is really good news for our industry is we've seen a rise in RFPs, request for proposals, that ask for community and learning together from a technology standpoint. And thankfully we've also seen [00:20:00] competitors in our space talking about it as well. And there's really been an increase in understanding of the why behind the value, and I think it's really important that. Buyers are able to discern the difference between integrated solutions and those that are intentionally built to unify that experience. And so here's probably the simplest way and the word of caution that I would offer. If you have an integrated solution where it's two separate technologies still, yes, you'll get the benefit of single sign. You may get the benefit of a basic personalized experience because now you can tie a discussion thread to a course or a course to a discussion thread, but you're missing significant opportunities that only get unlocked when it's a single unified solution. It starts with a unified experience. It continues with AI driven personalization and a unified experience. [00:21:00] We know every click. We know every conversation. We know every piece of content that has been consumed. We know every area of interest, and it gets back to serving up that experience, guiding that learner or that member through their journey. You also get deeper insights that don't exist when you have two separate solutions that are simply integrated. And those insights unlock understandings of your members, their needs and their interests in ways that you didn't previously have access to, or other content ideas or program ideas. 'cause now you know. What your members are talking about and what they really crave and how they enjoy learning. Beyond that, you simplify your tech stack and you reduce your costs. And so the difference between integrated. Integrated gets you partially the way there. A fully unified solution is where the true power is unlocked. Sharon Pare: So what organization or mindset shift most often unlocks this kind of connected experience? I know you've touched a little bit about it, but can [00:22:00] we dig deeper into that?  Kurt Heikkinen: Yeah, please. I actually grew up on the client side buying and selecting and implementing software from vendors and I talk about my experience. I say I stopped 29 years in counting. It's my 29th year over and over again. So I've been around a little bit, and there's data that shows regardless of buyer community or technology vendor, upwards of 40% of B2B buyers. That's what we're talking about here. B2B, buyers associations buying services or technology experience, purchase regret within the first 60 to 90 days. Why? Because now that they're going through implementation, they're realizing that the solution they purchased. Doesn't adapt to their current or future anticipated needs. And so to your question, what is that though? Does that mind shift or organizational shift? It starts with one, start with a member experience in mind. Don't dust off your old RFP from the last time you bought an [00:23:00] LMS or community solution. And use that as your requirements. Start with a mindset shift around member experience in the moments that matter too. Identify a business champion as the stakeholder. It is great. They do a great job of helping to validate how things will work. You really should have a business owner driving and sponsoring the evaluation and tying it to business outcomes. And third, break down the silo. Stop buying technology where it's just one department or the other. Don't buy an LMS without engaging the membership team. And don't think about an upgrade to your community solution without engaging your learning team and your marketing team in that experience as well. Sharon Pare: You bring up three really great points, and I think a lot of associations are still measuring learning by how much the content they offer, but as you said, that's just not the most meaningful metric anymore. So what's one assumption leaders should seriously [00:24:00] rethink right now?  Kurt Heikkinen: Yeah, and I meet with dozens of CEOs a year and over. I hear a concern around future relevancy. It's not. This year or next year, it's five and 10 years out. So the risk isn't assuming that you'll always exist, and the risk isn't assuming that your members will always want to be members. And so the biggest fundamental way of rethinking about your future is the challenge of competition that has increased exponentially over the last five to 10 years in so many industries. Your members have mind share and wallet share that they're making choices around every day, and if you do not create the experience that is meeting their expectations, you will lose relevancy and you will lose your place as the trusted place for them to come and stay.  Sharon Pare: Kurt, I really appreciate the conversation. It feels like the future of association learning [00:25:00] isn't just more content, it's more connection. I appreciate you sharing your perspective today.  Kurt Heikkinen: Thank you so much. And if I could leave one quick thought, because I know change is sometimes hard. It could sound overwhelming. Many of our clients have a staff of 10 or 20 or 30, and so the thought of changing sounds like too much. Here's a mind shift in terms of changing vocabulary internally instead of saying our LMS. Or our community or our education, start to adapt the vernacular of our learning community, whether that exists for you or not today. Start using that vernacular, our learning community and see how it starts to change the conversations inside of your organization and how you receive the feedback from your learners and your members. Sharon, thanks so much for your time. I appreciate it. It's been a great, great time together.  Sharon Pare: Thank you, Kurt, for the final words. Appreciate it. Learning community. You've heard it from Kurt. Thank you. Thank you.  And that does it for [00:26:00] this episode of Association NOW Presents:  Industry Partner Series. We'll have these special episodes throughout the year, and please make sure to join us each month overall as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals, discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today, and highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy, the US and the world. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Visit associations now online at associationsnow.com. Thank you everyone.

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE, CEO of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, speaks with Jerry Jacobs, Esq., partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, about three major issues facing associations today: artificial intelligence, DEI, and misconduct at events. They explore why many organizations are adopting AI cautiously and the importance of guardrails, institutional licenses, and transparency when meetings are recorded or summarized. Jacobs also discusses legal considerations around DEI programs amid increasing scrutiny and evolving interpretations of civil rights law. The conversation concludes with a look at rising concerns around inappropriate behavior at events and why clear policies and enforceable codes of conduct are essential for associations. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/6YBt9suvV2U   Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: [00:00:00] Welcome to this month's episode of Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Tom Arend, CEO of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. Prior to serving as CEO, I was also general counsel of a large association. And prior to that, I served as a practitioner in the association law space in Washington DC. Joining us today, we're excited to welcome Jerry Jacobs. Jerry is a partner at the firm of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pitman, LLP. Jerry has for decades been recognized as the dean of the association law world, both in Washington and across the country. He is a frequent commentator, author, contributor, and speaker on association law topics, and recently came out with the seventh edition of the Bible of association law, the Association Law Handbook. Welcome Jerry.  Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: Hi, Tom.  Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: So there's a lot going on in the [00:01:00] world right now, but we're gonna try and focus primarily on three topics. First topic has to do with the use of artificial intelligence in associations and by associations. Then we'll move on to the impact of diversity, equity, inclusion in associations, and particularly the recent changes in the federal law and the sort of broader federal posture with respect to the use of diversity, equity, inclusion in governance and decision making by associations. Finally we’ll turn to another topic that causes a lot of angst among association executives, which is bad behavior among staff, among members, and among others in the association space, and how associations can most effectively deal with those situations. So in the area of artificial intelligence, actually, particularly today, here we are. In the third week in February, 2026, and we're [00:02:00] reading today, yesterday, over the weekend, doom and gloom scenarios around the use of AI from a number of consulting firm newsletters and other experts in the field, and AI is clearly becoming a very complex, difficult issue for everyone to deal with. How in particular do you see artificial intelligence impacting associations, Jerry? Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: It's gonna affect us all sooner than later, from everything that I can understand. Last year we had a role in the transition of what's arguably the leading AI company in the United States and the world Open AI from its historic founding as a public charity to more emphasis on a taxable business corporation. And I had a chance to look on the inside of the workings of a large AI company. And what I learned is that it's being utilized with new creativity and new efficiency in different ways by different [00:03:00] users. The association community, almost by definition, is a person-to-person field. There's advocacy, which is often one-on-one. There's professional education that's often very personalized. There are communications networking that's always personal, and so I'm wondering whether AI is moving more slowly into the association community than elsewhere because of the personalization required to be successful in association management. But we're seeing association clients use it effectively for preparing content, for communications, for summarizing meeting discourse, for cleaning or mining long lists of members, prospects, vendors, et cetera. And we've seen some. Fairly creative, but so far very limited uses by comparison as lawyers in the [00:04:00] law firm community, we're going headlong in use of ai and I'm not seeing that as often among associations.  Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: Yeah, I would agree with that. What I've seen both personally within the association that I work for and some of my other colleagues experiences in the last, I would say three to four years, is a, a slightly slower adoption than in some other spaces in the commercial area. But I do see that accelerating significantly, and I see both use cases internal to operations and management of an association, almost similar to any other large organization and then external use cases. And maybe we can talk about those. I think in both cases, it's important at the beginning to set some guardrails, to set some policies and procedures, some very clear expectations about how it's going to be used by your internal staff. For example, in our case, initially, I recall we had different groups [00:05:00] using different platforms. We'd have one, the marketing group, for example, maybe using anthropic, and you'd have the finance folks using ChatGPT, and you'd have the comms people using something else. And we ultimately got to a space where we said, hey, we've got to figure out, first of all, a uniform tool that we're all gonna use, that we all can become conversant on. And then importantly, we'll all have a corporate license for and we can use appropriately. And that ideally will help us better integrate what we're doing across the organization in ai. And is that, what are some of your thoughts on setting up those appropriate?  Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: That actually makes sense. You're providing computers and in many cases, ipads and phones to employees. So you have every right to restrict what apps and software are used on those machines. And many organizations are picking one or two buying institutional licenses, which will sometimes allow confidentiality of use of these tools, which is a, [00:06:00] a big advantage. And yes, everybody is struggling with “What are our policies going to be?” A continuing question is what about members who wanna use AI to summarize meetings they attend? Yeah. Whether governance meetings or educational content meetings. I would think that in our experience so far, we see more associations come down on the side of denying and forbidding politely and diplomatically use of meeting summary AI tools by attendees simply. Because it's better to have one official record of what happened, especially at governance meetings. But I really appreciate that the exigency of membership relations, you may not be able to hold out. The members may just demand it. And I have seen some pretty darn good summaries of meetings produced by these programs. Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: Yeah, that's an interesting case. And that's exactly a case [00:07:00] that you can compare to. This is the new technology we have. In some ways, the outcome of that technology is not a lot different in kind than the outcome. Twenty years ago we said, oh, can we record this meeting? Can we do an audio recording of this meeting? And for the reasons you articulated well, we don't necessarily wanna have, we don't wanna killl the debate among board members or committees or what have you, by them thinking, oh, some somebody's gonna look at, listen to this in three weeks or three months, and maybe I misspoke and I didn't correct it. And to your point, we want the minutes to be the official record. And so that, my recollection is the universal recommendation would be no, you shouldn't record meetings as a general rule now. I agree with you and just I see the progression that we've taken and some of my other colleagues and other associations, almost every call I'm on it. We just automatically record it. And the governance people, the staff people use that summary to then [00:08:00] create their own summary and then a set of minutes and it's just become so easy, not error free, to your point, it's always critical to review, have a human. Review everything, but it's hard to stand in the way of that progress from a governance entity. Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: That's absolutely correct. And one final point, if we're gonna move on to another subject, we can't remind users often enough that right now AI's programs all hallucinate, they all make up. And, and so to develop something based just on AI and send it out to the members and find that a key fact or even an insignificant fact is just incorrect, will embarrass the association. And so you've got to check the facts, although we are always surprised with the ability of AI programs to come up with things that we hadn't thought of or data points that we didn't know existed. But very often, not every once in a while, very often they make them [00:09:00] up and so you have to be sure and double check them all. Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: Yeah. Jerry, what about to this point? Everyone's on a Zoom meeting now, even when you are in person infrequently now, andwe all know it's being recorded by AI and will be used later. This notion of transparency around when we're using AI and then disclaimers to that effect.  Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: I think certainly when it's happening at a meeting, the attendees have a right to know that someone is recording what they're saying or proposing or objecting to. So by all means, I think just membership relations again dictates transparency and openness, even to the point, does anybody object if we use this program in order to record and summarize this event in order to be more efficient in our work?  Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: What about confidentiality concerns? I'm thinking of a board meeting. A pretty standard agenda item is often executive session.  Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: One of Jacob's theories of Association [00:10:00] Law and Policy is that there's no such thing as a confidential association meeting because your volunteers are unpaid or just because this isn't the same as their employer.  Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: Yeah.  Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: For whatever reason, it's virtually impossible to maintain complete confidentiality when you're making a major transaction and you're having it reviewed, or you're considering legislative or litigation advocacy alternatives or major budget issues, or you're evaluating the board itself. Or senior employees of the organization, or obviously if you're listening to advice from your lawyers or investment advisors or others, confidentiality is important and it's a value to the success of the association, but it's very hard to maintain and, and it gets harder if people are recording meetings and you have no control over what they're doing with the recordings.[00:11:00]  Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: Yeah, I couldn't agree with that more. I've seen a, for lack of a better word, a diminution in the value of confidentiality and their respect for it. Over the years, I don't know, because everything is now just out in the open and transparent and accessible to everybody. People don't think as much about confidentiality. But yeah, that's definitely a challenge. What about intellectual property concerns when you're using AI? Internally as well as for a lot of associations like ours, we have, we have journals, right? We have clinical practice guidelines, we have other documents, content out there, and in some cases we found they're already being used or have been incorporated into some kind of AI platform without our permission. Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: It's the essence of what associations do to corral joint action for the improvement of this or that. Tocqueville remarked about it in the 1830s, how uniquely American it is. It's a [00:12:00] kind of barn raising mentality, offshoot, and from an intellectual property point of view, what. We have to worry about is, if six people or 16 people or 116 people together create something, they actually all own it unless they sign away their rights. And yes, you need to be careful about creating content in a group, and you need to manage ownership of that. And if that means asking the participants to assign away any rights that they might have in it, usually as part of some other. Document, maybe on confidentiality or decorum for our meeting or agreement on what we're trying to achieve here. And then you tuck in. And by the way, I agree that the association owns anything that's the output of this event and have 'em sign it.  Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: Yeah. And then I know there a lot of significant cases right now before the courts around certain AI providers having gone into. Large news organizations and scraped [00:13:00] their archives. And like I said, we've seen that with some of our clinical materials, journal articles, that sort of thing that are owned by us or in a lot of association cases. They might be owned by the publisher, but they haven't given any permission to do to use that and that, and  Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: Of course all of that is in litigation in a dozen cases. And so far AI is winning.  Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: Alright, last two questions on this area, then we'll move on. What about any insurance to try and protect yourself against liability, mitigate that risk.  Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: Many associations now carry privacy disclosure data, privacy disclosure hacking damage insurance. I haven't seen the insurance community react or respond to risks from use of AI yet, and I'm guessing it's just too new. Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: And then finally what I'm hearing is that there should always be this human oversight, this human intervention, whenever and wherever we're using it as an association. Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: [00:14:00] Absolutely.  Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: Alright, let's move to another topic that's very timely and also it can be very challenging for a lot of associations, and that's the changing legal landscape, federal policy. Changes or almost a change to some degree in the zeitgeist of the country on issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and the impact on associations and those programs. I recall that there was a case brought by, I think it was Students for Fairness or something to that effect, versus Harvard and University of North Carolina. And the Supreme Court found that it was illegal, I think, contrary to the equal protection clause, to use any kind of race consciousness in admissions decisions. And then that decision has then been used to justify, essentially what we hear from the federal government is almost a blanket ban on using any diversity, equity inclusion criteria in [00:15:00] decision making, in awards, in contracting, in education. At the association level, what have you, can you speak to that a little bit?  Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: There's a tension. There's a tension between the scientific evidence that suggests that a greater range of voices, ideas, input, can contribute to a more successful output in almost any endeavor. On the other side, there are civil rights laws that have been in place since just after the Civil War that prohibit treating people uniquely because of their race, uh, and by extension from the civil rights laws in the 1960s based on other protected gender, ethnicity, that sort of thing.  And so how does one resolve that tension? Up to now, it's been step by step, the 2023 Supreme Court case that you mentioned. The court was careful to limit the purview of its decision to college admission decisions, period. I. [00:16:00] And yet the principle has been taken up, especially by this administration, and extended toward the policy view that essentially all diversity, equity, inclusion, even more broadly, environmental social governance, where and if it. Results in treating any class unfairly, including those not specifically. Not in a protective class is wrong. Right? In fact, more than once, the administration in various contexts has said it's illegal, but without explaining what it is that's illegal or on what basis it's illegal. In addition to the Supreme Court case, though, we ought to be aware of one federal circuit. Court case, 10th Circuit, in which a private foundation had a program that provided scholarships to black owned businesses, women, black owned businesses, and it required the recipients of those scholarships to sign a contract on [00:17:00] how they would use the money from the award. And that was challenged in court. In the 10th Circuit, Alabama, Georgia, Florida purview concluded that violated the post-Civil War, civil rights lawon contracting based on race. What we have so far is college admissions and contracts, but there is a view. By extension of the Supreme Court decision and perhaps the 10th Circuit decision that any kind of benefit or favoritism based on any protected class, if your association has a women's caucus or if it has anAsian Engineers networking group, or Asian American networking group, anything that appears to provide a special privilege or benefit based on participation or non-participation in a protected class in the view of some. Certainly this administration [00:18:00] is problematic. In indeed the rhetoric of the administration is it's illegal. Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: Yeah. Yeah. I know you mentioned just as an aside, ESG, the corporate model of environmental, social, and governance. Using those rubrics and the impact an organization has in those three spaces that's really almost been lumped in now with these DEI prohibitions and I've seen a lot of organizations either abandoning their ESG efforts altogether, or significantly downgrading them or recharacterizing them, refashioning. Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: Yes, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's the majority of associations that since the second Trump administration began, or taking a look at how they describe various programs and whether there are ways to achieve the same result without using what are potential. Trigger words that could be picked up by a bot somewhere, and if not getting you in trouble, at least [00:19:00] shining a spotlight on you that you'd rather have shown on you. So we have a lot of clients that are changing diversity to community, but without changing anything else. Query whether that's really worth the trouble because you might offend some folks in doing in your group. Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: Exactly.  Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: And even that, but it's going on a lot. One incident that's, that's too long and complicated to go into in detail, but the Department of Education confronted 45 or so colleges and universities for their sponsorship of a particular organization and required that they report back to the Department of Education on what they're doing to mitigate and moderate. Essentially, they wanted these schools to commit to not any longer supporting that organization and one of them. University of Kentucky actually published what had reported back to the federal government, and it went ahead and screened. We don't know how, they don't [00:20:00] explain how they screened 1600 nonprofit organizations. The University of Kentucky somehow contributed to most cases, probably paying faculty or staff dues for a membership in an organization, purchasing publications or whatever. The University of Kentucky then excluded for from consideration 400 of those because they felt they really needed that. Nonprofit credentialing organizations or whatever, but the other 1200, they basically put on a watch list and asked DOE what to do about it, because in those 1200, they found evidence of potential civil rights violations based on DEI. Mm-hmm. What they found. But the very number of 1200 means they must have used AI to just  Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: Yeah. Yeah. That, that's what we've been hearing as well, that they're using. Keywords.  Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: Yeah. So the point is, do you want your association's website [00:21:00] to be called out impropriety illegality and have to defend it, or does it make sense to change some terminology?  Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: So it seems like we're in a very murky environment right now, and even though a lot of times you hear this is absolutely illegal. Whether something is legal or illegal is still somewhat being adjudicated right now. Formally that said, prudence wisdom probably dictates making some modifications. I've heard the expression used for organizations that feel very strongly about these issues. You don't wanna be deemphasizing, DEI, but at the same time, you wanna be de-risking your association and taking some prudent steps to at least get you out of the crosshairs of the federal government and some of these agencies that are looking for examples [00:22:00] right now. Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: I think to conclude we ought to watch two things carefully. We ought to be careful as associations to not find ourselves in a position where we're actually entering into contracts such as scholarships that specifically involve preferential treatment to people based on race. We've got a late 1800s law that prohibits that, and we've got at least one for federal circuit court that said it's illegal. So that's an area. We need to be careful of if you have a scholarship program where the benefits are based on racial characteristics, for God's sakes, don't ask the scholarship recipients to sign an agreement because that could get you over the line in terms of not just impropriety, but illegality, and then perhaps I would say softer. Are you providing anything that could realistically be characterized as benefits or advantages to portions of your. Association constituency based on any protected [00:23:00] class characteristic. And it's just worth cataloging those and looking at them and asking yourself, does the culture history and success of your organization depend on perpetuating those or not, and make your decision. Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: Yeah. Yeah. Good points. Alright, let's move to our last topic, which is under the very broad category of bad behavior, bad behavior by members, bad behavior by staff, vendors, consultants in the context of association activities like an annual meeting or a board meeting or an educational course, and I think both of us over our many years combined have seen a lot of these in various different forms. I will say what I find interesting, and I think something to keep in mind is how you deal with it. Also depends on what the dynamic is. Is it a member to member issue? Is it a staff to member issue? Is it a staff to staff issue? Is it a member to [00:24:00] vendor or external consultant issue? And we've had experiences with all of these various kinds. How do you first set up? Again, going back a little bit to the AI adoption issue is the environment, the guardrails, the policies and procedures first to hopefully create an environment where you can at least discourage that and set up ways to address it if and when they do happen.  Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: I hope our behavior here has been beyond reproach, um, yours at least. Jerry, has the problem accelerated in recent years? Is it COVID when everybody was cooped up? Is it just so much on the internet that everybody has access to right now? I don't know, but it is undeniable in our practice that we get far more frequent calls than we used to from our association clients about. Bad behavior problems, usually at events, but not always. And it's almost appalling. Old fashioned sexual harassment is up [00:25:00] not down. And you would think that at this day and age we've gotten beyond that. Supreme Court has said that the sexual based conduct that makes a person reasonably uncomfortable is illegal. And that an organization that does not have a written harassment policy is essentially defenseless against a claim, and that's basic. There's even a case in New York in which a member of an association asked to borrow an office while in the city from the association, and while there allegedly engaged in harassment, the association attempted to defend arguing that. They had no control over this individual. He was just visiting the office, and the court said, no, you have an obligation to protect your workforce from this sort of thing by extension. That means that your associations have an obligation to protect your staff from attendees at events, engaging in improper conduct, specifically sexual harassment, but [00:26:00] also member to member to vendor staff, to vendor to staff, et cetera, et cetera. I think we all know enough about sexual harassment to know what it is, how to help prevent it, what policies we need to have, et cetera. This is an issue that's been in the courts for the Supreme Court's Major decision was 20 years ago.  Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: Yeah.  Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: But. What's new and unique we think is, is just extreme impoliteness. Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: Yeah.  Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: Individual dominating a board meeting and kind of not listening to other views and demanding the microphone far disproportionately to what is reasonable. Or individuals walking up to a long line at a registration desk and starting yelling, this is unreasonable. I don't have time to waste standing in this line. Yeah, I paid my registration or I paid my dues, and those kind of situations are really difficult to deal with. One thing you pointed out that we find amazing is it really does depend who's offending whom [00:27:00] as to what the result is. We've seen associations where their leader, the elected chair, was accused of pretty significant wrongdoing, basically bearing their head in the sand and saying, he's one of us. We'll talk to him, but no, we shouldn't offend him. He's one of us. A boorish vendor at a trade show booth, it's a lot easier to just throw the bone out.  Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: Right? Yeah. I think I've, I'm aware of examples where, because of a lack of appropriate process, and I would say process and policies that specifically address the different contexts in which harassment, bullying, just poor behavior can occur. I think how you deal with it. Internally and who deals with it is very important. In other words, if it's a member to member issue, my view is that you absolutely have to have peers, members primarily leading that charge. It's usually not well received [00:28:00] when staff are seen as the. Prosecutors, for lack of a better word, similarly, if the dynamic is between a member and a staff person who, whoever is potentially the individual at fault. That's a little bit more of a tricky dance because I think you need to have some kind of a collaborative approach to it. There has to be a senior staff person, a CEO, or somebody at that level along with a member addressing it, because I think either way, if you. Turf it entirely to the membership or turf it entirely to the staff leadership. You're gonna get one party saying, Hey, that's not fair to me. Those are I, my interests aren't gonna be represented, so I  Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: You made a good point about having a baseline. Yeah. Too many of these situations arise in circumstances where the association has nothing to point to. It's really not a code of ethics issue. Yeah. Not a business code issue. It's a behavior issue.  Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: It's a behavior, yeah. It's just you're being [00:29:00] a jerk. You're being rude, you're being disrespectful, you're being bullying. Whatever.  Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: More and more we are seeing associations develop a good behavior policy, having it have it approved by the board, and then have it click through for every single registrant at every single event I have read and understand the policy on behavior at this event and to move on. Everybody's gonna click through it. Nobody's gonna read it, but if bad behavior occurs, you can point to that and say, look, you agreed to follow our code. There's ample evidence that you violated our code. We have to ask you to leave.  Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: Yeah, no, absolutely. You've gotta have those codes of conduct on both sides, on the staff side as well as the member side and the vendor side, or consultant side as well. Jerry Jacobs, Esq.: Yeah. Remember the Oscars award show a couple years ago when there was the famous slap? There was actually no code that dealt with that.  Tom Arend, Jr., Esq., CAE: Unfortunately. There was something even. Awful. That happened recently at another award show that, yeah, it's, yeah, human [00:30:00] behavior always seems to exceed the battles that are set for it at some point in time. Thanks, Jerry. We've covered a lot of ground from artificial intelligence to diversity, equity, inclusion to unfortunate and bad behavior within associations. Appreciate as always your thoughtful insights and counsel. Look forward to speaking again in the future. And in the meantime, I wanna say thank you to all of our listeners for this episode of Associations NOW Presents. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field. And highlight the significant impact associations have on our economy, the United States and the world. Please be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Please visit Associations NOW online at associationsnow.com. Thanks [00:31:00] everybody.

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Dave Will, co-founder and CEO of PropFuel and host of Association Strong, is joined by Jason Oxman, president and CEO of the Information Technology Industry Council, and Amith Nagarajan, AAiP, chairman of Blue Cypress and co-founder of Sidecar, to examine the growing importance of AI certification for association leaders. They explore how AI is rapidly moving from experimentation into everyday workflows and why the real risk is not job loss to AI, but falling behind peers who know how to use it effectively. Amith discusses the challenge associations face in keeping pace with AI’s accelerating evolution, while Jason shares ITI’s practical, bottom-up approach to adoption, starting with small use cases such as meeting summaries, email drafting, and research, supported by clear acceptable-use policies and disclosures. The conversation also highlights how AI can strengthen member engagement through personalization, support board and staff education, and enable associations to develop new products and services for their industries. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/Xf3G-LmxEAM   Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript Dave Will: [00:00:00] Welcome to this month's episode of Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Dave Will, co-founder and CEO of Prop Fuel, as well as the host of the Association Strong podcast. If you're listening to this, you'll love the Association Strong podcast. You can find that at associationstrong.com. Today topic's all about AI certification and whether or not it's a valuable program for association executives. Spoiler, it is. So to dig into this a little further with me, I wanna welcome Jason Oxman, president and CEO of the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), and Amith Nagarajan, chairman of Blue Cypress, and the co-founder of Sidecar. Jason, welcome.  Jason Oxman: Thanks, Dave. Great to be with you. Thanks for having me on.  Dave Will: Of course. And Jason, I just learned you are the host of the Download on Tech podcast as well, right?  Jason Oxman: That is absolutely [00:01:00] right. We focus on public policy related to AI, so a little different than our conversation today, but a great opportunity here. Conversations about advancements in tech.  Dave Will: Who doesn't wanna hear more from government officials and Amith you. That was demeaning. I'm very sorry, Jason. I'm sure it's riveting. Talking to the government officials. Amith, welcome to this podcast. So Amith, you have the Sidecar Sync Podcast.  Amith Nagarajan: I do. It's a weekly podcast at the intersection of all things associations and artificial intelligence. We love doing it and the association community seems to enjoy it.  Dave Will: So while we're on Sidecar, Amit, gimme 15 seconds on what Sidecar is all about.  Amith Nagarajan: Sidecar is on a mission to educate the association world on ai. It's very simple. We think that the catalyst to driving transformative change in associations is all about education. If we can educate 1 million or more people by the end of the decade, which is our mission at sidecar, [00:02:00] specifically in the association market, we think we're gonna make a big difference. So our goal is to move the needle considerably on AI adoption, but AI adoption in the pursuit of driving transformational change.  Dave Will: Was Sidecar originated with that intent or was, did Sidecar more or less embrace AI as it came to the forefront?  Amith Nagarajan: Sidecar has been around about 10 years. It has not always been exclusively focused on AI, although AI has actually always been on the agenda for sidecar as a major item. Up until about four years ago, we had a number of other things we covered, but we decided about 2020 1 22 that we were gonna go all in on AI and do nothing. Other than ai. So that's the shift we made. But the broader theme of sidecar is how do we help associations through change, through significant change, of course. And right now, AI is the biggest driver of that. That may not always be true. And sidecars commitment is to be here for this community. Regardless of what the changing forces are at the moment, it really is about ai. [00:03:00]  Dave Will: And Jason, before we dig into the AI talk too much, gimme 15 seconds on ITI. Why does ITI exist? Jason Oxman: We are the oldest and largest trade association of the technology industry. We're founded in 1916 and we represent 80 of the world's largest technology companies, policy development, advocacy around the world, the regulatory and legislative environment obviously impacts the ability of the tech industry to offer innovative services to their customers. And so the team at ITI, 60 people strong, spends all day every day advocating for public policy that helps advance innovation. Our member companies are all companies you would've heard of ranging from semiconductor manufacturers, data center operators, components manufacturers, big tech companies to the companies advertising in the Super Bowl against each other, the whole tech stack, if you will. Dave Will: Yeah. Those are entertaining. Uh, the philanthropic and going after, was it Chat GPT, philanthropic going after Chat [00:04:00] GPT for the advertising? Yeah. We could have a whole podcast on advertising and AI. That'd be interesting to talk about. All right. Let's get into the topic, Jason. I've heard that 2026 is the year that AI becomes a productive tool for organizations. I think what that means is AI has moved from this experimental phase where we're playing with it to making it more deeply ingrained in our operations. And so why the shift? What do you think changed in people's perspective of AI in the last year?  Jason Oxman: I think what's interesting is AI is a technology tool, and I wanna oversimplify it. It's software that does a lot of things very well, but it is still a technology tool. So every time we have technology innovation, we have questions about what it means for jobs and the dialogue around AI as a tool. Up until this year has been, I think, a positive and one perhaps driven by [00:05:00] curiosity, what is this gonna mean for my ability to do my job? And that quickly became, what is this gonna mean for my job? And so if you look back over time, it's interesting to think about. MIT did a study on this last year. 60% of the jobs that people have today did not exist in 1940. Certainly a podcaster is a job that didn't exist in 1940, but overall, 60% of the jobs. Out there in the country right now did not exist just a few decades ago, and that's because of changes in technology and we all have to adapt to that. I think our conversation today is important because it's a reminder that. My job might not be taken by ai, but it might be taken by somebody who knows how to use ai. So I think it's more important to figure out how to use the tools to make yourself more marketable as an employee to make your organization more efficient and more effective than it is to view AI as something that's gonna cause. Such disruption that it eliminates jobs entirely. That's why this certification [00:06:00] conversation we're having, this education conversation we're having, particularly for the association community, is so incredibly important. Dave Will: Did you say when you were introducing ITI, did you say it was 1960?  Jason Oxman: 1916. So we're 110 years old. Our founding members were companies that made business equipment, so IBM, which used to be called the Computing Tabulating Recording Company, founded us in 1916. Back then, they made punch clocks and scales and adding machines. NCR. Still with us today, one of our founding members made cash registers. So we used to be called the Association of Business Appliance Manufacturers. And I like the fact that you like old technology too.  Dave Will: So I just pointed, if you're listening to this, I just pointed at an NCR cash register that's behind me. I'm very proud of that. Actually, my grandmother was an entrepreneur. She owned a health food shop. When her husband died, she opened a health food shop and she had an NCR and I used to love playing with that. So she gifted it to me when she closed the shop and retired that [00:07:00] 1916. So I think back and at Thanksgiving and the holidays, I have conversations with my father-in-law who was a. A developer back in the sixties and a developer back in the sixties used punch cards and yeah, it's just fascinating to think about the progress and the change. And so I take it based on what you're saying, you're not too worried about job replacement. Is that a fair summary?  Jason Oxman: That's a fair summary. I'm not worried about job replacement. I'm worried about people not recognizing that jobs are changing.  Dave Will: Changing.  Jason Oxman: Yep. And the tools that they need to be familiar with in order to adapt are very important to learn.  Dave Will: Yeah. Amith you've been working in the association space for 25, 30 years.  Amith Nagarajan: Yeah, it's been a while. Jason Oxman: Yeah. And the association space is about, people are called associations because we bring people together to associate with one another. There was this idea that [00:08:00] Zoom, which we're on right now, which is a great platform, and one of our member companies was gonna kill trade shows because people didn't need to travel anymore. But there is no replacement for the in-person contact with one another. The handshake, the eye contact, the conversation. That's why trade shows continue to thrive, and the association community continues to. To thrive. AI is going to make it easier for us to develop content, to make use of that content, to bring people together, to research, to market all of the things that associations need to do. But it's not gonna replace that in-person contact. And I think it's the same with jobs. We're gonna make jobs better. We're gonna free up time, be more efficient to do the things that only humans can do, but it's not gonna replace us.  Dave Will: Yeah, it's not gonna replace my warm embrace when I see you at ASAE this summer.  Jason Oxman: I look forward to that. Dave  Dave Will: Amith, in your decades, which, by the way, you look amazing for having spent so many decades working with association. But if in your decades of working [00:09:00] with association you've seen a lot of change, when you first started working with association's, AMS weren't around. You started Aptify back in the day. LMSs weren't around. I came out with one of the first LMSs back in the early two thousands. The rate of change though, that we're seeing with ai. It's unlike anything I've ever seen before it, it's unbelievable. How do you think the association space is responding or will respond to such dramatically fast change?  Amith Nagarajan: Honestly, I'm pretty worried about it. I think the association space is looking at this as another technology for the most part. I do think people are taking it seriously now as we enter 2026, which is great. I don't think they're taking it seriously enough. So I'm probably gonna come across a little bit negative, some of my comments, but I wanted to kind of reassure people that there's time to adapt, but the issue is that the speed at which this technology [00:10:00] is driving change is the problem. It's not that we're not used to technologies driving change in jobs, and I agree with Jason, that's an excellent stat. 1940 to now 60% of the current jobs didn't exist. That should give us a lot of comfort. On the one hand, the flip side of it is that's 86 years. And the speed at which things are happening now is more like 8.6 months, right? Is driving radical change. I agree with what Jason's saying that jobs are not likely to completely go away. But first of all, I don't know that any of us really know that to be true or untrue because we've never, none of us have ever been through this type of exponential change. What I will say is these systems that we have, whether they're systems of economy, politics, social systems, there's incentive reward systems in every aspect of life, in business and in personal life. And the issue is that if you can substitute one product for another or one service for another, and one service is perhaps equivalent in value, but is dramatically less [00:11:00] expensive, or perhaps is even better in value and dramatically less expensive, you will at least seriously consider it, if not flocked to it, right? It's unlikely that people will hire the jobs. To put it in, in labor economics terms that could be fulfilled by AI or could be 90% fulfilled by AI. So you think about jobs like customer service, a favorite one to pick on and say, is customer service currently being delivered in an extraordinary way universally across all companies everywhere in the globe? I don't think anyone would say yes to that. That's why I say it in such a ridiculous way. Would most companies say that they love the customer service experience? They provide their own customers or what most associations say, they think the customer service they provide their members is extraordinary. I don't think most people would agree with that statement. And if they could do that, and it's not about hiring tons more people. Maybe it's about taking the current people they have, but empowering them and that that's exciting. But most of the time when you're talking about like businesses, if you're saying, Hey, we have 5,000 people doing call center work. I don't know that you're gonna keep 5,000 people. Maybe [00:12:00] not all the jobs go away, but a large number of them could. Now, that doesn't mean that those people can't be retrained. It doesn't mean that all hope is lost for those folks. I'm actually quite optimistic about retraining. I just don't know what those other jobs are yet, and that's what makes me nervous about this sector. Coming back to it. I think associations have an extraordinarily important responsibility to themselves, internally and to their staff, but moreover to their sector, to their profession. Associations need to lead the way in terms of AI education for everyone, for themselves, and for their industries to help people figure this out, I definitely do not have all the answers. I just think that the challenge is perhaps the steepest one we've ever faced when it comes to job retraining and readiness.  Dave Will: So now a big part of that is the mission behind sidecar, and you guys have hands down, in my experience, become the leaders in AI education and now you've partnered up with ASAE there. You and ASAE are working closely on this association, AI professional certification, otherwise known as [00:13:00] AAiP. If you're on LinkedIn and you're seeing any of your peers, it's unbelievable the number of people that now have AAiP next to their name. Can you walk me through a little bit of this training? What does it entail? What's involved in the certification education process?  Amith Nagarajan: I'd love to. The history behind it is we've been providing AI education in one form or another to this market for years, and about a year and a half ago, we decided that we wanted to produce a certification program so that professionals in this market could demonstrate that they have a strong level of competence in both ai, but also association use cases. How do you actually make AI practical for your association, right? Not just understand the theory behind it, but understand how to put it to work for you. And that's what the certification program is all about. It was we need to teach you the basics so that you understand not just how to prompt ChatGPT. Sure, that's important, but we want you to [00:14:00] understand why certain things work. Why certain things do not work. We want you to be able to adapt and learn over time. So we also update the content extremely frequently. Like every single month we're updating the content. To answer your question, Dave, we have seven courses that form the foundational layer of the AAiP certification, and those courses cover everything from foundational knowledge of what is AI and how does it work. We try to dispel a number of myths. We also try to provide some fundamental knowledge that we think is important for everyone to have. Not deeply technical, but it does stretch your mind a little bit. I think in terms of understanding the technology, we want people to not look at it as a magical creature or a black box or something. We want them to have an idea of what's actually happening under the hood. We've touched, I think it's something on, on the order of about 110,000, 120,000 people that we've touched in some way. Not with the AAiP program yet, that's over a thousand people now. But I'm talking about overall with our webinars, with our podcast, with our newsletters, with all the stuff that we do. We've touched a lot of [00:15:00] people. What we found is that people are both really curious, which is super cool and that the least technical association staff all sometimes are actually the best users of this technology, which I love 'cause that's not true for any other technology I've personally been exposed to. It's normally the people that are most technically adept and the reason that's the case. Is because AI is so counterintuitive for technologists, right? We're trained to think in these very deterministic ways about how software and technology works, and AI is just this weird thing. It's non-deterministic, right? It doesn't always produce the same outputs, given the same inputs, and a lot of times people that are more creative, people that have different backgrounds just find their way to getting more use out of it. In any event, the main point of the program is really simple. We want people to, number one, gain those skills and then we want them to have a valuable badge to be able to apply to their names so that they are recognized for their skills, for their knowledge, and for the value they can provide in our organization. And we were surprised last year when we thought we might have a couple hundred people [00:16:00] get certified, but it blew up. And we love the partnership with ASAE. I've been good friends with. A number of people at ASAE and the organization as a whole since the nineties when they first started using my old company software. And so I've known them forever and highly respect ASAE. And so partnering with ASAE to broaden the reach of the program is super exciting. So that partnership was launched in the fall and we're out there promoting it together. ASAE members do get a 10% discount. On the program, which is cool, and I can tell you more about it and double click on any of that if you'd like, but it's, we're very excited about it. Dave Will: A number of my teammates at Prop Fuel have been certified with the AAiP and I'd love to see the rest of my team get certified as well.  Ad Read: AI is transforming associations, and you can help lead the change at your organization. Through ASAE's partnership with sidecar, A SAE members get discounted access to Sidecar's AI Learning hub, both at the team and individual level. Whether you're [00:17:00] upskilling your entire team or advancing your own expertise, you'll receive 10% off your subscription and access to the AAiP. Association AI Professional Certification. Get started today at sidecar.ai/asae and bring AI education to your organization today.  Dave Will: I've been thinking about the evolution of AI usage recently, and I break it down into three tiers, and there's probably gonna be more tiers over time. In fact, I suspect you guys could probably expand on this, but the way I see it is, first it was treated like a fancy Google, one-off questions or help with creating content, writing a blog post, an email, making my email better, more concise. The next tier is bigger projects that may require an MCP or multiple systems contributing data to do a [00:18:00] better analysis. And usually that's a collection in a multiple exchanges with one or multiples. And then the third tier, and this is the part that I'm most excited about implementing at my company, which is embedding ai. Into continuous processes. And to me that's the holy grail when you've got it now baked into the way you do things. And I'm sure I could probably continue on. You guys more likely could continue on and say, then it's gonna do this, and then we could do that. But Jason first, someone working inside with that foundation, with somebody working inside an association. Where does AI fluency. Create the most immediate impact. Is it operations? Is it member engagement, strategy, governance? Like where do you see AI playing the strongest role as the CEO of ITI?  Jason Oxman: The biggest challenge any [00:19:00] association faces is engaging members, and imagine particularly for professional societies that may have tens or even a hundred thousand plus members. The biggest use case that I see for AI is. The hyper personalization, if you will, of engagement with members, making sure that you're tailoring and making members aware of the offerings that are tailored for their specific use case. So I do think how members experience associations is what AI can really improve, and that's why it works. Dave Will: You would think I fed you that answer. Coming from PropFuel, you would think I set that up for you, but it actually wasn't the case. But thank you for that.  Jason Oxman: It was absolute not the case.  Dave Will: Totally agree with you.  Jason Oxman: I'm so glad to hear that. That's how I get invited back as a guest. But I do think that's an important use case. And I also think it's important for associations to see this as a tool that can. Again, back to your jobs question [00:20:00] earlier, improve the efficiency of the way in which members interact with associations. So if you are in the customer service business and an association and you're getting dozens of inbound inquiries from members a day, you're gonna be able to respond to them more quickly. You're gonna be able to find the information they're looking for more quickly. You're gonna be able to provide them, in fact. The tools they need to find the information themselves. So I do think there are improvements, as you noted to all of the operations of an association, but I do think that hyper-personalized experience, the one that AI can do better than anything else. Think about an association like ITI that's 110 years old and think about how much material we have and how much content we've developed over the more than a century, and then think how hard it's to access that. A lot of it historically has been in a box, in a warehouse, but AI can make that all accessible in, in ways that are really useful to uh, members. So I think that's the best use case for, uh, for associations for ai. And I'm really excited. Let me just say in response to what [00:21:00] ETH was talking about, I'm really excited about the work that he's doing with ASAE's job as an organization. Its whole reason for being. Is to help the association community do business, much as associations themselves, help their members do business. The technology industry for us, and if I think back over my association career, what has ASAE meant to me? I'm a certified association executive, CAE through ASAE. Why did I do that program two decades ago? Because it helped me get my first job as a CEO and as an at an association because I could tell them that I got the education from the association of associations about how to run an association. And going to ASAE's program with Sidecar to get educated about how to use AI in an association is just a great opportunity for all associations to take advantage of these tools. So I'm excited about that partnership as well.  Dave Will: Boards are starting. Boards have noticed AI, so boards, for better or worse, [00:22:00] I think we have in the association space. What I've witnessed in my work with associations is that boards are incredibly helpful and valuable and also very difficult and frustrating at the same time. Because essentially for staff members, you're working in the operations of the business. Probably know what you wanna do next. Now you gotta convince the board to jump on the bandwagon with you, and sometimes that's difficult to do. As the boards are starting to ask more questions about ai, how do you think the certification helps professionals lead those conversations? Talk. Maybe you don't even have to answer that question. Just talk to me about how do we convince boards. To get on board with AI and specifically the certification. Amme, take that one.  Amith Nagarajan: Happy to. So I've been asked to speak to a number of boards by CEOs who believe that AI is going to drive change, but they're books don't buy it yet. And so what's  Dave Will: your email [00:23:00] address Amith?  Amith Nagarajan: It's [email protected], just a [email protected]. Feel free. Dave Will: I figured that might be a good time to plug that in there in case somebody wants your help and convince you for it. But go on, tell, what do you tell?  Amith Nagarajan: I love doing that, Dave. And hit me on LinkedIn too. I'm on LinkedIn a little bit too obsessively, but I've been asked to speak to a bunch of boards over time and speak at conferences and stuff, and when I do this. What I typically am sensing in the room is that the board doesn't yet really buy into the vision of their staff that they've hired that, whether it's the CEO, others, and part of that is because they don't think that those folks necessarily know that much about ai. It was a year or two ago that boards generally themselves that didn't have much of an idea of ai, but now I'm finding that boards, they're not necessarily super well educated in ai, but they have a. Much better sense of it than they did a year or two ago, but they're not necessarily feeling that their staff is prepared. And so when they bring in an outside expert to say, okay, this is the way AI can shape the association, that is helpful. But it doesn't matter how many outside [00:24:00] experts you get, we've got tons of them over here. Our business includes chewing, lots of consulting. We've got software companies that produce AI products. We think, obviously they're all great, but they will make absolutely zero difference to your association by themselves if you don't educate your own people. And so the point of the certification is to bolster confidence in yourself that you know a good bit about AI and to showcase to your community, including your board, that you're prepared to do this. And so that's just step one. Now I will say two quick things about education that are really important. And I think this is true for all education. It's extremely true for AI specifically, and that is you have to start small. You can't just start, you can't swallow the elephant in one bite, and two is you have to maintain your knowledge. You cannot assume that just because you have earned a certification, whatever certification it is that you're quote unquote good on AI because AI is changing at this ridiculously fast rate. Even those of us who spend basically all of our waking hours trying to learn this stuff, deploy it, build solutions with it, we're all overwhelmed if [00:25:00] we tell you the truth. It's extremely overwhelming. The technology is doubling in power at roughly a six month interval. So just think about that for a minute. Every six months that this technology doubles in power, that makes Moore's Law, which we benefited from and still benefit from for decades. Quaint in comparison. Moore's Law basically stated that computing would double in power relative to price roughly every 24 months. And it did like clockwork for years and years. And the compounding of that resulted in actually what. Powers ai, but it was actually a very slow curve compared to what's happening now. So the point is that knowing what you think you know about ai, if your knowledge is circa 2025 and it's 2026, you're outta date. And so from our perspective, the way we try to approach it is to get you started with small, consumable bites and then to keep feeding you over time. So our program isn't a one and done. Yes, there's the certification. Most people earn it in about six to eight weeks of time. It's about 20 hours of total time [00:26:00] commitment to earn it. But the key to it is that to maintain your certification, you have to do work every year. You have to do a certain number of additional education. This is very common in association certification programs. We provide a couple courses a year that are what we call refreshers that update your knowledge. So that you can understand what's changed every six months. And then in addition to that, we ask you to complete some additional coursework, either from us at sidecar or from anyone else that you choose, that you bring to us and we authenticate. So I think it's really important to think about both of those dimensions. It's a start small because otherwise you'll be overwhelmed by it. You won't do anything. Most people I know, they say, I really wanna get started with ai, but I haven't had time. And I ask them, okay, what about 15 minutes tomorrow morning? Do you have 15 minutes tomorrow morning? And they say, yeah, I could probably make 15 minutes tomorrow morning. I'm like, okay, cool. Do that. And then what about the next morning? You have 15 minutes and so on, right? And it's, the idea is if you carve out a small amount of time, it can take you 15 minutes. If you've got a half an hour, even better. But do something every day. Listen to a [00:27:00] podcast, play with some type of software, read a book, watch a YouTube video. There's so many resources. Obviously Sidecar has great content that's at this intersection, but if you do something consistently, that's when you're gonna become an expert. You have to stay at it.  Dave Will: Jason, tell me about your experience. As a CEO there leading the charge with ai, and tell me what was relevant, whether it was your exchange at the board, or your influence of your employees, or maybe it's the interest started at the staff level and they brought you along. Tell me about your experience in embracing AI at ITI.  Jason Oxman: Yeah, and I think as we've been talking about, there's some natural hesitancy to overcome because people are worried about what it means for their jobs.  Dave Will: Were you hesitant or was your staff hesitant?  Jason Oxman: I think the staff was hesitant. Okay. The board was certainly, and our board is not made up of technical experts. Ironically, given who we represented as an industry, the board conversation was more about [00:28:00] just making sure that the tools we use are beneficial to the membership. But we took a bottom up approach to it. We didn't take a top down approach because the board was not driving the conversation about AI usage. It was more about people on the staff being familiar with the industry. We represent all of the large model companies that are making these AI tools available. So it's obviously part of our daily life here at the organization, but not the technical side. Again, we are a government affairs policy focused organization. So that bottom up approach meant we had a staff team that we formed, a staff working group who were interested in using AI to develop the. Policies and procedures for the use. 'cause that's important to have on board the acceptable use policy. How do we use it? How, what do we disclose about when we're using AI with a membership? But also just looking at what kind of tasks were amenable to using AI to improve. So we started with use cases. Small ones that were actually pretty easy to deploy. Summaries of meetings, for example, email [00:29:00] drafting, for example, research on behalf of our members rather than trying to revolutionize everything at once and take on AI capabilities for everything. And that bottom up approach led to the rest of the organization saying, oh, I see you can actually use AI in a way that makes it more efficient. You can do minutes of committee meetings a lot more quickly and move on to something else that's more strategic. So that approach really worked to help the rest of the staff. See this as an opportunity. See the tools as something that could, IM improve the way they were able to do their jobs.  Dave Will: Jason, what's the best way to reach you if people wanna connect with you?  Jason Oxman: I'm on LinkedIn at J-O-X-M-A-N, Jason Oxman, or my email address is [email protected].  Dave Will: Amith. Jason, thank you for the time today. Is there anything that's in the back of your mind that you wish I asked? Is there anything you wanna say before we wrap it up? Amith, why don't you go first if you have something.  Amith Nagarajan: I have a quick thing, which is the question people often don't [00:30:00] ask, but are probably thinking, which is, why should I do this right now? Yeah. My answer to that is very simple. The speed at which this is moving will leave you behind if you don't get started. It is totally something you can do no matter where you're at today, but that won't always be true if you just sit on it. You have to go take action. I think every leader at every level needs to do this. This is not a thing for staff. This is a thing for CEOs. This is a thing for boards. This is a thing for everyone, and on the everyone comment I'll end with. I think that if you do not provide your staff with both the opportunity and frankly the mandate to learn AI, you're not only really underserving your own organization, but you're hurting your people. The question you should ask yourself is those who are not. Very skilled with AI within six, 12, certainly 24 months. Will they be sought after as employees by you or by any other organization? And the answer is a pretty clear no. That you will not be employable [00:31:00] if you don't know ai. So as a leader, it's really your responsibility to make sure your team's future is bright with you and perhaps beyond your organization. And so that's why I think this is such a serious topic for us to jump on.  Dave Will: Amith, you said an interesting word, “mandate,” and I gotta say, at least in my company, granted we're a software company, but I don't think it's about software. We get so excited, like we get so worked up and excited about the things we're doing differently using ai. I do not need to mandate. The interest. We, I don't need to force it down people's throats. People love digging in. And the more, like most things, the more you get passionate about something, the more you want to do it over and over. And it's incredible the passion we have on our end around ai. Jason, anything you want to add before we wrap this? Jason Oxman: The only thing I'd add to your excellent questions, Dave, is the question of [00:32:00] associations thinking about how to improve their own practices and procedures using ai. We've been talking about that kind of the inward looking questions, but also encouraging some outward looking questions. Associations have customers who are their members, they represent industries. What can associations deploy these tools on behalf of their members, make capabilities available that serve their members or the industries they represent. And obviously, Amith has done exactly that with the partnership with ASAE, ASAE's customers, their community, their members are other associations. So these tools that Amith has has deployed on behalf of the association community are what ASAE is providing to their customers. But of course, there's an association for everything. So we should all be thinking about how we can help our members and our industries. Also use these tools to help satisfy the challenges that they have through AI education.  Dave Will: That's a great point, Jason. Some of the most innovative associations that I've worked with in the past have built their own software companies or [00:33:00] invested in software companies or come up with incredibly creative. Tools or services for their members that drive additional revenue? Uh, yeah, that's a great point, Jason.  Amith Nagarajan: I agree completely with that. I just wanna say that that's where associations looking at the industries they serve are going to thrive because those are the services and products that people want to buy from you, that they're not yet buying from your associations. And it's also. A completely achievable goal. We actually help a bunch of associations create branded, tailored content just for their industries, and there's lots of ways to go about that, but it's an achievable goal, and it's something I think associations are perfectly positioned to go after and both capitalize on and deliver extraordinarily value to their members. Dave Will: And to add to the list. I'm Dave Will, also on LinkedIn. My email is [email protected]. Thank you, Jason. Thank you Amith. And thank you to everyone for listening to this episode of Associations NOW Presents. Join us each month as we explore key [00:34:00] topics relevant to association professionals, discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today, and highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy, the US, and the world.

In the first episode of Associations NOW Presents: Industry Partner Edition, guest host Sharon Pare, Director of Partnerships at HighRoad Solutions and co-host of the Rethink Association Podcast, sits down with Lance Wiggins, CEO of the Automatic Transmission Rebuilders Association, and Layla Masri, Vice President of Customer and Product Intelligence, AI Strategy, and Adoption at Higher Logic, to explore how associations are using AI in meaningful and unexpected ways. Lance and Layla share their professional journeys and discuss how AI is being applied to real-world association challenges—from improving efficiency and reducing errors to strengthening member engagement. Lance highlights how AI tools have reshaped technical support and training within his organization, while Layla emphasizes the value of starting small and building confidence through early, impactful wins. The conversation also addresses the importance of using trusted platforms, like Higher Logic, to adopt AI securely and responsibly. Throughout the episode, the guests underscore how thoughtful AI implementation can free up staff time, improve service delivery, and deepen relationships with members. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/T_L5q9QcfDA This episode is sponsored by Higher Logic. Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript Sharon Pare: [00:00:00] Welcome to the inaugural episode of Associations NOW Presents Industry Partner series, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Sharon Pare, director of Partnerships at High Road Solutions, a HubSpot solutions and implementation partner, and your hosts of this series throughout the year. This episode today is sponsored by Higher Logic. Today we're excited to welcome Lance Wiggins, CEO of Automatic Transmission Rebuilds Association, and Layla Masri, VP of Customer and Product Intelligence, AI Strategy and Adoption at Higher Logic. Layla, Lance, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to be with us today. Lance Wiggins: Thanks for having me.  Sharon Pare: Well, before we dive in, I'd love for each of you to give a quick introduction for our listeners a little bit about who you are. The organizations you represent, and since we're talking about AI today, I wanna know, this is a little bit of an icebreaker here, but [00:01:00] what is one way professionally or personally that you've unexpectedly started using ai? Layla Masri: All right, so yeah. Thank you Layla Masri. So I am a new hire to Higher Logic, but come from a very deep association marketing background. Many of you in the association space know me from 20 plus years that I ran my own digital agency. Worked with tons of different membership associations doing web and app development, interactive. Capabilities and so I'm very excited to help Higher Logic, head up AI practices, and build out what is looking to be an extremely robust pipeline for 2026 and beyond. I have used AI most recently in some really fascinating ways. I have used it. To craft jokes to send to my kids really bad Dad jokes. I have used it to create the proper ratio for hanging photos on a [00:02:00] wall. I have most recently used it. I am going on vacation shortly and I used it to help me strategize my itinerary where a couple friends were joining in the middle of a trip. So I had to optimize the key sightseeing moments, but then also build in a really robust amount of things around it. Super geeky, very helpful.   Sharon Pare: Love it. How about you Lance?  Lance Wiggins: I am the CEO of the Automatic Transmission Rebuild Association. I have been with this company since 1999. The company has been in existence since 1954, celebrating our 70 plus birthday here shortly. We are the only association in an entire planet Earth that does this. We are a facility that we do research training for transmission shops internationally. We have a little over 2000 shops in the United States. From coast to coast, north to south, we have rebuilder and [00:03:00] warranties that go from Canada, all the way through, the United States. We have chapters that are in Canada, chapters that are in Latin America, chapters that are in Australia, Asia, Australia, chapters that are formulating now currently in the UK as well. Primarily our goal is to help transmission shops fix your vehicle. There are billions of vehicles out there right now with automatic transmissions in them, how to diagnose 'em, how to fix 'em, how to repair 'em, how to, and also to make sure that we are servicing the customer. We are all servants here at the association, so our culture is of that. I've been a coach for 25 years, so I know how to coach people. I know how to coach other things. Believe it or not, we've actually been using AI in the automotive industry since, I'm guessing it started back in 19 96, 97 when we had adaptive strategies for transmission. So [00:04:00] adaptive strategies on any vehicle. Once you rebuild the vehicle, rebuild the transmission, it doesn't know who's the, who the driver is. It doesn't know what the baselines are. It's basically when it gets rebuilt and reinstalled, you can consider it. A toddler, it doesn't have any idea how to walk or shift, right? Or who the driver is. Some drivers are leadfoot, others are soft foot. You adapt the transmission and once the shifts start getting better and you start getting smoother, then you give it to the customer, and the customer say, it didn't shift this smooth before. I liked it when it shifted. A little bit firmer. Typically, we will tell 'em, give it a couple weeks and come back for your checkup. If in a couple weeks it's still the same way, we'll take a look at it, but more than likely, it's gonna adapt to who you are. We currently use AI for our technical hotline through Hire Logic, actually, and or one of our partners. We've, we've named our AI assistant techie go figure, and in we can ask it [00:05:00] all kinds of cool questions about automatic transmissions. It pulls everything from our 90,000 pages of data and it's really helping our association and our members gather information a lot faster than making the phone call and going through that, that, that pro, that process.  Sharon Pare: I think that's incredible. Lance, in the nineties, adaptive strategies and AI existed before I think we even knew what AI was. So love to hear about this in the podcast today, and we're going to dig into the six points that Layla has shared about AI adoption that has come up again and again in conversations across our industry. So I think the perfect time to unpack them. Is today from both the technology and the association perspective. So let's kick it off. And Lance, I know you're about to just get into this here too, but there are so many organizations that are getting stuck thinking they need some type of full strategy before they can even start. So Lance Layla, I'll leave this open for both of you, but how are you identifying that [00:06:00] first meaningful use case for ai? And Lance, if you wanna dig into this phone line system, or Layla, how you help them implement this, that'd be a great start.  Lance Wiggins: Sure. So we have had technical department. Since the late eighties, and typically you want to go, for those of y'all that don't know about faxes, fax mill was a big thing back in the day, right? And so if somebody would call with a problem on a vehicle, we would go through the different scenarios, fax them over a check sheet, or, or a fix, or definitions or specifications, whatever the case may be. That's how that would go. Then email became a thing, and then now with our AI, what the way we use it is actually a lot more efficient, a lot faster. It's freeing up our technician's time. Even when the phone call comes in, we actually, our technicians go to the AI assistant with [00:07:00] 90,000 pieces of material that we've done in over the course of 35, 40 years. Nobody knows where everything's at, and this is, it's literally, this is like going to a library back in the day. If I date myself at 55 years old, back in the day, you actually went to a Rolodex and you opened it up and you pulled out the card and you went over to the location where it was at. This is exactly the same thing, just a heck of a lot faster, and we found that the timing that we have to actually do more research on vehicles. It's unprecedented. We just have a lot more time to, to actually dig into real world problems that prior to that we just, we didn't have that much time. So it's working for us.  Layla Masri: That's a perfect use case and a great way to dip your toe into the water is to figure out what you have already on hand and or what things you're struggling with. If there's something you're doing, your staff are doing 50 times a day or a week, [00:08:00] those are things that are just absolutely slam dunk opportunities to look and see if there's a way that AI can optimize and assist with those types of repetitive tasks. It frees up your stuff to do the more needy subject matter expertise, like really digging in with personalized service. I've found that that has been a really great way to dig in there. Associations somewhat stereotypically, I will say, have. Often been somewhat risk averse and we've seen so much technology come our way of faxes, right? Websites, apps, all of these things like I have lived through the development and creation of those things. I've helped people implement them, and I think any new technology is gonna come across initially is big and scary. You're worried. Do I have the time, the people, the budget to learn one more new thing to implement this. But there's also that balance of understanding that your members are expecting you to go places with them and to be somewhat forward thinking. So the [00:09:00] thing that is so promising about AI is that this is the lowest risk technology pilot that I've seen in 20 plus years. You don't need extra budget, you don't need extra people. You can bite off just the teens CS piece and especially using tools like Higher Logic where they're built in. And for our customers, they're free to charge as well. It's great to just test your, you put your toe in the water, test them things, and then iterate and build from there, which is exactly what Lance and the team are doing.  Sharon Pare: And I know a lot of folks are still feeling really intimidated by ai, but I love that toe in the water analogy that you just mentioned, Layla. So. What does that actually look like for associations who are starting to explore ai? I know you started talking about it a little bit, but what are some of those smaller, low risk ways that they can start experimenting with it now?  Layla Masri: Sure. I can give you two examples that we actually have inside of our Higher Logic Thrive software that are already going gangbusters and are gonna be built out with a lot more functionality in 2026. So one of [00:10:00] them is the idea of an ai cis. Right. We're at this point, a lot of us are using things like chat, GPT. Lots of us have already used chatbots in various ways across different websites, not just in the association space, but whether you're traveling or whatever. A lot of the kind of back and forth with a chatbot, and that's the lowest I think, hanging fruit that you can implement right now. And the wonderful thing about using an assistant. Is that you can create a closed wall garden of your content because certainly a lot of associations, of course, we're investing in our own content. We are curating, and that's part of what your membership value is, getting that specialized content that you can only get with a membership. So we don't wanna put that out into the world. You don't wanna feed that into the chat GPT and let everyone have it. It devalues the membership. It devalues the importance of that research and the exclusivity of your content. With chatbots like the AI assistant, you can actually have that [00:11:00] walled garden where you can say, I would like you to search within my, my repertoire of all of my documents Lance was saying. Go through that look and see what's available. You can send me to relevant documents. You can suggest events. You can basically pull from all of the things in your learning management system and your content management system, and you can quickly get people to places. However, we all have seen the Yeah, but you might not have the right thing that I want. And I think one of the best things that we have been implementing is this idea of. Ask my fellow human if I don't get the right answer, if I'm not seeing what I want, or, this is interesting, but I want more. That's the real value is not replacing the human being, but giving you access to information and then allowing you to pose that back to your member community, to then richen the experience and truly. Take what you've learned from that initial pass with a chat bot, for example, and then take that out into the world and see what your fellow humans are actually experiencing. So it's a really [00:12:00] nice blend of, again, trying out functionality, but also ensuring that you are getting the best of what your colleagues and your professional network have to add to that. Sharon Pare: And Lance, I've got one for you. And I know that the A TRA has been familiar with AI for quite some time here now, but was there something that made it feel. More manageable for your team instead of overwhelming that you can recommend.  Lance Wiggins: So for us, it's interesting. I have to digress back to my, my history really as a coach and a football coach, I'm used to change. Literally you change every half. Sometimes you change in the quarters, sometimes you change of practice. So the whole aspect of new, to me, it's like it's, I'd live it. Our culture here is very much the same. We love technology. We absolutely thrive in technology, right? We, we looked for ways to do things more efficient [00:13:00] and to be better, to better serve essentially our members. The internet was a big deal back in the day when we launched, we actually launched. ATRA online back in the late nineties, early two thousands. It was like, oh man, look at, this is magical. And it was pages and pages and pages and nobody minds scrolling. Nobody. You'd search for something, you'd scroll and scroll and scroll, and you'd finally find something, maybe you didn't. Then we decided to add some descriptions, and then that was a big deal, right? And then we decided to add just the transmissions, and then that was a big deal. Now. When you go to the internet, we the company, we don't go to the internet. We go to an ai. We either go to Gemini or we go to chat GBT, or we go to Gro or we go to Techie. So if we're inside of our higher logic profile, we go to techie. We ask that question in techie, and if he doesn't know. With a [00:14:00] few adjustments that we made because Allis want to give you an answer. They all, it doesn't matter whether it's right or wrong, they want to give you something, feel compelled to just give you something which we appreciate. But in our world, if we give them something that is inaccurate, that could cost 'em thousands of dollars, it could cost some customers, it can cost us thousands of dollars and customers on our end, we've worked really hand in hand with. Higher logic to, to try to finite our material because it's 275 different types of transmissions out there at any given time. Uh, 2000, if you go back to 40 years from now, and each one of 'em, while they're different, they work the same internally. The rules virtually the same. And if we don't have the information, we want them to go ask a human, along with what Layla was saying. If somebody goes on and says, I have this transmission with this problem. And our AI assistant gives them an answer, [00:15:00] but it's not what they're looking for. They can simply ask a human, and then, and now they have a chance to ask 12,000 different individuals, including our technical department and the, and now the answers that come in are. Become part of the AI as well. So it's gonna continually keep learning and learning where that did not happen before, but that wasn't even a part of our thought process. Now, to give our members an opportunity to see this, to give our own technical department an opportunity, and I want to say this, there were times where we didn't really know what question to ask, and with the formulation of ai. You're asking questions, you didn't even, because you're getting an answer, wait a minute, and then you ask another question, then it, and then another question, and then all of a sudden, four hours later you find yourself, ah, that's the answer I'm looking for. But it's a wonderful tool that we're currently using and, and I just, it's gonna enhance our association. It's gonna propel us into another [00:16:00] sector, another sector that we've never been in before, actually.  Sharon Pare: I think that's a really great point, and I think this brings us to one of our next key points. It's, we're talking to ai, it keeps iterating with us. But I wanna ask this, Layla, but where do you see AI helping associations, reducing those human bottlenecks or operational slowdowns? I know that's a another key point that you mentioned has been brought up time and time again, but is there, what do you see there? Layla Masri: Yeah, I mean, there is a concern that people have that, like Lance mentioned, it is very important that you can validate that the information that people are getting suggested to them by AI is what will be helpful. It is the right answer. So that's always a key concern. Of course, knowing that the information is coming out of your system makes it a very trusted experience. But ironically, avoiding AI sometimes is often riskier than using it, presumably because it can help catch mistakes. It can help reduce [00:17:00] some of the things that human error can introduce. AI can often solve for that. But I think the real beauty of AI is that it's just, it's so fast you can get answers in seconds, and like we said, if you don't get that answer, your tools can prompt you where to go next or can ask you questions you didn't think about. That's one of the things I love about using some of the tools like GPT, et cetera. Where they all, they never just give you the information they end with. Could I help you find an event to go to that would cover this information? Or are you looking for resources? May I connect you to a Higher Logic community where this is being discussed. So it's really a lovely way to keep that conversation going. As I mentioned, reducing repetitive staff tasks that can introduce inconsistency. That's a great way. To employ ai. It can also help if you have a small staff, which many people do. You can use AI to help teams respond to [00:18:00] things faster. So actually providing better member service and then being able to funnel people that do need that kind of personal assistance, but you do help reduce that overall workload. And then really it's like having an insurance that you are providing a timely communications with people, it standardizes a lot of the delivery of that material because typically if you're reaching out to a customer service, you're getting my way of telling you this information or Lance's way of telling you this for information. The nice thing is you can have that beautiful quality control. This is how we want to talk about these things, or these are the kinds of resources that we want to offer. So it does provide a lot. Of risk reduction and it does speed up operation so that it again frees you up to do the things that humans are really good at. Sharon Pare: Lance, is there an example where AI has helped her team to work smart and avoid errors? Just digging into what Layla had just mentioned  Lance Wiggins: soon. I'll say that the transmission is a very complex piece of machinery, [00:19:00] so at any given time in a transmission, he could have 500. Pieces of parts, right? Our system and the way that it uses our material is again, based on what we've loaded into, and pretty much we've loaded almost everything. It's learning our videos, it's learning our rebuilding videos. So to give you that example, we asked a question last week on how to rebuild a pump. Assembly from a 10 R one R 80 transmission, and it gave us some generic information. A week later, we asked the same question. Not only did it give us the accurate specifications, but it also gave us three sources to go and look and view for our pleasure as well. So now you can go to the [00:20:00] PDF, you can go to the video. You can see how the pump is built. So as it's learning, like I mentioned, it's like a toddler now. Maybe it's a five year old and seven year old. And the more information you give it, the fungi year it becomes, and really for us, it's just making sure that the information we're giving it is accurate. And our technicians, we've got 300 years of technical experience between everybody here, including myself. When we build things and we edit. We make sure that quality control maintains The difference is if you, if you drop that stuff into Gemini or drop that stuff in a chat, it, it pulls from all over the place. That's where you can get in trouble. Yep. You can really get in trouble.  Layla Masri: If I could add one other item. As you said, it's every month, every day. It feels that the agents, these engines are getting smarter and smarter. There are things that I can do now that six months ago wasn't [00:21:00] able to do. Same for pretty much anybody across the AI universe. The half-life on improvements is just. Astonishing. And I think what we're really seeing is AI is improving in a way that allows us to get better info to answer things more accurately. And in fact, that's what Higher Logic is devoting a lot of our roadmap and AI development to do. And this is what we're focusing on right now. And then definitely for 2026 and beyond ongoing releases. And you mentioned, Lance, you mentioned adding video and that's one of the things that I am personally so excited about. Is the ability for AI to add transcription to video and to be able to search it. How game changer that is. If you like this exact podcast, being able to search for text and language and phrasing inside a video like that is. Super exciting.  Sharon Pare: Our logic unifies your community marketing, learning events, and more into a complete engagement [00:22:00] ecosystem. So every member touchpoint feels connected and personal. With AI powered campaigns and vibrant online communities, members feel seen, supported, and excited to engage every day. And because everything works together, your staff spends less time wrestling with tech and more time achieving your mission. Plus you get built-in strategic guidance and support to boost retention and turn passive members into passionate advocates. See how higher logic is revolutionizing engagement by booking your [email protected]. I wanna shift gears a little bit. See what I did there, Lance?  Layla Masri: Anyway. You mean to need chat GPT or write your dad joke for that? Sharon Pare: Just ask my dad. Dad jokes of association. We talked last week and you both said that this is the first time we've all had, we've had technology that's now truly accessible to everyone. So what do you think makes AI different from some of those past digital tools?  Lance Wiggins: For us, it's. [00:23:00] By far, it's the speed of searchability. It's the q and a. It's the informal formal conversation. You, as you're talking to our techie program, it's asking other questions, and then as you're having that conversation back and forth, it's like. When we have a brand new trend that we, we actually have a brand new transmission down there from Toyota. It is state of the art. It's a CVT transmission that doesn't have, uh, a belt in it. It's two electric motors that run this. It is state of the art. It is the future of CVTs. It's pretty awesome. We pulled it apart, so you got three guys sitting there pulling it apart, figuring out how to pull this thing apart. There's no videos on it. There's the Toyota hasn't released anything on it. We're all bouncing stuff off of each other, right? And so we're taking pictures and we're doing things. The motor is the same type of motor that's used in other, like Elon Musk has in this Teslas, right? Same type of motor. So I'm, all right, let's, [00:24:00] let's go to our programs and we start researching some of the programs, start finding out how the motor actually works. Now we can put it into our own words, how that works. Once that happens, we put it into our higher logic platform. Now when we do the videos where we do the shoots, we do the, anybody that gets on there when they search this transmission is gonna have an endless supply of material that they can't get. They can't get it from Toyota. That's another thing that I think is very interesting is all of the manufacturers, all of them back in the day. We used to go to a helm, a bookstore, and purchase shop manuals for every manufacturer out there. Toyota, Ford, General Motors, Chrysler. The ones you couldn't get really were BMW and Volkswagen, but we don't really have a lot of those units in the United States as much as they do in Europe. But you, that's where we purchased our library and would fill up rooms. I'd have hundreds. Thousands of books, [00:25:00] and you'd go to a book and you'd open the book and you'd go to the page and you'd find the page and you'd scan the page and you'd fax the page and so on and so forth. And then when everything went digital, now you could get it digitally, but the subscription, right? Like anything else that you purchased, there's a subscription. The subscription cost, if you don't use it once or twice a month, people start thinking, I'm not gonna really use that. We started building that into our own subscription. Like any other association, when you have material that will help your members, you build it, you research it, you build it, you put the training together, and now you have that information. So what we're doing now currently is building that information for the future. So next year when they get into, it's all gonna be accessible to 'em. That's proprietary. That's not out in the world until somebody gets that transmission and decides to throw it on YouTube. But do I actually trust that guy? I don't know. I would much rather trust the association that's been around since [00:26:00] 1954 doing transmissions since 1954, 90,000 plus technical things and 300 plus years of material. It's a game changer for us. It's just huge. It's just a, it's a great opportunity for us to do things that we haven't really had the opportunity of doing with less people. We have a saying, you can only go as fast as the slowest car in front of you. And that's a true statement, right? But when there's no cars on the road, look out, man, we could, we can get up and get to it. This is just, it's just changing the way we do business, literally right in front of our eyes.  Sharon Pare: It really is, and I wanted to add something in here and throw this in. Especially as you say, you can only go as fast as the car in front of you. And I was thinking about this over the weekend, and a lot of our for-profit peers, right? Us in the tax exempt world, our for-profit peers. I think that the level playing field of AI is now, we're all behind that same curve. Do you think this is an opportunity for the association world as historically? [00:27:00] We've always been a little bit behind that curve. Is this time for us to be able to set that tone and innovate with this technology? Now, what do you, I would love,  Layla Masri: I think AI tools are modular, so modular that I think it really lends itself to really. Making a jump in deciding what you wanna try so you can turn on AI for a single workflow or single campaign. You don't have to take this huge leap of faith. You can just take a leap of curiosity or a step of curiosity and say, what would it be like if we tried this one thing? Even if it's something that's just for one department of your organization, you can try that. You can try AI without making like an overarching. Commitment to ai and what that means is that there's no IT lift. You're not talking about like integrations, you're talking about staff that can run like micro experiments off the side of their desk like Lance is describing. And you can then determine what's the ROI on this? So that if you can, if you decide that this is something you wanna take [00:28:00] more broadly through your organization, then you can explain. We ran a test on it. The test took us an hour to set up in our existing tools. We ran it for this amount of time. These are the results we would like to now implement this through the rest of our organization. And assuming, of course, those results are highly positive, whether it's we've reduced staff time, we have things like smart campaigns in higher logic Thrive, where you can actually use AI to. To generate very hyper targeted micro campaigns to do the stuff that staff usually doesn't have time to do. Like encouraging people to join a committee or to update their profiles so that you can best customize experiences for them. Really important stuff. A lot of times people don't have the time to do those things, so if you can bite off these little pieces, show that they work, it's just a great way to, to jump in your staff benefits. Your members will feel it after that. And these like snowball effect of these internal winds make the innovation and the reach of [00:29:00] it and your expansion of that seem a lot less scary and gets people more excited about it.  Sharon Pare: So question for you both when you are saying to just start going out there and peak that curiosity by actually using it. What defines a trusted platform for everyone to start it? And is it security, is it usability? Is there something else? What would you say is a great place to start,  Layla Masri: if I can jump in on that one? Of course, higher Logic has built this into our tools and is continuing to build this into. Platform, and I think regardless of what you use working with ai, the safest way to try ai, I believe, is inside of a trusted platform. Because as Lance mentioned, if you go out and start to roll your own, you can be introducing a variety of different issues. For example, taking proprietary content and putting that out on the internet. Diminishes the value of your organization. It also requires IT assistance to make sure that you are tapping [00:30:00] into the proper agents or LLMs, et cetera, that you're able to move this content around and have it digestible and output. So that would mean like writing APIs and not like people's heads are probably like, yeah. Too much tech, right? It gets overwhelming. So anytime that you can try something, anything of a tech experiment, I think it's always best to try it inside of a platform because the data stays where you're already governing it. You are not worried about uploading many things sensitive, as I mentioned, and then. The great news is that the AI and what it does and its outputs, can also follow the same permissions and rules that you have set up in the rest of your systems. So starting where your data already lives, it means that you can just work with inside your tech stack and you don't have to do anything special to it. You're just enhancing it. I'm sure. Lance, you have some thoughts on that?  Lance Wiggins: Yeah. Interestingly enough for us, the majority of the people that currently work for the association aren't. Brand new. We've [00:31:00] had a 30 year turnover, so most of the people that had worked with us had been with the company for 30 plus years. My, I've been with the company for 26. Those groups of bodies are retiring and the newer groups, which are much more. Used to working in these types of platforms are the ones that are suggesting these type of platforms. So it's, I'm a father of six kids. I understand how this goes from the age of 24 to 33. So I've got a pretty good span of technology that they use. Some things I do, some things I don. Our material is proprietary to an extent. We produce material, we do members and non-member events. We have books that we have that we sell to members and non-members. And believe it or not, there are people that scan it, put it on the internet for everybody to use. That's cheaters will be cheaters. That's how that works, right? But having something that we can. Sandbox [00:32:00] and it's our own material. You can't put a price tag on that. That's where this particular scenario and using the AI platform within higher logic, for us, it's a game changer. Like I mentioned before, it's just, it's gonna take us to a place that we probably thought if we're gonna go with some other larger companies that are out there, the price tag is. B beyond expectations. This works this and they're working with us. That's another thing. OG is a great company. They are literally partners with us. So as we give them something, they give us something back and then we collaborate and say, this is where we're at. We are very unique. We are the unicorn of unicorns. But there are no other company like ours. They are companies like. No other association like ours, you can't just put a blanket and say, this is good for all associations. Some associations are different than others, and this is the best part about this and working with them, is that we can give them our problems, tell them where we're at, and then they're creating solutions that are not only [00:33:00] helping us, but also could help other associations as well. Sharon Pare: I think this will be an interesting note to end on for our podcast. We've run out of time, but speaking of time, we talked a lot about how AI has given our staff that time back too, right? And I wanna keep this one a little bit more generic, but what do you think associations. Could accomplish if they did have 10% more, 20% more of their time back each week, because now they're using these technologies that are now in place at the organization and either one of you can jump in. Layla Masri: Sure. I'll start. So I think in terms of using AI that's giving. Time back to their staff. That's not changing. Member experiences. The, so I'll summarize the things that I think AI would be fabulous use for in terms of how we're saving time. So drafting, marketing copy, summarizing discussion threads and [00:34:00] communities, suggesting engagement messages, auto tagging, categorizing content. Those things are huge. If Lance can say to his team, Hey. We can use AI to do those kinds of things. Then what it allows his team to do, and I'll of course let you speak to this with the specifics, Lance, but like theoretically across all organizations, so you're then not asking a staffer to, Hey, pull out that generic email that you send every time someone asks you for X. Or if people are needing resources on these 10 things and we just have a list and you have to send them out. That's probably not the best use of that person's time. You really wanna use them for strategizing, for analyzing, for sitting with your membership and actually providing like real customer experience and customer input so that helping them actually problem solve and or ideate on really bold and audacious [00:35:00] things, whether it's marketing, whether it's event planning, you name it, community engagement. Those are the things where people. Are really great at doing that, and you build those relationships. That's why AI has, in my opinion, an area where it sits in helping manage, digest, and surface information, but it's never gonna replace that value, the human being. And that's why we join organizations, right? We're not just getting it for information. So much of it is about the community, about learning from your peers, sharing your subject matter expertise. That's what I think the staff of an organization. Are also best free to do when you introduce those efficiencies of ai.  Lance Wiggins: Yeah, a hundred percent. For our association, it's, it's an aged association. If anybody's listening to the news, you got Ford CEO going on there saying, we, we have a technician shortage, et cetera, et cetera. That's true because quite frankly, we told everybody to go to college and been tell 'em to work on cars. So [00:36:00] it's the way that the world works, right? Like we mentioned earlier, it's the world's a different place than it was 30 seconds ago, even 30 years ago, right? The curiosity is there for our staff. We spent most of the time gathering lists getting. Dues shipped out, answering incoming calls, getting events organized. We failed miserably at communicating with our people. And to me that is the most important thing. If we don't talk to our people and we don't have a relationship with our members, there's a huge question they ask. Why am I a member? It's very simple. And if they think that we don't care. They think that we're just an entity, a body that collects dues, chances are they'll leave. And once they're gone, as any association would know, they're, it's very [00:37:00] hard to give back. So from our perspective, it's helping us with time to make those phone calls, to create those relationships, to maintain those relationships. So much so that on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. We had maybe three or four calls come in the entire day. And so I told the crew, I said, listen, if y'all wanna take off, go ahead. Just forward the calls to me and I'll take 'em for you. And a call came in as a gentleman. He said, oh, I gotta pay my dues. And I said, and I answered the phone. Thank you for calling ATRA, this is Lance. He says, who? And I said, Lance, he goes, Lance Wiggins. I said, yeah. He goes, I didn't mean to call you. I know, but I'm here. What's up? How you doing? What's going on? You about ready for Thanksgiving. And we started having a conversation that was real. It was just a true conversation. And he said, I gotta pay my due. I gave, I let everybody go home early to go visit with their families. Can we give you a call on Monday? He says, [00:38:00] absolutely. I said, why don't you take the rest of the day off as well and we'll see you on Monday. And he, you can hear him smile. You can just feel he felt like I was treating him like a human, as we all should be doing. And as I mentioned before, we're servants. We should be serving these people. And that's the part of the game that a lot of companies don't. You're not just a number, you're not just a bed, you're not just a car. You're human beings with, with families, with people. You need to get those people to those locations. You need to help the young bucks, the ones, the new blood that's coming in. They can't be afraid of failure, right? In our industry, we learned a lot By failing that was part of the game plan. Now we can learn. Gather information and reduce the failures, but also gain the valuable experience that we need sooner than later. All of our shop owners and technicians that are in their forties, when you look at a 20-year-old kid coming through the door and he's [00:39:00] got a few tools here and there, he may or may not know how to use 'em, who knows? But if you put 'em in front of the, our video programs. You put 'em in front of a, a, an AI program on our community forum and say, Hey, research something on this. And then, and when you're done, I want you to come over 'cause I'm actually working on that vehicle. I want you to see what it looks like in real life. I don't know that you can get better training in that. So it, it's a, it's an opportunity for us to, to just have more time to spend with them rather than having more time to spend. Licking stamps and sticking them on an envelope. It's just one of those things.  Sharon Pare: Lance, thank you so much for sharing your story, especially CEO of ATRA, picking up the phone call on Thanksgiving and a member not knowing the CEO of ATRA is picking up the phone, but giving them that true member experience. I'd love to know any final thoughts before we conclude the podcast today?  Layla Masri: I'll just say [00:40:00] that I think that speaks to the power of ai, that Lance felt confident that there were enough supports and tools to do more with less, that he felt confident that. It could hold down the fort while people were away enjoying their families and that things would continue to hum along and members would continue to be able to get service. And also the special treat of getting to talk to the CEO, that's pretty amazing. And I just wanna say thank you to Lance because. It's never a good idea to build anything, especially software in a vacuum, and being able to ideate with our customers and understand exactly what they need and how they need it oftentimes surfaces things that we wouldn't have even thought of. So it's just such a treat to be able to have that direct connection and to listen and learn from each other and to build something that is super helpful together.  Lance Wiggins: A hundred percent agree with that. It's teamwork is the dream work. Yeah. I appreciate you guys for having me on. This has been great.  Sharon Pare: I wanna [00:41:00] personally thank you, Lance, and thank you Layla for sharing your insights, both of your experience, your expertise for the conversation today. And that does it for this episode of Association NOW Presents Industry partner series. We'll have these special episodes throughout the year, and please make sure to join us each month overall as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals, discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today, and highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy, the U.S. and the world. We wanna give a big thanks to our episode sponsor Higher Logic. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. For more information on how AI is transforming the way associations operate, visit associations now online at associationsnow.com. Thank you [00:42:00] everyone.

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Joanna Pineda speaks with governance experts Glenn Tecker, Mark Engle, DM FASAE, and Jon Hockman, CPF, FASAE about the essential partnership between the board and chief staff officers (CSOs). Together, they break down how these roles differ, why their relationship is inherently interdependent, and how expectations shift across different types of associations. The conversation explores the competencies leaders need today, the role of trust and communication, and how associations can navigate rapid change—from the disruptions of COVID-19 to the growing impact of AI. The guests also offer practical strategies for fostering strong board–executive dynamics and close with reflections on what they hope to achieve personally and professionally in 2026. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/i5E0LcD_rhI Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript Joanna Pineda: [00:00:00] Welcome to this month's episode of Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Joanna Pineda, CEO, and Chief Troublemaker at Matrix Group International, a digital agency to associations. I'm also host of the podcast Associations Thrive. Today we are excited to welcome Glenn Tecker, founder of Tecker International, Mark Engle, principal at Association Management Center, and Jon Hockman, chief practice officer at McKinley Advisors. Our topic today is the imperative of a healthy relationship between the chief volunteer officer and the chief staff officer. Gentlemen, welcome to the show. To make sure that we are all on the same page, I'm gonna ask you all this question. Who are the chief volunteer officers and the chief staff officers? Glenn, maybe you [00:01:00] can define that for us.  Glenn Tecker: The chief staff officer is the paid individual who is responsible for overall leadership and direction of the organization. The chief elected officer often goes by a variety of different names. A board chair, sometimes they're called president, sometimes they are called chief mucky muck. It really depends upon the history and the culture of the organization. Similarly, the titles of chief staff executive can change depending upon the history of the organization as well. Sometimes they're called executive director, sometimes chief executive Officer, sometimes president, oftentimes President, and CEO. So depending upon the history of the organization and the model of nomenclature, it's using the terms and the credentials can be different.  Joanna Pineda: Okay, so how would you describe the relationship between [00:02:00] the chief staff officer and the chief volunteer officer? What should be the relationship?  Glenn Tecker: It's based upon the expectations that member leadership has for the relationship with their chief staff executive. There are subtle but real differences. The expectations that the volunteer leaders of trade associations have for their chief staff executive versus the expectations that the volunteer leaders of professional societies have for their chief staff executives. Again versus, or different than the expectations that the volunteer leaders of cause related or philanthropic organizations have for their CEO. So there really is no one who earns that. You can put all of the answers to the question you've asked into  Joanna Pineda: John. Maybe you can explain how are the expectations different between say, a professional society or a [00:03:00] trade association. Jon Hockman, CPF, FASAE: The depiction that I would bring forward here. The pair between the chief staff and chief volunteer is the epicenter of leadership in the organization. Not exclusively, but it's the epicenter. And I think of it as a Venn diagram where those two roles have distinct responsibilities, but there's also places where they overlap. And we oftentimes talk about the metaphor of a bicycle. And the front wheel is where you set direction. And the back wheel is where the chain connects and powers the board chair, the volunteers at that front wheel. With the board setting course for the organization, the CEO, the staff committees, all the other ways that members are organized sit at that back wheel and power things forward. And so those are just very different roles, but they're obviously symbiotic to make it work.  Joanna Pineda: Mark, if I'm running say a charity, a nonprofit, maybe a disease related organization versus A CEO, who's running a trade association, are the expectations different of my role and of the relationship. [00:04:00]  Mark Engle, DM FASAE: I think the expectations are different, but they're based in competencies, and the competencies in those two areas are very different. The trade association execs are often a public face, so I was CEO of several trade associations. Actually, when we went to the Hill, we were leading the charges. The chief staff executive, I was, my title was president. We had a board chair, and they were the backup because they did not want to be on display for their companies necessarily. As for the industry. Whereas for a professional society, it's almost the reverse element of it where the CEO is the one who's putting in place the right ambassadors to represent the organization. So the competencies are aligned very differently on that basis. And again, with philanthropic organizations or public organizations that are out there raising money or trying to combat disease, for instance, they're trying to open doors, they're trying to support financially. The organization and moving it forward. So the competencies are [00:05:00] very different from what you're looking for a CEO in those VAs.  Joanna Pineda: Wow. Our topic today is the imperative of a healthy relationship, so why the word imperative?  Glenn Tecker: There's probably nothing more germane to the continuing success of a CEO than the relationship they have with their board of directors. That relationship in large measure is a model of the relationship that the chief staff executive and chief volunteer officer or chief elected officer has. It becomes the model of how the two will work together. What we have found over time is the successful relationships tend to be defined by a subtle but real understanding. That is that on the complex and often controversial issues that boards and [00:06:00] senior staff will face together, it's critical to understand which body of knowledge needs to be the primary driver of the selection of the solution strategy. If the body of knowledge is that's held by members who are sitting on the board, then staff needs to defer to the view of the members on the board. If the body of knowledge that's essential is the body of knowledge held by the staff in association management, then board members need to defer to the opinions and expertise of the staff. Asking the question, which expertise is needed for us to make a confident decision is probably the best start that you can had to sustaining that relationship over time. Mark and John will both agree. I am sure. That the relationship between a board and the CEO is as much [00:07:00] a personality that differs from combination to combination as it is in fact based upon a set of dispensable competencies that both the staff leader and the elected leader need to exhibit in their work together. Jon Hockman, CPF, FASAE: Yeah. If I could just build on Glen's point. Completely agree. As he predicted, and. If the culture of the organization is such that supports that sort of recognition that the body of knowledge sits at the board, that's where we go. If the body of knowledge sits at the staff, that's where we go. The core culture supports that. Great. Often it doesn't, and that's where things break down or get mucky, is navigating the way through that. It could be really a wild ride.  Joanna Pineda: Can we go a little bit deeper with this?  Jon Hockman, CPF, FASAE: Of course.  Joanna Pineda: I was on Facebook recently in one of the discussion groups where a lot of association execs hang out and somebody said, I'm in hell right now because my board chair is [00:08:00] micromanaging everything. That sounds like a situation where maybe the chief staff exec is thinking, this is my domain. The staff have knowledge here, but the board chair is causing trouble, if you will. How do you set the expectation about whose domain should be respected in what situations? Like the choice of an annual convention venue versus a position that you're gonna take on a government policy, for example. Mark Engle, DM FASAE: We try to move it through a policy base, if you will, so things like routine items, and I know conventions are important and people have a lot of emotion tied up into where that goes. If you can put that into a policy format, it reduces the effect development making a decision on that basis. And that really then becomes more staff driven if the board sets the parameters for it. So providing that clarity is helping define the line between board role and staff role. And that's where it comes down to the competencies. The staff has the competencies to [00:09:00] determine the profitability and the aims of that. Conference, if you will. If it's framed at the board level, then they don't have to get in that decision making loop every time and make what becomes an emotional decision. Joanna Pineda: Is that something that you teach your clients, for example, to ask the question, who's got the knowledge to be able to answer this question or provide guidance? Glen?  Glenn Tecker: Yeah. There are also some systems and processes which are essential to sustaining appropriate role definition. One of them is something that we refer to as a strategic board agenda. A key to all of this is understanding that boards will talk about what's on their agenda. So ensuring that the agenda focuses on items at the level of strategy and policy rather than at the level of management on operations becomes essential. Having said that, there are still some board chairs and some board members who carry a [00:10:00] mental model with them from other places where they believe the appropriate role is to get into issues of management, staffing, and operations. In order to deal with that as Mark suggested policy that describes the expected roles of governance is an important addition to the organization's conversation. Establishing board norms as a compact between members of the board where they make statements about how they intend to work with each other as a group. And how they intend to work with staff. Having a process for planning strategically that functions like an ongoing GPS rather than a traditional roadmap, having a methodology for addressing complex issues. That involves the development of information basis, so the conversation can be intelligent and confident. All those are examples of systems and processes you [00:11:00] can put in place that will, in fact, as John has suggested, have a significant impact on the culture of leadership within the organization. Associations are weird. There's only two ways that you can affect culture. You either change people or you change people. And if you're going to change people, then the way to do that is to give them a different experience in terms of how they function than they've had before. If you can alter the work process that's being employed, you can alter their behavior. And if you alter the behavior of enough people, you are altering the culture. These are the kinds of things that we find the most successful CEOs, the chief staff executive is continually paying attention to, so that she or he is managing the functionality of their partner as along with their partner, as well as managing the organization [00:12:00] itself.  Mark Engle, DM FASAE: Let's unpack that cultural element a little bit deeper because I think the one critical word in this space is trust. And it takes competence and caring to develop that level of trust, especially between the chief staff executive and the chief volunteer. And if those two have that bridge of trust, and again, based on competence and caring about each other and about the organization, then you can develop a very positive culture. Also, and as Glen said, we do have a lot of turnover in our board. You can blow a culture overnight. You can blow a culture in one conversation, but it takes a long time to build that productive culture. So save it at all costs.  Glenn Tecker: There are very few instances where a chief staff executive has ever won a battle over the distribution of power. Developing the competence required to finesse whatever leadership personality you inherit becomes an essential competency of the [00:13:00] CEO. Essentially, they are operating like chameleons,  Jon Hockman, CPF, FASAE: So I think underneath all this is strong communication. I mean, to the core question around role definition and getting on track with that all the way through the culture pieces is that both the chief staff officer and the chief volunteer officer are actively working on communicating. That's not just speaking, that's listening and truly hearing what the other is saying. All three of us run programs for ASAE around this, and at the heart of those, as wonderful as the content is, and kudos to my colleagues on that. Is the chance for them to be in dialogue with one another. A consequence of that hopefully, is a deepening of trust that Mark talked about. So I just think that you can't over, well, you probably could, but you can't over emphasize the importance of communicating with each other each to understand one another. [00:14:00]  Mark Engle, DM FASAE: Yeah, I was a CEO for 30 years, various trade professional societies and so on. I always made it a point to go visit. The incoming board chair, where they work, what they do, who they work with, how they work, how they wanna communicate, and those are critical elements in developing that trusting relationship. So they develop into friendships too. Hopefully, not always, but hopefully they do.  Glenn Tecker: Different individuals have a different work and communications preferences. So in the relationship, given the fact that the chief staff executive is in fact the professional. Our belief is if there is adjustment to be made, it probably is the function of the chief staff executive to make the necessary adjustments. With good conversation, both can make adjustments so that their natural thinking and working style preferences are compatible and consistent rather than in conflict or inconsistent. And as John has said, communication [00:15:00] that is continuous, that is open, that is honest, will be able to sustain trust over time, assuming that you have a partner who is mentally healthy. And that's not always the case. That's right. I think true.  Joanna Pineda: Lemme ask you a question. So I've been on a couple of boards and you've talked about things like having the board charter, having open communications, defining the roles. I'm not sure that I ever saw those, unfortunately on the couple boards I was on. Where do people learn this and how do you, I don't know, how do you impart this when the board does turn over a lot? Like where is this being taught?  Mark Engle, DM FASAE: Should be in starting with orientation and development, and so many boards do orientation for just their new board members. No. Every year the board changes 'cause you have new people coming on. The principles probably don't change and maybe some of the strategies don't change, but how we work together changes. When people change, [00:16:00] you're gonna have a new influx of, even if it's just one person in a 12 person board for instance, that's change. And the issues coming before you are changing. So spending time on how we do our work is as important as what is the work to be done. Glenn Tecker: There are a variety of approaches that are used to create a common information base among volunteer leaders about expectations and roles. For example, Pennsylvania now has a law that requires board members of school districts to have a certain amount of training before they're able to take their position on the board. And I share that with the podcast because increasingly we are seeing boards committing to ongoing quote, professional development. For their board members. So it's not just a single event at a single meeting, but it's continuous. As Mark and Joanna both suggested orientation is critical, and if you can [00:17:00] get the board member engaged in a way that allows them to see how an effective board functions before they take that seat, that's critical. Every new board member comes to that position with a set of mental models, expectations they have about how things should work, and oftentimes those expectations come from roles in other organizations that are not sufficiently consistent with how associations operate. It's important for them to understand the difference and to have conversation with successful volunteer leaders, particularly the board chair. Who will use previous board chairs who have been successful as a kind of mentor in the process. But our belief, and I think Mark and John would've shared this, is that those intuitive understandings need to occur before they're asked to take the role,  Jon Hockman, CPF, FASAE: Not during it. Yeah. And just to build on [00:18:00] everything that Mark and Glenn have said, and to the extent that the organization can get a culture within the board of learning and development. So that the board is, whether through self-assessment or other assessment tools, where is there a need for learning or skill development at the board level so that once, hopefully that orientation type foundation is in place, there are other opportunities to learn and grow and be a stronger leadership body because of it. Joanna Pineda: Mark, you said that when you were a chief staff executive, made a point of visiting your board members. What are other things? Chief staff execs and chief volunteer officers, what should they be doing to promote this healthy relationship? Anything new and creative that you've seen recently?  Mark Engle, DM FASAE: Not necessarily new, but creative, I think is to visit one of our programs that Glenn and John and I represent. 'cause it does bring them together to focus intently on the organization and intently on their relationship. And it gives 'em a common understanding of [00:19:00] roles, responsibilities, when to lead, when to support. And the whole element of that positive, productive partnership, that's a lot of peace.  Glenn Tecker: Yeah. It's just one of those areas where there really is no best practice. That is something that works the best all the time everywhere, but there are effective practices and practices that suck and you can tell the difference. And one of the important initiatives here is that there be a common understanding of how they're going to work together. The creation of that common understanding is probably more important than what the understanding itself is. So it's through that conversation, that lasting trust, the ability to depend upon each other, to make promises and keep those promises. A colleague of mine years ago defined trust in this relationship as the residue of promises kept.  Mark Engle, DM FASAE: Hmm. There's a [00:20:00] couple of trust relationships too. One is, does the board trust the board within those dynamics? Then does the board trust the staff, especially the CEO. But the third one I've experienced particularly recently was, does the staff trust the staff? And that's an interesting dynamic and you talk about a board healthy culture and association, healthy culture. And a staff healthy culture. If we don't have those three elements, board to board, board to staff and staff with staff, a culture of trust, there's gonna be a breakdown. There's gonna be a dysfunction in achieving any kind of strategy for the organization.  Glenn Tecker: One of the competency areas that we find the most frequent and softest area is the ability of the group to address those kinds of conflicting behaviors when they occur. Most boards will have something like a code of ethics or a code of behavior. It's [00:21:00] attempts to shape behavior by the threat of a penalty. If you misbehave. The best boards we find have something that we refer to as board norms. That is agreements on how they are going to work together and how they will interact with their staff. And they also have, as part of those board norms, judgements they have made about how they will at the moment intervene when a violation of those norms take place. So having in place an understanding about how you will deal with. Emerging conflicts or potential violations of the judgments that have made about how that culture should work. It's an essential tool that still, unfortunately, too many boards don't have.  Jon Hockman, CPF, FASAE: Yeah, we talk about the three-legged stool of respect, candor, and trust, and all those relationships that Mark outlined it, board to board, board to staff and staff to staff. There's gotta be presence of respect, candor, and trust. [00:22:00] And it's not that hard to find respect, although it's not always present. But there's so many examples where candor is lacking and we're not having real conversation. We're not having complete conversation often because the trust isn't there. But that's not the only reason. But you can't get to good norms or good communication if you don't have the appropriate presence of respect, candor, and trust within the dynamic.  Joanna Pineda: You've talked about what an effective relationship looks like between the chief staff exec and the chief volunteer officer. Give us examples of when it broke down and then how do you fix it? Glenn Tecker: There was an almost universal breakdown that occurred during the pandemic during when COVID forced everyone to go to entirely virtual communications. We observed a number. Things occurring as a result of the inability to spend face-to-face time together. [00:23:00] One thing that occurred was the bright minds that only contributed when they saw necessity to do. They were the anecdote to the bullying voices tended to become more passive in the conversations, so folks who were the loudest to talk the most often tended to carry the day rather than good thinking. The second thing that we emerged is that groups selected management level issues to deal with because they were easier to address in a virtual environment without having the ability for the continuing face-to-face conversation. The third thing that we saw that was absolutely disastrous was the kind of social interaction that occurs among board members and staff in between the sessions of the board, and in a night in between could not happen. So the ability to develop an understanding of their colleagues, which is really the [00:24:00] essential ingredient to trust growing where I can like you, even if I disagree with you, didn't have an opportunity to grow. I'm willing to drink online if I have to, but I'd much prefer to be at a bar with my colleagues.  Mark Engle, DM FASAE: And the good news is they're getting back together face-to-face. Again, I think we're finding the average board is three to four times face-to-face again, which it was prior to COVID. Yeah. So that's encouraging news.   Glenn Tecker: So it is encouraging. A concern that we have, although we're seeing it decrease over time, is that the cultural. Expectations of some groups have remained what they were when they joined the board during the pandemic. So working with those groups to get them to return to what we all consider to be best practice is sometimes a challenge, particularly when the members of the board have no board experience prior to having [00:25:00] joined the board in COVI. Joanna Pineda: John and Mike, give us an example of how you fix stuff when it breaks down.  Jon Hockman, CPF, FASAE: The reality is sometimes you can't fix it, and accepting that is better than trying to hang on forever, but that's not the only outcome. It goes back to communication is sitting down and seeking to understand this is a skill that is unfortunately all too absent in our society right now, and I fear getting worse. Not better. But trying to understand different perspectives, different approaches, and see if you can't find a thread that can begin to build a bridge, a reconnection. Absent that, it's hard to make progress. It's hard to write a toxic or an unhealthy situation. And I know all of us work with folks all the time who it's broken and they're just not sure where to start on the rebuilding it. But it's gotta start with conversation. You gotta sit down and talk.  Mark Engle, DM FASAE: Let me build on that. 'cause I did have a personal [00:26:00] experience in this. I was this probably 20 years ago. I was CEO of an association. We had a board chair, two year terms, but you could be reelected. The first two years with this gentleman were awesome. We were like in sync, right? It was really smooth, productive. Something happened his first year of the next term between our relationship and somewhere I failed in his eyes. I could not discern it. Luckily, I had a good relationship with the vice chair who was next in line, and we had a conversation and he was able to have a conversation with the board chair. He came back and said, mark, sometimes relationships just unwind and you can't really explain them. And so I was able to dig in, was it an integrity issue? And he assured me it wasn't. So I'm like, alright, I might not know the answer. At least I'll be okay with the fact that it's not an integrity issue. And then actually the vice chair became the chair sooner than. What his normal term would've been, and we had two terrific years together. Sometimes those [00:27:00] relationships just get fractured. You don't know why, as John said, you try to communicate, but sometimes it's plan B, bring in some reinforcements that are on a volunteer to volunteer basis to help, help bridge that relationship or the gap, if you will. Joanna Pineda: You talked about the pandemic. We're now post pandemic, and now we're increasingly in an AI powered world. Have those things changed?  Mark Engle, DM FASAE: The relationship between the CSE and the CVO Arc, I think they have the opportunity to, I don't know that we've experienced it entirely yet, so it's interesting. I was at a board meeting recently and they were making a decision that impacted one board member, and so you could see there was a motion tied to that. So my point was, if AI had a seat at the board table, how would AI vote? They likely removed the emotion from the decision so you could make a cognitive decision, [00:28:00] which is what the CEO was desperate for, and yet. They made the emotional decision. So I think AI can play an interesting role when you consider that voice at the table. It's really interesting  Glenn Tecker: and there's a way to get the voice there that is, if the board and the senior staff have a habit of. Complex decisions being informed by background information, usually compiled by staff, but sometimes by staff with volunteers or staff with volunteers with outside contractors. That background paper is the place where the insights that AI can lead you to can be presented to the group in decision making. I have had boards now we're working with where the board members will utilize AI during the conversations to look for additional information or to answer a question about something they wish they knew more about but did not, but. Well, the other thing we are [00:29:00] finding with AI is not so much with AI as it is with the effect that the emergence and evolution of AI is having on the group's view of change. Recently, somebody authored a statement that said change itself has changed. I'm not sure about that. What I am sure about is that association leaders cannot manage change. Not like for-profit hierarchical organizations can, they can manage through change. The reason being, they don't have the same kind of line authority with a group of volunteers that you would have in a for-profit or a public agency, for example. So understanding the necessity of developing competencies in managing through change, which is the essence of agility at the personal level, has become, in our judgment, a new necessary competency for the [00:30:00] successful CEO. Jon Hockman, CPF, FASAE: I wanna underscore, first of all, I think we're very early days on the impact of AI on the relationship, really governance overall, but certainly the relationship between the staff and volunteer leaders. But I just came from a Breakfast of Trade association leaders where an example got brought up of a group where their staff CIO, with the board's blessing and created a persona AI persona. To participate in the strategic planning process, and that person was a seat at the table as the board did their strategic planning work, own experiment. Lots of lessons learned, but I suspect that's not the end of that story by any stretch as that continues to get integrated, so much more to come.  Joanna Pineda: Wow. Gentlemen, I could talk to you for hours about this because I'm a newbie at this. I know you're busy, so I'm gonna close out with a question for you and you can answer with something professional or personal. What are you looking forward to [00:31:00] in 2026? Glenn, I'll start with you.  Glenn Tecker: I'm looking for surviving an assault on the truth that is occurring at a national level,  Mark Engle, DM FASAE: mark. I'm looking forward to catching up on my reading list. To be honest with you, there's so many good publications out there today around especially collective decision making at the boards level and the role that courage has to play and should become a competency. So that'll be my research agenda for 2026. Courage in the Boardroom.  Joanna Pineda: Wow. John, close this out.  Jon Hockman, CPF, FASAE: I think 2026 is gonna be a, your extreme tumult on almost every front. And so we talked a little bit earlier about a change management. I'm. Looking forward to leaning in on what I would call change readiness. 'cause you can't manage it, but how do you get ready to deal with all the turbulence that is coming? I think that's a skill of the future and lots of juicy work to be done there. [00:32:00]  Joanna Pineda: Gentlemen, this has been insightful and wonderful. Thank you for being on the show today. Thanks to everyone for listening to this episode of Associations NOW Presents. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals. Discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today, and highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy, the US and the world. For the full conversation, visit associations now.com. And for more information about governance, visit asaecenter.org. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And if you have a hot topic or pressing challenge that the association community would benefit from, we'd love to hear from you. Please contact ace's Michael Ross at [email protected] to propose a thought leadership sponsorship opportunity on a future [00:33:00] episode.

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Jarrod A. Clabaugh, CAE, president and CEO of the Ohio Society of Association Professionals, is joined by Mary Kate Cunningham, CAE, Chief Public and Governance Officer at ASAE; Dawn Mancuso, CEO of the Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry; and Mark Falzone, President of Scenic America. Together, they dive into the essential role Political Action Committees play in advancing association advocacy. The discussion breaks down PAC compliance requirements, why PACs matter in today’s legislative environment, and how associations can more effectively engage their members and leaders in political action. The guests highlight recent advocacy wins—including efforts to halt costly tax reforms—and underscore the need for consistent participation to ensure the association community’s voice is heard. The episode closes with a clear message: advocacy is a shared responsibility, and association leaders must stay active to protect and advance their missions. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/k8Ys7y1lB_M Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript Jarrod A. Clabaugh, CAE: [00:00:00] Welcome to this month's episode of Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Jarrod Clabaugh, President and CEO of the Ohio Society of Association Professionals. And this month I'm lucky to be the host of this podcast. Before we begin, I would just like to thank our three panelists for being on the call today. Thank you, Dawn, Mark, and Mary Kate today. We're excited to welcome Dawn Mancuso, the current chair of ASAE PAC, and also the Executive Vice President and CEO of Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry. And the immediate past chair, our friend Mark Falzone, who is the president of Scenic America. And Mary Kate Cunningham, who most of you likely know, ASAE's, chief Public Policy Officer and governance officer. Friends, let's jump right into the questions. We have a lot to cover. Mary Kate, thank you for the great work you do and the rest of the team and the public policy department at ASAE. Would you mind [00:01:00] providing our listeners with a quick overview of what a PAC stands for and also what missions of PACS often are? Mary Kate Cunningham, CAE: Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me. So PACS are Political Action Committees and we're gonna talk about PACS at the federal level that are formed by trade associations, professional society and other membership organizations. And the goal is to support candidates that align with their policy goals and interests. The PACS are funded by voluntary contributions by individuals, so  they have to be by eligible members. Again, individuals and not corporations. There's a lot of restrictions around giving and around reporting to the federal government. So federal ballot prohibits associations from using dues or general funds for contributions to candidates. It's really just from your individual members. Also must have a designated treasurer for compliance. They also must register with the Federal Election Committee and follow very strict reporting and disclosure requirements. That includes regular filings and contributions and expenditures. [00:02:00] And for solicitation, they can only solicit from their restricted class, which is members, executives, and certain employees. For trade associations, they have to follow prior approval where they get specific approval from companies to solicit their individual members there. So the Federal Election Committee is what they have to follow the rules for, and we say sometimes in PAC world, FEC jail is real jail. So PACS are a great tool for advocacy. There’s very strict reporting that you have to follow.  Jarrod A. Clabaugh, CAE: Sexy stuff. Mark and Dawn, would either of you like to share any examples of PAC victories or PAC experiences the two of you have been involved in?  Dawn Mancuso: I will say that in a prior life I ran a small trade association where we did have a Political Action Committee and had to deal with those regulations where we had to get permission from the CEO in order to solicit or even talk about the PAC in many ways with their employees at different [00:03:00] levels of the organization. Which can be challenging if you're trying to reach the advocacy folks at a particular institution, but it is doable and there are strategies you can employ to make sure that you can speak to as many of the individuals at the member organizations as possible.  Jarrod A. Clabaugh, CAE: What about you, Mark?  Mark Falzone: PACS are a part of the political ecosystem. And so if you're not playing in that field, then you're not taking advantage of the entire range of tools available at your disposal. And I think that  SAE has done an amazing job with their PAC under Mary Kate's leadership and Michelle Mason's leadership, and making sure that they have every tool at their disposal when they're using the pack versus lobbying. Direct lobbying versus grassroots lobbying. This is just another tool in the tool shed that every organization should really make sure that they have at the ready for them to use.  Jarrod A. Clabaugh, CAE: I would throw this next question out to all of our [00:04:00] panelists. When you think about turbulent times, what kinds of challenges come to mind for PAC leaders today?   Mark Falzone: I think that this year, ASAE has been the most turbulent time that it could be in my memory. Literally, associations were on the chopping block when it comes to taxation and tax treatment associations were about to get taxis levied against them where all of a sudden nonprofit statuses were in question. For some associations, this would be the equivalent of a death penalty, and for other associations it would certainly mean cuts. I would say that this year, 2025 has been very turbulent in terms of the association world, but Mary Kate with her leadership and Dawn as the ASAE PAC Chair has done an amazing job in navigating ASAE through these turbulent times. And, I would defer to Mary Kate to speak a little more on the amazing work of what ASAE had [00:05:00] to do in order to make sure that the tax bill ended up okay. And associations still are not subject to taxes because of Mary Kate and ASAE's work and Michelle Mason's work and Don Mancuso’s work.  Mary Kate Cunningham, CAE: Thank you so much, Mark, and thanks to all of our members who helped to make this big victory possible. But about a year ago, we were preparing for tax reform like everyone else in Washington, knowing associations are always a target. Our non-dues revenue specifically, and this was not our first rodeo show with tax deform, but this was a much more serious threat because two major, well-respected Think Tanks called for. Taxing nonprofits across the board at the corporate rate, which is 21%. So all told there were 6.5 billion in additional taxes on nonprofits that were introduced this Congress for the tax reform bill. So through all of the advocacy of ASAE members around the country, we were able to defeat all of those 6.5 billion over the course [00:06:00] of the legislation taxes. Specifically the biggest taxes were the nonprofit parking lot tax. That would be the tax on employee transportation costs that associations give the first time that we would be paying a tax, an excise tax on an expense. So that was also a potential constitutional issue. And then a huge other source of taxation that was introduced in the house was on royalty income. So on that tax revenue, it would be taxing our revenue on royalties that are received that are part of unrelated business income. Those are, in addition to the across the board tax that was floated and never introduced because lawmakers support associations. I think that's the main focus over the last year that we're really proud of. But we know we're not out of the woods, so it's something we're continuing to engage on. And I would say PACs are a great tool, as Mark said in your advocacy strategy to elect candidates who share your association. [00:07:00] Positions on these important issues and on your legislative priorities. I'll also note, I think we really take a nonpartisan strategy for our work, and most PACs are nonpartisan supporting candidates from both sides of the aisle that support their positions. Dawn Mancuso: Thanks Mary Kate. I really applaud the work you've done, your whole team as well as the leadership at ASAE, Michelle as the CEO, because you saw the handwriting on the wall and you took action at a time when we had to get prepared, we had to put the resources in place and ASAE made the commitment to do that and marks. Very sweet to pose me as the leader of the PAC, but during much of this work, he was the chair of the pac. I was the vice chair and learning as voraciously from him as quickly as possible. So it's been a real team effort and I really appreciate playing a role in this. We're right. Politics are very contentious right now. ASAE characterized the tax threat that took place this past [00:08:00] year as the biggest one that we've ever faced since the creation of the tax code back in 1913. So we've got a lot of concern behind this, and that has helped to mobilize people. But when you've got this kind of winners versus losers framework happening in the larger environment, people are divided and they may respond by saying. They pull away from the public arena or altogether, or disengage, or alternatively, they become tribalized. They really only wanna support one team, and these are the times when PACs can make a big difference. There is a critically important tool to help educate legislators from both sides of the aisle about the value of associations to American society. PAC leaders are challenged to break through all the noise. To make sure that our value is understood. I think we will continue to play a very important role in ASAE's advocacy efforts in the future to come.  Mary Kate Cunningham, CAE: Jarrod, your point [00:09:00] also brought up a another issue for me. When you're thinking about turbulent times for associations and association PACs, I think the candidates that are not taking association PAC dollars is also something interesting. I've noticed, it seems, like these candidates are more likely not taking corporate PAC dollars. Sometimes they're actually saying encouraging, giving through the association PAC instead. But as he talked about with the FEC Regulations Association, PACs are some of the most regulated ways to engage in the political process. There's so much sunlight. So I think that telling that story and that I think is important too.  Jarrod A. Clabaugh, CAE: It sounds like a lot of this is tied to education and getting. The association leaders educated, getting members educated, and then also going out and making sure you're actually educating members of Congress. And as somebody who participated in the fly in this past year and in other years, many of the approaches changed when we started telling our stories and when our members started telling our stories. How [00:10:00] then do you think we can work with leaders within our own, maybe membership or just within the space to help them engage more and to get them excited about delivering those messages to lawmakers? Mary Kate Cunningham, CAE: One idea we just had, what I think. We realize that the top percentage of members are always really engaged in advocacy, but there's so much room for growth for people who are newer members to the association. So just putting on more, as you say, Advocacy 101 or Your Association Advocacy 101 sessions, I think is a great way to make it feel approachable so people realize that. I think if they're not, if they don't have a background advocacy, they might be a little more hesitant too. Go to hill days, and when we make it more transparent, I think that people realize that they are the experts really talking to the congressional staffer, they're the ones bringing the wisdom and that it's, it isn't really less scary than it may seem at first glance. Dawn Mancuso: I think the ASAE PAC has a particular challenge in that so many of our members who are politically [00:11:00] inclined or advocacy inclined are focused on the needs of their member organizations or their member professionals. And so they use their time and energies to put forth the messaging that their members need. Oftentimes forget about the ecosystem they work in, right? As we've learned this past year, that ecosystem we've taken for granted, and it's not something that will survive without the support of everybody in the community. And that not only impacts our own organizations as our own associations, but affects our members, and we all need to get behind this. Mary Kate Cunningham, CAE: In terms of educating candidates, we know so many states are strongly considering or moving forward with gerrymandering this year. So congressional districts will change and there can be a lot of new faces that we need to educate. So I think the pressure just is continuing for telling the story.  Jarrod A. Clabaugh, CAE: What factors do you think contributed the most to the successes A SAE had earlier [00:12:00] this year? Mary Kate?  Mary Kate Cunningham, CAE: I think it's waving the flag early. I think getting on everyone's radar really early before the tax cuts and Jobs Act provisions expire, I think was very helpful. But we know, like Dawn said, our members have to focus on their own members first. That's their day job and it's really ASAE's job to care for the advocacy issues for the whole community. So I think because we were able to stand up our Community Impact Coalition early, it really helped people say, I'm gonna support the coalition. I've gotta focus on my own members, but here's this support to help you guys tell the story better. So I think that's one of the main elements.  Jarrod A. Clabaugh, CAE: Mary Kate, I know one time I heard you say it's easier to blow out a candle than it is to put out a forest fire, and I think that's really one of the things that ASAE excelled at in the past year. And as Dawn has said, and as Mark has said, bringing everyone together no matter what our members' interests are, but defending the industry as a whole. [00:13:00] Given that and given these successes, what should we be on the lookout for moving forward? Do you think there are more turbulent times ahead?  Mary Kate Cunningham, CAE: Absolutely. We know just last month, the Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee held a hearing on the tax exempt status of some nonprofits, and there are, or members of Congress on the committee recommending removing exempt status, asking are they truly earning exempt status? So I think this is not going away. We have to continue to tell that story. We've also done it through polling, especially using. The pollsters of the members of Congress that we really wanna influence so that they can, they feel like they're trusting those numbers, the percentage of voters in their district that would oppose taxes on nonprofits. That was really helpful. But I think we've got a lot of work ahead in just really telling the story on how we drive the economy and train the workforce, and that increased taxes on associations means less community benefit.  Jarrod A. Clabaugh, CAE: How do you feel we can maintain momentum and make sure [00:14:00] that leaders keep telling this story not just to their communities, but also to their boards and to their peers? Mary Kate Cunningham, CAE: I think it's people like Mark and Dawn that take time out of their extremely busy days to engage in ASAE advocacy, and we are so lucky. I think we have the best members in town, and so more association professionals putting their name in the hat to engage in advocacy, I think is the most useful because once a member of Congress can hear from a constituent about how their association is improving their community, I think that's the best proactive measure. Jarrod A. Clabaugh, CAE: So you guys have all made some great points in the right direction to lead our members and to engage our leadership. I'm gonna direct this question to all of you. Many association execs struggle to inspire leadership level giving. What approaches typically motivate CEOs and board members to contribute? Dawn Mancuso: The ASAE PAC's mission is an easy one for CEOs and association professionals overall to give, given the [00:15:00] magnitude of the challenge we are facing. But I think there are some tools that. PACS use, one of which is a scorecard that you can keep track of board members' contributions and engagement with the PAC as well as other activities of the organization, I believe uses that approach. Right, Mary Kate?  Mary Kate Cunningham, CAE: Yeah, absolutely. We know board members would like to have all their checks, especially in something that's primarily displayed in the board book. So I think that when the leadership starts at the top, especially. Having a host committee has always been really helpful to us as well, because those key leaders wanna see their name among everyone else on the host committee. Those are two elements that really work for us.  Jarrod A. Clabaugh, CAE: Great insights. Can you share an example of where a partnership that your organization has or collaboration that your organization has done, whether that's internal or external, significantly boosted visibility or your fundraising results.  Mary Kate Cunningham, CAE: So this is the coalition that we stood up in tax reform, and [00:16:00] it's more than 115 organizations, all different types of nonprofits around the country. And I think the great part about this coalition is that congressional staff knew our goal was simple to stop additional taxation on nonprofits. They knew we weren't picking winners and losers. We wanted across the board to keep the tax code treatment of exempt organizations the same. So I think having all those different really diverse groups from associations to disease advocacy organizations, law enforcement organizations, all kinds of nonprofits, I think that really helped us be effective. And then also if we had a lot of silent partners, orations that are, were. Influential in the space that we just shared. Information, intelligence, talking points so that we could try to again, sing from the same song sheet.  Jarrod A. Clabaugh, CAE: Great perspectives. What common misconceptions do you encounter from time to time when it comes to pacs? Dawn Mancuso: I think probably the number one misconception I've encountered is that people [00:17:00] think they can use the organization money as a contribution to the pac, and I think it just means we have to do a better job of educating people what a PAC is and how they work that. Contributions need to be from an individual or contribution from another PAC. So from time to time we've been able to get contributions from another organization's pack, which is really gratifying. It means that we're sharing, we have a common goal in mind.  Mary Kate Cunningham, CAE: I think to Dawn’s point is that association PACs are somehow dark money, quote unquote, and I think that's absolutely a misconception. All contributions over $200 are reported to the federal election committee and are listed on the website. So there's so much sunlight here. This is a really ethical way to support the legal process and candidates, and I think that's one misconception.  Mark Falzone: Yeah, I agree with that, Mary Kate. I think that a lot of people think that, like you said, that there is something wrong with doting pac and oh my goodness, I could never do that. And the truth is, this is [00:18:00] just another tool in the toolbox, like I said earlier, for your association or your group. And it's really important to leverage all the tools at your disposal and that not only from an association level, but from a personal level. If there is a cause out there, you want to support, giving to a causes PAC can really further that organization's mission.  Jarrod A. Clabaugh, CAE: Unfortunately, our time has come to a close. We've flown through the questions we had and we shared a lot of good insights today. Thank you to all of you for being on the panel. I would like to ask before we conclude our conversation, do you guys have any nuggets of knowledge that you would like to provide with our listeners to help them motivate either their members, their board, their leadership, or the communities that they operate in to get involved and to make sure that their voices are being heard? Mary Kate Cunningham, CAE: I think the often quoted phrase in DC is, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. And that's absolutely true. So get involved in your own association’s advocacy, get involved in ASAE's advocacy because there are real kind of threats [00:19:00] ahead, frankly. And we really have to be diligent about telling our story for our community. Mark Falzone: Yeah, PACs are just, like I said earlier, just one tool in the toolbox, but it's an important one. And to me, if somebody is a seasoned professional or wants to really be active in advocating for their association's work or something that they just care about, you want to be making sure that you're leveraging everything that you can. So, being active in the PAC, contributing to a PAC, being active in lobbying, direct lobbying, being active in grassroots, lobbying, making sure that you're actually doing everything that you can. A lot of people think, oh, I can't do that, or I just think that that's a little weird. That actually couldn't be further from the truth. What's weird is not doing it because it means you're not advocating for yourself. It means you're not actually participating, and it means you're not contributing to your mission and it means you're not doing your damn job. So make sure you do your damn job, get off your butt and work [00:20:00] tirelessly for your PAC. Jarrod A. Clabaugh, CAE: Dawn, any last thoughts my friend?  Dawn Mancuso: Our membership organizations are based on the same premise that our democracy is, that everybody needs to be educated, choose to engage, and take the time to get active. And I think as association executives, there's a moral imperative. We have to walk the talk and we need to do what we ask our members to do by serving as a role model. By doing what we can to educate others so that they can play as active a role as they would like. I think we are demonstrating to our members and to society and to our members about what the options are for engagements. We are not association executives just from nine to five. We do it throughout our lives, and as Mark so aptly said, PACs are an important tool in that engagement. Jarrod A. Clabaugh, CAE: I would just throw out there, condensing everything we've talked about today. When you stay silent about the work that you're doing, you are the only one to blame when no one hears your message. [00:21:00] So I would thank all of you. I'm lucky enough to serve on the PAC Committee with Dawn and Mark and many other wonderful people, and to have great public policy advisors like Mary Kate and her team, and the great work that Michelle does on behalf of the association industry. So I want to thank you for your time today. I want to thank you for your engagement. I wanna thank you for, as my good friend Mark said, get off your damn butts and do something, because otherwise you really shouldn't be complaining about what happens. Thanks to everyone for listening to this episode of Associations NOW Presents. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals, discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today, and highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy. In the United States and throughout the world. Again, we'd like to thank our guests today, Mark, Dawn, and Mary Kate. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And for more information on the great work being done in the advocacy space, please visit Associations NOW [00:22:00] online.

In celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month, guest host Camille Sanders, CAE, director of chapter operations and programs at ISACA and host of LeadHERship Bytes, sits down with Carlos Cardenas, CAE, AAiP, senior strategic advisor at DelCor and co-founder of Association Latinos, for a forward-thinking discussion on the future of AI in associations. Carlos shares how his personal journey with AI began during retirement planning and evolved into a passion for helping associations—especially smaller ones—use AI strategically to thrive. The conversation explores practical concepts like the “quarterback agent” for task management, the value of experiential learning, and aligning AI tools with real business goals. Together, they highlight how associations can embrace AI innovation while ensuring inclusivity and equity for Latinx members and beyond. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/rw3813NLPe4 This episode is sponsored by the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau. Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript Camille Sanders: [00:00:00] Welcome to this month's episode of Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm your host today, Camille Sanders. In addition to my role as director of chapter operations and programs at ISACA, I also host LeadHERship Bytes, an independent podcast highlighting the career and personal journeys of inspiring women across industries. You can find it on any major podcast platform. Now, before we dive in, we would like to thank this episode sponsor the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau Now. Let's get into the really fun stuff. I'm very excited for today's conversation where we're talking about the future of AI in associations with Carlos [00:01:00] Cardenas, the senior strategic advisor at DelCor, and a co-founder of Association Latinos. Welcome, Carlos.  Carlos Cardenas: Hi Camille. How are you? Thanks for having me.  Camille Sanders: You are very welcome. We're excited to talk with you today. So I just want to be fully transparent with our audience that I know Carlos personally and I know about. Some of your exciting writings and the things that you've been doing in terms of educating associations around experimentation and adaptation of ai. And I know that journey started for you with something really personal around your retirement planning, and that's a really unusual journey. That's not where most of us start. So can you talk to us a little bit about what sparked that idea for you?  Carlos Cardenas: Sure. No, I will say just like everybody else, right? October, 2022, OpenAI dropped chat GPT version 3.0, [00:02:00] and it shook the world. It shocked the world, and so everybody started to experiment and say, how does this relate to me? How can I use this? How can I leverage it? I wrote a LinkedIn article in January talking about the directions that it could go. One of 'em was a travel advisor, one of 'em was a strategic advisor. A couple other things as well. Fast forward a couple years, right? And so I'm, I'm relatively young, I won't say my age, but I like to think about the future. I like to think about financial independence, not necessarily retirement, but financial independence. And so I started to go down the road of what does retirement, or what does financial independence look like for me? And you've got your traditional 401k in the workplace and you've got your employer match. Outside of that, you might do Roth IRAs, you might dabble in crypto, you might have some other investment vehicles, and so I do a lot of the work myself. And so [00:03:00] I look at websites, I look at market trends, but I'm like, how can I leverage some of these tools to help me so I don't have to do a lot of the heavy lifting? I like to experiment. I downloaded open source models of my own. I purchased an NVIDIA graphics card. I've got that installed on my home desktop computer. But I run these models and experiment with them, and I use generative I to help me build agents. So I can have one agent that does it all, and you might get to that later on, but I felt I wanted to build an ecosystem of agents to help me with these various aspects. So what I've been able to do so far in terms of retirement or financial independence is build an agent. I'll say it's probably 70% of the way done, but it goes to the marketplace. It looks at the s and p 500, and it comes back and it gives me that information, and then it builds a dashboard for me. So I can look at my financial portfolio and I can have it send me emails. [00:04:00] And so basically it's my assistant to say, how am I doing? The market took a downturn, or it's doing, it's on fire, right? What does that mean? What does my five year-, what does my nine year-outlook look like? Do I need to make adjustments in my 401k? So that's kind of surface level. We could talk 60 minutes about this, but I'll stop there. Camille Sanders: Yeah. No, I love that and I thank you for that example because I think it's a really practical example to show how people can use AI in our personal lives, right? To help us with future planning. And I, for one, had never thought about that. So thank you. Thank you again for that, and I think it leads nicely into something bigger. That you've talked about in a recent article that you wrote and published, you talked about the fact that AI isn't at this point really about innovation, it's more about survival, especially for smaller [00:05:00] associations, and you even called it this moment, a breaking point for associations, and that's a powerful. Really strong message and I'm curious about what makes you feel that sense of urgency right now?  Carlos Cardenas: I think it's clear if you follow investments, if you follow the big, the tech bros, so to speak, right? In terms of what they're doing. Generative AI is not going anywhere. People use it on a personal level and they've been able to multiply their cap capabilities. But when you go to the association level for us, you look at association membership and, and I'll say for ASAE membership, since we're on this podcast, I believe something around 80% of all associations, and I don't know if they're specific to ASAE, but they're small staff associations. Their annual revenues are somewhere between, uh, I'll say a million or [00:06:00] less. And that's a wide range. So people wear multiple hats. And so now you've got, you're bogged down into the tactical things. You don't have opportunities to take that hat off and be more strategic. And so administrative overhead comes front and center and, and I think these agent AIs or these AI systems perfect candidate to be able to offload some of those administrative burdens, so to speak, to free you up for the more strategic aspects of it. And so that's why I feel like it is critical. It's critical now, right? People are stuck in the mud, so to speak, and maybe I see it as a consultant. Their technology posture is not where it needs to be, and so I feel like this is a perfect opportunity for leadership boards to be looking at these technologies to say, how do we leverage it in the workplace? Again, we can use it on a personal [00:07:00] level, but. How do we bring that into the workplace and bring ourselves into the future? How do we experiment? How do we build that culture of learning?  Camille Sanders: Yeah.  Carlos Cardenas: So again, that surface level answer, but that's how I thought about this.  Camille Sanders: That's really good. And in that same piece, you introduced this concept of a quarterback agent, which I think is really timely. It's football season, and I liked the concept because again, it makes AI feel more approachable. Can you break that down a little bit for us and talk about what exactly is a quarterback agent? And why is orchestration so much more important than just having this one catchall tool?  Carlos Cardenas: I'll start from the model perspective, and you've got your chat GPT version 5.0. You've got from Anthropic, you've got cloud version 4.0, 4.1. You've got these multiple [00:08:00] flavors that try to do it all. If you look at the open source market, you've got specialized models, more lightweight models, maybe from an energy standpoint. They do not consume as much energy. They do not need as much computation, and so rather than thinking about one person, one agent to do it all, I like to distribute that workload and think about specialty agents, and I can have multiple specialty agents. If I'm managing, I'm at the center of them all and managing them all. I feel like I'm just perpetuating and repeating a current problem. And so therein comes the orchestrator or quarterback agent. The, it's, think of it as a digital twin, a mirror of you that you're trying to train this particular model, and that quarterback agent can work with the other one. So let me give you an example. Now, let's just say you've got a project, project a, we'll call it. You maybe have a [00:09:00] statement of work or project deliverables, and so you could have a specialized project manager agent that can think about all of the deliverables that need to happen. Some of the project outcomes, some of the timelines. You might have a business analyst agent where you feed some of the brick requirements from. Think of your discovery meetings. Think of a communications agent that is specialized in outreach. Drafting emails and writing letters and drafting RFPs and writing executive summaries. And so they each have their own specialty and the quarterback agent essentially activates them all. Doesn't have to be linear, right? It could be like non-sequential, but it can say, Hey, project manager, I need you to tap into Microsoft Project to create X, Y, Z task communications. You take that output as input. Draft a letter to the client or to the internal executive leadership team. So you can see how [00:10:00] the coordination aspect of it frees you up. Obviously there's always a human component to it where you have to have that human oversight, but conceptually, I think as the tools and the technology evolve, so too, do organizations have to evolve to figure out how do I leverage this? And I think this is one aspect in terms of Agentic AI that we're gonna hear more and more about. Camille Sanders: Yeah. So if an association leader had to just start with one of all the agents that you described as possible, which one do you think gives the most impact right away and why?  Carlos Cardenas: Yeah. I'll say before you even go to the agents, right? Start with yourself, make sure that you're experimenting and learning. And so I think of a series of concentric circles. With you at the center. And then I think once you master that or get comfortable with it, you can go to that next layer. And that might be the team, eventually you'll get to the organization. But I [00:11:00] think it's important to take a step back and think about what is our organization, what is the mission, and what is the vision? What are our business goals? Instead of chasing a bright and shiny tool, and you just leave the stuff that you just bought and you put it on the shelf. What do I, what problems am I trying to solve? Gotta make sure that you align it to the business goals. Otherwise you're just tinkering and experimenting on a personal level. That's good. On an organizational level, I think that's detrimental to the organization. There's gotta be some experimentation, but make sure it's focused experimentation. Make sure you have some concrete examples or deliverables that you know you want your team. I think if you can do that. And the tasks you find are repetitive in nature, instead of prompting each and every time to do this, I think that brings the use case for an agent to help you. And so again, I think start with that concept. Make use of that first agent. I can't [00:12:00] tell you which one makes the most sense at in the beginning, but I feel if once you understand that and you leverage it, and then you realize those outcomes, proof of concept, then move on to the next one. It is a process. Yeah. You can't just jump to Step Z and say, let me get a quarterback agent without doing the other ones.  Camille Sanders: Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. Now, one thing that. I love about your writings and your guidance on this is that you have really been adamant that associations not get caught up in the hype, and you just alluded to that. Really tying things back to business goals and back to strategy for leaders who might be feeling FOMO, that fear of missing out. On the big push around AI right now, how would they really know where to start without just chasing the shiny new thing that's happening?  Carlos Cardenas: Yeah, I would [00:13:00] say start somewhere. You've gotta take that first step. I think. Don't let fear prevent you from taking that first step. I can tell you to use a specific tool, but I don't think we wanna do that. I think find a tool that speaks to you. Start to experiment with it, start to learn from it, and then I think you'll get more comfortable with the tool, and then I feel like eventually you'll realize what the capabilities are. Obviously with some training, you've gotta always be learning, because this tool constantly changes and evolves. Technology is moving at a breakthrough speed. So rather than be overwhelmed with trying to chase each and everything, try to get good at a core three concepts. Try to get good at aligning it to your specific role. Maybe you're a marketer. Maybe you need help with social media posts. Maybe you're a tinkerer, a creator and experimenter, and you need an ideation partner. Try [00:14:00] to focus on some of those things, and then I think you'll realize what the capabilities are and then harness those capabilities. Towards the business outcomes. Sitting on the sidelines at this point is not an option. And if you are a leader, you need to look at yourself in the mirror and say, am I stifling? Not just the innovation, but the advancement of my association, my organization? And most times you won't see it, right? If you are the problem and lean on your team, have conversations, have open and honest and frank conversations. I feel like the more you can bounce ideas from your team and off of your team, the more that you can help shape and think about the direction that your organization needs to be going in. Ultimately, I think we all need to dip our toes into generative AI in one form or another. I know we have different on-ramps, whether you have a policy or not inside the organization, guess what? Your [00:15:00] teams are using the tool. At work, at home, they probably know more than you do. If you're an advanced user, you probably know a little bit more, but I think sitting on the sidelines, it's just not an option. At this point. You do not wanna be left behind and three years later, finally come to the realization, oh, how do we leverage this? You'll be behind at that point.  Camille Sanders: Yeah. Yeah. I very much agree with that. And speaking of just. Moving forward and thinking forward. You have developed this very interesting concept called Innovation by parts, which you've also trademarked and. I think it's amazing how that frames AI as something that's both incremental and manageable and for smaller associations, which you've alluded to. And I think honestly, this might be practical for even medium and large associations that have not yet [00:16:00] leaned into adapting the technology. How can they apply the innovations by parts approach in a low risk and practical way?  Carlos Cardenas: I'll give you a little bit of background in terms of the genesis of innovation by parts. And so I go back to calculus two. Differential calculus, and so integration by parts was the concept where you take trigonometric functions as an example, and sometimes you're multiplying them and sometimes you're integrating them and it's so complex, right? And you'll probably fill pages and pages with these equations. But there is a tool called. Integration by parts where it lets you break that down. It lets you simplify these things into additional variables to integrate that a little bit more. That's one part of it. The other part is I'm hyper visual. If I could turn my camera, you'll probably, you'll see a whiteboard on this side here. I've got an extensive series of whiteboards, so I'm visual. I feel like if you are trying [00:17:00] to articulate, I mean, name your concept, if it's a project, if it's a mission, if it's a vision, I can talk to you about it. The message may get warped depending on how you receive it, but if we're looking at a picture and we're looking at a diagram, then we could walk through that diagram and talk through it, and I can provide you more clarity. Maybe I'm not gifted at the gift of gab, but I think I've been blessed with being able to articulate visually. So that's the genesis of it. Behind that is you've got this complex idea, which can be daunting to some people. Look at any project, right? Whether it's an AMS implementation, sometimes you're just like, whoa, there are too many pieces to this. But if you can break it down into smaller pieces and analyze and evaluate, then I feel like it's less daunting. It's more approachable. You can plan around those things. You can set milestones. So I guess in simple terms with maybe [00:18:00] the long-winded answer to your question, that is innovation by parts. How can organizations use it? Go to the whiteboard. Don't assume that people understand what you're talking about. You know, whatever that project is, if you can draw it and you can understand it, then I feel like you know what you're talking about. And if you know what you're talking about in your organization, your team would be able to see your vision as well. And don't just draw it once and look at it once, but use it as a visual tool, visual aid. As you progress along that project timeline,  Ad Read: Let's take a quick break for a word from our episode sponsor, the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau. Atlanta is a leading convention city providing an exceptional environment for a wide range of events, meetings, and trade shows. The destination strength lies in its highly accessible and walkable convention district, which is [00:19:00] seamlessly integrated with its entertainment district, home to the world's number one airport, Hartsfield Jackson, Atlanta International Airport, and a substantial inventory of more than 113,000 hotel rooms in the metro region. The city is well equipped to accommodate small and large scale gatherings. In Atlanta, your success is our top priority. Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau and our close-knit hospitality community, don't just serve as a resource, we become an extension of your team. For more information, visit discover atlanta.com. Camille Sanders: And so now Carlos, I want to shift gears. And look a little bit down the road. If associations get this right five years from now, what do you [00:20:00] think the workplace will look like? And on a personal note, what excites you most about that future?  Carlos Cardenas: I had the privilege of being the immediate past chair of the tech council last year. We were talking about what does the IT team of the future look like? So we had a bunch of ideas in terms of what are the skill sets, what are the psychological profiles that an IT leader, but IT team members need? And the missing piece was agents, again, as agentic AI comes into the picture, how can it not be part of the future as these tools become more available and readily accessible? Again, it's natural language processing, and so it's very accessible. You don't have to be super techy. How can that not be part of it? And so again, from the administrative overhead aspect of it, even on the board perspective in terms of, you know, strategic planning, I still hear stories [00:21:00] where boards are expected to look at 20, 30 page documents to prepare for a board meeting. So how can you leverage these tools to be able to evaluate, analyze, and synthesize complexity? Into more simple terms. And so the board members can focus on strategy from a volunteer perspective. Associations, you know, manage various committees. I'll say you're taking meeting minutes and I think those are the simple ones. I think we're past that part of. But in terms of keeping people organized, people are busy, right? If they're volunteering, they've got a full-time job, they've got a family, how can we lean on some of these tools? To help us with the repetitive, to help us with the mundane, to help us prepare for our next meeting, to help us look back and reflect on previous meetings, to help us look for trends and say where are we going? Where did we come from? Are we aligning with the three year strategic plan that we created a couple years ago? Do we need to [00:22:00] pivot? Times are changing, do a landscape assessment. So all of these different tools, and even from an internal perspective, again, if I can go back to the small staff. You're wearing multiple hats. Maybe you don't have the budget to get a technology leader. In comes your agents, and I'm not saying they're commercial off the shelf, but you might be able to train it best practices Microsoft documentation if you're a Microsoft shop. But I feel like it can augment your staff and the capabilities and maybe you don't fall behind on technology. Maybe you can stay ahead to some extent of that technology curve. But it's a competitive advantage, and so if you don't take advantage of it, your competitor will. And what does that mean for the future of your business, your organization?  Camille Sanders: Oh, Sage advice. Sage advice there. Thank you Carlos. And I have one more question for you. Since it's National Hispanic Heritage Month, [00:23:00] I wanna close on what I think is a really important point in this conversation, and that's that AI systems are only as good as the data. They're trained on how can associations ensure that Latinx perspectives and experiences are included so that AI outcomes are both equitable and inclusive for everyone? Carlos Cardenas: Great question, Camille. Thank you. As I think about Hispanic Heritage Month and how associations. Can make sure they're inclusive and think about the bias of these large language models are inclusive of their Latino members, Latinx members. Some of the things that they can do, uh, and maybe I'll take a step back and say again, bias is relative. Bias is a reflection of humanity. If you think about public libraries, they're full of bias at one point or another throughout the history of time. But people have written their perspectives. Those [00:24:00] are, think about it. Some of the models are trained on some of that data. Maybe they've been transcribed and they're digitized now, but these large language models, you'll scrape these sites and scrape these articles, and they're trained on that. What associations can do to make sure that Latino voices are heard are accurate. You cannot take the human out of the equation. So I give an example of let's say you want to cater a Hispanic heritage marketing campaign and you wanna make sure you have an authentic voice. You've got some choices to make. There's Spanish, the dialect, the language itself, but there are different dialects. Are you speaking to Mexican, Spanish, Argentinian, Spaniard. So I feel like it is incumbent upon the association. To be that filter to make sure that you are speaking directly to your audience. Maybe you know the differences in terms of dialect of your members, and maybe you do some extra member segmentation.[00:25:00]  I am privileged to be the incoming board president for Association Latinos. We're a local nonprofit 501(c)(3) here in Chicago. We're about four and a half years old, and so I think about exactly what I was talking about earlier. Small staff associations. Wearing multiple hats. How do we get rid of the administrative overhead? How do we have these tools augment? And so as I assume the role, I want to incorporate some of these tools, some of these agents, some of the training, some of the upskilling into the work that we do as an organization. I think about where we are as a small nonprofit in the, I'll say ecosystem or economy of associations in general. We're small, we've gotta outcompete, we've gotta out hustle. And so I look at these tools as a competitive advantage. I also look at it as an opportunity to train our volunteer committees, our board, [00:26:00] so that they can learn some of these tools, not just to deliver to our community, but they can take back into their own workplaces. So if I can make 'em a stronger leader, and if I can. Get them to leverage these tools. I know that they'll go back to their organization, to their association, to their leadership roles. They're going to incorporate some of these tools and inherently make their association a stronger association. Camille Sanders: Wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you so much Carlos, and this has been such a really insightful conversation, and I do just wanna thank you for sharing your perspective and really giving us a roadmap. On how associations can approach AI with purpose now and in the future. And also a special thank you to our listeners and viewers for tuning into Associations NOW Presents. Each month, we bring you the conversations that are shaping associations today, [00:27:00] highlighting the challenges, the opportunities, and the real impact. That our work has on the economy, the U.S. and even the world. And a special thank you again to our episode sponsor, the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau. To learn more about planning your next event in Atlanta, please visit discoveratlanta.com. And be sure to subscribe to associations now presents on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. And for more stories and insights, visit us anytime at associationsnow.com.

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Sharon Pare, director of partnerships at HighRoad Solutions and co-host of the Rethink Association Podcast, is joined by two dynamic leaders: Christina Lewellen, MBA, FASAE, CAE, CEO of the Association of Technology Leaders in Independent Schools, and Preet Bassi, CAE, CEO of the Center for Public Safety Excellence. Together, they explore how associations can thrive in an era defined by disruption and opportunity. Drawing on new themes highlighted in the upcoming fifth edition of the Professional Practices in Association Management, the conversation dives into the rising importance of governance and trust, building human-centered workplaces, and the skills association leaders need for the future. Lewellen and Bassi also share insights on the role of AI, the next wave of professional development, and how associations can adapt to create resilient, attractive, and future-ready organizations. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/V_j94oIM_IM This episode is sponsored by the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau. Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript ASAE_ep14 Sharon Pare: [00:00:00] Welcome to this month's episode of Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. Before we begin, we would like to thank this episode's sponsor, the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau. I'm Sharon Pare, director of partnerships at High Road Solutions, a HubSpot Agency “associafying” the way associations go to market with, well, their marketing. I'm also the co-host of our monthly podcast, Rethink Association, where we talk about how to reimagine the way you association, which is the perfect lead in to today's discussion. So enough about me. Today, we're excited to welcome Christina Lewellen, CEO of the Association of Technology Leaders in Independent Schools, and Preet Bassi, CEO of the Center for Public Safety Excellence. Welcome to the show, Christina and Preet. Hey, good afternoon. Thank you, Sharon. Thanks so much for having us. Absolutely. Welcome to the show. [00:01:00] Before we get to introductions, I'd like to level set before we get into it. On this podcast today, we'll be talking about the future of associations, evolution, innovation, and leading through change. We're also gonna talk about some of the new themes in the fifth edition of the Professional Practices and Association Management book, but we'll talk about some of the insights that challenge business as usual. And also this podcast is for you if you're leading a small but mighty team like Christina is, or a schmedium association, like Preet likes to call it, a national organization. Or if you're simply just curious, there are some pop tracks in this podcast that you don't wanna miss. Preet and Christina are two leaders bringing deep experience in the field and fresh thinking on where associations are headed next. Well, they certainly need no introduction. I'm excited to give them the floor for a quick hello. So we'll start with you, Christina. Christina Lewellen: Hello everyone. I'm Christina Luwellen and I am the president and CEO of ATLIS. As you mentioned, [00:02:00] ATLIS is technology leaders in independent schools, which basically means that we are CIOs and tech teams, tech directors that serve private K 12 schools primarily in the states. And we are growing really fast. We're a relatively young organization, about 10 years old. We just celebrated our 10th anniversary, but we are growing between 30 and 35% year over year, so we're definitely adding. Lots of new schools to our community every year.  Preet Bassi: Hi everyone. I'm Preet Bassi, the CEO for the Center for Public Safety Excellence. Been in that role. It'll be 11 years this September, and our organization has gone through a fix it phase and also a grow it phase, and we're in our grow it phase right now. We work with fire departments all around the world, helping them and the professionals that work in those fire departments establish continuous improvement methods to make sure that they're serving their communities better. Sharon Pare: That's amazing. I'm really excited for today's conversation. And just from what you said, [00:03:00] Christina, you're at a newer association being there for about 10 years, and then Preet, you've been at your organization for 11 years, so I think that's amazing. Today we'll be chatting on topics we're all grappling in the space, so without further ado, let's jump in. So associations built around people, knowledge and exchange, creating a collective knowledge. I know you've both contributed to shaping where associations are headed. Christina, let's start with you. What do you think will be foundational in the next era?  Christina Lewellen: As we think about that, I like to boil things down in terms of associations and what they are, and I love this very simplistic way of thinking about it that Peggy Hoffman offers us, which is that the formula's pretty simple. Associations are simply a combination of content. Community, and I feel like that is likely to remain the foundation of associations, but how we build on that foundation is probably going to have to change. There's a couple ways that I envision this happening, one for sure is that I [00:04:00] think that how we redefine and evolve the. Workplace of associations will likely become foundational to how associations succeed. We have great opportunities there, but I also think that a lot of associations have some governance cleanup to do, and that is something that will really amplify this idea of the foundation being content and community. Because if organizations are struggling to either clean up their components or wrestle with some unhealthy governance practices that have gotten into the mix, it's tough to stay really true to the mission and to deliver on that value proposition of content and community. So there's some opportunities there for sure, and I think that we'll continue to unpack that as this conversation goes along. Sharon Pare: Preet, is there anything you'd like to add or something shifting even more dramatically? Preet Bassi: I completely agree with the content and community comment. I would add connection to that, how we bring it together. [00:05:00] But my perspective on associations and CPSE is 28 years old, and about eight years ago, right as we were becoming a true adult at 21, we had a conversation in our board meeting about needing to self disrupt. If we were Blockbuster, we needed to figure out how to be Netflix, not have some other Netflix come in and overtake our market. Historically, associations haven't needed to worry about competition, startups, mergers, acquisitions, bankruptcy, right? Those are common terms that we think about in the private space, but not in associations. But if you look around over the last five, 10 years, there have been associations that have started up because they did not feel. They had a home, they had a voice, they had a space. You've seen associations that unfortunately have dwindled, those that have been friendly, merged, or perhaps hostile takeover bought out. And [00:06:00] in looking at that, some of the things that we've been trying to do at CPSE is. How do we diversify who we are, how we're formatted to make sure that we're very agile and we're adapting as those societal, technological, economic, environmental, political changes come in. We've launched a subsidiary, we've started a new program. We are incubating an association. Those would be words that you typically would hear, once again, in the private sector, but you wouldn't hear for associations. I think that the time has come for associations to not take their membership market for granted and make sure that they're scanning the entire market and how they best conserve it. Sharon Pare: Yeah, that's great. Preet, and being on the industry partner side of things, we've seen that, of course, in the association side and seeing some of these hostile takeovers, if you will, or some of these mergers. But I'm seeing it on the industry partner side too. Almost on the monthly, maybe on the weekly, you hear some new news of [00:07:00] some of these larger conglomerates in our for-profit side of our association business, the industry partners respectively, where they're doing these mergers and acquisitions and they're creating this monolithic corporation, if you will, within our own space. So this brings me into my next question. What do you think will fade or transform in terms of roles and skills and the futurescape of associations?  Preet Bassi: I believe that we'll have a few doer roles that consist and event coordination. We have an amazing staff member that makes sure that the sponsor booths are set up and all the way a few of those will stick, but those that have historically been in thinker roles. If they can grow that particular skillset, I see that as a kind of a skillset that is going to shift, whether it's because you're gonna do some automation through AI or even some outsourcing of things that are related to your [00:08:00] mission, but not core to the mission and just really don't need to do it. And it's interesting. InCPSE, we do outsource a lot of core back of house tasks: finance, IT, legal. And thank God for partners in the private space that work with associations specifically on it, on legal. We are also thinking about how we outsource some front of house operations, events, communications. But what we're not considering is our very core programs, which are accreditation and credentialing. And so that is more about associations. So I think we'll want to retain the skill sets and the roles that directly touch the member, but those that support the touching of the member, which sounds very weird, is I think where we'll see. A lot of change, whether it's through automation outsourcing or even potentially sharing of resources. Christina Lewellen: If I could just draw an underline under [00:09:00] what Preet said. I think that you're right. The job functions and skills that are core to the strategy are likely to be the ones that really stay home at the association, but I'll just note that can change. So it could be that if you're launching a new program or something that is really high priority on your strategy. You might need marketing and communications to be on your team, but then once it becomes rote, once it becomes the chug, a chug of work that we always do, just trains leaving the station, then you might reevaluate that. And I would say that it won't be that those skills are no longer needed at associations, but I think it's gonna be. The chief staffing executive's job is to take a pause, take a beat, and go, okay, I understand why eight years ago we needed the marketing team because we were launching this new thing, or we went through a merger. But now that we've got that settled down and things are a little bit more business as usual, do we still need that function in house? I think that's where you'll see some of these fringe [00:10:00] tasks like accounting or HR, but even some member programs and services like what Preet was saying that they're considering, that is likely to possibly shift just depending on where it falls in your strategic plan. Organizations that can be fairly nimble are probably gonna be the ones that really leverage having the right skillset in-house. And then I'll just note that I think the AI right now is. Clickbait. The headlines are just getting our attention, getting us all wound up, and there is some voice coming through the clickbait noise right now that is bringing a certain amount of pragmatism and levelheadedness to the conversation because we have not gotten to the point where generalized intelligence is going to be able to connect the dots on all the content, community, and connection that we create for associations. We still need to do that as humans putting those pieces of the puzzle together. But any jobs that do require those conclusions to be drawn and those dots to be connected are very likely to stay a part of [00:11:00] our kind of landscape for a while.  Preet Bassi: Yeah. And connecting with that, we've said we don't mind if AI proprietary tools are automating very rote tasks for us, but we don't want AI being the. Connection point for our members. It's like AI can touch our members stuff and because we're a conformity assessment body, we're accrediting fire department's credentialing fire professionals. So there's a lot of checking of their application, verifying, ensuring that it's correct. Sure, the AI can do that, but I want to make sure that the person, the humans are central to the ongoing engagement because so much of what people are coming to associations for. Isn't just, oh, I have money in my budget that I need to spend on an annual conference. They're looking for community. They're looking for connection. The content they could get anywhere, but those other two pieces do require that there's a human on the other end. [00:12:00]  Sharon Pare: Putting AI aside, are there any new skills rising that maybe we're not talking about enough in the space? Christina Lewellen: I think that there's a lot of emotional intelligence that we are going to need because of AI. I'd love that we could just set it aside or set it on a shelf, Sharon, but that's not the reality we're living in. But I think that to your question, I understand the point of what you're getting to, and I think that we're gonna need humans who are super. So many, you know, we need good emotional intelligence. We need to make sure that our workplaces are bringing balance and flexibility to the humans who work at them. And I think that all these things are possible, and it's not just because of ai. We should have been doing that anyway before ai. But I do think that in the emerging generations of leaders. We're hearing about how emotional intelligence can be the antidote to burnout and how it can really create healthy culture. So I think that having some of those soft skills, having resilience to get through hard things is probably, [00:13:00] I don't know if they're skills, but they're at least a characteristic of the future workforce that we're going to need to develop. Preet Bassi: Christina must have been in an amazing conversation we had at our all hands staff coordination meeting. We meet periodically in person and we looked at ASAE's, Drivers of Change around the more human humans to ensure that we were doubling down on that. Another skillset that I would add, and I think this has historically been something that's been reserved at the director C-suite level, but it may now need to promulgate the entire organization, is continuous improvement, creativity and small eye innovation. Am I doing the right thing? Is there a better way of doing it? Not just can I do more of it? And whether that's a staff member that feels empowered to bring that idea forward. Obviously managers, directors, who should be looking at it, and the CEO, who should be creating that culture where that's the expectation [00:14:00] around to just improve it. We actually redid our entire. Staff competencies list and there were core competencies for the entire organization. Some were considered to you. Gotta be aware, proficient and expert customer service was expert throughout emotional intelligence, was expert throughout, even for the most junior member of our team. Sharon Pare: I think that's a perfect lead in to how we think about learning itself. Christina, maybe we'll bring it back to you, but how do you see professional development evolving?  Christina Lewellen: Look at the surface level. If we can get generalized content easily from ai, then associations have this imperative to do the deeper dive. I think we're gonna have to do more customized professional development because members can go find information on. You know the chat bot du jour, right? So what we need to do as associations, as we think about learning and PD and [00:15:00] how we're gonna deliver that, is that we really should get in a place where we're offering specialized guidance to help them, the member, stand out in their shifting marketplace. It's not just that associations are going through these changes, our members. To navigate them too. As far as how we do this, it is very likely that we're going to incorporate AI bots and gentech AI into our associations the way that we eventually embedded the internet into our delivery system in the late 1990s and early two thousands. It's very awkward in adolescent right now, but it's maturing quickly, so we're going to have to walk this path, but we probably need to do so at varying rates to hit all of our members where they are and make sure that they're getting the delivery mechanisms that they need at the end of the day. In the education sector, when the internet was widely available, there was this massive fear that the end of school, as we know it was upon us. And as it turns out, lo and behold, we still have [00:16:00] school. Right? So I don't think that AI is going to, in any way, hold. Fully eliminate association generated content or standard setting in particular, super customized, super niche, right? And even like our in-person gatherings, in fact, we may see that there's a greater need to have in-person or virtual communities of humans getting together because of these AI shifts that are taking place. So. I feel like there's a lot of concern about what AI might do to disrupt us, but at the same time, if we lean into it, there's a lot of opportunity for us to get the the surfacey level stuff out of the way so that we can do a deeper dive, and that's what we're very well equipped to do.  Preet Bassi: I think for me, the greatest opportunity is if whatever format the professional development it is provides actionable insights, go do this. Here's the tips for replication, here's why it would be a good idea. Provides flexibility for engagement and really understanding people like to consume information in very different ways. [00:17:00] I think about the subsidiary that we're launching as we've looked through delivering content in a handbook, in an in-person workshop through onsite facilitation, reading short case studies, searching through an LLM on your own. But also picking up the phone and talking to an expert. That's the range of the ways that you could engage with this content. And I think then if you are able to provide some flexibility in the way that the engagement is your in-person experiences, no more lecture, leverage those for real good engagement. Use that time together, let them read the stuff ahead of time. And there's always this sense of wanting to lead to the lowest common denominator. We send them the pre-read and we told them to after the pre-webinar video, but they didn't. Too bad. So sad. If the in-person experience is focused on [00:18:00] engagement, they'll keep coming back  Sharon Pare: Preet, you mentioned accreditations just a moment ago, so I'd love your take on this, especially considering some insight from Foresight Works. Some skepticism around the credentialed experts. Would you be able to share what that might mean for certification in the future? And also for the listeners, if you could explain Foresight Works just a little bit too, and what their role is in sharing with us their insights.  Preet Bassi: Absolutely. So at CPSE, we accredit departments. Credential professionals, and it's not a requirement that they be connected. They're two separate programs. There's significant overlap. We are well aware that rejection of expertise is a societal threat and it's no different for us. There is this unfortunate bifurcation within the fire service of the progressive responsive data informed departments and [00:19:00] individuals are going in one direction and the traditional, don't move my cheese or in a different direction, and it's becoming a culture war. Much pick a topic. You could have a culture war around it. Foresight works. It has quite a few drives of change, and so this is an annual effort through the research foundation, one of ASAE's subsidiaries that tries to identify. Those things that are happening that are going to cause an impact to associations. We already mentioned the more human humans is one of the drivers of change that's out there. There are a few related to rejection of expertise, but also this impact on credentialing programs. And it has to be said like the workplace today is a challenged one. A lot of requirements can become barriers to entry. For individuals. I know that we've actually been supporting a lot of work on how to create [00:20:00] a more. Open and equitable fire service that doesn't require somebody on day zero to pay an application fee and be able to do the physical tasks. Let's look for the attitudes that we want, that they have an aptitude to learn, and through an academy they can get to that point where they're able to do those tasks. But at some point there is a line in the sand that has to be drawn that shows is there an industry standard? How are we performing to set industry standard and is that standard changing? So I think about this even in an environment where credentials, experts, there's public skepticism about it. CPCs credentialing program is growing. We grew 44% in the last five years, and there were a couple of ways that we've done that. One, we've diversified our offerings. We don't just have a single credential. We historically had, it was the chief fire officer. We've added six for [00:21:00] individuals that are more junior in the organization. That's the fire officer, and also five specialty ones with two of them being typically held by people who don't wear a uniform. They work in the fire department, but they aren't a uniform member of the fire department. So that's been really interesting. The other is, how are we making it? Easier to go through the credentialing process. So we've done significant technology changes in the application process. We also wanted to make sure that our credential was pushing for excellence. Our mission is to lead the fire and emergency service excellence, so we wanted to make sure we did that. We do have some industry standards that we've historically relied on to pull technical competencies out of. We realize that. Scope of update was too narrow and not frequent enough. We then conducted an analysis of what are the skill sets that future leaders in this space need, and we added those to [00:22:00] our credentialing model. Mental health and wellness. Health for the firefighters was really important as was data and technology because there weren't other standards out there today that were requiring those. We removed our own barriers to entry. We historically asked the supervisor to attest to the application. Unfortunately, if there was a relationship that wasn't great or. In some cases, if the member who was seeking the credential was in a more traditional setting, but they wanted to be a little bit more progressive, and especially if they were from an underrepresented group, they weren't getting that. We've now removed that requirement. We've also started offering scholarships and once every five years, we take every single one of our programs through our business process plan to make sure that. We don't have any unintended breaks in what we're doing, so the rejection of expertise is there. It is a threat, but some thoughtfulness about how the credentialing programs are built and [00:23:00] how they're delivered can really go a long way to overcoming some of that initial pushback that may be rooted in an access barrier that then becomes a rejection of this credential. Christina Lewellen: If I could just add Sharon. I'll throw a hand grenade kind of into the room or drop a truth bomb, whatever analogy you want is that, yeah, associations are facing this trust issue, both in the realm of certification and credentialing, but in other realms as well. But we also have a branding issue on our hands. It's not just a trust issue, right? It's not just that folks are more skeptical of what we offer. I think that we need to shift our mindset from the sit and get certifications. Because anyone could leverage an LLM and get the answers out of a textbook. It's the same thing we're seeing happening in education. Done credentials and certifications are likely to become very devalued in short order. So I think the important opportunity here is in those scenarios and experience-based [00:24:00] credentials, I think that's where the value will come into play because they demonstrate. That human centric and that human dependent expertise. So if we're facing skepticism around our credentialing programs, I think that associations are gonna have to challenge the status quo of those programs. They're cash cows, right? They've been designed, and who really has the appetite to just chuck it out the window and start again, but equally important to making sure that the content is there and it can't easily be replicated by an LLM. I think that we're gonna have to elevate our messaging and our branding around these programs to help the end user, whether that's from a safety perspective with fire departments, or whether it's someone trying to hire a technology director for an independent school. We need to focus on those aspects that are really unique and uniquely human, and I think that's where some branding and messaging might need to be elevated as well. Sharon Pare: I think that's some great insight and you mentioned Don't Move My Cheese, and it really feels like [00:25:00] a big throwback to decades ago.  Ad Read: Let's take a quick break for a word from this episode. Sponsor the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau. Atlanta is a leading convention city providing an exceptional environment for a wide range of events, meetings, and trade shows. The destination strength lies in its highly accessible and walkable convention district, which is seamlessly integrated with its entertainment district, home to the world's number one air. Court Hartsfield Jackson, Atlanta International Airport, and a substantial inventory of more than 113,000 hotel rooms in the metro region. The city is well equipped to accommodate small and large scale gatherings in Atlanta. Your success is our top priority. Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau and our close-knit hospitality community, don't just serve as a resource. We become an extension of your team. For more information, [00:26:00] visit discover atlanta.com. Sharon Pare: I wanna move into the future a little bit, and so if we imagine someone thriving in the association world in 2035, what does that look like? Preet, I'll start with you.  Preet Bassi: Oh, first, acknowledging that everything is changing everywhere, all at once. Sounds like a movie, right? It is. It’s burned from a movie. I think the shift from, and I hate this phrase, being member-driven, I think it's being member-informed, board directed, staff executed, and that being a constant cycle, not a one-off, not just every five years, we're gonna do a strategic plan, which nobody should be doing that. Really looking at it from the back of house standpoint, the association and Christina mentioned it earlier about how technology, the internet joined associations in the late nineties, and it had to be that every company today needs to be a technology company. Your systems and experiences need to be [00:27:00] just so seamless. You have to effectively use your volunteers. I think the industry subject matter experts have to remain core. To what we do and we can't over index on staff 'cause that's why we're here doing my best. Oprah, everybody gets a KPI like if you're not measuring every single program, whether it's KPI, OKRs, pick your system, your metric format, you have to. And I think at the end it's definitely seeing grounded in the mission, adapting to that change that's happening everywhere. Everything all at once. If those ingredients hopefully will set up the association to thrive if the board and senior staff are willing to do so, if they're willing to change, if they're willing to accept and if they're going to be an emu that puts their head in the sand. This too shall pass. And a lot [00:28:00] of that disruption and hostile takeovers that we talked about are just going to occur  Christina Lewellen: If we're looking 10 years down the road. I'll just amplify what Preet said, that we have to include healthy governance, whatever that looks like. It's the thing that sets us apart from corporations and government bodies. Associations have this powerful partnership between the board, our industry experts, and. The staff are operational experts, and if we're looking long term, there are some organizations that we all know of that could probably do with a bit of a governance overhaul, and some organizations were ahead of the curve on this and trying to revamp things to be more innovative, to be more responsive to the need. So the member, but if that hasn't happened already, I think that's what's gonna set apart the good from the great is when that one plus one equals three on the governance side, that it's boring, but it is essential and key to who we are and how we operate. It's what makes associations [00:29:00] really different and special. And I think far too many associations just don't. Wanna bite that elephant. They just don't wanna tackle it. But I think that's gonna be an important way in which associations can thrive moving forward. I also think that there's an opportunity for us if we don't exactly know where a lot of technology and content is gonna go. I would imagine that 10 years from now we become the distilling experts. If there's an overabundance of information, then being able to connect the dots and being able to sift the macro factors and how it affects the industry you serve. I would anticipate associations are gonna play a more intricate analysis role when it comes to all this content and. I guess I would just add that the community side of things with associations, we've always helped people find their people. That's not gonna change, but I would imagine in 10 years we may have to help our industry's voice stand out again with. So much information, the evolution of AI, we're [00:30:00] probably gonna have to help our industries navigate their own shifting landscapes and make sure that their voices are coming together to get that critical messaging and or work out in the public sphere. So I would imagine that there's also something, and not just bringing community together for the sake of community, but for amplifying voices in a really noisy room.  Sharon Pare: As you're talking about helping the industry ship that landscape, and we're talking about thriving, we also have to talk about value, right? So what will make associations truly desirable to future members?  Christina Lewellen: More than we do right now? We have to understand the nuances of our members because there's a really wide variety of jobs to be done by associations. So too often we segment our communities either by the positions that they hold or the certain. Stage of their career that they might be at. But they come to us to do a job. Each member, each individual member comes to our association looking for some kind of job that we [00:31:00] are gonna do for them, and we might need to revisit that jobs to be done methodology in the context of a really unsettled and evolving landscape. The job we're supposed to do for them yesterday is unlikely to be the job they're gonna pay us to do in the future. And whether that's onboard to my new career or help me get a new job or. Help me make connections in my industry. Whatever those jobs were yesterday, they're likely to change tomorrow. So I think that we need to stay tapped into that on the value side for members. And I also think that we may wanna talk more about the emotional connection that members have with our associations. So it's not just that we're gonna be their special library, that they go to pass a certification exam or that we’re their voice on the hill or their. In person conference of choice. I think that increasingly humans are gonna seek other humans, and we have this opportunity to evolve our role in making that connection, maybe making more personalized connections, smaller cohorts and things like that. So [00:32:00] I think there's a couple of ways that we can not upend the apple cart entirely, but maybe tweak the values that we're bringing to the market today to be more responsive and flexible in the future.  Preet Bassi: I wanna pick up on one of the comments that Christina made actually to the previous question that it was about helping our industry, and I'd add sometimes when they don't even know that they need to be. So are we a trustee for our members or are we a delegate? The trustee acts in the best interest of the members, but perhaps doesn't do exactly what we want them, they would want us to do. The delegate does and a lot of that is looking at trying to predict what's gonna be in the future. A phrase that I'm sure my team is quite sick of using recently is just in time. So what are the “just in time” solutions, but also what is the “just in time” volunteering? I actually would love to hang out with this organization for the next three months and do a thing, but I'm really not interested in doing it every single day. [00:33:00] So how are we building our programs in that way? I think also there's gonna be this sense of brand connection and is this an organization that you want to belong to? Does it speak to who you are? The governance comment, I only, my only addition to what Christina had is I wish we were in Zoom and I would've put the 100 underline emoji on what she said 'cause it's so true. Radically transparent governance. If the members can't figure out why the organization made a change, whatever said changes, you have a problem. So they don't necessarily need to know how many people voted X versus Y, but every decision needs to be done in this really transparent way. And I also think there's, for associations, like there's perhaps a number of associations that a member interacts with. They might want you periodically to collaborate but not necessarily partner with the other associations. Like it's fine for you to do your [00:34:00] own thing, but. Really looking at how do you collaborate on those big issues, those once every five year big efforts, they're gonna want to see. That was an industry-wide effort and not just a you association effort and from a member, their ability to buy, whether that's driven by the point in their career, beginning of their career, end of their career, or do just what they want. I think we need to be okay selling them margarine, but also butter. So if we're like, we always want the best in class offering, we want this high touch, really glossy educational deliverable. Wonderful. Also, are you delivering similar content in a boring on-demand webinar that they can buy for $29? If you aren't delivering at both of those price points, you are going to make it so that you've automatically isolated some of your members. So those are some of the things that really came to me, but I think that big one is, are you. Able to act as their [00:35:00] trustee. We got your back versus we're just gonna do what you tell us to do so you'll buy more from us. And that's going to require some guts on behalf of the board and the CEO to be willing to make that shift. Sharon Pare: I think that’s some really great coins. And that's one side of the coin. And of course there's the other is who will wanna work for associations. So I'll keep this open for both of you, but what does an attractive association employer look like in the future?  Christina Lewellen: This is my favorite topic because I really think that associations have this opportunity to stand out when it comes to designing the workforce and the workplace of the future. And we have what a lot of people are looking for. We have mission, we have this purpose, and a lot of folks are trying to connect. If I'm gonna spend this many hours of my life working at a job. What in the world is it all for? So I think that we have a great message to sell, but I also think that we can shape what a workforce looks like and be an example for our members. [00:36:00] Companies like whoever joins your association, you can be the one setting a great example. That's one of the things that Atlas tries to do. I have my way of doing things as a CEO, it. Pretty well known at this point, so I'll just run the laundry list really quickly. We do not send internal emails. We have zero internal emails. We are entirely based in a project management system. I run a permanent four day work week. We have unlimited PTO. I'm even entertaining some really creative additional offerings to my benefits package that are really out there, and I don't wanna go on public record saying it yet because I gotta get my budget passed. But I basically, my whole goal. My whole lens for all of this is that my members, Atlas's members, deserve an effective, efficient, and inspired workforce. Simply put, it's good ROI for them to have a ridiculously loyal and happy staff. I believe in that. And so I think that your employees certainly deserve a healthy environment, and we might as well go [00:37:00] about removing obstacles to their continued excellence. Let's put them in a position to succeed. Not everybody is going to do it my way. Not everybody's gonna do a four day work week. Not everyone's gonna be decentralized. I understand that. But I do think for the associations who choose to accept this mission, both in terms of attracting and retaining the staff that we get, but also like influencing all of the industries that we serve. Can you imagine the fingerprint? We would leave. The associations decided tomorrow that we were going to create best in class workplaces, and then our members started following suits. Think about the influence we would have. So this is an area where I have a lot of passion and it's not just because it works for Atlas, I'm seeing. So many of our peers take these nuggets. Well, Christina's kind of crazy and she'll try these things. Maybe I could try 'em too and see what that does for our team. And I think that the benefits have been really incredible. So I know I get worked up and really excited about this topic, but I think it's not just for the sake of being recognized as like somebody cool [00:38:00] to work for. I don't care about that. It's not what it's about. I don't care if they wanna work for me. What I want is I want employees. Who are obscenely committed to our mission, and that's what I believe our members deserve.  Sharon Pare: Preet, is there anything you wanna layer onto that? Preet Bassi: All the praise that Christina is well known for all of those amazing things. And to say how she has been an inspiration, speak to it. So we've done the basic. We're remote first. We outsource where we need to. We contract where we need to. We're creating new and additional world, but we have our 2024 to 2027 strategic plan, and one of the four tenets of that is to be people focused. Christina Lewellen: Yay. That's really cool. Tell me we are about that and it's, wait, hold on. We're taking over. Sharon, I wanna hear about this.  Sharon Pare: No, please do a deep dive.  Preet Bassi: We want a people-focused organization, and I can't even begin to quote all of the great statements, but it was something that came through in, in a given year. 700 people between [00:39:00] our volunteers, contractors, and staff do a thing that. Add something to the board. So if they're reviewing a application, they're conducting a site visit, thinking about our volunteers, contractors, the world that they do and the staff. So what would it look like if we thought about being that best in class? We've been doing org culture surveys that are actually not terrible for a while with our contractors and staff, and making some actionable changes based on that. We're currently engaged with a project with a. Volunteer expert to do a complete overhaul of how we manage our volunteers, which we have about 650 of them, and it really is knowing that on any given day, any of them have a choice, whether it's the volunteers, many of our contractors are soon to be retiring. Chief fire officers, so they've got a retirement, they're looking about giving back. They're sure [00:40:00] everybody likes an extra dollar, but they're not motivated by the monetary. They're looking about how they continue to continue to commission, and I actually believe we've extended. Many of our fire professionals, livelihood and contributions by giving them a place within CPSC and those that are and have been progressive, continue to be. So I think that people first concept, we're early in it. We're only a year and a bit into our strategic plan. But there's some seven or eight strategies underneath this focus area, multiple objectives, and really wanting to succeed through our people. We know that it doesn't matter what tech, doesn't matter what systems. There is a human at the center of everything. So if they feel that we are the best place and we bring out the best from them, and so much of it is about culture in an organization, but I think you know that adage of culture, eat strategy for breakfast. I saw a better version of culture and strategy eat breakfast [00:41:00] together. I think that is really true and. I was so happy recently. One of our team members, she'd been out on maternity leave and came back and just sent us this message of how she felt so supported and she had never been in an organization that truly embodied family first and didn't just say it, but then. Are you sure you need to go to that graduation? Are you sure you can't make the time? So it really was important, and this is not an ego trip, but at some point I think the association needs to be attractive to A CEO to want to come to, and especially A CEO that's gonna have some positive results for the organization. So that then falls to the board. We've talked about a lot of our staff and how we're gonna help them, but how does the board enter into this partnership with their CEO that makes it a place that the good CEO actually wants to work?  Sharon Pare: That's awesome. Preet, and I know we've gotta wrap up soon, but there's a common theme that I'm starting to [00:42:00] see in our conversation, A sense of belonging, connection, collaboration, humane, I love that word too. People first, but we painted a really forward looking picture here. So where does the journey begin?  Christina Lewellen: Look, we're in an era marked with change, so we have to lean into time proven like change management techniques, right? And so whatever model you pick, I think that we're at this era where some of us might be concerned about change, and so some of us might feel like we need to double down on the way that things work. COVID gave us this opportunity to be in a change mindset, and the associations that took advantage of that and continue to take advantage of it are gonna be in the best position to make the transition. So if we think about where this should go or what the first step should be, we are. Very good at setting a vision. Associations are good at that. We are good at saying, where do we wanna go? Let's be proactive. Let's clearly define what we're gonna be able to do to add value to our community, and then let's pursue that vision with the intensity that we always have. So I think you know [00:43:00] where to start with all this is just to be comfortable with discomfort and the fact that we are in a change management cycle and then we can really stand out. I truly believe associations have. This opportunity to stand out more so than private or public companies. We're not driven by the dollar or shareholders. We've got the space to think about long-term investment and commitment to our goals, and now we need to do that.  Preet Bassi: I love what Christina said, and we had a board member who really helped our organization at a time when we were moving from our fix it phase to our grow it phase, and he talked about runway, not-for-profits, associations, we've got a runway, we can make a plan and we can see it through. Are we willing to do? That's the fortitude piece. And for an association that's trying to figure out how to change, I think you need to get good at doing the simple things so that there's trust, because all the changes and all the ideas. So if you aren't good at returning emails, phone calls, messages internally, externally. If you [00:44:00] don't consistently deliver on your commitments, there's no trust there for you to make the next set of changes. That someone will be like, I don't know, that sounds a little weird. Are you sure we're going to do that? And I comment often about CPSE having had our fix it phase and now we're in our grow it phase. It's not just, we're not just growing in numbers, we're growing in evolution of who we are. Like who do we wanna be when we grow up? Kind of growth. But what paved the way for us to be able to do that was consistent delivery commitment to what we were saying in the smallest ways. So that people knew we could do the next crazy idea that we came up with and that we were going to walk them along, which from a change management standpoint, just as Christina said, that's so big. But I think the trust and how do you begin to measure the trust? How do you start going after those areas that there is potential, some distrust. It is the currency that any change is gonna need, and if it doesn't exist, [00:45:00] a great CEO, A great system, any number of great ideas just aren't gonna go anywhere. How you do that takes communication takes. Calling the baby ugly when it needs to be called ugly, and making those small, but also big swing changes that do get you where you need to go.  Sharon Pare: I think that's a great way to round out this podcast. I appreciate you both being guests on today's show. Thanks to everyone for listening to this episode of Association NOW Presents. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals. Discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today and highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy, the US and the world. We would like to give a big thanks again to this episode sponsor, the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau. For more information, visit discoveratlanta.com. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, [00:46:00] and wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Or go to associations now online at associationsnow.com. Thanks for listening.

Season 2 kicks off live from the ASAE Annual Meeting & Exposition in Los Angeles! Guest hosts Ben Muscolino, Gretchen Steenstra, and Jake Toohey of The Association Podcast sit down with Bobbie Racette, founder and president of Virtual Gurus. Bobbie shares her inspiring journey as an Indigenous queer woman in tech, from launching Virtual Gurus in 2016 to scaling it into a thriving, values-driven company. She opens up about overcoming challenges, securing funding, leading through COVID-19, and the critical role of company culture. The conversation explores how Virtual Gurus is integrating AI responsibly, Bobbie’s vision for global expansion, and audience questions on building inclusive workplaces and communities. This episode is sponsored by Destination Canada and Visit Denver. Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript Ben Muscolino: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to the Associations NOW Presents podcast live from the show floor here at ASAE 25. I am Ben Muscolino with Brezio, AMS Geek, and Data Sangria. I'm here with my co-hosts of The Association Podcast. Jake and Gretchen. We are so excited to be bringing our format and our passion for the industry over the Associations NOW Presents podcast. We have an incredible guest today and I'm gonna kick it over to one of my co-hosts and we're gonna get that going. So glad you're here with us today.  Gretchen Steenstra: So I am Gretchen Steenstra, the permanent/temporary guest co-host. I think I came for five episodes and I don't know how many, maybe 50 now. My day job, I work at DelCor, a technology consulting company, and one of my passion projects is I'm a founder of AWTC, which supports women in tech and part of tech council and [00:01:00] all the association families. So I'm really happy to be here and nice to meet you today.  Jake Toohey: Hey, I'm Jake Toohet. I am the director of the association practice at Adage Technologies. We're a digital strategy, web development and design firm, and, work with all associations. And we are thrilled to have Bobby Racette, Virtual Guru's, former CEO, now president, founder. So thrilled to have you. Can you start by just talking a little bit about what you do and your background and just kick it off from there.  Bobbie Racette: Yeah. Hi. Thanks everyone. This is amazing. So founder and CEO of Virtual Gurus. So I started Virtual Gurus in 2016 because nobody would give me a job. I was looking for work for, I don't know, close to a year, and nobody would give me a job at all. So I actually started it just to create a job for myself. And at the time, I had no idea I was gonna scale into this big thing. It was gonna go where it went. I had no idea that it was gonna be AI eventually, and that there'd be thousands of people working in the [00:02:00] platform. But here I am and happy to be here. Ben Muscolino: Hey, Bobbie. We're storytellers in the association space. Your story is so incredible. We wanna talk with you about several things today, but to get things kicked off, talk to us about what you've been up to this morning and the session that you led. How was that for you?  Bobbie Racette: I've been traveling a lot talking about my story. I actually just flew in from Japan and I was speaking out at the World Expo, which has been amazing. Such an amazing experience. Just to be saying that I'm speaking and I'm out at the expo. I was there on a trades mission and just really telling the story, but this morning it was really just about telling my journey and about culture and my journey of being an indigenous queer woman in technology and how hard it's been to get to where I am today, and meant to raising millions and millions of dollars to run the company and to build the AI. Now we're scaling globally, and I was actually in Japan meeting with senior leaders like the CEO of Mitsubishi to try to get our AI out [00:03:00] there a little bit more. So it's been a pretty crazy ride these last few weeks.  Ben Muscolino: Bobbie we have so many things that we wanna learn about you, but I'm very interested in what was the turning point where you realized that you wanted to start virtual gurus? What was that catalyst? Because you kind of talked a little bit about the need to want to create work for yourself. Was that really the catalyst moment? Talk to us about that.  Bobbie Racette: Yeah. I was working in oil and gas in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where a lot of people are working oil and gas. But layoffs came like when the gas prices dropped, and I think 37,000 people were laid off within one day, and I was one of those people. But when everybody went into the city and was trying to find work. By the time I got there, all the jobs were either being taken up, but all of the people that were more qualified or maybe fit their culture more got the jobs over me. And so I was looking for work for so long and nobody would hire me at all. I don't know what it was. I'd like to say maybe it's just 'cause of who I am, [00:04:00] but a queer woman in tech and nobody would hire me. So I actually created a job for myself. I was the virtual assistant. I wasn't actually planning to scale it, I was just doing it to create a job for myself and. I had 19 clients, so I started with $300 in my pocket and I bootstrapped it to 1.8 million in revenue. And then I realized I needed to hire, and then I needed to raise money and there's a lot of work to do. And so I closed my first funding round in 2020. The light bulb went on, why don't I start this platform to create work for people like me? And then all of a sudden, the platform just went wild.  Ben Muscolino: So the serendipitous timing. Where everyone that maybe got to the jobs before you did and then you raising money in 2020 and scaling when you did. What an incredible twist of timing for business being in 2020 when everything went virtual. Right?  Bobbie Racette: Everything went virtual, and then I closed three funding rounds during [00:05:00] COVID, which nobody was investing at the time because they were so scared to use their dry powder. But I was like, let's go and, and it worked well. We scaled 300% year overgrowth through every year and through COVID through three years.  Gretchen Steenstra: So you were describing how difficult that was. Were there assumptions you made and had to adjust throughout these cycles? Like you said in the very beginning, you didn't know how to raise funds and people were turning you down. But as you matured and evolved, what are the assumptions you're facing now that you assume when you're going out for funding or building your company, that you have to adjust and.  Bobbie Racette: Yeah, I guess the landscape has changed so much from COVID. Before COVID, it was scary. People weren't really interested in the freelancing platforms and it wasn't as well known. And then COVID hit and then everybody went remote and everybody was laid off their jobs. So people started going to platforms like ours. All the administrative people were getting laid off and then they came to me and so I was picking them up and recycling them back out and cold calling [00:06:00] the companies that were laying people off during COVID. And I'm basically saying. Your company still needs to open and function, so we got E four back office support. The thing for us was just assuming that we were gonna be bigger then, and we were just gonna scale and we leveraged COVID for that and I was quite surprised with where it went. During that time. We built out a people over profit program. So all the startups that were struggling to pay the bills, we gave them free virtual assistants. Oh wow. Yeah, yeah. Right after I closed my first finding round. So I'm like, thanks, invest. Or by the way, I'm gonna give free service those away  Jake Toohey: There's one of the things that I took away from your session this morning was the culture thing. Yeah. The kind of culture that you built at the organization. And I think, you know, one of the things that I, I remember is you saying that you used to hear the resumes hit the bottom of the trash can. You never wanted to make anybody else feel like that. Can you talk about that involving culture and what's driving that? Bobbie Racette: Yeah. This was back when you used to go to the offices and hand in your resume 20 16, [00:07:00] 20 17. And like I said, nobody would hire me and I would literally go to leave the office and I could hear a piece of paper hitting the trash can and I knew that was my resume and it just made me so angry and sad. And essentially that's almost what powered my thesis on if we provide more work to marginalized communities, then. We can't let people shine if we're gonna keep doing that. 'cause surely if I'm feeling that, then how many others were feeling it. But it did was inspire me and fuel me to keep going and to create this. I guess some will say I created it out of anger, but I really just created it out of spite. I thought “you all told me no so many times that I'm going to take my own control now.” Gretchen Steenstra: Yeah. But I, I don't even know if it was spite you were just so passionate about. I found this, and a lot of the things you do, which I think is really interesting is you formed it into repeatable like almost products. So I'm looking at your culture cleanup toolkit. And so in addition to running a company, raising [00:08:00] money, growing the company, taking care of your employees, you also seem to have packaged some of these thesis statements and ideas into tools. I've never seen that with a founder who's doing all of these things. And creating, you know, actual artifacts to help with people.  Bobbie Racette: It's all tell you much when you go to an office or a startup or tech company or a business, any business, and people talk that their culture is good. But then you go in, you're like, whoa, this thing's about to explode. And so I, I see a lot of that and I'm a firm believer of if you're gonna talk the talk, then you gotta walk the walk and you gotta show it, right? So the culture toolkit was more on, based on. We had some toxicity go through our company. And during COVID, when toxicity comes into your company, it's like a snake that just doesn't stop and you have to do a lot of work to fix it to right side it. And so I really built the toolkit based on how do I make sure that I'm creating an [00:09:00] open and honest, happy space for all of the employees? How am I making them safe? How am I allowing people to understand the culture and what is allowed and what's not allowed, and what kind of a culture that we wanna have in the office. And so it really helped with that.  Gretchen Steenstra: What made you say, whoa, so a minute ago you just, you said you walk into an office and you feel this, like, what are a couple things that people don't notice that you noticed?  Bobbie Racette: Like male leaders, for example. And when you go into, also say it like, tech bros, let's be real. I love tech. I'm in tech, but tech bros. Can be a little bit hard to handle. And if there's women working and those, they're mansplained in weight. I'm not saying it's everybody. 'cause believe me, I have a lot of tech friends that are males because I'm in the tech community and they all treat me like I'm their little sister. They treat me really well, but you can see it and it can really shut down your business. I've seen it shut down some successful startups.  Gretchen Steenstra: We joke a lot at AWTC. We're advancing, empowering women, but men are welcome. You know, like it's not [00:10:00] excluding men, it's. Making sure that we're all being respectful of each other. And Jake and Ben are two of the biggest champions we have at AWTC. And I think that's been interesting with us as people ask, can we join you? They're like, of course you can join us. Just don't be a jerk. You know? I mean, it's not hard, right? Yeah. So there's a lot of men in part of our organization that are great. Bobbie Racette: Our new person taking over my role, I won't say too much just 'cause it's going out, but is male and I'm happy for it. We're a woman led indigenous business. 90% of my VPs are women. I have an all female board and I'm proud of it. I'm proud that we have a male taking over as my successor. Very good. Ben Muscolino: Alright, so we're gonna keep going here, but we're gonna take a quick break and just hear from one of our sponsors. Quick note from Destination Canada. From the rugged Rocky Mountains to Sparkling Ocean Shores, Canada offers world-class venues and visionary leaders like Bobby Rossett. It gives you a sense of [00:11:00] belonging, the ability to unlock new ways of thinking, and a place where great business minds come to open their minds for business events that inspire, naturally build partnerships, drive transformation, and leave a meaningful legacy visit. Business events canada.ca. So we had the pleasure of having Magic Johnson join us yesterday and he mentioned DEI being a thing, not being a thing, whatever's going to do with that. However you normalize that for, for yourself and, and any of the listeners businesses. But basically what he said is, let's just start being good again, right? And however you label it or don't label it, let's get back to just doing right by each other. And I think that resonated with the room because. It's on a lot of people's minds and how that's gonna impact funding and culture and all these things. And it's a topic in our industry related to, you know, how are people financially gonna put things together, what's their reliance on, you know, what can I have associated with my business and can't [00:12:00] I, in order to get certain funding or when certain business? And I think it gets best to the core of doing the right thing and working with the right people and building that culture. And so I guess what I'm trying to get at is talking about culture. Like where does all that resonate for you?  Bobbie Racette: Well, my mom always told me, treat people the way you wanna be treated, right? Like it is common sense. And I think every company should have that. And I think big things can happen if you treat people the way you wanna be treated. Just 'cause I'm a CEO, it doesn't mean I treat the customer service rep in my company or the sales person any differently than the COO or the CTO, I treat them all the same. Jake Toohey: Can you talk a little bit about adversity and the adversity you've faced? Talk about. How you got to the point of actually getting the funding that you needed to, to grow and scale?  Bobbie Racette: Yeah, so I bootstrapped virtual gurus to about 1.8 million in revenue, and it was then I realized that I probably needed to start raising money, but I had no idea what to do. I was like, oh man, this is gonna be crazy. I literally [00:13:00] started the company with $300 in my pocket to go to having to raise out of valuation to raise millions. And so I set out to start pitching and I pitched all over North America. I went through 170 investors saying no, and I knew all it took was just that one. Yes. But I was like, when am I gonna get the yes, yes. Yeah. The first yes, was the hundred and 71st pitch, and it was a cold email, reach out to an indigenous funding company, and five minutes later they called me and then they led that round. And then Telus Ventures led in second round and Telus Ventures coming on and they have MassMutual here in the US on my cap table now, and some pretty big names. Now.  Jake Toohey: You talked also about giving people feedback. I mean, as you had to kind of evolve your pitch over 171 different pitches. But I really liked hearing about your methodology with making sure that you're getting people feedback, even if there's some rejected attached to it. Can you talk a little bit about that? Bobbie Racette: Yeah. I like to tell people that it [00:14:00] was probably quite annoying to people, but when somebody says no to me, other than the initial kind of jab to the heart where you're hurt and you're like, what? You don't wanna invest in me? Like why? Once that goes away, it's the, okay, but tell me why. Okay. And here's the funny thing about investors is they all say the exact same thing when they're just saying no. And it's an easy way out of you don't fall in line with our thesis, although I do, and the company did. 'cause I wouldn't be pitching if it didn't or you're not scalable, right? And so I started actually going back to them and saying, look, you can't say I'm not scalable and you can't say this. Tell me the real reason. Tell me the real, and putting the ball back in their court, holding them accountable. It's the fact that. Maybe they just didn't have enough space in their hearts for me because of who I am, like a woman with tattoos and queer, it really scared a lot of people, especially in the VC world. And so I really had to learn what I needed to adjust. What was it that really made me not get [00:15:00] those investments? And really at the end of the day, none of them had an actual reason. But I was able to tweak and build the company still while I was going through that.  Gretchen Steenstra: Yeah. And once you have a few, then you have some evidence  Bobbie Racette: that other people invested in. You're right. And then once you get the one investor though your first round, then it's easy getting investment after, right? Yeah. 'cause then you're like,  Gretchen Steenstra: it's real. So when you were out, like you have just, so in your multifaceted CEO role is you are scaling financially, how are you balancing scaling your staff? Back at the office who was doing the work that you were pitching? How? How did you do that?  Bobbie Racette: It is hard because you hire based on how much money you have. We're really lean team 'cause you gotta protect your burn and we're very lean. So at the time during COVID, I only had five employees. At the end of COVID I had 60, almost 60 employees, 59 employees, and then thousands are working in the platforms, but succeed in the actual office. And then after COVID and the technology started going and working, we [00:16:00] did a series of layoffs, and that was probably the hardest thing for me was laying people off. But we're about 30 employees now.  Ben Muscolino: My reflection point is that, I guess instead of conforming, you really tried to force feedback out of them and keep your identity. And I want to ask, how is your identity and owning your identity as indigenous LGBTQ plus leader informed the way you actually lead? And, and think,  Bobbie Racette: I was really scared to talk about this story of me, my indigeneity and my queerness especially. I was really scared about that. And I was also really afraid about my parents, like ruining my mom's story as an indigenous woman that her parents were residential school survivors, and it's a really touchy subject, so I was really afraid of living that and telling it. But once I did, and once I talked about it more. Uh, virtual gurus scaled. I'm out here talking in Japan, talking in Singapore, all these places in Portugal, [00:17:00] everywhere, and virtual gurus is just scaling and a lot of that is 'cause of the brand, which is me being the brand of the company. So I think through all of it, I've learned that if you just tell your truth, the world will open up for you. Yeah.  Gretchen Steenstra: And I know you, you have this announcement of changing from being the CEO and the founder. But this is common with a lot of leaders that they build a brand and then they wanna sustain it, so they hand it off to somebody. But you're the brand. What are some of the things you would advise people that you protect your brand, but you also let the next generation take the brand in a different direction? You know what? Clearly you plan this because you wouldn't have done it, just, you know, spontaneously.  Bobbie Racette: Yeah, no, it's been in the plan, in the works. I think the number one thing is respecting and understanding that. It's your story when you're kicking it off. But for me it's really important to that all the other people in the platform, especially all the folks that are transitioning genders, the neurodiverse community in our platform [00:18:00] to the veterans, the single stay at home moms, the retired folks that working on our platform, it's now their story. And I want their stories to be heard more than mine now. So it's changed, but the Bobby Rossett brand is ongoing. 'cause now I'm, I've actually started a coach cast similar to this. But it's called Take the Seat with Bobby because it's about taking the seats that we were never given as women entrepreneurs. And so that starts right away actually.  Gretchen Steenstra: What are a few of those seats you're gonna start with? Like are there specific areas?  Bobbie Racette: Yeah, it's gonna be pretty predominantly well known woman in Canada to start with. 'cause I'm gonna do it in person like similar to this and then we're gonna travel and do it. Ben Muscolino: We're gonna take a quick break and just hear from one of our sponsors very quickly. If you're talking about the top meeting destinations in the country, you have to include Denver with its incredible Rocky Mountain views and 300 days of sunshine. The brand new 16th Street includes dozens of restaurants, patios, art installations, and free [00:19:00] shuttles, all within walking distance of 52 downtown hotels. It's a lot of hotels. Very convenient. And there's the newly expanded Colorado Convention Center. The 80,000 square foot Bluebird Ballroom is a game changer along with a 20,000 square foot outdoor terrace. Come check out the mile high city where you'll meet uplifted.  Jake Toohey: I wanted to ask about how you evolved the company. Uh, can you talk about how the company changed one, the availability of artificial intelligence and it just becoming so wide scale?  Bobbie Racette: AI is everywhere, right? AI is not going anywhere. And about eight months ago, we were like, you know what? It's not gonna be long before AI agents, like virtual assistants are gonna overtake actual human agents. And so the best way to deal with that was to jump 10 steps ahead and start building our own agent. So we built an ethical 24/7 AI virtual receptionist that's actually now being built into a full AI agent. So it can do [00:20:00] demos for startups, it can do outbound SDR sales, it can do calendar booking. And so what we're gonna do is use that AI to create more work for the actual human side. So we're combining AI and human experience together. So we launched it in January and it's flying hard, like it's probably a stickier product than our human side. But it's a cross sell opportunity. So some of our biggest clients are MasterCard, alis, and it's a huge cross sell opportunity. Get them signed up to the AI agent and then provide them a human  Gretchen Steenstra: right. But you said ethical. So how are you training your agent to be ethical? Because that's one of the things we've heard for underrepresented people is AI can actually hurt them because the large language models are. Flawed. And so you're just doubling down on bad data, which is why I have a love-hate relationship with ai. So I just circled ethical.  Bobbie Racette: Ethical AI to me is obviously is that, but one of the main things for me is how are you creating more employment versus taking away employment? And I think every single [00:21:00] company is gonna have to have AI eventually. It's just the way it's going, sadly. And so it's really on how are you building and training your ai and what is your AI able to do? For us, we focus on making sure we're training our employees to use AI the best way that they can so that they're not going offline. You know what? Use it for content. Use it for this if you want, but don't use it for things that are not in your ability. Don't use it for that learn Still, it's ethical AI for us, but our AI is, it speaks 44 different languages and we've gotta fine tuned right now. But we're creating employment with it.  Gretchen Steenstra: Right? But I love that you're cross-selling, like I think that's the way they use it, the right way is you're educating people. This is where the AI is an effective tool and this is where the other staff is a good tool, right? So I think that's very important nuance that you're focusing on  Bobbie Racette: the it can imagine if you are going into a store or a salon and you're called and it's a twenty four seven AI receptionist answers your phone. And you [00:22:00] really need to talk to a human, press one to talk to human, then it will go to our humans, right? So there's still the work creation side of it, but the difference is we want all the businesses to put this AI on their sites and let the AI learn and go from there.  Gretchen Steenstra: And I think people are okay with that. You know, like we're all kind of trained to go through a couple prompts for efficiency, so I think that's fine.  Ben Muscolino: Well, and sometimes depending on the person's style and how they want to be supported. Or maybe the situation they're in, like, I'm distracted with something else. I need to talk to a person. Right? Versus I have my speakerphone, I'm multitasking. Let me go through the prompts. I can, you know, multitask and do that. So you're catering to situationally where they are in their journey of their day or their business, or their need or their urgency.  Gretchen Steenstra: And I think another really important thing that you underscore is neurodiverse. And so I think that just having all these different facets. Like you were saying, Ben, people communicate very different ways and so some types of people prefer to have a just much [00:23:00] more streamlined in ai does that. You ask it a question that answers you, they don't really need the interaction, the conversation. They just need to get what they want. Yeah. And others need a different interaction.  Bobbie Racette: One of the other things that human virtual assistant platforms in North America are not doing is teaching their virtual assistants to be strategic by using the ai. And that's what we're doing. So therefore we're creating more productivity. So some would argue then you're taking away more billing time for you and it's, yeah, but our number one goal isn't the billing time. Our number one is how do we save clients time and money? So our VAs are billing, let's say 30 hours a month. I'd say, let's say they're working on one client for 30 hours. Do you know those hours were full productivity hours based on how much work they were able to do?  Jake Toohey: So I think we’ll take questions from the audience, if there's any, but, I did want to kind of end this. Section of the discussion with what's next for virtual gurus.  Bobbie Racette: I think we just closed a fun round a couple days ago, so I was working on that. It's much easier this time around. [00:24:00] I think the next thing is Virtual Gurus wants to go global, so I was just in Japan pitching Virtual Gurus on the global stage out at Expo and meeting larger partnerships.  Ben Muscolino: I think we've got some questions coming in from the live audience here at A SAE annual in la. Let's check 'em out.   Colleen Gallagher: Hey, I'm Colleen Gallagher with OnWrd & UpWrd. I, I'm sorry I'm losing my voice, but I love your story and it's really incredible, like this growth and, and how far you've come. And I know you said this is your first time here at a SAE. What do you think the association community could learn from this kind of growth and like, what could they take in, in terms of the community building? And so many associations I talk with right now are really struggling with engaging the next generation and growing and instead of losing members, so what, what would your advice be to them?  Bobbie Racette: That's a great question. I don't know. There's so much to it that I could answer. I think it would be is don't be afraid to learn. Right? Learning from anybody that is in your community or the communities you're building or the people, it's [00:25:00] all about being able to learn what their needs are and then being okay with being uncomfortable with it. Like we have a massive community and every day I'm learning from them. I'm, I get on the lines and learn how they're billing by the minute and how uncomfortable that is. Yeah, I think it's just don't be afraid to learn and take all that knowledge and soak it in and be a knowledge keeper because that's what they need.  Ben Muscolino: So I have a final question, selfishly, right, and hopefully everyone can get something out of this, but I wanna ask this because I run multiple tech companies, I guess I one of those tech bros with the ambiguity around formality. Uh, around DEI and I think everyone in this community believes in just being great to each other. Going beyond DEI statements to create workplaces where people can truly feel like they belong. What advice would you leave people with? And let's talk a little bit about that.  Bobbie Racette: I think, I know like the US is going through a lot of the DEI stuff right now, and I think you should just let that make you. Shine even more. I think you could [00:26:00] still talk DEI with talk talking DEI, right? Like it is more about showing it instead of just talking about it. So we can all still say, I choose how to have my business show up every day. I choose how to have my employees show up every day. But you could still do it underhandedly without actually saying, we're JEDI, DEI, right? So you just gotta lead by example. If you are doing it, then everybody else is gonna follow.  Ben Muscolino: Well, it's been a real treat to sit down with you and steal a little bit of time out of what is a very busy day already for you and a very busy time for you in business. And congrats again on your round. What round was that? Bobbie Racette: We're gonna call it a Series A today because we're gonna work on our series B, which is about 40 million. Okay.  Ben Muscolino: Well, I want to thank everyone again for listening to this episode of Associations NOW Presents. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals, discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today, and highlight the significant impact [00:27:00] associations have on the economy, the US and the world around us. I'm Ben Muscolino from The Association Podcast. Joined by Jake Tooey, Gretchen Steenstra, and a huge thanks again to Bobby Racette. Again, before we leave you, we want to thank our episode sponsor Destination Canada, and Visit Denver. For more information about our sponsors, check out the links in our show notes. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. For more information on this topic, visit Associations NOW online at associationsnow.com.    

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Lori Zoss Kraska, founder and CEO of Growth Owl, sits down with Brian Miller, vice president of strategic partnership at Multiview, Kimberly Tuttle, executive director of the American Institute of Architecture Students, and Gilberto Lozada Baez, AIAS board vice president, to explore new research on how students perceive associations. The conversation highlights key opportunities for associations to build stronger connections with young professionals—through targeted social media, mentorship, and small-scale in-person events. They also discuss the importance of digital fluency, university partnerships, and creating meaningful volunteer roles to foster long-term engagement and a true sense of belonging. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/HLTuvHAxkd4 This episode is sponsored by Multiview. Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript [00:00:00] Lori Zoss Kraska: Welcome to episode 12 of Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Lori Zoss Kraska, founder and CEO of GrowthOwl, LLC, a consultancy that empowers associations with the best practices they need to connect with Fortune 1000 companies and other large organizations for corporate sponsorship, partnership and philanthropic funding. You also might know me as the author of The Boardroom Playbook, a Not So Ordinary Guide to Corporate Funding for Your Purpose-Driven Organization and host of my own monthly LinkedIn Live that features both association and non-endemic thought leaders who provide insight in new ways of thinking in the area of sponsorship and non-dues revenue. You can find out more at thegrowthowl.com. But hey, enough about me. Let's take a moment to thank our episode sponsor Multiview today. We're excited to welcome Brian Miller, vice president of strategic partnerships with Multiview. [00:01:00] Also joining us today is Kimberly Tuttle, executive director of the American Institute of Architecture Students, also known as AIAS. And Gilberto Lozada Baez, AIAS Board Vice President. They're all here to discuss key findings from new research on student perceptions of associations and how we can better engage the next generation of members. Welcome everybody to the podcast. Let's start with you, Brian.  What influenced your team to look into this topic?  [00:01:31] Brian Miller: Great question. Well, we always look for ways to help our associations improve their competitive advantage within their organization and any insights that we can provide along the way. It's very interesting for us 'cause we have roughly 850 association partners that span. 30 different industry verticals. Obviously it's a mixture between trade associations and professional societies and professional associations. So when we look at the professional societies, that's really what [00:02:00] we're talking about today with this topic. We conducted some research and we looking at years old problem of how do you. Engage the next generation of members, particularly in professional societies. So that's really why we commissioned this report in the first place. The other thing that was really interesting that when you look at the landscape is this is the first time we've got five generations working in the workforce, right? You've got the traditionalists, you've got the baby boomers, you've got of course Gen X, and then you have millennials and Gen Z, and. From what we understand is this is the largest graduating class as well in, in foreseeable history that we look back at. So it's really important when you look at the. Really important message of how do the associations look for that next generational member? How do they find them? How do they keep them throughout their professional career and their journey as members of the association? So that's really the main reason we wanted to, to talk about this topic today and really understand the importance of content and [00:03:00] education when it comes to looking at those different member segments. And as we continue to talk. In this discussion, we're gonna find that young professionals, students, recent grads, and particularly early in their career, they have different needs, right? From a membership perspective, it's really important to understand this segment and how as an association you engage with those younger members and be able to offer them what they need and what they're looking for in an association. So that's really the main reason why we did all of this.  [00:03:29] Lori Zoss Kraska: That's great, and I want to delve in a bit more, Brian, into the research. A sizable amount of this next generation, based on what you found knows about associations, but only about a quarter, really understand the benefits. What do you think causes this gap and how do associations go about closing that? [00:03:47] Brian Miller: I think the biggest thing is the networking aspect. You look at the younger generation, young professionals, they've grown up in this digital environment and they've really made a lot of their connections and their networking through all of their other [00:04:00] social engagements. They are familiar with associations. We found that through that research, 85% of them are familiar with associations and what they do in respective industries and professions. But really it's looking at the value of that association for them when you're looking at what their needs are. Specifically, they're looking at career placement. They're looking at jobs. How do you help me create resumes? How do you help me create strategies for looking for jobs and all of that, how to interview, things like that. So they're really looking for those kind of things. And so that was really one of the drivers that we found in terms of that gap between. Being aware of the association, but understanding the value that associations provide. I think they understand that. Obviously associations represent those key things that they do, right? They're out there to promote their industry or their profession. They're out there to educate that industry or profession, and then they're out there to advocate on behalf of that industry, or that profession. They learn that through job fairs, through what they learn for in their coursework and their [00:05:00] universities. But it's really about the associations taking the understanding that what their young professionals are looking for is career assistance, job placement. Skills training. Those are the key things that we found that they're really the hot buttons for them. So from an association perspective, to increase that value gap, that's really the areas that we need to make sure that they're focused on, is looking for ways that they can really engage those young professionals through those skills training, through helping them with their. Careers and through helping them with interviews and job placements and things like that. So that's really where the gap that we saw. But the good news is though, this is a great opportunity for the associations to really become the driver of this. This gap is very fixable and it's very. Easily done by the associations to look at their member segments and understand that they each have different values along the way and what the value is for them by being an association member. And then long term, obviously that's gonna create a membership journey. [00:06:00] So if you can engage those young professionals, meet them where they are, be able to fulfill their needs, and that's gonna make for a better member as they progress in their careers, and then obviously things are gonna become more important to them going forward. And it's the things that we talked about, the advocacy that the association does, the education that they provide, and well as being able to engage the different generations. When we talked about those five generations as well, and I'll just leave it with this. This is a perfect example of why associations need to look at not just a one fits all membership strategy, right? You really need to understand those different segments that are represented within your membership and then create different value propositions along the way. So hopefully this will help engage them where they are, and then as they progress in their journey, the association's gonna provide additional value and more long-term value going forward. [00:06:51] Lori Zoss Kraska: I love that you said that it's really the association's responsibility to empower themselves to realize that they need to meet [00:07:00] students and younger folks where they are. I think that's so important because maybe a different mentality in the past would've been, it's really up to the student or up to the young professional to research us. For them to figure out what the value is and no, we have to turn this around. I love that really, that you've not only talked about that, but your research coincides with that. So I think that's excellent. Excellent. You know, Gilberto, I wanna throw it over to you. You're a former student at the University of Monterey and now a young professional and board member, so congratulations on all your achievements thus far. What was your impression of associations before joining AIAS? And what prompted you to want to get involved and become a member?  [00:07:45] Gilberto Lozada Baez: Thank you for saying that. And let me start with the second part of your question because I think you're gonna be a lot more insightful into what I was thinking about organizations. I remember being in first semester of college, I was just joining to [00:08:00] starting at the study architecture school and they, it's very common for student groups to have these meetings where they try to get new people to recruit new members. And I remember sitting at the auditorium. Hearing to the AIAS group that was at my university, talking about the organization, about what the a IS does, its impact, its reach, the networking opportunities. And it was a lot of an aspirational thing for me because I remember looking up at that leadership team and thinking I want to be in their place. I wanna be able to talk about me being part of a community that has such an impact, that has that reach globally, that I can say that I am part of that type of a community. Interestingly enough, even though I was very inspired by that conversation, I didn't actually become a member of the organization until my third year in school. So it took me a while to actually become a member. To start getting involved with the a IS chapter at my school and [00:09:00] at large. And I think that the reason why that happened initially is because there were many little barriers, but what helped me go through them is that the leadership team at my school that was representing the organization at large really took the time to have a conversation with me. Walk me through the details of what it meant to be involved with the organization, how to actually get my membership and how to join the team, and really just collaborate with everyone that was at my local level. The reason why I'm saying all this is because it really goes back to the first part of your question, which is what did I think about organizations? And I think that my impression back then was that organizations were important and very impactful. They always felt somewhat alien or distant in a way. It was like really hard to access the organization and become a part of it. And even though I was really interested, there were so many barriers to it, little [00:10:00] barriers, but they all added up eventually and they made me unsure if my time, because I was in school, I didn't have a lot of time either. My energy, the money that I would spend in my membership would be actually worth the investment because of course there were a lot of. More important or direct things that were a little less foreign and that felt like they guaranteed my success and my career or my education. And I think it's safe to say that once I got involved with the AIAS, it all became a lot clearer and I developed this sense of belonging, but it's also really important for students as well. To the point that I'm now vice president of the organization. But yeah, I think it's really important to see how throughout my journey, a lot of those things that the report for Multiview talks about this gap between students and the awareness of the value that organizations offered. Definitely impacted my journey. And it was because of that engagement with people and with the organization at the local level that I was able to overcome it and actually get involved.  [00:10:59] Lori Zoss Kraska: So [00:11:00] Gilberto, I have a follow up here. I know if I have an association leader and I'm listening to you, I'm listening to you very carefully. You said something about barriers and I think that's something that associations would wanna hear more about. Would you be open to talking about one or two of the barriers that you referenced earlier?  [00:11:17] Gilberto Lozada Baez: Of course. I think one of the most important ones, especially for students and younger professionals, is cost barriers. Yeah. I think that is one of the more important ones, and we're all aware of it. The other one that I would reference is time availability, especially with my experience being an architecture. Sport is a very demanding profession. And so anytime that I would have available, I would cherish it very much and try to use it to whatever would bring me the most value and success in my future. And probably another one is familiarity. Or this idea of perhaps Tism that I would mention, because a lot of the times it feels like organizations are a closed off [00:12:00] group that is not really welcoming to other perspectives. I can honestly say now being a lot more acquainted with organizations and having been on the board of other organizations as well, that is rarely the goal because we all as organizations, want to get as much members and as much involvement as we can. But there is definitely that barrier of not being acquainted with something and being slightly intimidating that is present for students and potential prospect, new members. [00:12:27] Lori Zoss Kraska: Thank you so much for sharing that. I think that, again, that's gonna be really eye-opening to a lot of associations that are listening, especially from the point of view of a  young professional like yourself. Kimberly, I want to move over to you for a moment. Many students are graduating with limited real world experience and unclear next steps. It's a crazy world out there. We just don't know what's gonna happen. But how are associations, especially those with student branches or in your case, an entire student-based organization, uniquely positioned [00:13:00] to support that transition for young people?  [00:13:03] Kimberly Tuttle: Yeah, that's a great question. So the AIAS. We were founded in the fifties and we branched out and became our own organization and nonprofit in the early eighties. So we're hitting our 70th anniversary. And the sole purpose, our mission is advancing leadership, design and service among architecture students. But. I think a lot of the work that we've done, and I just stepped into this role about a year ago, but I did work for the organization for four or five years, several years ago, really focusing on partnerships and so. AIAS, I think, is uniquely positioned to bridge that gap between education and practice. And so we honestly, a lot of our programs are built on mentorship, internships, and building leadership skills to help transition them into practice. Because we're student [00:14:00] led, our program is. Deeply relevant because we're not guessing what the students need when we know what they need because they tell us. Our board is 70% made up of students who are actively in school and are the ones who are guiding our efforts, talking about what they need. And so we look at things like portfolio reviews, design competitions, career preparation workshops, and we ensure that our students don't face that. What's next moment by themselves, right? They have this community that is a strength of our organization. And then when we engage with partners, because we're associations, we're nonprofits. Most of us rely on partnerships. We talk with our partners about how. Our members are not actively buying, they're not currently consumers in our profession. So we have a different pitch to our partners, and that's really let's build brand awareness while we develop content and career content career programs, leveraging your [00:15:00] brand. And for example, several years ago we had this one. Elevator company that was one of our bigger partners. And we use that to put together an elevator pitch competition. And so we leverage our partners by building these career preparation programs to help build that relationship and build the gap and bridge the gap between education practice. So when they graduate and they're ready to set foot in the workforce, they have a lot of the softer skills that professionals are looking for when they hire young career. [00:15:34] Lori Zoss Kraska: Kimberly, let me just say, as someone who works in the corporate sponsorship and corporate partnership arena that you found an elevator company to sponsor the elevator pitch competition makes me so excited and so happy. That's wonderful. Brian, I want to send it back to you here. We've talked about young professionals and what they need and what they want, and they expect from associations. Did your research reveal the best channels to connect with them? [00:16:00]  [00:16:00] Brian Miller: Yeah. I think it's no surprise that to the best channel is social media.   [00:16:04] Lori Zoss Kraska: Yeah.  [00:16:04] Brian Miller: And this kind of goes back to thinking about the associations and their identity. When the associations think about their identity and who their competition is. It's very interesting 'cause most associations will think, okay, my competition is this other association that is in my space or in my industry or profession. It's really changing. Competition now is really evolving for associations. Their competitors now are the social platforms. I think LinkedIn is one of the largest competitors to associations, particularly when it comes to young professionals and they're looking at. These resources through these social channels, LinkedIn's a given, right? It's one of the best places for career guidance. Career resources, helping you further your career. It obviously changes with different industries. Obviously the engagement is different with LinkedIn, but it is still a very important and viable channel and with some of the new add-ons that LinkedIn offers particularly. Perhaps the [00:17:00] LinkedIn newsletters is a good example to, it's fairly recent edition. Associations can really utilize that, where they can say, okay, let's create a LinkedIn newsletter channel that's specific for young professionals, students for graduate students, and then maybe a different newsletter that's attacking a different segment of their membership as well with different content and so forth. But LinkedIn, of course, as we said, is a given. The other big channel, of course, for young professionals is by far Instagram. That was what we. Saw in our results. And that really is understandable. When you look at Instagram, it's more of this edutainment, right? So it's education mixed with entertainment and being able to create short form content that's really impactful and really hitting those key topics that we found through the research that are important for young professionals. The career skills training, job placements, interview and resume building, things like that. So it's. Important to know how to utilize those channels, creating the right kind of [00:18:00] content for that channel. When you think about associations, their competition, are any organizations out there that are competing for their members' attention? And when you look at young members. You're looking at Instagram, right? Instagram is a huge platform that they're engaging with their peers as well as getting information and content in that kind of a format. And what is Instagram like? It likes reels. It likes carousel type of content. Very short, impactful type things. So when you're looking at your education strategy for your different member segments, really understand that. To use the different platforms in the right format and in the right context. If you think yourself like a media company instead of an association, it's almost very similar. You look at the Netflix model, for example, so Netflix has an audience or any other. A company out there, media organizations, we'll just use Netflix as an example. So they've got an audience and they get that audience because they're creating content specific to that audience. And that audience wants that. They have the distribution channels, right? [00:19:00] They have the distribution channels through their streaming services, through other pay services that they might offer. And then they have the revenue side. There's two forms of revenue. They have the free model. Which is, we'll give you the content for free, but then it's subsidized by advertising, or it's more of the membership model where you pay to subscribe as a member, and then you get that content after that through your subscription. If you look at your association, very similar. You've got. The audience. That's your membership. You've got the content. It's all the education that you provide, and all various ways that you disseminate that. You have the channels, your website, your LMS, all of the various forms, all your social media, all those channels for distribution of that content. And then you have the monetization through your membership dues, as well as through the corporate sponsorships and the ways that you can engage your corporate sponsors. Lori, Kimberly, you both hit on this. So corporate sponsors are really evolving to where they're becoming more thought leaders now too. That's a huge thing because now they're not just selling products or services. They're engaging with your [00:20:00] members, and if you utilize your sponsors to really engage them with your membership as thought leaders, then they can become even more important in the whole strategy of the association going forward. It'll give them more opportunities to spend money with you. And be able to utilize those in all those different channels. So to sum it up, you know, it's the right content in the right format, through the right channels and in the right time and context. So from a young professional standpoint, being able to meet them where they are, like we talked about before, is really important. So utilizing your social media and understanding that this is where they're engaging. A third area outside of LinkedIn and an Instagram that we found really interesting is. Young professionals are also utilizing Reddit because Reddit's an anonymous channel that they can go in, look up a topic, and be able to engage with other anonymous members to really talk about things and be very specific. [00:21:00] So when you think about what's the competition. With Reddit are your community pages. Every association has community pages that they utilize for their members, so their members can engage and so forth. So there's a gap there as well. The young professionals are probably using Reddit more than they are using the association's community pages, so it's important to understand that channel as well, because Reddit is a source of information that they're going to also. So look at. All the various topics within your industry or profession that are happening out there through those various subreddits. See what's important, see what they're engaging with there, and then be able to incorporate that into your strategy when you're looking at your different membership strategies and how you're getting your content out there. But again, everything in its right place.  [00:21:45] Lori Zoss Kraska: Brian, I think this information is so valuable because, I gotta be honest, I know associations that don't even have an Instagram account. And basically your research shows that young professionals are utilizing Instagram for finding career [00:22:00] information, for getting to connect with mentors, potentially. There's a whole world out there of how young folks are utilizing Instagram. In ways that maybe other generations don't realize. So a call to action today. If anything, if you're an association and you don't even have an Instagram account, get online and create your Instagram account and get started. And I can imagine too that there are associations out there that. Don't even know what Reddit is. It's a new concept to them. So I just think this information and what you have in your research is so valuable, and I really appreciate you, again, you bringing this to the forefront. But Kimberly, I wanna come back to you because this idea of digital fluency comes up a lot in this report. What does it mean for associations to really adapt to social platforms and how is AIAS specifically addressing this as well?  [00:22:50] Kimberly Tuttle: That's a great question, and as Brian alluded to, it's not just being on social media. So first off, if you don't have a Instagram, definitely got one, [00:23:00] but it's understanding where your members are and being good at creating content that works for them. So it means understanding the language of each platform and using it to tell your story in a way that invites participation. For us, it looks like. Very interactive content telling, student stories, student spotlights. We have a chapter Leader of the Month feature. We have a chapter of the month feature. I think last fall we highlighted a lot of our global chapters to share more about the work that they're doing. We have live takeovers when we're at our conferences and we use our platforms to celebrate. Not just architecture, but really the people behind it. Gilberto is our social media guru at the moment, and we're constantly looking at how our posts perform. Are there good times? What is the most engaging and how can we continue to skill up our social media channels? But it's also not just where but how. So one of the really unique [00:24:00] advantages we have is that we. Have the next generation. These are our members, and so we get to experiment. They're using, as Brian mentioned, they're using the social platforms in ways that are very different from previous generations in both Good and. Potentially negative ways. We also have a lot of conversations about data and, and I'm not talking about data in this terms of analytics, but where are you getting your information? Is it accurate? Is it right? We have a lot of conversations like, where did you learn that? And it's, oh, I saw it on TikTok, are we. Having conversations about misinformation, those are pieces that we have to talk about is because where is this next generation digesting and receiving their important kind of news and data like that. So we regularly check in with our board about what platforms are actually relevant. Another conversation, I keep bringing this up, and Gilberto, we keep having this conversation, but for example, I [00:25:00] keep asking. Should we be on TikTok? Is that where we need to be? TikTok is huge, but when we've had those conversations, Gilberto and the rest of the board is, that's not really where students are looking for that professional or academic inspiration. That's not the type of engagement that happens over on TikTok. So instead of chasing. Trends like that, we really try and stay in intentional focusing on the platforms and the content that match the message and meet our members where they are. We're also doing a lot of work in exploring what other similar organizations are doing. So for example, NSLC, which is the National Student Leadership Conference. Their Instagram channels are a great place for us to find inspiration because they are very member centric, and so that's something that we continue to aspire to be, and so we use. That research to help us continue to dig in because NSLC is actually the generation [00:26:00] before us, right? Or maybe not generation, but they're high school members, right? And so as we're looking at how they engage with high school students, we start to think about, okay, how can we leverage some of the things that they're doing to continue to bring impactful member-focused engagement to our channels?  [00:26:19] [AD READ] Lori Zoss Kraska: Let's take a quick break from our conversation for a word from our episode sponsor. Multiview is the leading B2B digital marketing agency and trusted advertising partner for associations proudly serving 850 plus partners for 25 years. There are NOCO purpose-built solutions, help associations engage and grow membership. Connect members with vendors through digital channels and unlock new streams of non-dues revenue. As an extension of your team, they manage digital advertising sales on your behalf, freeing up staff time and resources so you can focus on what matters most, advancing your mission and serving your members. Learn more at [00:27:00] multiview.com/association.  [END AD READ] Kimberly. As I think about some of the association executives that might be listening, they might be thinking, this all sounds really good. The research is there. This is amazing, but I need tips on internal buy-in. I'm working with a chief marketing officer that just isn't a hundred percent sure I should be spending all this time on Instagram or on Reddit. Do you have any tips that you might be able to provide to bridge the gap between maybe a person or a thought? Internally that isn't completely bought in to spending time on these socials.  [00:27:35] Kimberly Tuttle: As I, I often tease my officers that if they leave me alone with the social channels, we might get something that they don't want. Oh, I  [00:27:43] Lori Zoss Kraska: Love it.  [00:27:44] Kimberly Tuttle: I'm not even going to talk about the platforms that we shouldn't be on, but I am very well aware of my abilities and understanding of where social is and. I guess for me it's just I'm going to struggle when [00:28:00] Gilberto saves us because we don't actually have a social media team. We are a very thin lean team, and so for us, we all do all of the work so. I would say for anyone looking to get upper buy-in, I would show the data, talk about how maybe do a test run. So I used to work for a large architecture firm and they had a very robust social media team, and I learned a lot from her too. Whereas if you are looking to. Try and test things out. Stories and reels are much easier to do that because they don't live on your feed, right? They don't live on that landing page. And so those are more opportunities to explore what works and what doesn't. And so what I would say is. Make sure you're staying by your brand guidelines. Make sure you're meeting the needs of the organization. But feel free to try and experiment in stories and reels, especially in Instagram because they disappear after 24 hours and you can gather the data [00:29:00] and then take that data to go have conversations.   [00:29:03] Brian Miller: I completely agree with everything you're saying Kimberly, we found the same thing. First of all, TikTok was not very impactful in the data results at all, but Instagram was. And when you look at the algorithms of Instagram and what it likes, stories, it likes those reels, and that's how it measures the engagement and that's really how things get promoted. So everything you said was spot on. I will add one other thing too that is interesting that we've just seen in the B2B media side at Multiview. We've been working B2B media as a company for 25 years and one of the things that we're finding that's an interesting new trend is that the influencers usually are a B2C type of content. We're now finding that influencer content is really creeping over into the B2B segment as well. So something to think about as an association executive as you're developing your social media strategies, and particularly with Instagram and those type of platforms where it's very edutainment type of content.[00:30:00]  It might be a perfect opportunity to look within your community, your profession, and find influencers that you think could be very impactful and that can really help you reach these young professionals because they're already seeing that influencer marketing in all of their other contexts as a consumer and as a. As just that people of that generation. So that's another interesting trend. I didn't even realize that until I was talking to some of our other agency folks that we work with, and they very much brought up the fact that influencer marketing is becoming a key thing in B2B as well. So something for associations to think about, but that's great stuff, Kim. [00:30:35] Lori Zoss Kraska: Gilberto, I actually want to give you the last word on this because I would love to get your perspective. If you were speaking to an association executive that might be a little hesitant about utilizing new platforms like Instagram or Reddit, what would your advice to them be?  [00:30:51] Gilberto Lozada Baez: That is a good question. I think it's important to understand that culture plays a significant role in how we're marketing [00:31:00] to our potential members as well. Yeah, and it's also about culture. There's this element of. What the professional sphere is. But when you're talking about younger professionals and students, there's an added element to it of that student or young professional experience that also plays into how you're marketing towards, and then how you're. Getting that message to them. So I guess that would be my advice. Understanding that there are different components to that and that really that is something that you can use to understand how to better engage with them and how to get that feedback from potential new members, especially with younger audiences. [00:31:36] Lori Zoss Kraska: That's perfect. And Gilberto, why I still have you on the mic. Let's talk a little about events. The report also talks about the need for in-person, especially smaller scale events. What is the role for in-person events, do you think, and do you have any recommendations for associations?  [00:31:53] Gilberto Lozada Baez: Yes, with the AIAS, it's interesting because we have an international presence. We're in over [00:32:00] 24 countries, and that makes it really hard for us to get in-person engagement with our members, even though we would love to, but it's a little bit tricky. So I think something that helps us is that within the structure of our organization, we have baked in layers of engagement, and that includes in-person engagement. That sort of ties into the whole way we operate as. Organization, and when I'm talking about that structure, just for a little bit of exposition, I guess it's that the app is composed of chapters at universities and so that is the first tier beyond the individual students can engage with the teams at their school, and that is a great way to get in person and a little bit more casual engagement with the organization as well. Beyond that, we also have sometimes several chapters in a same city or within hours of each other. And so that creates opportunities for a bit of a larger scope engagement where [00:33:00] students travel to, I don't know, nearby firms to do a firm tour or local architectural landmarks that they want to visit and explore. That is another great opportunity to get that. And then we can start moving up the ranks. And we have our quad and regional engagements. Our chapters are grouped in regions within the US and internationally, and they get the opportunity to engage with our directors and with other people within their larger regional location to get that experience as well. And finally, we have the national and international component where we have our. Conferences and other types of programming. So what I'm trying to say here is that yes, we have in-person options for our students starting from the chapter level to the national, international level, and it's a peer structure. But what that allows us to do is to have this bottom up structure that informs what we do as an organization at large. [00:34:00] And the way that I try to think about it is that it helps to create this sense of belonging. Which is very important for students and emerging professionals as they explore their future really and beyond that sense of belonging. It also gives them this agency and it empowers them to engage with a larger community in a different approach, like thinking about how we're marketing towards them. I would also say that this tiered structure helps it so that out of sight is not out of mind necessarily because they always have someone in their near. Vicinity that they can talk to or approach if they have any questions about the organization. And so this is how the AIAS operates in general. What I would say as aps of advice is that sort of what you were saying earlier, Brian, it's very important to meet students where they are and young career professionals as well. But you that engagement and that opportunity to meet them where they are, to empower the approach [00:35:00] that the organization takes. To engage or to operate at a larger scale and really using these small scale efforts to empower the large scale operation of the organization as well.  [00:35:11] Lori Zoss Kraska: Kimberly, did you want to add on to that? [00:35:14] Kimberly Tuttle: In 22 and 23 as we were coming out of COVID too, especially, we had surveyed our members and top importance in AIAS member benefits was that networking, but a quarter rated in-person events as like their second choice, the second reason most impactful member benefits. So, and I don't know if that's because we were coming outta COVID, but that definitely is something that we have not seen. Ticked down in the past couple years, it's only ticked up. And so as we get back into play in our in-person events, we're definitely seeing an uptick in our numbers, slowly getting back to where our pre COVID numbers were. But the students had identified that in both years as like the top two priorities of why they wanted to be a [00:36:00] member of the organization. [00:36:01] Lori Zoss Kraska: That's great. And I think it goes back to Gilberto's point about creating that sense of belonging and community in these events. And Brian, I want to talk to you about that. In terms of larger scale events, how can associations include young professionals and larger scale events in things like annual meetings and conferences? [00:36:21] Brian Miller: Yeah. And boy, that was just great insight from Gilberto and Kimberly. It really ties into the data that we're seeing in the report and one of the other key takeaways outside of this awareness value gap that we talked about. And then the second big takeaway was. The digital fluency that associations need to have to engage with the younger professionals. The third thing that we found was exactly what the both the Gilberto and Kimberly were talking about. It's the revival and the return of in real life. I don't know if it's because of post COVID, but I think a lot of it's just younger professionals want to engage with their peers. They want to engage in these small [00:37:00] scale opportunities, right? If happened, Gilberto mentions so many of them, but it, these. Local meetups, that's where they're networking. All these different like-minded peer related discussions and how those are taking place. They can happen online as we see. Obviously it's happening as we talked about with Reddit and all the various subreddit sub communities that are out there. But again, it's also happening. In real life, locally from the bottom up, starting in their chapters, in their organizations, in their schools, in their universities, in their young, professional career, networking that they're doing in the various ways. So I think if associations can replicate those small scale events in their large scale events, that's gonna be a really key thing going forward from that engagement. One of the things that we found out in the research as well is that the students. And young professionals, when they go to these annual conferences or these larger scale events, they get lost and they get scared. They [00:38:00] internalize, and they don't network. They don't engage because it's just too much, and a lot of the content that's even happening in there is maybe content that they're not even interested. Again, when we go back and think about what we talked about earlier and what their needs are. Maybe those large scale events aren't really hitting those topics for those young professionals, but I think the biggest thing is that they just feel like it's lost. So there's different things that associations can do to bring that small scale structure to their large events where they can replicate those meetups, right? Where you engage the peers within their community together in these small scale type opportunities within the large scale events. I think another thing too is obviously mentorship and coaching is a huge thing that they want as well. What better way to engage your corporate sponsors to be those thought leaders like we talked about? Get them engaged in these small scale events that are happening within the larger events so that they can not only have their peer discussions, but they can also have some coaching and [00:39:00] mentorship type opportunities with other businesses that are out there in the profession that can offer guidance to them. And obviously that creates networking for them and when they're looking for possible career placement as well. The other thing I think would be interesting to do is when you think about all the cities that you go to for your large scale events, for your annual conferences, maybe connect with local universities, colleges, trade schools, whatever that may be, depending on your profession or your trade. And try to recruit volunteers, students from those universities to actually work with you as a volunteer at your annual conference, for example. 'cause now. They're not scared. They actually have a role within the entire scheme of things. They can actually be very involved from a volunteer standpoint, which is gonna create those connections for them. They're gonna meet people, they're gonna have those networking opportunities, they're gonna have the ability to work with their peers, and they're also getting that sense of belonging. That Hill Albert so talked about [00:40:00] where they're feeling important. They're not just attending, they're actually participating in the event as a volunteer. And it's a great thing for associations because the more. Staff that you can have that you're not paying, for lack of a better word phrase. It offers more resources for the association to be able to do some of these additional things. But I think that would be a great. Opportunity for associations to look at different things like that for the cities that they're in and how they can utilize the resources within that city, through the local colleges and universities to be able to recruit students to volunteer, introduce them to the association, and then they can start seeing some of the benefits early on before they even join. So that's one of the insights that I think we gained from the data. But again, this really ties in with everything Kimberly and Gilberto's been talking about in real life from their organizational perspective. So it's great.  [00:40:51] Lori Zoss Kraska: I love this. "The return to in real life," Brian. I think Multiview should brand that, trademark it, copyright it, because [00:41:00] I think there could be something there. But to bridge off of that, Brian, I thought about, I have to brag in my hometown a bit here. I'm from Cleveland, Ohio, where the A SAE annual was last year. Destination Cleveland, which is a local nonprofit organization, was highly involved in the A SAE 2024 conference and. I was speaking to a representative from Destination Cleveland and she was telling me about the number of young people, basically those under 30 years old who have volunteered to come out for this event to direct people where they need to go or recommend places to eat, or what's a great place just to go kick back and relax. And so what you're saying makes complete sense connecting to the that sense of. Philanthropy and community engagement is so important. And my gosh, associations are built to do that. Absolutely. It's just perfect. So Kimberly, how do you work with the American Institute of Architects to help young professionals transition from student [00:42:00] to professional membership as we move to membership conversation now?   [00:42:04] Kimberly Tuttle: Yeah, sure. So we've had a long history and partnership with the AIA, and it's both collaborative and strategic. So we work together to build a strong pipeline from students professional. By starting early, we introduce our students to the broader architecture ecosystem. Through a lot of regular exposure to not only a i a, but what we call the alliance organizations, which are the six organizations that really lead and direct the profession as a whole. And the six organizations are regular attendees and partners at our events. So they don't just show up, they actively engage the students through volunteer opportunities, mentorship and insights into future roles in the profession. But when we think about partnering with our. Professional associations, we like to partner in meaningful initiative. We will connect our students with practitioners in real ways with the AIA. They [00:43:00] Ask sponsor a program called Crit Scholar. We have Crit Journal, which is our student architectural journal. That students write the articles, they do the research, and we put that out once a year. But we also have a program called Crit Scholar, which is really about research. So for architecture students specifically, we usually end our education with a one or two year thesis. Portfolio. And so the students will get paired with a mentor in the profession, someone who is interested in that type of research, and will pair them and they will have that mentor to help provide perspective, create connection for them throughout their research project. They also get a little stipend, which. Is helpful for any student, but what that's really helpful is that they are really getting paired and introduced with someone actively in the profession who is interested in the type of research that they're doing. So they're making those connections early, which may lead to that job opportunity later down the road. Through our Freedom by [00:44:00] Design program, which is a program where students tackle real world challenges in their local communities. So it's not necessarily a national program, but it is a local chapter program. The students we've partnered with ncarb, which is our licensure. They facilitate licensure and the students gain hands-on experience working with clients, working alongside licensed professionals and seeing the tangible impact of their design work. So it's a really great opportunity for students to going back to our mission leadership design and that service component where students get to give back to their communities, partner with local architects, and also continue to build that network for them. We often remind students, and like I said, I worked in a large firm. It's not just what you know, but it is who you know, and our job is really to help open the doors, to make those introductions, to connect them with leaders, and to give them a seat at the table. We are very clear with the students that they have to do the [00:45:00] work to get in and earn that interview. But as we partner with our professional associations as they move into a contributing member of the profession, we see that transition from student to professional as more of a continuum. It's not necessarily a handoff, it's really ensuring the profession stays connected. To the, what the students are doing, but that they're aware, they know what is important and impactful to students because they are important. And I think going back to what Brian was saying, it's really great to engage with students in those manners. But I think, I've been in this space for about 10 years now, and early on I was on some panels for some conferences, and I would have a student on the panel with me, right? We're in a presentation, we're in a session, and the student would be. So nervous, and I looked at this one individual and I looked at her and I was like. You are here for a reason. Your voice is extremely important. Employers and [00:46:00] practitioners want to know what you think and why you think that. So dig into that, lean into that, and don't be afraid to be your authentic self, because that is going to be more impactful than saying things that you think people wanna hear. We actually, you were there for a reason and we are that voice of the students and so that's why we try and make sure we are where not everyone else can be, so that we are advocating for our members.  [00:46:29] Lori Zoss Kraska: Kimberly, I can imagine maybe some that are listening to us today or watching are thinking, wow, Kimberly's really got her act together and they've got a really good system. Wow. I'm a little overwhelmed. So what advice would you give to somebody that just is even just starting to have a conversation about how do we help young professionals go from the student mindset of membership into more professional membership? Where do we even begin? What's your advice on that?  [00:46:57] Kimberly Tuttle: Yeah, so it's funny, we were actually on a call this [00:47:00] morning with our counterparts in the UK to share lessons that we've learned. Oh good. Because they have a free student membership. So there are more of the professional association, but they have a free student membership, and they wanted to know some of the things that we were doing to help give greater meaning to that student membership that they have. And so I think the first thing is, if you already have that student base. Maybe you have a free student membership. Start talking with them, start reaching out. Focus groups are a really great opportunity to hear what they are saying, what they are wanting to know, and understanding where they're digesting and getting their content. So I think first off, start there. Second of all, I think if you don't have that student membership, I think. Start with your local university, right? Reach out to that program. If they have a program with your professional degree in it. Reach out, see if you can go in and just talk to the students. I still go back and talk with my high [00:48:00] school about the technical education. I do that probably. Once every other year and learn what the students are looking for. Why are you thinking, why do you wanna go in this career path? What do you think the profession looks like? I think that is also like myth busting 1 0 1 right there, right? When you ask students what they think, oh, what do you wanna do with your career? And they say, for architecture, I'm getting into the nitty gritty, but I wanna do residential or commercial, and it's okay. But commercial architecture, there's so many things you can do. And so I think for us it's also about awareness and exposure, and just that exposure can help students understand better where they fit in that profession. And that's something that we are really trying to be more intentional around is the educational exposure. Of students, if they have a better understanding of how they fit into your profession, they might hit the ground running much faster than someone who's still floundering. So I would say. [00:49:00] Go back to your universities if they have a program that is related to your discipline, and just go talk to them. Ask them, what do you guys wanna know about? What do you think the profession looks like? How can I help you? I think those are great opportunities to start to dig in, and then maybe eventually the membership or the engagement will grow from there. But I think that's a great first step, is to just go talk to the students, go right to the universities and offer up your services. I will go and give a career portfolio 101 section where people reach out and say, Hey, can you come talk to our students about what the profession and practitioners like to see when they're reviewing portfolios? And I'll go, and I will be very blunt. I'm like, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. This I would love. This is a great example. And so I think just by engaging and showing you are there as a resource is a great first step.  [00:49:54] Lori Zoss Kraska: I just wanna say that this type of engagement with universities and other type of [00:50:00] educational partners, corporate sponsors love this because they are actually in the same boat as associations. They are trying to engage young people and young professionals to get excited about their specific industry or their workforce. So when I have associations asking me, Lori, what are corporations sponsoring right now? What are they interested in? The number one thing still is anything around engaging young professionals to get excited about what we're doing as a career path, and that's something you share. So really you can take some of this work that Kimberly's talking about with outreach. You could even potentially put some sort of formalized program around it and find a sponsor for it. The opportunities are, unless I just had to go down that road, 'cause you're playing the sponsorship. Place sandbox here. All right, so Gilberto, let's go back to you as a student based member organization. You talked a little about this earlier, but can you talk more about the A IAS unique leadership structure that's comprised of both [00:51:00] students and recent graduates?  [00:51:02] Gilberto Lozada Baez: Of course, I think Kimberly just gave a pretty detailed and accurate spot on description of what our organization does to engage this young leaders and to really empower them to go about their journey in architecture and just their leadership journey in general. But basically, we are a student led organization, so not only do we have our student members, we also have our local chapter leaders. Our regional directors, our committee chairs and members, and our board of directors that are all comprised of students. So that is a great way to have that untapped, unfiltered feedback from the younger generations about the profession and what they want to see in the future, and to use it to have these conversations with other industry partners and allied organizations as well. Like you were mentioning, we also have alumni that sort of tie into this entire piece because [00:52:00] it helps us see what's happening, not just while they're in school, but also once they have graduated and they're joining the profession and what really their education and their interests pan out to be in the future. And so what we do as an organization, in a way, is to, the way I see it, compliment their education to find those resources and those opportunities that sometimes are not being. Offered by their global school programs or that they could find elsewhere and bring in it a little bit closer to them so that they can explore what they want their future career to look like, what the opportunities are for them, and to empower them to make an impact and to shape the profession into what they want to see. The way that I see it is that students and young professionals are really an equal part of this collaborative ecosystem. That shapes our profession, right? We have an architecture, what is globally allied organizations, and they are [00:53:00] basically every realm of architecture that could be involved. They're talking about the professionals themselves, about researchers. We're talking about accreditation, and everyone wants to hear from students. And so in a way, what we do through this structure is empower them to understand that, like Kim was saying, their voices are important. Everyone in this profession that wants to make a change, wants to hear from them, and so giving them those platforms so that they can speak up and be heard. I think that's what is in the DNA of the AI S that empowers student leaders and young professionals as well.  [00:53:35] Lori Zoss Kraska: And I think that is the perfect place for us to end today. I wanna thank everyone for listening to this episode of Associations Now Presents. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals, discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today, and highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy, the US and the world. Again, we'd like to thank our episode sponsor Multiview. For [00:54:00] more information about our sponsor, check out their link in our show notes. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And for more information on this topic, visit associations now online at associationsnow.com.  

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host David Coriale, president of DelCor and host of the Reboot IT podcast, talks with Elena Dumitrascu, CTO of Credivera, and Tim McCreight, CEO of TaleCraft Security. Together, they explore how secure, verifiable credentials can reduce identity fraud, validate professional qualifications, and strengthen cybersecurity. Drawing on real-world use cases in industries like healthcare and safety, the discussion highlights the growing importance of global standards and the role associations can play in adopting these technologies to build trust and security in digital spaces. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/y5RzrCUUTzU This episode is sponsored by Credivera. Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript [00:00:00] David Coriale: Hello everyone. This is Dave Corelle, president of DelCor and host of the 501 C technology podcast, Reboot IT, and I am excited to be guest hosting today. We've talked about this technology before on Reboot and I'm so happy to be talking about it again 'cause I think this community needs to talk about this more. And I have two experts with me who are going to do 90% of the talking. I have Tim McCreight and also Elena Dumitrascu. I want  to welcome you and also have you introduce yourselves. Let's start with you, Elena.  [00:00:34] Elena Dumitrascu: Thank you for having me here. It's a pleasure. I'm the co-founder and CTO of Credivera. We are a technology company that supports associations with verifiable credentials, secure identity, and secure certifications for their constituents. I got into this business because I saw over and over again how difficult it is to prove someone's identity from a workforce perspective. The long compliance issues [00:01:00] that come from that, and really some of the fraud that. Sort of seeps in as well. Again, really happy to be here and to talk about this topic. [00:01:08] David Coriale:  Awesome. Thank you, Tim.   Tim McCreight: Thanks folks. My name is Tim McCreight. I'm the CEO and founder of TaleCraft Security. We're a boutique security firm that focuses on developing security programs using a risk-based approach. And after 44 years of doing this, it's nice to finally get a chance to see some of the changes that we wanna make within the industry, and particularly with we're talking about today, these verifiable credentials. It's been something we've been dealing with, trying to make sure it's Tim doing what Tim's supposed to be doing, nothing more and nothing less, and trying to get to a space where we're seeing that come through. It's great to talk about this today. It's a great opportunity to explore and identify what a verifiable credentials can do for organizations, but how it helps people like me in the security industry truly understand that we can start reducing risk by using this approach. [00:01:56] David Coriale: And you are also a host of a podcast?  [00:01:59] Tim McCreight: [00:02:00] Yes sir. I am. I have my own podcast. I co-host with Doug Lease, and it's called Caffeinated Risk. It's two self creamed grumpy security professionals talking about security and risk. And we thought throwing in coffee security and risk, how can you go wrong? So this is year five now with caffeinated risk. [00:02:17] David Coriale: And I've just gotta mention, 'cause you said this earlier, that the icon for it is the caffeine molecule. Yes sir. Yeah, it's just really fun. It looks good on the mugs and the T-shirts, so it looks really good. Yeah, that's what's important. So thanks for joining. I always like to start at these conversations, kinda the start at the top. And what are we talking about? So you've talked about verified credentials, risk in cybersecurity, in your backgrounds, and what you are trying to accomplish. I think we're all familiar with cybersecurity. Right. There's plenty of news coming at us with what's happening in cybersecurity breaches and so on. How is this different, like when you talk about cybersecurity and verified credentials, explain the link between the two and what you mean by verified credentials.  [00:02:58] Tim McCreight: That's a good one. I'll start [00:03:00] first and then I'll pass it on to Elena. From my perspective, one of the things that we've struggled with for years is making sure that as I access a resource, as I log onto a system, or as I gain access to different data or information across an organization, I need to make sure that Tim is actually Tim, and I need a way to validate that, and I need a way to prove that I'm given or been granted access to these different data stores data resources. The difficulty with that is over the years we've been really restricted of what we could provide. Everyone listening knows, we first started with IDs and passwords, bringing in different factors for authentication, but there were still avenues that were open to fraudsters, to impersonate somebody. So I could log on saying that I'm Tim. I'm not really Tim, but I have his credentials. I've got his password, so now I can gain access to the information that Tim has access to. So that became problematic and it still is. What we're finding now is there's a desire to gain greater understanding of who Tim is, [00:04:00] where I really can go, can you prove his background? Can you show me the resources he should have access to? And now can you provide me that level of access and make it so that it's difficult or damn near impossible to steal those credentials or to copy those credentials by using different forms of encryption. That to me is when we're starting to talk about some real changes to how we gain access to sensitive information or to data that I need to see to do my job every day in an organization. [00:04:26] Elena Dumitrascu: There's also the need for Tim to have portability. If this is his data, let him carry it with him. Obviously, if it's an email address from Tim's employer, if Tim no longer works there, that email address is no longer in his possession. But if it's a different type of identifier about Tim, like his. Digital identity, his driver's license or his university degree, or his certificate from an association, his professional designation as a security expert. Those are all bits of [00:05:00] information that belong to Tim. I. He should be able to take from organization to organization and prove those statements about him as he gets onboarded, as he logs on every day to various systems that he should be allowed to log onto because he has those credentials. So it's more than just the username and a password. It's all of these details about Tim that now finally can be given to Tim. In a secure, encrypted and portable way we can take from engagement to engagement.  [00:05:33] David Coriale: So I feel like this is more important, if you will, than username and password credentials. Right? Because that's what most of us think of when you, what are your credentials, username and password? Because we're talking about verifying somebody's credentials from a professional. You mentioned just now maybe their association certification. Right. Which could impact. Their credibility. So some of this is privacy, some of this is credibility, and then some of this could be also things like the ability [00:06:00] to prescribe drugs, right? Controlled substances as a, the, what is it? The DEA, the drug enforcement administrative number that a doctor has. If I have that number, I can impersonate someone and prescribe drugs. I'm understanding you clearly that we're talking about more than just the privacy aspect. We're talking about impersonation for nefarious or illegal activities potentially as well. [00:06:23] Tim McCreight: Yep. A really good example, and this is one that Ellen talking about before and it really resonates, is this idea if I have specific training in, let's say one environment, and I go back to my time I spent with oil and gas or critical infrastructure. If I'm gonna be working in a facility where I have to take two trainings, so I'm required to have safety training before I enter the facility, or before I can actually go do work with a plant, and I want to be able to move from one employer to another, but my credentials for safety stay the same. This is an amazing opportunity to take what I have learned, what I've maintained in the background that I have, the training that I have, that I can verify that I have the training [00:07:00] and that I actually am qualified to work now in an environment where I have to have H two s training for safety. This is a terrific approach to do that because now that's transferable with me because I own that credential or I own that training, and that's part of my profile. Now when I create that verifiable credential for Tim.  [00:07:16] Elena Dumitrascu: Let's think about the cybersecurity team in that company. Tim is a new employee. They have to provision him with access to all sorts of things. You bet they get that information today from HR through something like ServiceNow Ticket that says onboard Tim. But does that cybersecurity professional know that the right due diligence was done on Tim? They take it at face value. What if something changes from the moment when HR or someone else checked Tim's credentials? One of them expired or got revoked, right? That cyber team in today's world before verifiable credentials in the paper world or the unverifiable digital PDF world, we'll take it at face value and we'll go [00:08:00] ahead and provision Tim with the respective access and only through some kind of audit that companies typically have every six months or every year, those things get caught and by then it could be too late, right? So yes, there's the fraudster, bad actor story. There's also the, nobody intends to be a bad actor, but it just happens 'cause all this data is connected and we're pushing paper between departments and you never know who should or shouldn't be able to access a system or a secure room.  [00:08:31] David Coriale: So is that how associations are currently using verifiable credentials to protect themselves? I'm just trying to tie it to either member services or consumer services. I'm a consumer and I'm looking for a verified speech pathologist. How are associations using this now to reduce their cybersecurity risk or their brand risk?  [00:08:52] Elena Dumitrascu: They're using it both at the onboarding phase to make sure that Tim is Tim. There's so many people that have the same name that may have [00:09:00] gone to the same school and gotten that doctor's degree, and if that association is in the medical field and they require a degree as proof before giving them a, an extra license for a specialty, they need to know that the degree that's being presented belongs to this to him, not another one. That this is the right constituent. All of that is verified at source in real time on an ongoing fashion, and then on the tail end of that process that the product that the association or certifying body issues for Tim. Leverages the same level of security and tampers and portability as the artifacts that Tim showed up with. So whether it's a, a license that allows you to operate specific equipment, or in the case of Tim, particularly because he is a security professional, his security designation, right? That association can now give him that not as a badge, but as a verifiable credential [00:10:00] that. Belongs to him and no one else can borrow it and present it. [00:10:06] Tim McCreight: And this is what I really appreciate from a security perspective because it takes away that potential mismatch from when someone's first being brought on board to when they're being granted access to systems. And it's an opportunity for us to continually assess the credentials that you're presenting and make sure that they're still verified. And Elena's. Throughout my career I've seen where as we hire somebody and go through the hiring process, it appears as if it's a one-time review. This offers that opportunity to continually assess that individual's credentials, verify them in near real time or real time, and give us the opportunity to ensure that, yep, Tim still has this valid credential. It's still active and up to date, he can still gain access to these confidential resources because we are relying upon this approach that's been taking for the credential. So to me, it's such a great opportunity to explore more of this within the security realm. It gives us a chance to look at different avenues for us to validate. Where Tim can go. [00:11:00] I can also validate based on the credentials and the history that Tim has provided in those credentials, the additional opportunities we can give him or different pieces of work that he can work on based on his past experience, his past credentials, and that we can continue to verify it throughout. So I see some amazing opportunities to leverage this in the future. I'm even thinking myself for things like national security clearances. As you progress through your career or as you start getting access to greater levels of security or secured resources and access to these documents, I can validate it still, Tim, I can validate Tim's historical context and I can take a look at his credentials to continually grant and validate his access to that information. [00:11:40] David Coriale: So I'm listening and I'm trying to parse the difference between offering this, 'cause you were using the onboarding, the staff person example, and you're also using examples for professions and members so that their credentials can travel with them. And you're talking about it being persistent, meaning the credential is verified until it's not. So it's portable and it's [00:12:00] up to date. It's you're using examples. Hey, it drives me nuts when somebody gets on the phone, like I'm calling someone and they say, I'm calling, I'm calling for when my dad passed away. I'm calling to try to do something. And they're like, and I say, I'm Dave Al. And they're like, we can only talked to Anthony. How would you have known? It's insane. I can call right back and talk to somebody else. Difference. So clearly our level of verification going on right now is super minimal. You're bringing a whole new level to it. So lemme get back to where I was second with the staff versus members or both. And I've had a podcast with Juan and Hannah from IntES where they talked about with their real life example. That's on Reboot IT. You can go listen to that one. What other examples are out there? So there's two parts. Part one, staff versus members or both. And then let's talk about some examples. It's both. Okay.  [00:12:50] Elena Dumitrascu: It's both. Why wouldn't you want this level of awareness for both staff? Could mean staff in an association or staff could mean employees in [00:13:00] a, in an organization that have credentials from an association. In our case, as an organization, you definitely want your staff to be who they say they are. We've seen so much remote workforce lately. We haven't even touched on that yet, but it's so hard if you'll never meet that person in real life. To know, are they the ones actually doing the job? They could be, who knows. So again, going back to the cyber thing, it's important that every staff member has been vetted and continues to be vetted and has access to these verifiable credentials about their profession and ability to do the job. And then part two, absolutely. As an association, there is now a movement towards issuing. The licenses and the memberships as verifiable credentials to protect the brand, to make sure that the professionals, if you think about it, the industry, trust, the association to certify these people. Then yeah, it's your duty to make sure that you certify the right person and that certificate cannot be [00:14:00] forged. So it's both.  [00:14:01] David Coriale: What about the example piece  [00:14:03] Elena Dumitrascu: In the U.S., we can definitely talk about LIOs that you mentioned. They use verifiable credentials for all of their constituents. These individuals work in the healthcare space and they are medical practitioners and doctors which operate ultrasound type equipment in hospitals. You can imagine how important that is, that someone with that type of job is who they say they're and holds that designation. With an active status on it, A verified status on it. Sure. But that's one example. We also have safety associations that have deployed this for, again, safety professionals. If you're a safety manager, you have a specific designation you must hold. Those are now have rolled out. We have an association in Canada called B-C-R-S-P. It's the Board of Canadian Registered Safety Professionals. They use verifiable credentials. Another example I'll give you back to the healthcare space in Canada, uh, an [00:15:00] organization called COPSW. It's the Canadian Organization for Personal Support Workers. I personally love this use case because if you think about it, personal support workers are always dealing with the most vulnerable people, right? Our grandparents that need help in the home sometimes, right? Not even in a hospital where there can be other professionals. So having personal support workers that go through a background check and a an insurance check and then hold a verifiable credential stating that they are who they say they are and they're allowed to do that job. Super important. So those are some examples. On the employer side, countless examples from energy to now healthcare. So think of a hospital that now onboards this way. Every professional comes with their designations that would goes to the cyber team to onboard them. So yeah, those would be some examples of employers. [00:15:57] David Coriale: You made me think about this, that [00:16:00] could you mention. Hiring process. And recently we've seen articles about the number of North Koreans who have been hired by companies not knowing, right? Not verifying, not knowing where they actually lived. Take that a step further with, I just watched a reel on Insta the other day where everything was ai. Not a single person talking to me was real because they'd say it at the end. They're like, Hey, here's what I did today, blah, blah, blah. And by the way, I'm AI. Is this a safeguard against accidentally hiring an AI agent that can go through an entire interview process and not have even been real or a bad actor from another location? Is this at that level?  [00:16:42] Tim McCreight: I hope so. That's what we're hoping for. You're right. There's just some frightening aspects of how intelligent AI has become and how believable it's. What this process forces people to do is to demonstrate and have those credentials validated by [00:17:00] other parties than themselves simply submitting a letter going, Hey, hi, I'm Tim and I do this. So it provides a bit of safeguard for that. This is where that whole idea of impersonating someone to get their credentials and then call a help desk as an example, to get a password reset so you can go ahead and move forward with that. Or I need access to a system and I'm gonna go for the prompts and I'm gonna wait for the call back. I'll try to provide my password. If I have problems, can you help me get through it? This eliminates that type of risk, and that has been historically, one of the biggest things we faced in security was. We can't lock everything down. We just, we can't. If we could, like I have no appetite for risk. So at best days you're gonna get a notebook with a crayon and I want it back at the end of the day. Because I really don't trust people and you're never gonna get access to the internet. But I don't run a company, I run my own company. I just don't run anybody else's. So we have to find ways as security professionals to provide the access you need every day to be successful. This offers that opportunity to do that by relying on the credential and the validation process, and then it's verified every [00:18:00] time it's being accessed or every time we need to verify it. That credential then is accessed. Make sure it hasn't been tampered with. It hasn't been altered, it's still valid. Now I can grant you access to the systems that you're looking for. So yeah, this should help remove some of the risks that you talked about. Fingers crossed, right? All of this will be resolved with these types of technologies because it relies on the cryptographic skills for the. Program that's in place, and it relies on the validation of the information I provide by the user to the credential store and then to the validation process to make sure that I'm still Tim and here's how I prove it.  [00:18:35] Elena Dumitrascu: And Dave at ASAE Annual, we're hosting a session exactly on this topic. Great content, authenticity and verifiable credentials. It's taking place on August 11th. If anyone listening will be at annual, they can come see us. Speak more about that. We've also released the white paper through a SE on this exact topic, and please. Look for those assets. It gets into a lot more detail and [00:19:00] Tim is right. This is what we consider the current fighting chance against bad AI. Because there's great AI out there, but there's also bad generated AI. That is impersonating people, and that is also making fake certificates and diplomas that are indistinguishable to the human eye. So what verifiable credentials do is basically putting a padlock on this data, similarly to how you see a padlock on a website and you know you can trust it 'cause it's secure. It's that same idea, but at the ID level, whether it's a degree. A license. Your actual Id like your driver's license and so on.  [00:19:41] Tim McCreight: Yep. I may get my doctor's eventually, is what you're saying. I could probably do that now. Is that the, yeah, I'm kidding. I'm kidding folks. I'm kidding.  [00:19:48] Ad Read: Let's take a quick break from the conversation to hear a word from our episode sponsor, Credivera. Verifiable credentials are an emerging web standard, helping to establish authenticity and [00:20:00] online interactions, something increasingly important in today's digital world, Credivera works with professional associations to support this shift. Through Credivera,  ASAE members have the ability to issue globally acceptable verifiable credentials, such as certifications to operate an ultrasound machine that members can use to verify employment qualifications, confirm ownership of a professional license or membership, and interact more securely and authentically with their association, employers and others in their industry. As digital verification becomes more essential, tools like these are playing a growing role in professional ecosystems in today's digital landscape. Ensuring trust and authenticity and professional interactions is more important than ever.   [00:20:49] David Coriale: So you just laid out a huge value proposition of this, which is if it's our best bet against that type of impersonation and credential theft. That's [00:21:00] a big value because people I'm sure are wondering at this point, what's the cost of implementing something like this for an organization?  [00:21:07] Elena Dumitrascu: It'ss actually not an issue. And I know sometimes with new technology, that is a big risky thing, but what the internet gods have done, specifically the worldwide web consortium, this is the governing body that governs a lot of things about the internet. They're the ones that brought. Another standard about a couple of decades ago called CSS that allows every webpage to look the same regardless of browser, right? The next standard that they've rolled out was one for verifiable credentials. So what that means is they can be embedded in existing technologies, or they can be products like the ones creative has called Creative Exchange can be hooked into existing a MS solutions or LMS solutions without. A huge cost, and for us, knowing who our customers are, cost was always top [00:22:00] of mind and wanted to make sure that we bring forward the solution that. Will not cost, will not be basically the item to prevent it from happening. Yeah. So it's scalable, it's supported by the internet. I think that's important to know. As more adoption grows, your organizations, the leverage verifiable credentials will not be locked in a format that's not interoperable. Those are really important things to know that even if you're making a decision now, that decision will be good for you even five, 10 years down the road.  [00:22:33] David Coriale: Understood. And cost in affordable are relative in, in terms of have the risk. On the other hand, which is something you, you're obviously dealing with caffeinated risk. Tim, that's kind of in your wheelhouses at risk is so great that not looking at these technologies seems to be. Foolish, at least to know what type of investment it is and what type of change management you have to put in place and so on. What [00:23:00] is the barrier for organizations to adopt this then? If it's not cost or, and maybe there is no barrier. I don't mean to make that assumption, but Yeah. Generally speaking, our community isn't first on the bus with new technologies. So as 501Cs we are a little more cautious and there are reasons for that. But what have some of the objections been besides cost then? Or how do you get it? Let's look at the positive way. How do you get this approved in your organization?  [00:23:23] Tim McCreight: I think how I would look at this is from, I would look at it from the risk lens first, and the reduction of risk facing, let's say an association that's granting, designations or certifications to its members, but wants to make sure that not only am I granting it to the individual who's demonstrated their skills, taken their examinations or work through the process, but that you can actually validate that credential to potential employers or your current employer, and the risk of reducing that validation process by what. As an example, what Credivera offers for verified credentials. What if I can, as an association, provide you an avenue to demonstrate to your current or [00:24:00] potential employers that the credential that you've received it isn't gonna be altered? It's valid. It demonstrates my skills in this one particular area. And at any time, you can come back as an employer and validate that my credential still exists, that I still have the capability to work within this. One area. I still have the skill sets to work on this technology. I've got the health and safety requirements to work on this job site. I can manage this piece of medical equipment. Or as you move further up, I am still a lawyer in good standing, and here's the states that I can operate within. I am a doctor in good standing across Canada, and here's my credentials from the Canadian Medical Association. That to me, would be fantastic because now what I can provide is a level of assurance through my association. That's a really big deal because now as someone presents their credentials, it can be validated and I can demonstrate that I am Tim. I have this credential. I can work in this environment. I have the skillset, or I have the ability to access this information. I. That's a huge benefit to any association, I would think if that's something that they're considering [00:25:00] and it's an opportunity to provide that as part of the membership benefit. If I'm gaining that credential or that membership on that association, wouldn't it be great to have that ability to come back and say, anytime you wish to validate my credential, this is how we do it.  [00:25:14] Tim McCreight: I feel like what's being pointed  out is how much we just rely on blind trust and a paper document and let me PDF my designation and send it to you. And we've seen it all. And unfortunately, like honest people being honest most of the time. But we've seen this, right? Like I remember not that long ago where we were doing background investigations for an organization I was chief security officer at, and we actually had a member of the board lie about their credentials. They sent in a like a bogus. Doctorate degree, and we're like, you didn't think we were actually going to go check? Wow. But can you imagine? All of a sudden I take away that kind of noise, right? If I say that I'm qualified to work a piece of equipment and I can demonstrate it and I have it and it's still valid, and I can go back and verify that Tim can actually operate this heavy equipment, because this is the credential that says you can. Terrific. That [00:26:00] takes so much time and takes a lot of risk out of the employment process and onboarding, et cetera. But now we can continually evaluate to make sure that Tim can still operate this piece of equipment, is still an engineer in good standing, still has the capability to do this type of work. It's because this process exists to validate that and to verify it.  [00:26:17] Elena Dumitrascu: And people are proud to have these designations. When I association, we also talk about member retention. How important that is, and any professional that holds designations is incredibly proud of those, and why not give those members something that proves beyond shadow of a doubt that I. They have actually done the hard work and the exams and hold that designation. Members love this and it's in their possession. I guess we haven't talked about some of the details around portability, but it's in their possession and they can choose to decide who sees it. When it gets presented, they as the individual can [00:27:00] revoke access from a third party. So let's say you're going to apply for a job and you just shared your license. But you don't get that job. You can now revoke access versus in today's world. You've given your stuff. You don't know what that recruiter or potential employer has done with that data afterwards. With this, you are in full control of this data. It's in your possession at all times, and as an association, you're really giving an incredible gift to your constituent by offering them this. And that's been the feedback that we've seen and the excitement from members that we've seen where it basically just spreads through the mouth like wildfire within a community. [00:27:41] Tim McCreight: Like I have three security credentials. I'm proud of all of them because honest to God, it took a lot of work and effort to get them. So I'm quite proud to have them. But to be able to demonstrate that I'm still a valid hold of their credential, I've demonstrated my subject matter expertise. I've continued to gather my continuing professional education credits. I can demonstrate that I'm still a member in good standing of all [00:28:00] three. That's important, right? For security professionals, at least in my world. And when I'm looking and. Have hired in the past. I look for those credentials as well, and I ask them to demonstrate it, that it's still valid. They've been accredited, they still have their designation, they're in good standing. This gives the member an opportunity to provide that. And to Elena's point, if I don't get the job or I'm no longer working for that employer, I can revoke that access to that credential so that I maintain. The confidentiality I maintain who gets access to my credential store. That's important, right? Especially when I look at it from a security perspective, is I'm giving the user now an opportunity to manage their own journey with their credentials.  [00:28:37] David Coriale: But you can see right after my name, right, I have my CAE and when that wasn't showing up on Zoom or wasn't showing up on teams, I sent in a ticket. Hey. To your point, I'm proud of that. Right, and I'm gonna keep it attached to my name and it's on all my badges. I wanna step away for one second from the association community, so to speak, because one of the things that we have issues with [00:29:00] period is identity theft. Applying for credit cards, opening up bank accounts. I saw an ad the other day for applying for a job from 1984 or something like that. I was going through something and it said, send your cover letter with your driver's license number, your social security number. The only thing missing was your mother's maiden name from this application for a job. To your point, you made me think of it because once you've sent that in, it's outta your hands. Just like now you go to the doctor's office, they ask for your social security number, so I don't know what you're doing with it when I'm done, because this gonna extrapolate into. Identity theft protection.  [00:29:35] Elena Dumitrascu: A hundred percent. There is an entire industry around digital identity built to support identity theft protection. But I'm gonna put a pin in it because I'm sure Tim has a lot to say about that.  [00:29:47] Tim McCreight: Yeah. Wouldn't it be amazing if I could actually reduce this type of fraud and if I was able to do it with the type of structure that's in place and what Ellen has been talking about as well, that's to us is what we're all looking for as strictly professionals. As you're right, David. It is [00:30:00] so easy now to impersonate somebody and you brought up. In context, one of the greatest examples that literally scares the hell out of us AI's taking over and is now interviewing for jobs. So now how do we do this? And by asking for your verified credentials and us validating who you are based on the credential story and being validated through the process that's in place, what Elena and her team have done as an example, that to me brings me solace. I actually can trust this now. So that video was that amazing. And yet when we asked them, can you, can we provide now your credentials so we can validate it? And the screen gets blank, I think we've done our job then. Yeah, that's what we're looking for, is to now all of a sudden, oh, can I get back to you? Oh, you know what, I'll, lemme just get back to you tomorrow and I'll be right. You'll hear whatever stall technique or tactic that they have. That to me is important because now we're putting in a control in place that you can't alter. So when you show me the cred, then I go and validate it. I know it's Tim and this is the work he's done. Here's his credentials, here's his certifications, here's his associations. More importantly, this is what he has to demonstrate [00:31:00] who he is. Terrific. As opposed to the screen getting blank now on a video or zoom interview, and they're not calling you back. This is gonna help because we have faced this for a decade or more. It's gotten worse these last few years. This is a great opportunity to start stemming some of that identity theft, identity fraud by putting these types of controls in place. Awesome.  [00:31:19] Elena Dumitrascu: And add on to that. When Tim is in a country across the globe, how are you gonna get his certificate to him? How are you gonna vet all of this? You may not even know all the laws in that country. So this technology also eliminates that problem. It provides that global mobility the minute that it's live, right? Where. You can issue in the same city or in a country across the globe with the same ease. And knowing that you're meeting the privacy, the security, the compliance rules of anywhere on the globe, because again, this is a global web standard, so how it gets implemented is meant [00:32:00] to align with all of those roles. And David. Speaking of your three letters, how great it would be if next to CAE was a little trust mark.  [00:32:10] David Coriale: Yeah, there will be. I'm confident there will be someday. Yeah.  [00:32:12] Elena Dumitrascu: Yeah. In Canada, all CAEs do have that trust Mark already. Speaking of implementations, it's been, I think live for them for the last three years, so if you do ever speak with a CAE that's been certified in Canada, they will have that trust mark. [00:32:28] I feel like what's being pointed  That's awesome. Yeah. We could talk about this for hours and we could come up with both the value side and the fear side of what we're dealing with. But what I want to close with is I'm an association. I'm not Put yourself in the position of an association exec who's running an organization, whether it be 300 or 30 staff, 5 million or $280 million budget. You are the chief staff officer. Who and what should you be asking in order to learn the applicability of this to your [00:33:00] organization? Internally, externally, profession, et cetera? Like what's your starting point?  [00:33:03] Elena Dumitrascu: From what I've seen, you have an internal sponsor. So taking Teos, their CIO was the initial internal sponsor. They built the case for why. Verifiable credentials make sense? Obviously they're an organization that supports the healthcare industry. Those credentials carry a lot of weight in that industry. So that's where it starts. You need that internal sponsor. Often it is a CIO or a chief credentialing officer. They build the story as to why it would make sense. And by the way, speaking of that story, when we talk about costs. We've done some analysis. It typically costs the entire verification and issuance around $3,000 per individual. With this, you're literally talking a micro fraction of that cost and you'd set it and forget it. That's another thing that we hear from our association customers. We just put it in place and then it just works.  [00:33:59] David Coriale: And just to be clear, you're talking [00:34:00] about like current state people verifying, putting papers around, copying, PDFing is like $3,000 per person. Yeah. Yeah. Versus, yeah.  [00:34:08] Elena Dumitrascu: Both the on of that number as well as the issuance, putting something in the mail to send to them, the phone calls they get, the online directories. They must maintain that. You have to make sure that a web scraper cannot hack your online directory. There's all sorts of things that cost money into today's process. On average comes to around 3000 per constituent. So yeah, so you build that business case and because associations are typically bored. Driven around these decisions. Board approval is important. Once board approval is accomplished, then it would be to engage with a vendor like Vera. We actually have a buyer's guide that I can make available to post with this podcast if folks are interested in that. Buyer's guide are all the things that you should be asking. It is new technology, and there [00:35:00] you should be asking some specific things and then implementation. If it's a standalone implementation, it can happen within a week if it's a complex implementation with multiple systems coming into the verifiable credential exchange. That could maybe go up to 60 days, but it's not a multi-year, super complex, super involved type rollout. [00:35:24] David Coriale: So that's one side. You've got a sponsor like Juan or whoever coming at you, the CIOs chief credentialing officer, et cetera. If you don't have that, Tim as the CEO or executive director, whatever, as the chief staff officer and you realize this could be applicable, who do you go to?  [00:35:39] Tim McCreight: So a couple things I was thinking of as Elena was walking through the process. So I had the honor of being the global president for a SS International in 2023. So I had a chance to work very closely with our administrative team, all who are members of ASAE and who many hold the CAE designation. And as we were working at how do we establish and continue to grow the brand of ASAS [00:36:00] International across the globe and build out the credentials that we had. A couple of things came to mind, particularly with some of the use cases that may be applicable here. I sat on the board and was the chair of the board as the president. So what I would look for at a board level is can you demonstrate the value proposition to the members? And I think you can. Particularly in some of the security associations, the three that I belong to, it's an opportunity to demonstrate the credential that it can be verified, that it can be managed by the credential holder, it can be revoked from particular areas you manage the direction of where you wanna provide your credential. What that does as well is it provides clarity on what that designation truly is. The work that I can do, the, the skill sets that I've acquired, et cetera. That becomes part of the value proposition for the members. And then finally, the member messaging is something you could use that includes, it's a verified credential. It is what's under a very strong security regime to ensure that it isn't altered. You can demonstrate it to employers to present your [00:37:00] credential, as opposed to, Hey, can you send me a photocopy of your CPP or your CISA, or et cetera? No. This way I can provide it to you as an employer. You can demonstrate that you've gone through the process of vetting me. I have my credentials. It applies in the onboarding for new employees. It applies for the hiring process, but also for the maintenance of an individual's career inside an organization. It can demonstrate how as a member, as I attain my credential in the company I work within, does that help me in my career path and to move into different positions? Absolutely. So there are benefits from a member's perspective. If I have a credential that's offered by an association, I can use this now as an opportunity to demonstrate my skills. My credential, it's verified. You can look at it here and now that takes over some of the guesswork. If I'm applying for a new role, a new position, or wanting to advance my career in my current organization, this helps me in that journey as a member of, as an example, ASIS or ISC squared RS. Awesome.  [00:37:57] David Coriale: Sometimes we talk about technology, and I don't mean this the way it sounds 'cause I don't [00:38:00] want to, I don't even wanna use the word trivial when I talk about technologies, right? Because everything has value to somebody. And that's what you're ending us here with Tim, is there's a value proposition for the chief staff officer to look at with the leadership team and then find the partner like Creda, who can then walk you through process and cost and value and risk reduction and so on. But some technologies aren't as impactful as others. Is the way I'm thinking about it and just what you've laid out is so impactful from a societal perspective, not just an individual perspective that I hope people come to the session at annual that look at the white paper, your members, the organization you are in the board with a SIS. Really get this out there into the conversation. It's not just about credentialing, it's about risk. So this is awesome. Thank you for sharing all of this. Thanks so much. I appreciate it. I think you've left us with a lot to think about, but also, [00:39:00] and I'm not afraid, I don't wanna use that word, but I'm concerned. So let's keep this conversation going,  [00:39:06] Elena Dumitrascu: David. If we roll back the clock to 20 years ago, nobody ever imagined how much we'd rely on digital interactions. Nobody really understood the value of email before email was in our lives. Nobody understood or thought about the value of exchanging data electronically and APIs before that became a thing and made things so much easier. But with all of that, we find ourselves in 2025 with. Being unsure if what we're looking at is real or not, because the internet has made us so easy to exchange this data. And also technology has made it so easy for bad actors to mess around with the data that we're looking at. So here we are in 2025. We know we can put the genie back in the bottle. We know that we've become dependent on this. Like I need instant access to this information. That's a fact. But what we're talking about [00:40:00] here today is. What the next generation of the internet really needs to be, and we're just starting that path, going down that path to just put our minds at ease, that what we are looking at is actually real and verifiable. Credentials aren't just for associations and information about a person, everything. They're similar projects in every industry, whether it's supply chain or legal industry, to confirm that a business is a business to confirm that when you travel, that a passport is a passport. Like all of these things that we now love so much to do electronically, they're all going down the path of introducing verifiable credentials to make sure that. With the ease of doing everything. Digital comes the peace of mind that, hey, what I'm looking at is real. I don't have to worry about it. Right. And so that's really the moment in time where we find ourselves in 2025 and we should see a lot more [00:41:00] of this to the point where it will be trivial. We won't talk about it anymore. It'll be like that. Of course. I can trust it.  [00:41:05] David Coriale: That would be awesome. And I think we should do two things. One, we should just to end on here, we should. Meet at annual in 3D to make sure we both are real. And Tim, if you're gonna be there, we'll see you too. So the three of us can get a 3D non cardboard cutout picture together. And then two, I hope we revisit this, either reboot it here or somewhere in 2026 and see what a year has brought us. So thank you again for sharing. We could talk about this probably for two days straight, but we will, we'll meet at annual and again next year and we'll see where we are. Thanks again. Thank you. [00:41:37] Elena Dumitrascu: Thank you.  [00:41:37] David Coriale: Thanks everyone for listening to this episode of Association Now Presents. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals. Discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today and highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy, the US and the world. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite [00:42:00] podcast. And for more information on this topic, visit associations now online at associationsnow.com. Thank you.

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Aaron Wolowiec, FASAE, CAE, CMP Fellow, founder and president of Event Garde and host of the Voices & Views podcast, chats with Tara Davis, senior director, internal communications and staff wellbeing at the American Psychological Association, about the growing importance of wellness in high-stress industries like associations and hospitality. Tara shares how APA is fostering a culture of care through initiatives like the "Meet with Purpose" campaign, and discusses key strategies for preventing burnout, supporting mental health, and building intentional connections among staff. This insightful conversation explores emerging wellness trends and how prioritizing employee wellbeing can drive both personal and organizational success. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/IvPlhKGgtiw This episode is sponsored by Visit Orlando. Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript Aaron Wolowiec: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to this month's episode of Associations Now Presents. We'd like to extend a special thank you to this episode sponsor. Visit Orlando. I am Erin Wallic, founder and president of Event Card, where we're passionate about transforming to help organizations meet, learn, plan, and grow. I'm also honored to be a newly inducted member of the 2025 Class of A SAE Fellows, an incredible community of change makers and thought leaders in the association space at Event Guard. We're known for helping associations elevate their meetings and learning experiences, reimagine facilitation practices, and navigate meaningful strategic planning. But today, I'm here not just as a. Facilitator or strategist, but as the founder of Healthy By Association, a wellness focused community, I launched back in 2017 to support those of us working in the often high stress world of associations and hospitality. That's why this conversation is especially close to my heart. Today's [00:01:00] episode takes a deep dive into what wellness really looks like in association life beyond the buzzwords. We're talking about burnout, prevention, mental health, flexible work, and what it means to build a culture of care that supports both staff and members. Joining me is someone who lives and breathes this work. Tara Davis, senior Director of Internal Communications and Staff Wellbeing at the American Psychological Association. Tara brings more than 15 years of experience in using psychological science and strategic communication to build healthier, more human centered workplaces. Her work sits at the intersection of empathy. Evidence and action, and I can't wait for you to hear her insights, whether you're a CEO, trying to prevent staff burnout, an events professional considering wellness lounges and quiet rooms, or just an overwhelmed association pro Wondering if it's okay to take a real lunch break. This episode is for you. Alright, let's get into it. Welcome again, Tara. We're gonna certainly start the conversation today from a big picture [00:02:00] perspective, and I would love to just define a key term before we get into it. When you think about wellness, I'm curious, what does wellness mean to you within the context of association life today? Tara Davis: First of all, thank you so much for inviting me to be here. I am so excited about this opportunity and to talk about something I'm very passionate about. So thank you. So I like to focus on the term wellbeing rather than wellness. It seems a little bit of a wordsmithing, but. Wellness to me implies either you're well or you're not. And it is like one end of the spectrum or the other. And in reality, wellbeing is a spectrum, right? And it's a state of being healthy and happy. And there are lots of different types of wellbeing. There's financial, there's social, there's intellectual, and I think that. It's important to focus on this holistic wellbeing. It used to be [00:03:00] that people thought about it really as just your physical health, and then I think we evolved a little bit to consider your mental health, but it's so much more. It's this connection of your mind and your body and how you really are doing. When someone asks you.  Aaron Wolowiec: I love that there are so many different dimensions of wellbeing and they don't always get talked about in all of the places at home or in the workplace, in school, in our church, or volunteer opportunities either. I'm curious. How you think expectations around workplace wellbeing have changed for association professionals over the last few years? Has it been just as a result of the pandemic or have other factors really been at play?  Tara Davis: That's such a good question and so perfect. 'cause my dog is barking, so if you hear that, I apologize. That is a symptom of this work life just coming mixed together and not being suffered anymore. But yeah, I [00:04:00] think that some organizations were thinking about wellbeing in the workplace long before it was trendy, and I feel very lucky to be in an organization like that. APA, the American Psychological Association has had an office. Dedicated to employee wellbeing since I think 2003 and being a leading mental health organization. That makes sense, right? You can't expect to be talking about mental health in society and with other organizations, and so in my mind, you can't really separate wellbeing from workplace initiatives and from deadlines and priorities. All of that is intertwined with that. Isn't always the case. And I think one, I don't think you can really say a silver lining of the pandemic. One result of the pandemic that is positive is that more employers have been paying attention to mental health in the workplace because I think there was such a decline in the mental health of our country. We really facing a mental health. [00:05:00] epidemic as well. The other thing is not only is it about organizations paying attention, but also employees started expecting it. So it's no longer this nice to have, oh, I'm a feel good company 'cause I care about my employees. It's now a business imperative and I think that less people are having to prove the business case to their employers. And I've also noticed that a lot of these initiatives used to exist solely in HR and it maybe it was a tiny part of an HR employee's job, but now there are positions and teams dedicated to it in my situation, and I think that's a really beautiful thing, showing the priority and the importance that it really is for our organizations and employees' success. Aaron Wolowiec: And I want people who are listening today to not immediately get turned off by thinking, oh, we're not as large as, we don't have a department dedicated to health and wellbeing like  [00:06:00] APA does. Certainly throughout the episode today, we're gonna be talking about different ways to come at health and wellness, no matter your size, whether really you're a. Solopreneur working as a consultant within the industry, or maybe a small staff or medium staff, or a large staff organization. So before we get into those tips and tricks, let's start with fundamentally, what are some of the key elements of a workplace culture that truly prioritizes while being no matter the size of the organization? Tara Davis: I love that question because yes, we do have an office dedicated, and so in terms of resources and budget, but it's really only two of us, two and a half I should say, as I have a member of my team who support some other work in the organization. Don't think that we have 20 folks dedicated to this. We have about 550 employees and there are two and a half of us who are really focused on creating a healthy workplace. And so in addition to that, I wanna quickly. Note something that is part of what you're already doing, that you can [00:07:00] just think about differently or message differently, or your intention can be a bit different or it's free. Just wanna quickly say that. So have no fear, don't worry. We don't have a large budget or even a large team. So back to what are these key elements? This is something I've been doing for a while and there are different models that have come around of. What it really looks like to prioritize wellbeing in the workplace. And what I love is our former surgeon general, Dr. Vik Murthy, came up with a framework for mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. And some psychologists from a PA actually co-created this with the surgeon general's office, so you can look it up if you just Google a surgeon general model for wellbeing, it'll come up and it has these. Five dimensions of things that the research has shown. These things lead to a healthy workplace. If you focus on these things, you have the outcomes that you're looking for in terms [00:08:00] of your people and your organization. So one is. Connection and community, and we know that loneliness is rampant right now, and we also know that it's really important for our mental health and wellbeing to be connected to others connection and community. What I love about this model is each of these things are rooted in. Human needs, two, human needs for each dimension. And these needs are consistent across demographics, across type of work, job level, all of these things. And so first is connection and community. So it's rooted in the need for social support and belonging, which is very important right now. Belonging is very important in the workplace. And the next one is protection from harm. And that's rooted in the need for. Safety and security. So we mean physical safety, of course. We also mean psychological safety. Then there's mattering at work. That's the third dimension, and that is rooted in the need for dignity [00:09:00] and the need for meaning, which obviously purpose goes along with those. Right now we are spending a lot of time trying to focus on how do you help people find meaning in their work? How do you show their connection to the greater impact of an organization? And then the fourth one is work life harmony. So I joked about my dog. He had this term work life balance before, which was a joke. Things were never even on the scales. And so now it's like, how can you make these things not be at odds with each other in this gray world of work life? And so those are rooted in the needs for autonomy. I. Flexibility. And so what that means is like someone providing options for how, when and where someone works, when you can, obviously there are parameters, and then giving them the autonomy to say, this is what works best for me. And then the last one is an opportunity for growth. And that is rooted in the need for accomplishment and the need for learning. And what I love about this [00:10:00] model is they're all surrounding this foundation of employee voices. And so at our organization, the strategy that we use is we listen to psychological science. So what does the research say? What does it say about people being engaged or happy at work? And then we listen to our employees. So you can't really just take the science and plop it in, right? We listen to our employees about what they need, and that changes day to day, and we evolve. So those are elements that really make up a healthy workplace that is prioritizing the wellbeing of its employees. Aaron Wolowiec: And we're gonna talk about this a little bit later in the episode today, and thinking about how even those five dimensions might also extend to members, the greater community within your industry, and thinking about how, what does that look like within the context of your organization or your field, I think could be a really helpful activity for your team to think about, consider at a future meeting [00:11:00] or retreat or a strategic planning opportunity to think about. Given the ideas that we're gonna share today, how might you customize, adapt, or adopt that for your context? Two, all of these five things are so interesting and seem both obvious, but also deep, right? If you could go deep in each one of them, but two things that you said that really stood out to me first is work life harmony. I love hearing that readdressed or reimagined in a slightly different way because I think we, you're right, we all know that there's no such thing as work life. Balance. Certainly I've not experienced that and I think that when we set that up on a pedestal, something we're supposed to, we're trying to achieve, it probably sets us up for failure in the long run. The other thing that you mentioned that just really stood out to me was this need for, and probably no surprise that you started with it. Connection and community, right? Yeah. Both in terms of us as. Staff members, but also in terms of our members, our attendees, in terms of [00:12:00] thinking about what associations were created for. I've been in the event industry for a very long time, and think about all the meetings and events that we plan for our members, for our attendees, for our industries. Really, there are two primary goals that we're doing that for. One is for learning and one is for networking, community building connection. And we can't ever forget that. It's not always just about the education, but it is about convening people and certainly in this post-pandemic environment. I think that for many organizations and for many events, it's almost like the scale has tipped more toward the side of community. And connection than it has even necessarily towards learning and education because you can find so much of that really good content online these days. Tara Davis: Absolutely, you're totally speaking my language. One of my favorite studies is the Harvard Longitudinal Study, and they basically followed these men over, I think the CR 75 years, and they wanted to find [00:13:00] out what truly determines how long you live. And they took into account their genetics and their physical health habits and their eating and all the things. And what they found in this study is that the thing that determines how long and how well you live is if you have. Strong community, and by that they meant it. You don't need 20 friends, you don't need a million Facebook or social media connections. It's really, do you have one person that you can confide in and that you can trust? That is what determines how long you live. What an incredible thing. I could talk about connection forever because it's so interesting. We know that. And also what's true is in the pandemic we got. Being lonely. We know we need connection. We crave it, but then we all stay comfortable in our homes just doing what we always do. And so one thing I've learned especially about work, both at our convention, for our association, and also internally. [00:14:00] Is that connection really has to be intentional, and I think that is a big shift that has happened through the pandemic and hybrid work and remote work. It requires a lot more intentionality, but I think that it can still be done beautifully. Aaron Wolowiec: It's like a huge takeaway I think, for folks today, is that I think that over the years, particularly for folks who have been in this industry of association management for a while, connection community was almost a byproduct. If you convened people. Obviously connection or community happened, right? I think we're beginning to challenge that notion, and I think to your point, recognizing the intention that needs to go behind it in order to create connection and community more intentionally. Tara Davis: Absolutely. We joke at our organization that folks, we forgot how to interact or talk to each other because of the pandemic. And at our convention, I lead attendee engagement for APAs convention. And years ago, pre pandemic, we would have this space that was like a [00:15:00] newbie lounge and really for new folks. And then the pandemic hits. We didn't have it for a year or two. And now we're back obviously, and we have decided everyone's new. Because we have lost social skills, we have to be a lot more intentional about community. It doesn't just naturally happen. So we created this lounge area called The Gathering Place, and the whole point is to connect with each other, connect with the convention, and connect with the field of psychology. And it's a space for everyone to feel welcome to exchange ideas and to learn and to grow. And so I completely agree. I. Kind of was something I think we took for granted and now it, it's so important, but it requires a bit more thought and intention.  Aaron Wolowiec: And speaking about event attendees and the industry at large, members at large, if you will, what role do you think associations can play in normalizing conversations around mental health within their professional communities? Tara Davis: Oh, that's such a great question. I think that. [00:16:00] Wherever leaders can model the way that is so impactful. Vulnerability is one of the most important qualities of a leader, especially if they're willing to share their mental health journey. Now, you don't have to obviously talk about a diagnosis or anything too personal, but even sharing that you take part in, in therapy or mental health. Services. That is huge. Even APA is. A leading mental health organization and there are employees that we have, and I'm sure members as well who maybe even they're a mental health professional and they would be concerned about someone knowing that they are seeking mental health services, which is wild, right? But. There has been a stigma for so long, and so what I love is when people talk about how therapy isn't just for when something has gone wrong. We had [00:17:00] this NFL player, he spoke at our convention a few years ago and someone asked him, why do you have to go to therapy? What is wrong that makes you seek mental health services? And he said. What's wrong? Are you kidding me? Therapy is what helps me perform at my best. I don't need to go, I don't have to go. I choose to go. 'cause it gives me an edge on my competition. It helps me learn about myself. And because of that, I'm my best version of myself. And we talk about that at APA. Some of our psychologists have written things for our internal communications or shared videos where they share, yes, of course, if things are hard and spiraling. Seek it out. But also if things are going well, seek it out. Because then when things go wrong, as they will, you are more equipped. You've cultivated this resource toolkit to really put your wellbeing, your mental health in a good place for when bad things do happen. So I think just how [00:18:00] we talk about it is a really helpful thing. And then I also just think finding out what barriers might exist to accessing. Mental health services or benefits and remove any that you can. And when we talk about it with our employees, when we talk about our employee assistance program, we actually share, did you know they'll help you find a daycare for your kids? Did you know they'll help you find a vacation spot? Yes. They're actually there to provide mental health services, but they provide these extra things because it's like an easy step, like an easy gateway into seeking deeper help and guidance. And so I think talking about it and really just normalizing it, that it's part of our lives. We don't think twice about going to the doctor to get a physical each year. We don't just go to the doctor. If our arm is broken, we go and we do preventative. Things. And so why aren't we thinking about our mental health in the same way? [00:19:00]  Ad Read: Let's pause there for a moment because I think the assertion you just made is, uh, one that I just wanna remind folks about. Just making your annual appointments, like having, um, your annual physical going to the dentist two times a year, having your annual. Mammogram. I just turned 45 this year and my doctor said, guess what? At a younger age. Now at 45, they're encouraging folks to get their first colonoscopy. And so I just scheduled that appointment even though I didn't want to. And so I think pivoting from sort of members in the industry, back to staff, starting foundationally with just some of the basic annual things, annual skin check, for example, just the annual things that you can do to make sure that you're in your best peak self and that you're performing at your best, I think is important. Let's take a quick break from the conversation for a word from our episode sponsor. Visit Orlando today. We're showcasing why Orlando is an unbelievably real destination for your next meeting. This award-winning [00:20:00] destination offers planners the world-class accommodations. Venues dining and entertainment needed to create memorable and well-attended events of any size. In Orlando, you will discover sunny weather, a state-of-the-art convention center within a vibrant convention district. Michelin recognized dining and legendary theme parks. Ready to host your groups. You will experience the destination's unmatched commitment to service as you plan your Orlando event with ease. To start planning your Orlando event, go to Orlando meeting.com. One of the other things I wanted to touch on is burnout. I pulled up to remind myself of a great book if folks haven't read it. Burnout the secret to unlocking the stress cycle. It is a must read for anyone who is dealing with or knows somebody who's dealing with burnout. 'cause I think it does unlock so many secrets and unknowns about what you're navigating and experiencing if you don't fully know and understand. But I wanted to [00:21:00] ask you, as you think about. Practical ways your organization has supported staff mental health, but in particular shining a spotlight on burnout? Tara Davis: Yeah, absolutely. I think that, I consider burnout has evolved. I've certainly been burnout. I think most of us have varying degrees, and I think that there is this. Okay, get the mental health apps like go to therapy, which is good. I'm not saying it's not, what can the individual do, which is great. You should have some responsibility and initiative in that. But also, what is our organization doing? To prevent burnout, and so that is where I have been really thinking is I think how we think about burnout and how we think about workplace wellbeing even really has to evolve. It's not just like throwing a bandaid on, like when you asked me what are elements of an organization that [00:22:00] prioritizes wellbeing, I didn't say a weekly yoga class or meditation, or even I didn't say. Providing mental health benefits, which of course I believe in. It's about the systems and the policies. Are we setting our employees up for success? So broadly, what it looks like. For me is treating our employees as whole humans, complex humans with varying roles and responsibilities that might change day to day. And understanding that there are all these different pieces to people, right? It's not, okay, I'm producing this one thing, like you can't separate these things out. And the ways that we've tried to shift our culture, we really listen to our employees, which I mentioned before, and so one example. Is when we went remote during the pandemic, most of our organization was not familiar with having remote work. And all of a sudden we had a million video calls, video meetings, [00:23:00] all day, every day. I think most people in associations can relate to that. Right? And we periodically check in with our employees and ask them, how are you doing? We ask about their stress levels and they said, I'm really stressed out because of our meetings. And we're like. Oh, okay. Didn't really realize meetings could be that stressful. And then we started digging deeper and digging deeper. And there is a lot of science around healthy meetings and it's a lot more complex than I think we thought it was pre-pandemic. And so we started carving out from the science what behaviors that we would want our employees to engage in order to create a healthier meeting culture. Based on what the science says based on our culture and context. And so we created this campaign called Meet with Purpose, and we have I think four phases so far. And each phase has a dedicated three behaviors [00:24:00] that we expect our staff to engage in to try out. So the first woman started very basic. We said, okay, the science says that being on calls nonstop all day long isn't good for you. We were used to transition time. We were used to like being able to walk down the hall and get a glass of water before we went to our next meeting. I. We're gonna say that all of our meetings have to end 10 minutes or five minutes before the end of the hour, and we even encouraged our employees to change their outlook settings to do that so that you have that transition time if you're in back-to-back meetings. We also said that you should have. An agenda of course, which we knew, but we also encouraged our employees. A, you can't set a meeting unless you have an agenda in the meeting invite. And B, you should try and phrase your agenda as questions. 'cause you can go on and on about a topic, but if you have a question that you're trying to answer that it might be easier to move on to the next agenda item to keep in the parameters [00:25:00] of your timeframe. So the behavior we focused on that I've loved and meet with purpose is really around video calls and there is a lot of research and it is mixed as a lot of research is, but around. Is it healthy to be on video calls? It's certainly not healthy to be on them all day. We know that is true, but it's complex. It can be more detrimental to be on video calls for minorities, for women, for new employees. I don't know about y'all, but a lot of the time I'm like looking at myself view and being incredibly critical, and so it's a lot more complex than just, oh, we used to meet in person, so now we have video calls. No, that's actually not the way to do it. And so this Meet with Purpose campaign really shifted our meeting culture and addressed burnout. Just a couple other things. I know I like talked about that a lot. So just a couple other quick things I wanna mention is that. If we see our employees [00:26:00] as whole people, then we understand that when things happen outside of the workplace, whether it's virtual, hybrid in person, that it affects them. For instance, when George Floyd was murdered, we had a conversation with our staff and it was open. We had our CEO and deputy CEO on there and our different psychologists as well to just. Talk about what happened and to talk about how we were feeling. We did the same thing after election day and understanding that what is happening out there, it's not separate. It's all one thing. And helping our employees navigate life really. And then I also will say, and the, I think be more opportunities to talk about this, but our internal communications has evolved drastically to really address our employees as. As whole people and to try and hit the different areas of wellbeing. Aaron Wolowiec: And you've talked about so many great tactics, tools, approaches that you've taken with the team. I'm curious if there [00:27:00] are ways that you either intentionally or unintentionally or formally or informally measure ROI or how do you know that the two and a half staff that you have dedicated to this role is having a meaningful impact on your team? Tara Davis: So for us, it's a combination of the research that other organizations are doing, and then our internal data. So we measure the things that are shown to be indicators of organizational success, such as happiness, low stress, job satisfaction, and purpose. And then we see how efforts in those areas impact the things that we care about. And so we measure. Those things at least once a year, and we compare over years to ourselves, plus to other workplaces, to we compare to similar organizations. We also have an external survey called Work in America Survey, and we can compare our data to other [00:28:00] organizations across the nation. And for us, it's not a. Annual survey. We do that for sure so that we can compare results, but we also measure after every major initiative we measure after every event. And it's mainly around the things that have been shown in the research to be indicators of organizational success. Along with the employee wellbeing, so happiness, low stress, job satisfaction, and purpose. And there's actually a really great study recently that looked at these things. It was done by Indeed, and they basically set out to find out is there actual return on investment when it comes to productivity, talent acquisition, and retention, as well as. Like an organization's financial success, and they were able to measure all of those things in terms of productivity. They asked people how happy they felt, and when you compared the people who had the frowny face with the people who had [00:29:00] the happy face, there was a difference of 12% increase in sales. If you were happy, then you had 12% more in sales than someone who was unhappy. That shows that pouring into employee wellbeing and happiness does lead to greater productivity. They also found that a higher wellbeing score met you, get more job applicants and particularly the applicants that you want, and then they looked at retention. So companies with higher wellbeing had lower staff turnover, and in terms of numbers, if you have a higher wellbeing, then you're losing one third less of your people each year. And then of course, they looked at, okay, what about the company itself and its financial gains, or how it's doing in the stock market? And they found that greater employee wellbeing is tied to higher company valuation, higher return on assets and greater profits. For four years. [00:30:00] So they said that the results that you're seeing were predictive of organizational success for up to four years later. And so, uh, I think it's fascinating that it has evolved from this thing that just felt touchy, feely, soft, if you will, to something that we actually can measure. And there is so much research backing up that it's, yes, it's good for the employees and their wellbeing, but now it is a business imperative that organizations thrive when you do these efforts as well. Aaron Wolowiec: As we prepare to wind down this conversation today, look, I could talk to you for hours because you are clearly just a wealth of information. But as we prepare to lay on the plane, I'm just curious about a couple of things as we look to the future. One is, what trends do you see on the horizon in an industry like health, wellness, wellbeing that seems to be changing so rapidly? What should we expect to see in the next maybe one [00:31:00] to two years?  Tara Davis: Definitely a focus on the whole person, not just what they produce as an employee, so a more holistic wellbeing approach. Also, a focus on cultivating leaders. A lot of CEOs prioritize wellbeing and then it drops off at the mid-manager level. I saw a striking statistic recently that 85% of managers are. People, leaders on accident, so they actually don't have formal training on leading people. They are good at a skill. Along with that research, there's research showing that managers are as important for an employee's wellbeing as their spouse or partner and as their therapist. So you have these managers, these people, leaders who are having an impact on their employees, good or bad, but they're not being trained on, you can't just expect them to be a good human. It's a difficult thing to manage these conversations that [00:32:00] you have to have parameters, you have to have boundaries, but you also know that caring about them as a human will lead to greater success. So I think really cultivating leaders. And finally this shift that I mentioned to not just adding a class here or there, there's a joke that, you know, one of the worst things you can do for stress, someone who's stressed out, is to offer them a three hour stress management class. Like it's not a program or a class. It's about rethink. Thinking how our businesses and organizations operate. So we need systemic change around wellness, not just bandaids here and there, and Meet With Purpose is an example of that. We could have just had a webinar on how to run a good meeting, but instead we had this initiative that spanned years and focused on how the organization could set employees up for success. So I think those are some of the things that I'm certainly paying attention to and I hope others [00:33:00] will be as well.  Aaron Wolowiec: We premised that no matter where folks are joining us today, whether a solopreneur, a small practice, a small organization, or anywhere in between, including medium and large size, that we would give folks an example of a good first step. For folks who are feeling a little overwhelmed by the conversation today and not quite knowing where to start, where would you point them?  Tara Davis: So first, please don't be overwhelmed. I clearly love this area so much and you can reach out to me and I would love to have a conversation with you tangibly ask your employees what they need, right? Like, why are we trying to get, we're not fortune tellers? Ask them if you could, if we could do one thing to improve your workplace experience, small or big, what would it be? That would be so telling. Create an anonymous form and see what they say. And then if that doesn't really get elicit responses, people maybe are afraid. Have conversations about what is stressing people out at work and think about your culture. Would it be [00:34:00] better for teams to have these conversations than to do a survey, but asking people. What is stressing you out? What makes you dread coming to work? And finally, one of the beautiful things for me that came out of the pandemic is we pilot things all the time. Just because you start something doesn't mean you have to commit to doing it for two years, five years. You say it's a pilot. We're seeing what happens. We're seeing how your needs evolve. We're seeing how the organization's needs evolve, and you try it out and hopefully you fail at some point because that's like building psychological safety. And from failure comes innovation. But don't be afraid to try things and they can be very small things. We ask our employees, if we could do one thing to improve your workplace experience, what would it be? And. Some of them were very small things that I could change and make someone's day, and those are some of the things to think about, but I would love to have a conversation with you. Don't feel overwhelmed. You are [00:35:00] starting with trying to do good and you'll get there.  Aaron Wolowiec: Awesome. Last question for you today, Tara. Finish this sentence. Associations that prioritize wellness will what?  Tara Davis: We'll have greater financial success and reputation while also making the world a healthier, happier place when we need it the most. Aaron Wolowiec: Awesome. Thank you so much for spending time with us today.  Tara Davis: Thank you. I've loved this conversation with you,  Aaron Wolowiec: and that's a wrap on today's conversation. Huge thanks to Tara Davis for sharing her wisdom, practical strategies, and heartfelt perspective on what it really means to lead with wellness in mind. And again, we'd like to thank our episode sponsor Visit Orlando. If this episode reminded you that you matter, that your wellbeing, your boundaries, your energy are worth protecting, then I hope you'll carry that with you because when we create environments where people feel seen, supported, and [00:36:00] safe to bring their whole selves to work, we don't just imp. Prove morale. We build stronger, more resilient organizations. This isn't just about stress falls and step challenges. It's about embedding care into our culture, our policies, and the way we show up for one another, whether we're leading teams, planning conferences, or supporting members through tough times. If you are looking for more tools and inspiration, check out Healthy By Association a community. I started to support association and hospitality professionals on their wellness journeys. And as always, you can learn more about our [email protected]. Thank you for listening and for everything you're doing to make your workplace in this profession just a little more human. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And for more information on wellness in today's association environment, visit associations now online atassociationsnow.com. Until next time, be well and take care of one [00:37:00] another.

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Christine Shaw of The Association Adviser Podcast sits down with Mike Moss, CAE, president of the Society for College and University Planning, for an insightful conversation on the shifting dynamics of career development in the association space. They explore the growing demand for purpose-driven work, the realities of hybrid and remote models, and how associations can foster meaningful engagement in a digital world. Mike shares strategies for building intentional connections, promoting continuous learning, and creating psychologically safe workplaces. The discussion also touches on transparent hiring, value-based leadership, and how associations can remain agile by rethinking professional development and evolving their strategic plans to meet today’s challenges. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/4DxGN5NMarQ   This episode is sponsored by Visit Omaha and New Orleans & Company. Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript   Christine Shaw: [00:00:00] Welcome to episode nine of Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Christine Shaw, CEO of Naylor Association Solutions. You probably heard me on my podcast, the Association Advisor. However, today I'm honored to host this episode for the ASAE. Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment to thank our episode sponsor, visit Omaha. For today's episode, we're excited to talk to Mike Moss, president of the Society for College and University, planning about the evolving landscape of career development within the association space, and what professionals can expect in the year ahead. Welcome to the show, Mike.  Mike Moss, CAE: Thank you very much for having me and looking forward to our conversation.  Christine Shaw: Fantastic. Well, let's just dig right in and start with the big picture. How is career development evolving in the association world and what makes this moment particularly pivotal?  Mike Moss, CAE: Yeah, and it's the right [00:01:00] question to start with because I think from our perspective at SC and also mine as a 34 year practitioner in the space is we're shifting from a linear to a kind of a multi-directional career path. As I came up through the industry, it was a pretty logical progression for me in operations between being an assistant to a manager, to a director, but pretty much all within the same discipline as I was given opportunities, maybe different associations. I. The directional was pretty linear, and what I really appreciate where we're going as an industry now is that we do have multiple directional paths, meaning I can do a bunch of different things at my association or require a bunch of different skill sets over time, and the association can be committed to me to develop those skills. I do not have to come on entry with. All the skill sets to be a generalist. I can come in with specific skill sets, develop competencies in certain areas, and then have another opportunity to explore different career paths. And I do think what that's been driven by, and you'll hear me talk about this a lot, probably today, which is I do think our employment base is [00:02:00] beautifully shifting to being purpose driven. And that's why they're attracted to our sector is they're here to serve and they realize that the service is going to change as tech changes needs change, service requirements change, funding change. I. And I think that this next batch of association employees really get the purpose-driven association. Christine Shaw: Mike, I agree with you on the purpose driven. That's one of the reasons too. A lot of people, myself included, are drawn to this space. I liked what you said though, that you don't necessarily have to have all the skills 'cause they'll be developed. And I think sometimes people hold themselves back because they think they need to have all the skills. So that's very encouraging coming from someone like you who's reached to the top position and letting people know that we're here to develop your career along the way. Let's talk about a tricky subject now, right. Nothing's gotten more attention than remote and hybrid work. They've become very common across many industries. So talk to me about how associations are adapting to this shift and what challenges or opportunities does it present for talent [00:03:00] development?  Mike Moss, CAE: Yeah, and I, what I'll do here intentionally is avoid the generational trap. I know this is a pod, so people not, may not be able to see me, but after working for 34 years, you can imagine I'm not in my twenties. I came up in a different type of environment than what we're offering now. The hybrid remote, and my organization is hybrid remote, meaning everybody in the central office location of Ann Arbor is hybrid. We also have employees coast to coast. So we have a beautiful mix and I think some of the challenges that we've experienced that may probably translate to other listeners is that there has to be a real intentional connection process. You can't just assume people are checking in with one another just to check on the weekend. All that proverbial water cooler talk can be very challenging. And I think we've really experimented with different types of setups. And the one that's worked the best for us is we do have a twice a month purposeful presence meeting. It's called a P two because every abbreviated, so the Purposeful Presence meetings are. Obviously partly a staff meeting, but they're also mostly a social and it's a chance to [00:04:00] guarantee that at a minimum eight hours a month, 'cause they're both four hour meetings. We're having the chance to connect as humans who happen to work at Skype and making sure that we have that social opportunity. And that's proven to be real helpful to make people, especially if they're new and remote and not in the hybrid environment that we have. Ann Arbor, it can be a lot longer tail to get. Ingrained into the social movements of the organization. So I appreciate that. And I also think one of the things that's really important, and it goes to what we just talked about where we're heading, is digital fluency is really important. Obviously you and I are connecting today through Digital Medium and my remote employees, and I see each other three to four times a year in person. Otherwise, it's all digital and being able to manage that digital fluency, not just to open software and use it, but know which software you're using, what tools come with it, what are you endeavoring to do in that meeting? Does take training, and I think oftentimes we just assume if it's a icon on a desktop. The person will figure it out. And I would encourage all of us as employers to recognize training is one of the biggest outcomes of the hybrid remote work [00:05:00] environment training, the culture training, how the digital fluency will work in your organization, and being real honest about what's not working, and having those channels provided for feedback from everyone, not just your hybrid folks or your remote folks, but from everyone. Christine Shaw: I like what you said. A couple big takeaways is one, don't put age bias into it one way or the other. I think that helps a lot. I love what you're saying about digital fluency, because I think you're right. Everyone adapts to technology and digital differently, but ensuring that there's alignment on the tools and the training. It's really key to making this work. And also the fact that you pointed out that some of your intentional in-person meetings are about social, not just work because that's how you get to know people and create those relationships. So well done that. Those are some good takeaways for all leaders to lean into. And I hadn't really heard the digital as long as we've been doing this, the digital fluency aspect. So that to me is a real key one. And I guess this really goes right into the next [00:06:00] topic, which is culture. We all know. The saying, culture eats strategy for breakfast. Right? So it plays a significant role in career satisfaction, employee retention. Tell me from your point of view and your experience, what does a healthy growth-oriented workplace culture look like? Especially in today's digital hybrid world and specific in the association space today.  Mike Moss, CAE: It's a great question. So I'm gonna start by saying it took me 34 years to get this terminology understood. And it's everywhere. There's amazing organizations that run this discipline and that is being a learning centric organization. In being learning centric, it is really hard, at least it has been for me as a leader. It has been really hard to get this going and I'm still learning every day. And the simplistic side of being learning centric, which would is the cornerstone of our culture, which is you do something, you reflect on it, and then you do it differently. And while that may imply I work in a silo, it may imply I worked in a team. It all has to imply that you're learning every day to do something in service differently. And to me, that's what's driving the [00:07:00] collaboration at sc. And so we can say all day long that we have a cultural collaboration, but if we haven't enabled that with a systemic approach that is in our job descriptions, it's a systemic approach that is in our daily expectations. And we talk about it at every P two meeting we have is what did we learn to reflect on? 'cause not everything requires reflection, but what are we gonna do differently so that we can continue to move forward with our members? Who at times are moving a lot faster than we are. And at other times they're looking for us to model how to move forward. So I think that's the culture piece I would offer is with learning centricity comes psychological safety. It needs to be a place where when I do my reflection, I feel okay in front of all my colleagues that what I'm gonna say is my reflection. It may not be a truth to everyone, but there's where we can collaborate and work together to make refinement. And so I found that to be really helpful for us and also always reminding that we're mission centered. I know as nonprofits and especially as associations, man, we're all about that. But oftentimes we forget to remind ourselves that we're all about that. There's so many things coming at us [00:08:00] so fast all the time that recentering ourselves to be learning centric around our mission Obligations can be a real strong way to make sure we're aligned appropriately, resourcing appropriately, training talent, all those things. So I do think for us, and what I would advocate is look into that learning centric organizational design. It's been really. I wouldn't say magical, but pretty close for us. Yes, we've transitioned out of the pandemic.  Christine Shaw: Yeah. That really resonates for a few reasons. Just this morning we talked about how to think, exercise and go away and reflect. 'cause if you do the same thing over and expect a different result, we all know. So I love that. And attaching that to psychological safety because I think oftentimes people. Operate from a place of fear. What if what I say is not the right thing or I'm gonna be judged, but offering that psychological safety is critical as well. Mike Moss, CAE: Christine, if I may, I wanna build on that. What you said. There's awesome, and I wish I remembered where I learned this because the person or the organization deserves huge attribution for this. But on our whiteboards, we have the word fun, and what it stands [00:09:00] for is fearless, understood, and not alone. I love that and I wish I knew who said it. We did not. I don't want to pretend like I came up with that. That's way too good for me to have come up with for sure. But that is to your point on psychological safety, is we are sometimes operating with mindsets of scarcity and fear. We wanna do growth, mindset, abundance and learning, but we have to remind ourselves that it's fun because we have to be fearless at times. We're not alone. And when we're not alone, we're understood. And I think that's been a real cornerstone of those P two meetings that I referenced.  Christine Shaw: They say some of the best things are plagiarized, so I think the person would be more flattered. And I know for me this is a great takeaway. I hadn't heard that one before, but for sure I'm gonna reference that. So thanks. And let's go back to what we talked about both at the beginning and in your last discussion is about purpose and mission. So talk about how you feel associations can better align career development efforts with that sense of purpose and mission to engage your staff and new hires.  Mike Moss, CAE: Yeah, I think it starts with value-based [00:10:00] hiring. And as and assessment and value based onboarding. As much as I just totally went all in on mission in the previous discussion, I think it does come on now, is are we value aligned? And I'm gonna be very deliberate here. It's not about fit. I. It's about value alignment, and I'm not a big advocate of fit because it limits the type of experiences we can bring in potentially. And not to be completely self-deprecating, but one Mike Moss at this group is enough because of the way I work. That's enough. I would love to be complimented. And so what I wanna be complimented is on my value commitment. And so if we look at the career. Recruitment as well as the onboarding and our career pathing around the value alignment. It does open up a huge opportunity to have diverse experiences. Lots of different skill sets come in, and as we mentioned earlier, you don't have to have all the skill sets when you show up, but do you have a mindset that you can figure it out, learn it, wanna learn it, do the learning centricity? So I do think. Alignment with mission is important, doing the value-based hiring and onboarding and then give everyone cross-functional exposure. And [00:11:00] I can do that easily at 18 people. I've worked at groups of 250 people. Obviously things scale differently, but be real intentional about that cross-functional exposure. 'cause that's when someone raises their hand and goes, gosh, can I take a shot at that IT job? And that's where we get that, that real nice retention. But we also get growth and we get new skills, new perspectives. So I think that's how I would align to that answer.  Christine Shaw: And that really segues nicely into professional development. I think you in that answer previously, you articulated ways in which you help with professional development. I think both the encouragement of not waiting for every skill, but then this cross-functional. So tell me a little bit more about how you think associations can innovate in this area. Besides what you're already doing in your own association. Mike Moss, CAE: I think all of us, including scup, do we need to get real good at peer-to-peer knowledge sharing? We all talk about silos. We all have learning that we have that we forgot to say out loud, but we're in peer-to-peer environments to knowledge share, create those opportunities. I think in leadership, it's our obligation to create that. [00:12:00] And the other thing is you cannot invest enough in training. And I have to be held accountable to this by my peers at times because one of the easiest things often in crisis to cut is we don't need to do training right now. We just need to get through it. That has to be the last thing that you agree to cut. Of course people and the training that goes with it. Last thing to do everything else you can because in that training investment, you're making a commitment to them for learning and career trajectory. And we all know we're not all gonna be here for 34 years. Some people are here for 18 months and some are for 18 years, and they all require a consistent investment. And that investment. Projects the trust that we want in our development. We trust that you're going to put this to good use. I know I may not be investing in you forever. I am gonna make you a better X, Y, Z, whatever your path is before you leave here. That is my commitment as an employer. And I think that mantra of commitment to training and peer-to-peer knowledge sharing is something we all need to improve at. Christine Shaw: I agree, and I think that my mantra is always, if I investigating you for training, even if you don't [00:13:00] stay long-term with me, I'm making you a better contributor in the overall economic world. So that's a win-win for everyone, and I do think employees appreciate that. I think it's great, and I think that everyone holding ourselves accountable, it's just the right thing to do as we think about making a better workplace for everybody. Ad Read: Let's take a quick break from our conversation for a word from our episode sponsor. Visit Omaha. Omaha is where work and play meet the city is expanding. Its meeting venues and adding attractions. The riverfront, a 72 acre green space downtown features recreational amenities. Scenic views and room to unwind. Omaha's Convention Center is investing $200 million to create more event opportunities. Joshlyn Arts Museum's, new wing offers after hours inspiration, and a 950 million airport expansion, which will nearly double the terminal size by 2028, adding new gates and streamlined security. [00:14:00] Does pairing productivity with play sound like the right fit for your meeting? Find out more at visitomaha.com/meetings. Christine Shaw: Let's talk y'all about somebody who may be just entering the association field. What advice would you give them and what type of meaningful connection should they be leaning into to help with their career development?  Mike Moss, CAE: Great question. This does not have to do with people's personality gifts, which is extroversion or introverts. It doesn't matter for an extrovert or introvert, but you've got to build a network. And that's easy to say after you've done it for three and a half decades. It's hard to do when you've been out of college for three and a half months. But as you're considering entering the field, you have colleagues already. They just may not be aligned to what you believe to be your trajectory. Talk to him anyway. My son has friends in all different industries. He's in agriculture. The place he learns the most about how he can then apply differently to his trajectory in a and agriculture is talking to people who are not. Farmers. And so working with engineers and his friends [00:15:00] talking differently, but building up into connection of I know a person. And there's that old joke, everybody needs a person. Well, we do. So work on that. Work on finding your people and they don't have to be the logical, again, it's not linear. It's multi-directional now. So build that ecosystem of yourself and when you're doing that, be sure that your own personal development as you enter any field in our amazing association world is cultivate adaptability. I have preferences. I have preferences for music, I have preferences for office setup, all the things, but sometimes it just doesn't play out that way. And I had to cultivate a sense of, and a mindset of adaptability, which is of course very close to what we're looking for in employees, which is agility. I. Having that adaptability like this isn't perfect, but it's great for now. To your point, I may not be here forever, but here's what I can learn now that serves you as someone entering our field as a new person, and you'll find your path, especially if you're with an employer who knows that their investment in you is, as you described, you're gonna help everyone while you're here and we're gonna help you go where you want to go. I think just putting all that together is the, [00:16:00] the network, the adaptability, and also don't. Get overstressed out with only knowing about association stuff, learn anything and everything. And again, like my son's doing, which I'm very proud of, is learn outside your own field and apply it to your own. And sometimes that's where some really interesting ideas come from. Christine Shaw: Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. The other thing I would add to that too is if you're an introvert by nature. Don't let that hold you back and lean on people to make introductions because I have seen so many positive outcomes by just having. Network. Network and leveraging that network. So I think that's great advice. A little sidebar, I was in agriculture prior to joining the association world, so that's a great place to be. Good for your son.  Mike Moss, CAE: Oh, I appreciate that. Thank you.  Christine Shaw: Now you know, whatever industry anyone comes from, sometimes I. It feels like it's a niche or a click of people. Help us understand how associations can broaden their access and reach to people to make it more [00:17:00] inclusive and accessible to people who may not come from the association so we can have a more diverse pool of candidates coming into these space in general. Mike Moss, CAE: Yeah, that that's everything, right? And what I would start with is a negative, which is if it looks like it was a job description that could have been posted in 1991, you've got to start over. That is the wrong job description. Don't start there. So start with where we need to be, where we are now, which is be really transparent about everything about your company and be. Very transparent about the compensation, and while I appreciate that, there's state laws that vary, all the HR compliance things we have to do, the one thing we can all do is not post a range that says zero to 500,000, and just play the compliance game. Be real specific, and in that specific transparency, you are going to attract the hiring prerequisites that you're looking for because a lot of people. We'll be looking for that transparency. I know what I'm getting into on the first interview. They're maximizing their time and you're maximizing yours. So it's like procedurally, I think those things are important, but then also in the [00:18:00] interview process, don't assume just because someone is a hiring manager with management experience, that equates to interview experience. It goes back to our earlier conversation training matters. And so I've been fortunate to be a manager, but then as I became a hiring manager, I. At the time, I didn't get any training on the difference between having a conversation with a colleague and a conversation with a candidate. Those are materially different conversations. So I think you got to make sure you're training so that it's not just about, make sure you say these words, Mike, but it's, it is make sure that you're having a conversation that brings out what they're looking for, what we're looking for. And that is not the same as talking to a colleague. And it also isn't the same as the like typewriter effect. Interviews that we all grew up with a table of 17 people and you rotate around. I think we all need to be back to that adaptability. We all need to be more adaptable in how we're approaching candidates because a lot of them, as we've experienced in the first question, are remote. Yeah. I may not actually meet, and I have some stories here. I have not met some of my employees until they're months on the job. In person. Yeah. Yeah. But that's a different experience, so make sure that [00:19:00] we're all ready for that, that digital experience. By training, don't assume, just because I manage people, I can manage an interview.  Christine Shaw: And to that point though, I do think that the remote hybrid has broken down some barriers about reaching out to a broader geographic area, which helps with diversity. And going back to your networking, one thing someone taught me in my career is when you are networking. Ensure that you're going out beyond your inner circle, because that's where you're gonna get people who aren't from your little ecosystem, right? Like you're thinking of the example you shared about your son. You're proud of him with engineering, reaching out, even though he's an ag, you don't know where that connection could lead to, or perhaps there's a really good candidate. Through a friend of a friend. So the more we can do that and not think so linear, I think it helps all of us. So  Mike Moss, CAE: that's, uh, and no one can see this, but I'm hitting the plus 100 button. Oh, good. Awesome. That was awesome. Thank you for bringing that forward.  Christine Shaw: Certainly you have a lot of historical perspective and experience, [00:20:00] especially 34 years in association space. But let's look ahead a little bit. Do you have any trends or changes that you are anticipating will shape or develop associations over the next few years? I can think of many that are going on right now in terms of advocacy and impact from funding to tax issues. So let me know what's on your mind, Mike.  Mike Moss, CAE: Yeah, and this is the farthest in the last two years I've made it in any conversation without saying ai. So we will just acknowledge, we know that's part of it, that the AI integration into our businesses, whether we're slow to adopt or fast adopt, there's the future workforce. So we'll just honor that and leave that there. Yeah, we think we need to really think differently as associations about becoming hubs for continuous professional development. So being lifelong learning ecosystems and not just a place where people work. So this goes into the, I think the bigger collaboration issue for associations, if I applied any level of foresight to this would be we will not be standalone associations in the next five to 10 years. We will be in ecosystems and the business models will have changed [00:21:00] dramatically. And it's from all the pressures we know are real, it's pressures we haven't figured out yet. But I think we, that's part of being in a lifelong learning ecosystem. So we have to adapt and we have to be calibrating our plans. So one thing I would say, getting the planning head on for a minute. To this question is that we all write 3, 5, 10 year strategic plans and then try and work 'em. Two rules. Number one, never abandon your plan. And number two, always adjusting, recalibrate your plan. Yep. So if as things change what you wrote two years ago into a plan, or three years into a plan is not gonna be the same outcome, and having that outcome focus will determine then going to this conversation about career development, it will determine what skill sets you need for that next run. Whether you run six months or six years on whatever you're doing. I think that's the adaptability that is coming. It's not the same siloed industry specific type associations. I do think if I could offer one thing is let's be open to this ecosystem of support that we need to use for the society to come, industry to come.[00:22:00]  Christine Shaw: It could be and open to the fact that it could look different than it does today, but it could be also more effective. I like also what you said too, is that a lot of times when something isn't working, the immediate instinct is to just whiplash and abandon your plan. But to your point, it might just need adapting. Not throwing it out. So I think that's important. Mike, I've enjoyed this conversation as the leader and someone in this space there. You gave me a lot of good takeaways and some new things I hadn't even heard, and I'm really confident everyone else is gonna enjoy it as well listening to it. So I really wanna thank you for your time today. Mike Moss, CAE: Oh, thank you. I, this was a great conversation. It could go on for hours, so I appreciate it. We, we got through it in a timely manner and appreciate also y'all's support of our industry. I don't care what other people do for a living, working in associations is the right way to think it, just to manage your career. So let's keep people coming.  Christine Shaw: Great. At this point, I'd like to thank everyone for listening to this episode of Associations NOW Presents. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals, discuss the [00:23:00] challenges and opportunities in the field today, and highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy, the US and the world. And again, we wanna thank our episode sponsor, visit Omaha. So be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. For more information on career development and the association space, visit associations now [email protected]. Thanks everyone.

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Teri Carden chats with Virginie De Visscher, executive director of business events for Destination Canada, and Amy Hissrich, MA, CAE, vice president of international affairs at ASAE, to explore the role of DMOs in driving sustainability efforts. They discuss the economic and reputational benefits of sustainable event planning, innovative strategies in transportation and local sourcing, and the power of collaboration in designing impactful, eco-friendly gatherings. Tune in to learn how associations and DMOs can work together to make a lasting difference for both the environment and local communities. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/qVljyQJkqsc   This episode is sponsored by Visit Omaha and New Orleans & Company. Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript [00:00:00] Teri Carden: Welcome to episode eight of Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Teri Cardin. You may have seen me around the association world as founder of non-A Palooza, AMS Fest and Review My AMS , but these days I'm sidekick it with co-founder of Higher Logic, Andy Steggles with his newest product called Insight Guide. Some days I feel like a chicken with my head cut off as we manage our 20 plus clients. Yes, I'm throwing ASAE in the mix as one of our newest clients and all the implementations we have going on, but my real. Title is VP of Marketing and Client Success. Folks, I can tell you right now, it's a lot of fun to be me these days helping associations invent and deliver new tools to help their members make smart buying decisions. How about enough about me? Let's jump into today's conversation about [00:01:00] events and sustainability. First of all, I do want to thank. Our episode sponsors Visit Omaha and New Orleans and Company. Today I am thrilled to welcome Virginie De Visscher, executive Director of Business Events for Destination Canada and Amy Hissrich, Vice President of International Affairs at ASAE. Hello, ladies. So let's jump into today's conversation. I'm absolutely excited to talk about this topic. It's actually a topic that's personal and close to my heart. I'm actually a full-time van Lifer. I collect memories, not things. So I naturally am over conscious about Mother Earth as it's truly an extension of my home. I feel like it's pretty easy for me to adjust my lifestyle so that I'm thinking about the future of our environment and our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren to come. But when I think of [00:02:00] nationwide organizations like Destination Canada, it seems daunting. Like how in the world I. See what I did there. Do you support more localized DMO with sustainability efforts? It does truly feel like a monumental task for conferences and events when there are literally millions of people involved. So Virginia, let's get started with you.  [00:02:28] Virginie De Visscher: That's a great question, Teri, because Canada's the second largest landmass in the world, right? And Destination Canada really plays a unique role as a, I call it a national conveyor or convener, and a and a catalyst. So we're not A DMO ourselves. We work to build capacity, we create alignment, and we try to support our local partners in advancing sustainable business events. Some of the ways that we do that are, for example, training and education. We've launched a national initiative [00:03:00] where right now actually we have about 50 individuals across the country that are taking the Sustainable Event Professional certification in partnership with the events industry council, and that gives Canadian d os that foundational knowledge to integrate sustainability into their event strategies. We support Canadian cities in joining the Global Destination Sustainability Index. The GDSI that helps them assess and benchmark themselves and improve their sustainability performance over time. We also see ourselves as bringing collaboration and and tools together, so d os and venues and partners can share best practices and co-create tools around sustainability calculators, storytelling assets. Finally, I believe in a national alignment. So we make sure that strategies reflect Canada's broader commitments. So Destination Canada has a 2030 tourism strategy so that all those collective efforts can be future facing, that can be consistent and and scalable. [00:04:00] So it's more about continuous improvement and sustainability is embedded in destination marketing in how we do business events across the country. [00:04:11] Teri Carden: So there's a saying, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. And it sounds like you've got lots of single bites going on at one time to make a huge impact. And it makes a lot of sense bringing in those benchmarking and certification, you know, and delivering those or offering those up or providing those resources to those groups. Excellent. Amy, did you wanna add on to that?  [00:04:34] Amy Hissrich, MA, CAE: Can address this more from the association perspective. So some of the first things that associations would want to think through when they're starting down their sustainability journey is really the why. So are they framing the conversations with their boards as to. Does sustainability align with their mission? Is it part of their mission to embrace sustainable practices? And [00:05:00] the other thing they might wanna think through there is the component of risk and resilience when you're looking at sustainability. So sustainability has three pillars, environmental, social, and economic. But there are real. Potential downstream business risks. So when we look at the World Economic Forum in 2025, they produce a risk report. Two out of the top 10 risks are environmental. So much like Virginia talked about being a convener. Associations are conveners and we. As part of what most associations do, we have conferences, congresses events, an inability to convene because of extreme weather events represents a real and significant business risk for associations. So in addition to some association having a mission mandate, all associations may be impacted and will want to think through the risk and resilience process for sustainability, and then work towards that. [00:06:00] Teri Carden: Well, it sounds like there are some big factors that are coming down the pipe for associations to be making sustainability a massive priority, and it sounds like they know it too. So that's good news. Okay, so onto the next question. What are the biggest challenges, associations and DMO face when implementing sustainability initiatives? Amy, in our early conversations about this, you know, we talked about like millions. You know, are coming and going for education and events and there are monumental challenges that organizations are faced with and you know, how are you coaching around those challenges to the associations and DMOs as they work to implement some of these sustainable strategies and initiatives? [00:06:48] Amy Hissrich, MA, CAE: We're going, again, back to fundamentals first, making sure that we have the upfront conversations with our board so that we know strategically where the alignment is. How far the organization is [00:07:00] prepared to go, because then when you have that buy-in, then you can do a holistic plan that executes against that buy-in. So then you can start to say, we are committed to this work. We're focusing a lot these days on work over words, and so making sure that we then roadmap the actions we want to take. For most associations, their biggest. Impact initiative will be their meeting conference, congress, or event. And so making sure that they are looking at that event as far as the sustainability impact there is likely where they're gonna wanna start. It's also where they can start building those quick wins. So we see a lot of examples of associations really trying to look at, while sustainability has those three pillars, environmental, social, and economic. They often do look at the environmental impact of that meeting as a place to start. It is quantifiable. They can measure their progress. So oftentimes associations will [00:08:00] start there.  [00:08:02] Teri Carden: Great. So it sounds like, it is very similar in any area that association is seeking change, right? You've gotta start small, you've gotta do something. And I loved your framework of a work over words, right? You know, actions do speak louder than words. And it sounds like, you know, even educating associations that they need to start the conversation and then do something small is a huge gain and a huge win. And then when they see those analytics or those. Stats come back that they're making change it, it, it can only snowball effect. So, Virginia, how about you? Same question or did you wanna add anything to what Amy mentioned?  [00:08:40] Virginie De Visscher: Absolutely. I mean, I think we're so aligned on this one because, you know, fundamentally I think associations and DMO want to be sustainable, but it's how do you translate those good intentions into actual actions? Because at the end of the day, we all face budget concerns. We face data gaps that you mentioned, and stakeholder [00:09:00] alignment. Like how do you get all the partners involved in an event to. Move in the same direction. And we recommend same things as you do from early planning, you know, to start ensuring that sustainability goals are embedded into the process, to partnerships. So please, associations partner with your d os in making this happen and, and transparency. Let's be open about what the goals are and, and what progress we want to see. So very much aligned.  [00:09:26] Amy Hissrich, MA, CAE: If, I can, Teri, I'd love to just say that's one of the main reasons I love working with Virginia so much, because when we did, as an example, write some of our guidelines as we're trying to be a laboratory and be an example of what associations can do, we wrote. Exhibitor guidelines for our annual meeting. And I was so grateful that Virginia has such depth of knowledge about sustainability practices that I really felt like I had somebody that I could say, can you help me review this from a substance perspective? So just knowing that somebody has done the upskilling for themselves, she mentioned the [00:10:00] SEPC, but Virginia has a higher level credential for the sustainability profession. And I always just think that that that is so amazing 'cause it demonstrates. Credentials are part of what associations do, and that's really walking the walk there.  [00:10:12] Teri Carden: Absolutely. I thought that whenever we started the conversation earlier, I was like, wow, this is so meta. You know? And it is the beauty of association, how collaborative we are and what a sharing community that we are and that you know, that you can lean on somebody who is two steps ahead of you. So what a great testament to working with Canada. So thanks for sharing that, Amy.  [AD READ] Let's take a quick break from our conversation for a word from visit Omaha. Omaha is where work and play meet the city is expanding. Its meeting venues and adding attractions. The riverfront, a 72 acre green space downtown features, recreational amenities, scenic views, and room to unwind. Omaha's Convention Center is [00:11:00] investing $200 million to create more event opportunities. Jocelyn Art Museum's New wing offers after hours and inspiration. And a $950 million airport expansion will nearly double the terminal size by 2028. Adding new gates and streamlined security. Does pairing productivity with play sound like the right fit for your meeting? Find out more at visit omaha.com/meetings. So we talked a lot about the initiatives and the challenges and overcoming those challenges and what are maybe some of the current events that are happening now that affect the impact. [END AD READ] Teri Carden: What are, you know, beyond environmental sustainability? How can associations and DS ensure that their meetings leave a lasting positive impact on the local community?  [00:11:58] Virginie De Visscher: Amy said earlier, you know, [00:12:00] sustainability is a, is a three pillar word, and, and we think the same. It's not just environmental sustainability or emissions. It's really about people and place and purpose and creating that legacy and long-term value for host communities with really that intention, that intentional design. And some of the ways that we can recommend or suggest to create that positive impact into destinations with events is one is. Working with local suppliers and artisans so that event budgets really support the local economy or partnering with indigenous communities in Canada. That's the cultural sustainability angle and inviting indigenous leaders to shape programming and, and speak at events and showcase traditional knowledge, not just a checkbox, but really co-create or incorporating volunteering donation initiatives. We have LA Chef in Canada and many others, or focusing on accessibility and inclusions to ensure the event is, is really welcoming and representative of the local population, just a few ideas. [00:13:00] It, the key is to ask, you know, how can this meeting give back more than it takes?  [00:13:06] Teri Carden: Oh, that's beautiful. I love that. It's teamwork too. Sounds like the laundry list of people that would like to be involved. If to if just ask. Yeah. Amazing. Thank you. Amy, did you wanna add to that? [00:13:19] Amy Hissrich, MA, CAE: No, I think the thing that I would bring in here is we've talked a lot about some quicker wins or in my earlier conversation, but there are also, this could be a big moment for innovation. There are large scale needs that will likely emerge. There's a school of thinking within the sustainability community. The incremental reduction isn't gonna get us to where we need to be. So I'll give the example, since we're talking specifically about meetings, one of the biggest. Now I'm pivoting back to environmental 'cause Virginia gave an a great example of the people and the social pillar within sustainability. But back on the environmental one [00:14:00] fuel, getting people to that meeting tends to have the highest impact. But we also know these meetings. Peer-to-peer knowledge exchanges. They create so much value and up-skilling and re-skilling and, and are essential for delivering on the the mission of associations. So we still know that that's going to happen. We want that to happen. So where's the innovation? And there are even coalitions now forming for developing new fuels so that we can then innovate. Use new technologies to help us solve this problem so that it's not always just a where we're reducing. I'm a huge proponent of, you know, our personal responsibilities, so have my reusable coffee mug, and there are gonna be bigger actions that are gonna require technical innovation. And I think associations and coalitions of associations are starting to form to explore those possibilities. So there's some green spaces there. No, no pun intended.  [00:14:58] Teri Carden: Again, I think that's just [00:15:00] emphasis or exclamation mark on the teamwork between organizations and technology companies and you know, vertical industries to help. You know, all ships rise here because to your point, Amy, we, we don't want to vaporize is people coming together to learn and to grow and to collaborate in meaningful ways for our industries and the professions that are represented. So thank you ladies for that fodder. Lots of ways that we can make impact on our small communities. So I know you have some examples, Amy, that you shared previously and I'm sure you have a giant list of examples, but you know, sustainability is not really a new topic. Right? This is been something that's been on our desk for a long time. I think back to my early association career days, and this was a hot topic, you know, in Florida then, and I know in. You know, with the events that I've run or I've helped run over the last 18 years, and I think [00:16:00] about the impact of each of those and just the sheer number of people that were involved there. You know, we have evolved and gotten better, but what are some of the emerging trends that are on your desk right now that you've seen in events that associations and DMO should be aware of? [00:16:17] Amy Hissrich, MA, CAE: So I wanna take this down to just a really tangible example of behavior change because, well, we talked about innovation before and sort of the, the macro technological solution. A lot of this is still gonna be incentivizing the behaviors that we want to see and making the best. Decisions at an individual level. So I'll use the example, IMEX Frankfurt, I believe they probably do this for their America's conference too. I just haven't been involved in that one. But they, when they give a menu, when you get a menu choice, they actually show the emissions choices, the footprint of that menu. So of course there are lower footprint foods and higher footprint foods, and so they ask you to choose essentially, do you want this [00:17:00] higher footprint. Meal that is likely to contain larger animals. As you're, you're looking down there, do you want the more plant-based alternative? And I will be very honest. It changed my behavior. I really wanted the other meal and just looking at the delta between the two numbers, I was like, I cannot possibly make that decision because it will hurt my soul. And that wasn't just because of the role that I wear here at A SAE, it was because, you know, I wanted the carrot cake, which was in the other menu. But I did make the other choice because the numbers just told a story that I couldn't ignore. So I, I love that example.  [00:17:37] Teri Carden: It kind of hearkens when they started adding calories to menus as well. Right. You know, it's, I have an eyeopening and, and, and sometimes jarring. When I looked at my bagel calorie count the other day, I was like, Ooh, changing my mind. I better go with the egg bites. Right. How about you, Virginia? Do you have any examples or anything you'd like to share about the trends that are on your desk right now? [00:18:00] Virginie De Visscher: I do and I love Amy that you shared that IMEX example because it's impacted me personally a lot too. Most recently I attended the site Global conference, so the Society of Incentive Travel Excellence, and you know, we do have an industry that gives a lot of gifts and it can be very wasteful. And what they did is they actually had a marketplace, and I've seen it a few times, but there it was really done tastefully, the event was in Mexico and they had four different local vendors with. Things like a charcuterie board that was local wood and beautifully painted, and they had some beautiful fabrics with cushions or purses that were made outta straw and all local artisans, and so the attendees could go and get one of the gifts of their choice. So it was a higher end gift. There was no waste. Everything was taken back, and then the local community really benefited from those purchases. So I thought that was a beautiful, beautiful example. I'd like to add one more and a, a trend that I'm seeing more and more is [00:19:00] regenerative events. So the word sustainability is. In my mind over loved, overused, and sometimes has a antagonist effect where people say, oh, again, sustainability. Well, we're trying to have the other way around. And so it's, how do we still talk about sustainability while maybe not using that word, we don't want to sustain where we are. We wanna move beyond doing less harm to actually leave it better and restore ecosystems. Invest in local communities, build social capital. So that regenerative term, I'm seeing it more and more come up and I, I really love it. I, I think it's a beautiful way where our industry perhaps might be going.  [00:19:40] Teri Carden: What an awesome picture of what we should be working toward. I mean, when we think about where we've been or where we're going, even if it's something as simple as a hike, if we can just leave it a better place while we get to enjoy it.   [AD READ]  Let's take a quick break from our conversation for a word from New Orleans and Company. [00:20:00] New Orleans and Company is the official marketing and sales organization for the tourism industry in New Orleans. Renowned for seamlessly executing complex meetings and events with. Technical excellence with deep local expertise and strong hospitality connections. They create unforgettable experiences that capture the city's unique spirit from world-class venues to authentic cultural moments. They connect clients. With the best resources to bring their vision to life, passionate, professional, and dedicated. New Orleans and Company is the trusted partner for those looking to host exceptional events and one of the world's most vibrant destinations. [END AD READ]   Teri Carden: So I love marketing and storytelling, especially when the antagonist, you know, or the challenge is so colossal, yet it's relatable and the hero or the heroine performs in an almost superhuman way, right? I believe that [00:21:00] stories about the grind that make monumental changes for the world and the community around us should be shared. I don't think that we should be jumping through these hoops in vain, or even just for the sake of leaving it a better place. I think it's okay to share our story and obviously some of these sustainable efforts are exactly that. They are big feat and collaborations by humans doing superhuman things. So that we can leave the world a better place. So what are some of the strategies that associations are leveraging from these efforts to enhance their brand and member engagement and kind of like sort of tying it all together, like we know, Amy, you mentioned, you know, associations need to focus on the why I. Right, but now this is a little bit more of like the how, how are they telling their story or how are they enhancing their brand and member engagement? And honestly, I think of this question a little bit as this could be the conversation starter for your board and for your executive leadership. You know, [00:22:00] selfishly, you know, how can some organizations elevate their brand and involve members or get members more engaged through some of these practices? Amy, you working for an association? Let's start with you.  [00:22:11] Amy Hissrich, MA, CAE: So once the organization is moving down this direction, I, I agree that that probably would happen. What the reputational lift might be would happen during that initial conversation. But where that's gonna get sort of implemented and moved into the operational piece is further downstream. And so, you know, of course, associations are starting to put up their, their sustainability practices pages on their websites and things that you would expect. But one of the areas that I see as more opportunity does. Tied back to meetings and events because it is often where our members will interact with our sustainability decisions. So using those moments to communicate why we're making some of the changes that we may be making. So I, I'll use A SAE as an example. We intentionally did not give people reusable [00:23:00] mugs at our annual meeting last year. Even though we reduced as much as we possibly could, single use plastics with the goal towards elimination, and we did that because we wanted to incentivize them to bring their own mug. Everybody has now seven different reusable mugs. Just giving them a higher end piece of plastic wasn't going to affect. The kind of change we were looking for, but we were sensitive to not wanting our members to not know. They wouldn't know did we make a financial decision versus did we make an intentional decision for a specific outcome Using the the meal example again, when people are waiting in line and they're seeing the options that they've been presented with, sometimes those choices were made with sustainability in mind, and so making sure. We're communicating that virginity tells the great stories of the markets or the gifts that are from local communities that could use that support new local merchants to help lift up those local communities that need that lift. Tell [00:24:00] that story about why you made those decisions. So I think that's key. The other thing, and we haven't really talked about it. So it's it's brand, not just from the member's perspective, but from a workforce perspective. You know, of course, we're all trying to attract the best possible staff and Gen Z. I'm gonna read some data from Deloitte here. 46% have already changed or planned to change job or industry due to climate concerns. 54% say they or their colleagues are putting pressure on their employers to take action on climate change and. 64% are willing to pay more to purchase environmentally sustainable products. Of course, that Last Data Point doesn't talk about them joining the workforce, but it does show that they're willing to put money behind this. Just underscoring how important this is for associations as they're trying to attract the best possible workforce.  [00:24:51] Teri Carden: Wow. I mean, when personal values of the employees are hitting the pocketbooks of the companies that are hiring, that's when change [00:25:00] is really going to happen. Right. Virginia, how about you? Have you seen any of your partners elevate their brand or get their communities involved through some of the programs that they've been able to initiate?  [00:25:13] Virginie De Visscher: And I, I do believe in the power of those brands. So from a, a national perspective, a Destin Mission Canada, where we're seeing that meetings that are designed with purpose, with responsibility and community impact in mind, they help associations stand out. And I mentioned this earlier, the word sustainability really gets used a lot, but it's about future focused choices. It's about aligning with values that matter to your members and their communities. You're gathering in. Amy A SAE, you gave that example with the water bottles is so thoughtful, right? So when associations make those thoughtful decisions like working with local suppliers or reducing waste, or partnering with indigenous communities, it does much more than check a box. It. Tells that story and it shows your members and stakeholders what you really stand for. You mentioned [00:26:00] the younger generations, right? They want to feel that events that they're part of are doing some good, and that emotional connection really strengthened the engagement and the loyalty of members. And we are seeing that even from the D-M-O-N-T-O perspective. People want to belong to organizations that share their values. So we're really trying to make that easier on the Canadian side and working with our, our DMOs and our. Partners and our tools and supporting associations to create events that not only reflect operational excellence, but really push the boundaries of meaningful impact to create that stronger brand and, and resonate into the story from the beginning to the closing keynote. So I, I'm in agreement with you about that, the power of that brand.  [00:26:44] Teri Carden: Amazing. I wish we had all afternoon to talk about this. However, I hope somebody is on their e-bike with their AirPods in listening to this and they're probably, you know, at work already if people even still do those things. [00:27:00] Themes that that popped up today. Work over words. People place and purpose making micro changes in behavior. And that doesn't even just start with a single person. It can start around a small group of leaders at an organization. And honestly, you know, I would love to walk away with a local hand painted tiny something, you know, from a marketplace of an event I went to rather than, you know, another pen or another notepad. And honestly, I didn't realize, but. I do think that even my tiny little efforts in my little van life, you know, are making a a difference. So, Virginia, Amy, what a beautiful testament to the power that collaboration, teamwork around a single purpose, and also setting intention for what you wanna do so that we can leave this world a better place. Both of you today, your involvement in this. Conversation has been a true testament to that. So thank you so much. [00:28:00] Thank you for being our guest today, and thanks everyone for listening to this episode of Associations Now Presents. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals as we discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today. And highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy and the US and the world. And I'm going to add this, even though it's not in my outro notes, the universe. Again, thank you so much to our episode sponsors. Visit Omaha and New Orleans and Company. For more information about our sponsors, check out their links in the show notes. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And for more information on sustainability in the association space, visit Associations Now [00:29:00] [email protected].

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Joanna Pineda of the Associations Thrive podcast chats with Rob Wenger, CEO of Higher Logic, and Amanda DeLuke, senior privacy analyst at Higher Logic. The conversation unpacks Higher Logic's own AI adoption journey, starting in October 2023, and the strategies they used to engage employees with AI tools. Rob and Amanda share practical insights on how associations can begin their AI journey, create policies, and leverage AI tools while prioritizing data privacy. Whether you're just getting started or looking to expand your AI capabilities, this episode offers actionable advice on using AI to enhance operations, improve member engagement, and drive innovation. Check out the video podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLKUv2GFpUY   This episode is sponsored by Higher Logic. Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript Joanna Pineda: [00:00:00] Hey everyone, I'm Joanna Pineda, CEO and Chief Troublemaker at Matrix Group International and host of the Associations Thrive podcast. Each week I interview and association our non profit CEO about their personal journey and the things their organization is doing to thrive. But today, I am thrilled to be a guest host for the ASAE podcast for Associations Now. And I am absolutely honored because I'm going to be interviewing Rob Wenger. CEO of HigherLogic and Amanda DeLuke, Senior Privacy Analyst. We'd like to thank our episode sponsor, HigherLogic, for their support of this podcast. Rob and Amanda, welcome to the show. Rob Wenger: Thank you. It's great to be here. Joanna Pineda: Hey Rob, there's probably two people out there in the universe that don't know HigherLogic, and for those two people, tell us about HigherLogic. Rob Wenger: So our main product is online community. It's a place where associations members can talk to each other, share documents, ask questions, network, all the kinds of good stuff that they might do in person. They do it online 365 days a year. And we also make marketing automation products and a bunch of other different add-ons to it, like volunteer management. Mentor management, a lot of different things that really are geared toward helping associations and their members connect. Joanna Pineda: Amanda, you've got an interesting title. Your title is Senior Privacy Analyst. What is a Senior Privacy Analyst at HgherLogic? Amanda DeLuke: Yeah, so I am definitely someone that works across the company. You know, privacy is really everyone's problem, right? Everyone works together, creating privacy champions. So I actually report to the legal team. I deal with audit and making sure we are compliant for any applicable privacy laws, also working with our sales team and our data processing agreement and working with marketing. So really just collaboration across the company, just to make sure we're staying safe. And we're adhering to any applicable [00:02:00] laws and staying compliant. Well, that's Joanna Pineda: really interesting because today our topic is AI. And Robyn and Vanda, I'm really curious to learn almost two sides of the AI journey at HigherLogic because I bet you're integrating AI into HigherLogic products, but I'm also really curious to learn about your AI journey as a company. Like how do you get people trained up and excited about AI so that now it becomes part of the culture? So what do you want to start with? Rob Wenger: Yeah, so we sort of kicked off our internal AI journey in October 2023. I had this idea and I guess in August, Hey, let's get everyone in the company using AI like for a day, like sort of one of those hackathon type thing. And then report back on what they did that was cool. And so I started kicking this thing off and then the folks in legal and Amanda's team said, Hey, hey, let us. Think about this privacy stuff first. Don't just jump into this. So we spent a little bit of [00:03:00] time putting it together. We ended up doing a whole month. AI October we called it. Joanna Pineda: And this was in 2023. Rob Wenger: 2023, right, so October 2023. And so we spent a bunch of time, Amanda's team spent a bunch of time coming up with sort of the rules of the thing. Like don't just go use any tool and don't put customer data in it and all these kinds of great things. She developed processes and stuff like that. I'll let her talk about that because she knows way more about it than I do, but then we ended up doing it as a full month, and the idea was everyone spend 16 hours in October. Do some stuff, get in the teams of one, two or three, play with these tools and come back and report back. And what we ended up doing is having on Halloween, it was a contest with costumes and with who had the best usage of AI. And so it was a lot of fun, but it was a big journey to get there. And I'll let Amanda talk about that because she did most of the work. I just have the big idea and she made it happen. Amanda DeLuke: Yeah, so it's really important to establish an internal policy and, you [00:04:00] know, it's really kind of putting the guardrails on certain areas. And what I see in legislation is they really focus on balancing innovation and safety. And I think that's what we're kind of doing here too, right? We want to innovate, but we want to do it safely. So putting in place those policies is really important and again, like collaborating with teams on what type of data do we have and what are we holding and what are we okay with as it relates to AI and what type of data goes into AI. And I think Rob, you bring up such a good point because we talk a lot about testing and really getting our hands dirty. And I think that's so important and it's really important because AI is ever evolving, that we're always evolving our policy and evolving how we work internally as well. Joanna Pineda: Well, let's step back here because I'm curious about this and I'll give you a little bit of background. So I was at a luncheon with a bunch of association CEOs and a number of them said, [00:05:00] gosh, we're struggling with AI. What does that mean? And they said, we've asked our staff to use the tools and they're either getting pushback or they're not seeing the fruits of some of this experimentation. And so what would you say to an exec who says, look, I think AI can help my team be more productive, but how do they kick it off? Like, how do you get people comfortable with the tools so that they are seeing the fruits of this amazing technology? Rob Wenger: Couple of thoughts on that. I get some really good advice. Yes. About a year ago from an AI luminary and the gist of it was If you're trying to turn people's daily routine around, that's difficult. It takes time, and it's difficult to get them to start. Once they start, it takes time to get it to work, right? And the advice was start higher up. Start at system level stuff, like get AI. Doing things that don't involve humans yet. I mean, humans, you want them in the loop, but it's sort of like automating things [00:06:00] as opposed to like using ChatGPT every day on your desktop, right? So we really started there looking at all right, we're going to build a data warehouse. It's going to have all this data from around the company in it. And Amanda's part of that as to how we handle the stuff that really is like privacy related or would be data for clients. We don't really put that in there. We put data about clients more, but keeping the privacy stuff working well, but then doing it on top of that to give us sort of answers as opposed to letting a person go into ChatGPT and just. Ask a whole bunch of questions. So starting at that end of the spectrum, you can get a lot more of those kinds of things done. And, and, and I know we're gonna talk about the product later, but that's how we're thinking about the product as well. It's more about automation than it is about what you're used to seeing in JATTPT, for example. We have that functionality. But where we think the real bang for the buck is going to come from is having AIs do a lot of automated type tasks. So we started there. And [00:07:00] then, of course, we do encourage our staff to use these tools. The easiest place for us to start was with our engineers. Some of the reason is because it's way behind the scenes. Like, they don't really touch client data. And they also, products of an AI are Then test it, right? Because that's the whole point of software development. You have to write the software and develop it and test it. And if you have any, I do that work, you know, it's going to be right because it's got to go through that process. And so that is an easy place to start. They're also very technical. It's easy to get them going where it starts to become, you know, more interesting. I'm not gonna say challenging because the uptakes been really good. But when you get into finance or you get into, you know, accounting and some of these other aspects of the business where it's not obvious, How the data is going to be used. You got to be careful, but you can see a lot of gains. So it's been quite a journey. Like I say, we started almost a year and a half ago and it's become something where it is throughout the company. One of the thing we did in that timeframe is we actually appointed, [00:08:00] I call him the AI Czar, his actual title is chief data officer, but Steve was the head of engineering and it seems like we have a bunch of engineers, so it was like, we really need to get AI done right in the company. And so Steve has taken on the role of really shepherding it through and we brought in some now very specific AI tools. One we really like called Glean, which brings in data from across the company and then you can query it just like ChatGPT, but it's all internal to the company. So that's really cool. And so he's been like And been pushing those kinds of things and working with Amanda's team to keep us compliant and to keep us safe. And her recommendations are also really super helpful for approaches that we take on these things. Well, Joanna Pineda: let me ask you a question because most associations don't have the ability to just spin up a data warehouse. You know, and say, wow, let's automate stuff. So for an association exec or a CEO who says, you know, I want to get people using these tools. How would you recommend that they put on an AI October or [00:09:00] an AI May to get people comfortable? So let's start with the policy. And Amanda, I agree with you that we start with policy, but I have clients that I've been. thinking about their policy for a year, and in the meantime, we can't even record Zoom meetings. And nobody can use any AI tools. So I'm not sure that that's the solution. So how do you get a policy up and running fast so that you can get some stuff done, but do it safely? Amanda DeLuke: Right. Yeah, I think again, it's going back to the data classification, right? So you're gonna kind of use that as it relates to any laws that are applicable to you, or maybe the sensitivity of the data. So if you know that you have public data, right, or something, maybe even some internal data that is okay to be used within AI, start there. We know it's public data. We're using a public model. We're okay with it. We let's do this in a low risk activity. Let's test it. I think there's a lot of ways to really get your hands on it without having to move up through and start using it with a high risk type of data. So I think that's the great approach here when you have a [00:10:00] AI policy to kind of leverage that type of data and where are you using it and. It really does kind of link into the EU AI Act and other legislation that is actually banning and have like prohibited uses for any high risk data that you might put in there. So I think it's really good to focus on the general use of AI. So I think that's a way that you can really leverage getting that policy out and being able to use it very quickly. Rob Wenger: You're going to use tools, right? I don't expect any association to create their own. LLMs or anything like that, right? You're going to use something else. And so, Amanda, I know you and your team evaluated every product that was being used in our AIA October thing and still have the approval process for any new product we use. And so, as an example, you know, Copilot, which is Microsoft's product, and you can get that with the Office Suite. I think it's an add on, you probably know more than I do, but, but like that one, we've got a guarantee for Microsoft and none of the data [00:11:00] we put in there. And so that's an easy place to start, right? Joanna Pineda: And Google says the same thing about Gemini. Amanda DeLuke: Exactly, Rob. You definitely want to check the terms to make sure, if it's a private model and, you know, your data is not going to be trained on that, then it's not going to go out to the third party to be used, that data to be used. Then you're okay. Then you have those set guardrails on there and you go in with eyes wide open. Like, okay, they're saying that this is a private model. And if it is being trained, that information is only private to you and not, being sent externally, right, or being used externally. Rob Wenger: So we, we, we sort of think of that as a process or a procedure or guardrails is a great term for it, where we have that outlined and they did that 18 months ago, whatever it was, and we've been following it. And then. You know, I don't know how often, daily, weekly, new things come up and the team is evaluating them and saying yes or no, right? Sometimes it takes a little time because it's not so obviously, you know, I always want to use the latest and greatest tools and the latest and greatest tools don't always have [00:12:00] the best. Documentation on how they're getting it, so, uh, I mean, I just gotta spend a little more time to evaluate things like that, but I think that's the first step, I mean, you know, associations, they could be doing that today, even if they're not quite ready to use or jump in with both feet, putting these guardrails, because people are going to use it, right? People are using ChatGPT and Gemni and, and all these sorts of tools, and so you want to make sure that they're using them safely. Joanna Pineda: So what I'm hearing is, decide that you're going to have AI as a policy initiative, right, or a program initiative. Develop some policies, start simple, have some approved tools, and then give people explicit direction about using AI for specific use cases. And give them, it sounds like you even gave them guidance about how much time to spend, so that then they either weren't spending too little time or too much time. on their AI exploration. So it sounds like what I'm hearing from you is be very explicit and intentional with the AI journey. And then at the end of it, you [00:13:00] had sharing. So can you share some cool stuff that came out of AI October, if it's not too confidential? Rob Wenger: There was nothing confidential. There were some amazing costumes as well, but, but yeah, it was actually the one who won the thing. I mean, she's super smart. So I'm not, I'm not saying I wouldn't have predicted it, but it was in finance. Like she took data. And use some tools to make some really cool spreadsheets and reports out of it that took her manually every month. It took her, I want to say, two days to come up with these things. And then using this new process that mixed AI and some, you know, kind of like workflow tech tools. She got that down to a few hours. And so, Wow. She won because, first of all, she's a finance person, but like, The technology she was able to employ was very impressive and, you know, literally saving two days a month. That's life changing. Yes, it is. And for her, especially, because she's like, well, now I don't have to do those two days work, right? [00:14:00] She can do other things. Joanna Pineda: She can go to lunch. Rob Wenger: She, she doesn't. She works hard on other things because she's that person. But yes, I agree. Joanna Pineda: Are there other cool things that you can share? Rob Wenger: It was all on this line. So there was a lot of stuff in sales. We use a lot of tools like gong is a tool we use. We record demos and gong had some really great AI tools that were introduced then, and they've been made a lot better since where we can get summaries and we put those summaries into Salesforce so that when we looking back at the account that we can see. You know, what was discussed, what the key points, what their pain points are, make sure that we're meeting them with what we're proposing, things like that. There were a lot of things around that. It was really taking the features of existing software. So none of this during AI October was anything we developed. These were all features of products we already had or things like, you know, Copilot that we added for it that then we just started building on. And then the sharing of the experience was To get others to see what they could be doing, right? [00:15:00] I mean the stuff I did was pretty basic. I didn't, well it wasn't part of the thing, but it was like, I just talked to ChatGPT all day long. I don't ask it things that are specific about clients, but I ask it all kinds of questions about things I'm thinking about doing for the products, for example. And It's really good at telling me these things. So, no, it's been awesome. Like, you can go in and just ask it, what does an association do? And then drill down for hours and find out every role, every person in every association has. And, you know, one of the things that we're trying to do with our product then is say, okay, there's You know, if you think about jobs to be done, there's a thousand jobs to be done in an association. Can we automate 200 of them? If we can, you know, that's 20 percent of their time they get back to do more strategic things or talk directly to members or whatever it is that they want to do to further their missions or run their organizations. Joanna Pineda: So when you say you talk to ChatGPT all day long. As you're going about your day, you'll say, let me ask ChatGPT this, or do you set aside time to have these [00:16:00] conversations? And have you named your ChatGPT? Rob Wenger: I name all of my AIs Samantha because of the movie Her. And if anybody's Ah, yes. That is a great look at what This is going to look like in a year or two, but anyway, yes, now I do. I actually have this little cool device. You can't really see it, but it's this little thing called the stream deck. And it's got all these programmable buttons and I have a ChatGPT button. So when I push it, it pops up in front of me and no matter where it is on my massive number of screens and windows that are running, cause I can't, I just lose it, but yeah, I use it all day long. Like you said, in the beginning, I. I have a question and I immediately ask it. By the way, I think Google search, it's dead to me. I think it's probably dead, a dead man walking kind of thing because I ask ChatGPT everything. The only thing I Google is when I need to go someplace, an address, right, not a physical address, but a web address, and I don't know what it is or I want to type it. I type it into the, you know, the search bar and it comes up with it. But otherwise, ChatGPT is everything. And the reason I bring that up [00:17:00] is because it is sort of a cautionary thing. I do think. Traffic driven to websites is going to really, if app rate might be too strong, but it's going to be significantly impacted by people using ChatGPT rather than Google. Because Google drives most traffic to most websites. Right, right. And if people aren't Googling things, ChatGPT doesn't currently, I mean they have The sort of rag, here's where I got the information from. But I find that I never click on that. I've been using it constantly for over a year and I almost never click on what they tell me to click on. So, be aware of this, like, sort of lack of traffic and think about your marketing plans are going to have to be different. Joanna Pineda: Right. Wow. Well, this is a very, very interesting and very intentional playbook for really kind of creating an AI adoption strategy at an organization. But let's turn to higher logic, right? So you've got this suite of products. How are you integrating AI [00:18:00] into the products, and why are you integrating AI into the products? Rob Wenger: Yeah, so we're being very intentional about it. I think what AI is great at, like, Unparalleled great at is understanding people's language, right, talking. It doesn't have to be English, whatever language of what you're actually asking in, you know, human spoken language is so good at understanding it. Now, the jury's out on how good it is in giving you back what you're asking for, but in understanding it's really good. So that's one of the things. And so we're, we're really driving toward things that are going to move the needle on what do our organizations do. The first thing we actually built was a little chat window inside of our marketing product and forms, where a person can say, I want to send an email, you know, to my members. Can you help me draft it? It's just a very, I could have done that in ChatGPT and pasted it in here, but we want to put that in place. And that's very easy because you can. Click it or not click it. It writes it for you and then you can edit it before you [00:19:00] send it. So it's, you know, an easy way to get into it. Second thing we did is we did this thing called the bulk uploader, which I've wanted to do forever, but couldn't figure out how, which is we have a resource library, right? It has thousand PDFs in it. I wanted to upload all thousand PDFs at one go. It requires a, like a description and a title and potentially tags in order to arrange it, right? With, ah, we could easily do that. Say, read this PDF and give me a summary on it. So again, pretty simple. Worst case, it's not exactly right. You click in, you say, oh, this is, you know, this is what it's about. So it's not the end of the world if it hallucinates. It doesn't, really, we found. Especially when, over time, we've upgraded the model. I think our overall goal though is to automate, right? So having, there's two other things that I would mention. One, we just today launched in beta our, we call it a rag bot. It's an AI assistant, right? So it uses. The theory of retrieval augmented generation to take what the model has and augment it with what the association has as [00:20:00] private information. And the private information is used to answer the question. The public and the private is combined to answer the question. So none of that private information goes to a model to learn. It immediately forgets it. But what we do is we combine search with, okay, here's what they're asking. Let's see if we have any documents that answer it. We return those documents and then the AI just reads it. It summarizes it and then points to them and then forgets, right? So that's the biggest one, like I said, beta launch today. We have 15 beta clients on a call with us today, starting it up. It's available to any of our clients as of today, because you can just say, I want to be in the beta, but we'll probably put it out for, you know, like everyone should turn it on in the first week of March. And we've been beta-ing it. Alpha and Beta with IBM for about four months now. IBM is our biggest client. They also make the AI tools, right? So we built it on top of Watson X, which is one of their big AI systems. And it's been really great. And so the feedback has been amazing. Four months in, in [00:21:00] Alpha. Let's call it with them. So we're kicking off the general beta. So Joanna Pineda: I want to make sure I understand what this thing does. You're saying, let's take a standard LLM, a large language model, and then using the RAG model, really train it in particular on, say, an organization's research reports. Train isn't the right word, but kind of prioritize the data, right, and have access to the private information from the association so that now the members can have a conversation with this chatbot that includes the data from the research and it also understands the association's acronyms, for example, because there's a jillion ASAs and a jillion NASs and, you know, and, you know, all that stuff. Rob Wenger: So, and the reason I point out we don't train is because it doesn't remember, right? So it's, you know. That's right. But yeah, generally, you're right. And instead of saying data, I might say information. The difference being it's not private information. It's not people's email addresses and names and addresses and phone numbers and stuff like that. It's really just the [00:22:00] content that's created. So the Q&A, the blogs, the uploaded resources, uploaded contract samples, whatever they put into their community is available to the search. Search runs, brings back the results, and then the AI reads the results of the search and summarizes the answer to the question. It also, by the way, behind the scenes, does a whole lot of back and forth. So it'll appear to you, and ChatGPT works this way as well, it'll appear to you like you ask a question and it gives you an answer. What really happens is you ask a question, and a whole bunch of back and forth happens with different systems. Right. And then eventually you get an answer that we've sanitized and said, okay, this looks like the right answer. So it's more complex than you think, more complex than I thought going in. But after four months of tuning it and prompt engineering and all kinds of feature development to make sure it's good and accurate, that's what we came out with. So that's number one. Number two, our main strategy really is to automate as many of the sort of the, the [00:23:00] small repetitive tasks that have to happen to run an organization like an association. And anything that a computer and an AI can do, let's have them do it. So that the staff doesn't have to do it. Simple example, I asked Chia at GPT, what are the big questions that someone in the association membership department gets from members? And it came up with a list of like 50 questions. And I said, how many can an AI answer? And it was probably about half of them. An AI could just read the website and give the answer. And so if a, if a member, instead of calling the association and asking the question, ask the chatbot, and the chatbot can give them the answer, it's done. The other half, it could also answer with a little bit of work. Like, if I said, what are the member benefits? Right? It would be able to answer that just from looking at the website, so it could tell me who that is. If I say, when does my membership renew, it has to look up who I am and see when my membership renews and answer that question. And the third [00:24:00] level is, can you register me for the webinar next week? right? So that's a sort of what I call doing. So one is, one is reading, one is doing. When, when you get to the doing level, that's when it gets really, really cool. And these things we call agents. Joanna Pineda: The agentic experience. The Rob Wenger: Agentic experience, exactly. We're making dozens of agents with hundreds of skills each. And then the AI. And we get back to what I said about understanding English really well or language really well, is when you ask, it can just match up what you're asking with its skills and it's much more like, we call it deterministic. It's much more likely to do the thing right than if you just let it do whatever it wants to do. Joanna Pineda: Now let's take a quick break from the conversation for a word from our episode sponsor, HigherLogic. Is your association struggling to keep your members connected and engaged? HigherLogic has partnered with associations for nearly two decades to help them demonstrate member [00:25:00] value, increase engagement, and support their missions. Their comprehensive HigherLogic Thrive platform was built to help associations create a complete member ecosystem and leverage data to personalize their member experiences. With one easy to use system, you can support all your offerings from your online community to your marketing campaigns, to your job board, to your mentoring and volunteering program and more. Plus, their built in AI features, automated workflows, and robust analytics will save you tons of time so you can focus less on manual tasks and more on high impact strategic work. HigherLogic Thrive has everything associations need to gain real time insights to keep members connected, engaged, and coming back for more. Well, I got another question for you. So within the HigherLogic community itself, there's lots and lots of data about what members are interested in, what they're saying, what they're thinking. Are you developing tools [00:26:00] so that the associations can get some insight into what's keeping them up at night, and how do you balance data concerns? Amanda, maybe this is for you. Rob Wenger: Yeah, I'll let her answer the concerns question. I'm not concerned but then I have her Backstop. So I don't need to be the reason I'm not concerned though is because it's the data. It's the organization's data, right? So we're not giving them anything other than what they already should have access to we're just doing it in a way That they can you know digest it, right? So I don't think of that so much as AI as I do analytics Joanna Pineda: Oh, that's true. Okay, Rob Wenger: so we actually have a strategy we call the three A's it's AI analytics and automation They're not independent things, obviously, but that's how we think of everything we're working on in those categories, right? So this is what I would say in analytics, but you're right. All the interactions, we expect there to be more interactions. With members and the association because of AI because they can start to think of this AI [00:27:00] Assistant as someone a companion who sits next to them that can answer questions for them Now what's interesting about associations though is I originally when I was thinking about this was like this is gonna be a big threat to associations because You've got no traffic being driven. You've got these AI chatbots like, like ChatGPT and Gemini being trained on all the information in the world that has access to. Like, why do I need to go to an association to get any information? Well, there's two reasons. One is that there is all that private information, right? The stuff behind the file, right? So you've got your journal, your spec, your standard, all the conversations, all the blogs, all the official publications of the organization. Exactly. So you've got all this content. that it can't get to, so it can't learn from. Even stuff like textbooks, in theory, are copyrighted, so it can't know that stuff, right? So associations still have all the knowledge. And the second one is associations are the only place where you can continue to develop this knowledge, right? So I think of it as like, The, the best things associations have done [00:28:00] is gathered all of the world's experts in that thing in one place, right? So I started thinking about this with community, and this is the reason for community, right? If I have a community for my association, my members can ask all the other members a question, right? So you're a junior member or you just have a hard question. You hope someone has that experience. You post in the community, the person has that experience or that, that expertise answers the question and it's great, you've got your answer. The future now is, though, that now the, the bot could answer that question. Not ChatGPT, but the association's bot can answer that question. And so, there's a lot of value that's been created over all these years between all of the different content properties that an association has that you put into a bot, and now it's much easier to get that information out than it is to search. But then, what happens if you can't get it, right? Because no one's asked the question before, but some spread is out there. So we had this cool feature, I think this is Awesome. It was my idea. So, you know, obviously I think it's awesome, but it's a button at the bottom that says, [00:29:00] not getting the answer you need, ask your fellow humans. The idea of it is the bot goes and does its search and it tries to find an answer and it can't find one and what do you do? You push that button and it drafts a post to the community of basically what you were conversing with it with. It makes a summary and asks the community. This Joanna Pineda: makes a phone call to a, to a human. Rob Wenger: Phone's a friend. Phone's a friend. Phone's a friend is a good word. I might have to change it. Phone a friend. Joanna Pineda: So, Amanda, let me ask you a question. So I do have some clients and I've heard from some association execs that are concerned about member data. Rob doesn't seem concerned. Are you concerned? And what safeguards are vendors like HigherLogic putting in place? Amanda DeLuke: Yeah, so I think, again, it kind of goes back to the, the data classification and understanding what data is going to go into the model, and if it's even, you know, storing that data, if it's, right, it just, it's able to just, you know, go away and [00:30:00] you can ask a question and doesn't store it, so that's going to be really important, so keeping everything private, and the other, I would say, probably just the, the data classification and making sure it's a private model, it's not training your data. Private model, right. Right. Joanna Pineda: Right. Amanda DeLuke: Yeah. And then also like some other things just to consider is just to make sure that when you are using AI, you're adhering to your current process. Like you shouldn't have to be changing your process. You should just be able to adhere to whatever applicable laws there are and, and whatever you, whatever you have. For guardrails for your vendors, make sure that that's all in place. And if it is, then you can use it safely. I mean, this is one of my favorite features. I get so excited when you talk about this, Rob, because I'm like, this is a perfect use case because being able to leverage this data is really just going to allow in automating things is really going to allow. Associations that have to wear so many hats be able to focus more on the human elements that are important to the business, [00:31:00] right? So I think all of this can be done very safely as long as again, because associations have different types of data that they're dealing with, it's just making sure that you identify the types of data. Do your due diligence, making sure that it's private and it's not training a model and that it's staying internal. And then as long as you follow all of those guardrails, I think you can really do this safely. As well as like, if you do have something that you have concerns about, make sure to talk to your teams about that. And then also you may just need to be transparent. Talk about in your terms of use or in your privacy policy, like, this is what's being used and just being very transparent and upfront. I think that's really important too. Joanna Pineda: So what I'm hearing from you is have a conversation with your vendors or your industry partners to say what's going to happen to my data. Is it private? You know, show me your terms of use and your, and your privacy policies so that I can be comfortable that we're not training the LLMs on my member data. Yeah. Rob Wenger: What makes it easier [00:32:00] and harder for us, easier because there's a thing called SOC 2, right? Which is something we have to comply with. Well, Joanna Pineda: Explain what SOC 2 is. Amanda DeLuke: Yeah, the way you explain it, it's, it's basically taking a look at all of the controls that you have in place at your business, right? And making sure they're, it's showing proof and accountability of those controls being in place and that they're working properly. So that's usually, you know, how I would describe SOC 2 audit. And there's different types of SOC 2 and type 1, type 2, type 3, right? So depending on the type of data you're processing, but yeah. You want to be testing those controls to make sure they're working properly. Rob Wenger: Yeah, so the good part about Suck2 is that because the guardrails have been set up over a period of many, many years, probably a decade now, I think, we have good checks and balances and we have people like Amanda who make sure we follow it. It's a pain for me because I always want to violate them, not for real, like I don't want to purposely violate them, but I want to do something that [00:33:00] she says. No, you can't do it, which is great, but you know, it both speeds us up and slows us down. So an association probably doesn't need to and doesn't want to take on the burden of becoming SOC 2 compliant, but their vendors should, right? So most of the organizations I think in the association space are certified SOC 2 compliant in one level or another. As long as they have that, they shouldn't be too worried about it, but they might want to be informed about it. Joanna Pineda: Well, Rob and Amanda, I could talk to you guys all day, but before we go, what's two things that you would recommend to an association exec who says, I'm just getting started? What should be in their playbook? Rob Wenger: Yeah, I think number one is what we talked about earlier. You have a plan for how to deal with it. Even if you're not going to do it right away, make the plan. Because then you, you know what it's going to entail. The process of the planning will get you where you want to go. And the thing I tell everybody, whether they're an association executive or my mom, is just use one of these tools. Play with [00:34:00] it. Like I said, I replaced Google with it, and I never looked back. It wasn't overnight, though. You know, a month ago, I would start to Google something, not get an answer, and be like, wait, why am I doing this? It takes some time to build those muscle memory, so I would say, encourage your staff to just take that journey at least, and then you can become more sophisticated. I would also say, and I'll let Amanda talk more about this, but when we finished October, At the end of it, we put on a webinar for the association world to just like hear what we'd done and, and all of the sort of artifacts of that, the rules and regulations and stuff that Amanda and her team produced, we made available. So if you do want to start, I'm not suggesting necessarily doing it in October, especially because I wouldn't wait till October, but if you can do, you know, April. Those resources are out there from us or there, there's a lot of other sources and Amanda, you're the expert on that. So, Joanna Pineda: yeah, Amanda, you got the final word. Amanda DeLuke: So [00:35:00] clear company statement and communication is really important. Like, why are we doing this? Like, what is your scope? I think being very clear on how you communicate, what is important? Why do we want to use this AI and how are we going to benefit from it? So I think just answering those questions up front is really important, and it gives everyone sort of the fire to want to start using it and getting really excited. So that's something that I felt when we started using AI October. I'm like, Oh my gosh, we have something clear coming from Rob, and we were all excited about using it. So I think that's really important. That's one step. And then really, I'm going to just hone in again on that data classification. Understand the types of data that you're holding and the vendors processing it. Cause I've, I've seen some of these vendors, it's sort of happening like with this Trojan horse thing where AI just gets turned on by default and you don't know about it. I've seen that happen where you have to go in and actually manually turn it off. Or I think that's really important is to be able to know your data. [00:36:00] Know where the data is being processed and know your vendors processing it, especially as it relates to AI. Joanna Pineda: Wow. Well, I have enjoyed myself tremendously during this interview. I've learned a whole lot too. I want to thank you both, Rob and Amanda. And thanks to ASAE for letting me host and being part of this amazing conversation. Rob Wenger: Thanks for having us. It was a lot of fun being here and yeah, happy to answer any questions anytime. Joanna Pineda: Thanks to everyone for listening to this episode of Associations NOW Presents. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals, discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today, and highlight the significant impact that associations have on the economy, the U. S., and the world. Again, we'd like to thank our episode sponsor Higher Logic. For more information, visit them online at higherlogic.com. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. And for more information on AI in the association space and how it's transforming our [00:37:00] community, visit associations now online at associationsnow.com.

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host David Coriale of the Reboot IT podcast sits down with Mark Graham, vice president of Association Solutions at ASAE, and Paul Pomerantz, FACHE, FASAE, managing director of the Association Governance Institute (AGI) and former CEO of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. They discuss AGI’s mission to streamline resources, build a robust content library, and develop educational courses to elevate governance in associations. Topics include CEO-board relationships, executive transitions, board operations, strategic oversight, and governance structures. They also explore assessments for CEOs and boards, the pivotal role of organizational culture, and how technology and cybersecurity play into effective governance. The episode wraps with actionable advice for fostering a healthy governance culture and navigating the evolving needs of associations.   Check out the video podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_0qljegbl4   Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript   Dave Coriale  0:03   Hello everyone. I'm Dave Coriale, president of DelCor and host of another podcast, Reboot IT, where we talk about all things technology for the association and 501 C community. Today I am guest hosting this podcast, and I am very excited about our two guests. One of them is Mark Graham, who is the vice president of association solutions at ASAE, at the Center for Association Leadership. And the other is a leader I've been a fan of for a long time, Paul Pomerantz. He has been a CEO of several health and medical associations before this, and he is currently the managing director of the Association Governance Institute. Let's get going. Let's listen in on the conversation. I think there is plenty to gain from hearing what they have to say, and here we are having the conversation I've been looking forward to for weeks now, ever since this was scheduled. Paul, Mark, thank you for taking your time. I know you're both very busy to talk about something that's coming up and very important, the Association Governance Institute, that is one of the main topics. I'm sure we'll weave and bob through a couple others along the way. But like always, I like to start my podcast with what are we talking about? So let's talk a little bit about the Association Government Institute, what it is, etc. Mark, I think you'd be great to lead that part of the conversation. So why don't you give us a little bit of background and where we're headed here?  Mark Graham  1:23   Sure. So the Association Governance Institute, AGI, the brainchild of Michelle Mason, wanted to create a brand new home for governance, for associations. ASAE has done a pretty good job at governance, but we wanted to really focus on it and really have a terrific resource library. What we did was we always created, like a brand new organization. Why we called it the Association Governance Institute, although it will be part of your ASAE membership, and what it does, it creates a library of resources that are all focused on just governance. If you search as a website now, and you search governance, you'll get a whole host of content. But what we've done is we really drill down to a bunch of categories of governance, six categories of governance and three to five subcategories of governance, because governance is quite complicated. There's an art and science to it, and we hope to address both of that with the Association Governance Institute. So let me give you a few examples of the categories. The CEO-board relationship. We're talking about. The CEO evaluation, the compensation, the contracts we get into the culture of boards. One of the major responsibilities with board is to hire and manage the CEO. So we have a whole section on executive transitions, operations. We're talking about the soup and nuts of how boards operate. We have tons of content and sub content on all these topics to round it out. We have strategy and oversight and structure, so we've really used a lot of our advisory committees of CEOs and consultants to help us devise this whole new institute and how to organize all the content. That's the content part of it. But we're also including new tools with AGI and new educational courses. Paul and I have always joked, this is like creating a brand new organization. We started last January, and we're ready to launch next month. Paul Pomerantz  3:06   Really exciting stuff. And just to add to this part of the thinking behind this, especially as this was first being developed by Michelle and myself and some conversations. The idea was twofold. One, ASAE has a lot of resources, but they're in different places, so the idea is bring it together and really emphasize it, shine a spotlight on it, and make it easier to find, more accessible, and then give it a place to grow. So we already have a great set of tool kits. But what's missing? What needs to be developed? What other tools can we develop? So this will provide that kind of focal point for it. The other thing is that you think about the CEO job, and CEO is successful, if his governance is successful, if the CEO and the board are working in unison, they're aligned, goals are clear, resources are being allocated according to the goals and the plan of the organization, then you have a healthy organization and it functions. Things break down when governance doesn't work. And so in our view, job one for a CEO is to make sure that governing process works; that there's communication; there's transparency; there's clarity. All those types of things. And part of our goal is to really support the CEO in carrying out that part of their position, the CEO and the staff team in other industries. corporate setting. You have the National Association of Corporate Directors in the healthcare setting. You have other governance resources. Associations do not have that kind of focus, and we're bringing that kind of focus to it. Mark Graham  4:43   Yeah. And as Paul says, this is a starting point. In January, this thing will continue to evolve and grow with the help of our advisory committees. Paul has been instrumental, my partner in crime, if you will. He's a bright star when it comes to governance knowledge. So he's helped guide this thing from the very beginning. Dave Coriale  5:01   No better guide out there. So I do have a question. You mentioned content. Two questions. One's about content. You mentioned that you've gone through and you've curated the content. So this sounds like it's new content, and probably a mix of some existing content. And so I want to hear a little bit more about that, as well as the assessments that you mentioned. What type of assessments would one find in the AGI? Mark Graham  5:23   Sure. So the content is divided into a couple of different categories. You have a lot of opinion and articles thought leadership on best practice and governance and all those categories that I just mentioned. We also have how-tos, checklists and case studies. These are all tools you can give people to help them do better. In governance, I'll focus on maybe one area: executive transitions. There is a lot of guidance. We've been talking about CEO succession for decades and how to improve it. So we've gone through and curated all the best articles on CEO succession. We provide some checklists on CEO succession. For instance, very sadly, sometimes there may be an abrupt departure of a CEO. They may be terminated, they may quit. Sadly, may even pass away. We have checklists of what you should do, and each one of those instances, executive transition also involves a CEO contract. So we have whole sections on contracts from the board's perspective and the CEO's perspective, what to look for, what to negotiate, what's important, what you really focus in on? And of course, there is compensation. We have lots of tools and compensation philosophy. We even have a whole practice built around helping organizations determine the right compensation for their CEO. So that's just one of those areas that we really drill down and focus in on. The content. So we provide the opinions, the articles, the how tos, the checklists. We do this for every single one of the categories. Like in financial management, we have 20 questions a new board member should be asking about the financial situation of an organization. This is good for someone who's maybe new to governance and doesn't know what they're doing. So it's a good primer. We could talk about all the content, almost this entire podcast, who does just so much of it, governance. I went into this knowing a little bit about governance, and now I think I'm almost an expert, almost nearly half as smart as Paul, because there's so much to governance, the science of it, there's so much to it. And where people mainly get tripped up is the art of governance. And so we hope to be taken care of the whole package.  Paul Pomerantz  7:22   I couldn't agree more. And one of the great areas of content that we're really proud of, and we go through everything like Mark says: legal, roles and responsibilities, all these things. But one of the areas I'm very proud of is the board selection and development piece. And this is the area where Mark Engel and some other folks have been leaders in this area and have really created publications and tools. Well, all those are going to be curated into this website. So the whole idea of, how do you evaluate board trends and board needs? How do you recruit for a board house is an optimal leadership development process? How do you orient and train and own board members? How do you evaluate their performance? All those kinds of really rich tools that haven't been easy to locate will be part of our resource center. Dave Coriale  8:13   And I think that's a critical piece. You just pulled out the easy to locate, right? So the ease of use of this resource center, and especially if it's being redesigned, or being designed from the ground up right now, as opposed to taking something and trying to fix it, always yields a better user experience. And speaking of the users, who is this targeted?  Is it the CSO, the chief staff officer? Or is it the board? Is it both? Who's the target of the resource for, what are most of the resources for? Mark Graham  8:34   Really anyone involved in government. So primarily, is going to be the chief executive and board members, but increasingly, especially large organizations, they'll likely have a chief governance officer or someone who's a significant portion of their time is dedicated towards governance. These are for people who aspire to the C-suite or aspire to serve on a board that a lot of people just think they're going to learn on the job. And I can't stress enough that's the wrong way to do it. You don't want to start making mistakes on the job. When it comes to governance, you want to go in fully educated on how this stuff works and where the landmines are. I've seen too many CEOs, chief executives get tripped up because they didn't know what they didn't know.  Dave Coriale  8:36   Yeah, it certainly makes sense. I know how to run my business, but I've been on a board, and the orientation was, you know, "this is our cadence of meeting. This is how we do this process. This is who is the head of this. This is who's the head of that." That's very different than what I'm hearing here in terms of giving the team the resources they need to really ensure that the governance is quality, right? The assessment piece, the onboarding piece, you're talking about the content that I could have as a board member reviewed to understand my role better and how I contribute better. That's what it sounds like. We're bridging the gap between I'm on a board to what's the most successful version of the board. Paul Pomerantz  9:53   One of the critical audiences we had in mind, CEOs, board members. But also--so and Mark mentioned this--that governance professional, the chief governance officer, director of governance, sometimes manager board operations. They have different titles, and most of them are that, like everyone I met, is a supreme professional, but they all come from different backgrounds. They all have different experiences. And when people are introduced to this job, they may not have all the foundational elements. We developed a course that will be offered asynchronously, called Introduction to Association Governance, and it was originally for this group of governance staff professionals sometimes new to the job, just to give them a common framework to operate from. But as we've begun to develop this course, realize it's of interest to new CEOs. And also CEOs are telling I'd like to share this with our board. In this course, the station in this course, which will be ready in the coming weeks, we'll have legal fundamentals, roles and responsibilities of the board, board selection and development and a function of a board meeting, what you need to do before, during and after. So the tools, as you can see, are really intended for everybody who's part of the governance process. Mark Graham  11:17   Yeah, offering a micro credential in that course you can get certified in governance. Dave Coriale  11:23   That's awesome. You mentioned that course is asynchronous, right? Are there in-person events also associated with this resource? Mark Graham  11:30   With AGI, there is. Where ASAE has two exceptional governance in-person courses already that have a long history and a really great programs. Blend Teck program, CEO Symposium, the one mark Engel runs Exceptional Boards. But we have added another one called the Governance and Strategy Forum within the McKinley Group, which is going to have its inaugural meeting of April 29 here in Washington, DC. It's a two day in person event. It's designed to build the strong partnership between the CEO and the elected leaders, typically the, of course, the chair. But these are also open to incoming chairs. These in person meetings we hear time and time again are terrific to build those bonds with the chief staff and those elected leaders. Dave Coriale  12:18   That's awesome. There's a micro credential associated with this in the in-person piece. I know that a lot of work has gone into that new in person piece that you just talked about, that's happening in April, and I'm sure that the participants will come out with much more than they thought they would when they went into it. And I'm aware of the symposium and other pieces that you talked about, and they've always had a great track record. So before we wrap up on AGI, one of the other things that I remember hearing about was some assessments. Earlier, you mentioned there are some assessments too that are related to it. Who's the target audience assessments, and what might one expect to put into it and get out of it? If you could elaborate on that a bit.  Mark Graham  12:57   Certainly. At launch, we're going to have two assessments, but we have more planned. But at launch, we're gonna have two assessments. One is a CEO assessment the board would use to evaluate the chief executive, and the other is the board self-assessment, where the board would evaluate themselves on maybe 11 areas to see how they do, how they function, how they work, and compare it against thousands of other organizations who've taken this assessment as well. So the CEO assessment is very cool. It's four parts. It's a custom tool there where you could enter in your own performance evaluation of your chief executive. Every organization is different. They have their own KPI and goals. Well, there's certain things that are just fundamental to every organization. There is, how will you do the job, the administration of a CEO role. There is the leadership qualities, the personal leadership qualities, your interpersonal skills, your communication skills. And then, of course, we have accomplishments and challenges that are present for every organization as well. So this tool is an online tool that board members fill out at the end of this survey, they take on the chief executive. They get a report, and also the CEO takes this survey as well, so the CEO and the board can compare how the CEO perceived themselves in these areas compared to how the board viewed the CEO in these areas. And the other the board self assessment tool focuses in on, I think it's 11. Sorry, we are working on so much here at AGI sometimes it's hard to remember the exact number and details of these parts. But if focusing on how the organizations, the culture, the meetings, the policies, financial oversight, and how well board members think they do in these areas, and again, then we compare it to. No board is perfect. Some boards are great. Some boards are okay. And so what we're going to get with this report is we're going to see how you stack up again. Stack up against a bunch of other organizations. So these two tools were created, actually a long time ago in partnership with board source, but ASAE has now taken them in house, and now they'll be part of AGI. Dave Coriale  14:56   Understood. And what's the time commitment on the organization or the executives part on those types of self assessments? Mark Graham  15:02   About 30 minutes, 30 minutes. It's a thing, where you can jump in on your phone, fill out few things, come back. But if you sat down, really wanted to push for it, it's about 30 minutes on each one. There is some administration for the CEO assessment, because some of those questions are custom assessment questions. But once those are done, the board member can expect about 30 minutes. It's a good tool they can use year after year and track their progress, board self assessment and the CEO assessment, so they can see where they're doing better and where they still have some work to do. Paul Pomerantz  15:32   It's a wonderful tool. I've seen it used. I've used it on my own board, and I've worked with other boards. And what it does is it provides that opportunity for the board to give itself feedback. This is a board self-assessment, and boards could be their most critical evaluators. And so it's one thing for a CEO that say, you guys could be doing better. It's another one for the board itself to look at this and say, we could be doing better. And so when properly done and facilitated, these instruments are incredible because the board identifies not only its strengths but its weaknesses, and gets to compare itself with its peers. And so that's really eye opening for board members. The eyes light up. They get excited, and they're engaged about how do we move forward? How do we become better? It's a great tool for self improvement.  Mark Graham  16:21   These tools are completely confidential. The board members are not going to know who answered to what questions, so it really gets some honest feedback of the CEO and of course, the board.  Dave Coriale  16:30   Yeah, that's a really important point to make in ways you want to ask also, one of the things we love to do in this community is benchmark ourselves against others, right? Will there be as you collect data across time, even though it's anonymous, will there be the opportunity to see where your ratings stand against other organizations? Mark Graham  16:48   Yeah. In fact, in every report, you will see every single category, almost every single question, how you stack up against all of your peers, because this poor self assessment has been administered for gosh, I drew my math here, 16 years, we have an enormous amount of data, awesome to pull from. The CEO assessment is not a benchmarking tool. And it shouldn't be, for probably reasons. But the board self-assessment, you'll be able to see how you do, yeah, and year to year, if you do the report every year, every couple years, you can just go back to the little report and see how you did.  Dave Coriale  17:18   So speaking of how you do, is one of the key aspects of this. How are we doing as a board? How are we doing as a chief staff officer? Paul, you started this thread. You started this conversation around the CEO is successful, or the chief staff officer is successful when governance is solid, paraphrasing a little bit there. But you're saying governance a good place. CEO has much more likely chance of success. And I know you also mentioned earlier, culture playing a role in that, and that's something that I feel like you've focused on. You've written some articles about it, you've talked about it. I've heard you talk about culture, fair assessment, fair statement. That's important as far as success goes beyond just the operational aspect.  Paul Pomerantz  17:56   Yeah, I would say it's probably the most important aspect and the least well defined.  Dave Coriale  18:01   I was going to ask you to start by defining what when you talk about culture, how do you define it?  Paul Pomerantz  18:06   Greatly, it's like that famous quote by Justice Potter Stewart. I notice when I'll know it when I see it. He was describing pornography in those days. So probably not a great analogy, but culture, we're going to end up with an explicit rating, exactly, you know, and your kids listening to this. But no, all kidding aside, the culture really refers to what groups value, what they believe in, and how they behave towards each other and to others, and it really reflects The norms of behavior. And what's interesting is that culture is not defined by what people say they are. So one of the big misinterpretations out there is, well, the board values, right, or the organization values they represent your culture. They may not, because the culture is really how you live, how you behave, people. And I'll say Mark Engel again, he has assured with me, and I truly believe it, that there are three pillars to governance, strategy, structure and culture. And the if you think about it, strategy is your direction, structure is the hardware, right? How's the board organized? How many board members are there? How's it staff, all those kinds of things. But culture is the software. It's really how it works. It's the operating system that really makes the board operate. And the literature is full of examples of when culture doesn't work properly. They go back in the last couple years, we've had issues on the media with the National Association of Realtors, where culture broke down, the organization was blind to activities that took place within the organization that was very costly for a reputation of the National Association of Realtors, certainly in the corporate sector and the for profit industry, many examples and we can point to. To really the very high profile experience with Enron, going back to the turn of the century, where, you know, that led to really the downfall of that company, because the board was not paying attention to things it should have, and accounting was hidden. It was falsified. And really resulted not only in the downfall of that company, but new laws and regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that really required a high degree of transparency, and we can go through examples in this article I wrote for more brief, there are many examples where it's just very costly, where, when the culture breaks down, it could be extremely costly for the organization. Interestingly, people would say, what's a an example of the good cultures of people getting along? Is it people being very civil with each other? And I'd say, no, it's really the reverse. It's where boards are inquisitive, where there's healthy disagreement, where there's healthy curiosity, there's robust discussion of issues where people are held accountable. There's accountability of the staff. There's accountability to each other, and the board is engaged in a very rigorous process of self evaluation, evaluation of the organization and accountability. They're asking the tough questions about their industry. They're asking the tough questions about the organization and how well they're doing. They're asking tough questions about their competitors in the competitive environment that they're in. I think we sometimes falsely seek in our organizations a degree of camaraderie that may not necessarily be healthy. And one of the things we talk about in the article is that association boards are especially vulnerable to this false sense of harmony. And the reason is, in associations, you got people from the same profession or same industry, and we're less likely to be critical to call each other to account, because I'm going to rely on you. Let's say you're in my profession to help me to advance further. I want you to like me. I don't want to call you out, because then you'll call me out. But in the contrary, that false harmony can be very detrimental to the organization. So I hope that makes sense, and what we talk about in the article is, how do you evaluate your culture, and then what are some of the tools and resources that are available to help check in and improve that culture? It's not all that hard. It's really just asking the right questions. The board self-assessment is clearly a tool you can use the CEO selection and evaluation. That's a very critical resource you want to make sure that the CEO has been somebody who has had experience building a culture, building a partnership with the board, sets the model for a healthy culture. In an organization, you want to recruit board members who have similar types of experiences that are good at this. They understand what they're trying to do. Look at the board agendas over time. That's another tool as well. Boards with a healthy culture will spend more time on strategic items and generative items. They're going to spend more time exercising their curiosity and asking tough questions. Boards that have a weaker culture are going to spend their time on operational issues and micromanagement. Why? Because it's easy way of getting out of the tough issues. You really want the board focused on the tough issues. Another thing that many boards are doing is they're bringing on public members and other perspectives to create a diverse, diverse points of view. So if you have a board that's we're all from the same industry, we're all used to talking to each other, bring in different perspectives, bring in a member of the public, bring in a customer of members, either as a member of the board or on an infrequent basis, to help challenge the board and then lean into the bad news. What I found is boards tend to avoid the bad news until it's too late. What you want to do is, if you had a bad record financially. You want to talk about that. What does that mean? The industry is facing some tough times. What are you going to do, and how are you going to address that? That you've had a staff engagement survey, there are some signs of stress among the staff. How do you present that to the board and talk about that? But leaning into the bad news, having those frank conversations is very much part of that. Dave Coriale  24:21   So there's a lot in there, right? I'm trying to listen and parse all the way through that, and it all made sense. You asked in the quite in the middle of that, you said, that does that? If this makes sense, it all made very good sense. Culture eats strategy for breakfast, right? So culture is one of those things that you have to have your eye and it's also always known to be one of those things that it's really hard to change. You can't execute a new culture like you use the word. You have to build it. You have to push towards it. And you tied that to the values of the organization. And when there's misalignment between values and action, is what it sounded like to me, fair assessment, that we have values, that there. The website we're done with that. Let's move on. That's a critical piece that can fall apart when you're not paying attention to it. Paul Pomerantz  25:07   Exactly. I've seen too many boards say and come up with values that don't really reflect who they are. So our value is customer service. Our value is civility. Now you really got to break down, what do you really mean and what do you truly live? And I'm going to modify your quote there, culture eats strategy. I'm gonna say culture eats CEOs. What happens is, if a CEO knows how to manage culture, understands culture knows what to look for, they're gonna do well. But what I see too often is that CEOs will enter organizations not really familiar with the culture that they're walking into, not sure how to measure it, not sure of their compatibility with the culture, and try to redefine strategy or their role or change culture without really knowing how to do it. And we see those stories all the time, and having a cultural competency is really important for a successful CEO, particularly as it comes to working with governance.  Mark Graham  26:08   Well, we'll add though, culture can sometimes be the third rail in organization management, because a CEO goes in there, they can see the culture is not well, but to change it, they may have to tackle their own board of directors. I've seen many associations CEOs going, Nope, it's just not worth it. I'm going to just go with the status quo. And sadly, that's really one of the reasons why we want AGI to be successful. We believe in excellent governance. We want to give people the tools to maybe tackle that third rail, even though it's a little intimidating. But if culture's eating things again, yeah, I think it is eating CEOs and strategy, probably a few other things.  Dave Coriale  26:43   It's such a big word, and so I'm wondering if there is an assessment. Yeah, I think you mentioned there is an assessment. Are there ways to assess culture as a new CEO walking in? Because one of the ways we define it is how work gets done. Right here at Delco, we say culture is how our work gets done, and we're not talking about the process that we go through. We're talking about what you talked about, Paul, in terms of whether or not we communicate with each other frankly and honestly, or if we just want to get along for the moment, whether or not we challenge each other. That helps us define what we mean by culture. But in the AGI content and assessments, how does the CEO get help assessing their culture?  Mark Graham  27:19   I think when Paul and I first adopted the board self assessment and took a look at it, we made some minor tweaks to it, to update it, modernize it for 2024. But he and I saw a huge opportunity to really upgrade this. So we're already in the planning stages of version 2.0 of the board assessment, and really drilling down on culture, because we both believe it's very important, because this is a benchmarking tool, you need to make these changes like once or twice. You can't just make iterative changes to a benchmarking tool. So we made very small changes to it for this first version, but this next version that Bucha and I were working on in 2025 we hope to really drill down on culture. I'm not sure if it's going to help CEOs going into an organization, unless executive recruiters require boards to take this self assessment before entering into a search phase. But at least when they're in there, the board, the CEO and everyone who reads this report might know where they're weak and where this improvement to be had Paul Pomerantz  28:17   And I'll add to that that the courses that ASAE offers at CEO Symposium, Exceptional Boards. These offer opportunities to talk about culture. I think there's good content in there that Glenn Techer and Mark Engel and others offer that allow for that frank discussion about things. The other thing I'll say is that if you come in as a new CEO and you say, All right, I'm going to address this culture, and I'm going to have that changed in six months. That's not how it works, a slow process. You work by example. You work iteratively. Your organization will live by the example you set. By your example of transparency. By your example of collaboration, your example of how you raise issues and discuss issues, you'll begin to shape the culture that you want to achieve. I think that the organization I came from, the American Society of Anesthesiologists, we had a very cumbersome structure. It was nothing that anybody would say that they would want as a governing structure, House of Delegates, large board. We had a even a third tier, because with the board was so large, called our administrative council. But what worked was the culture. We really emphasized having those discussions. We emphasize accountability, we emphasize transparency, we lean in the controversial items, and the members really appreciated it and were able to get things done. And I think that's how you do it. You set the example you build trust, one board at a time, one president at a time, and you'll get to where you want to get to. Mark Graham  29:46    Paul is talking about building this culture. AGI is going to give people tools to have room to build that culture. Paul led a webinar that will be on AGI called we love this title. Everyone hates your board meeting and. One of the tidbits in there from one of the participants was they give video presentations of the reports from the organization in advance to the board meeting, and they can watch it beforehand, and they can answer questions about it at the board meeting, but the CFO is not going to the board meeting and giving a financial report eating up valuable time. It's a valuable report. I don't want to take away from that, but if you're giving more time in the board meeting time, by having that information presented at events, we're giving you more time for the strategic discussions that you need to have, the long term discussions changing the culture of the industry and organization. So practical tips can be found inside AGI to be that room.  Dave Coriale  30:38   Doing this work of challenging each other and having these conversations like you're describing without being a jerk. That's really the success of the culture you need to build, which is challenging each other, being candid, leaning in, like you said, to the problems, but everyone needs to be civil and in our environment, in our association, 501c culture, as a community. It is we're generally nice people, right? So it challenges us to be challenging to each other, but fortunately, we're mostly nice people who can do it in a way where it's not going to turn into something that's acrimonious among the participants. So hopefully that's the outcome. But culture is not a new word, certainly. Is this a trend, though? Are CEOs paying more attention to culture than they did 15 years ago. Do you feel like I think so? Paul Pomerantz  31:24   What I'm seeing is more attention to that and really trying to understand the work that's getting done. That's a discipline generally within the business world. In general, you go into a lot of organizations now, bigger ones, they have corporate anthropologists and business schools are teaching business anthropology, and I think to some degree, all that is heading into the association world as well. Some of the consultants that I'm familiar with have really begun to pay attention to culture, and a lot of the people that Mark and I are working with a CEO Advisory Committee really are attuned to the culture in the organization. And like you say, how work gets stuck. Mark Graham  32:03   Search teams are created tuned to this as well, and when they place the chief executive, it's in their best interest to have a long, fruitful, happy relationship. So they don't want to put someone into a mismatch. So they're doing assessments and doing the evaluations on the board and the CEO to find out a better marriage. Paul Pomerantz  32:20   Yeah. Well, what I would say is that CEOs who may succeed on business measures, and they may succeed on culture measures, they'll get fired for failing on culture business, they'll be more forgiven. And I've seen this time and time again, where you see an organization with stronger results, but you have a cultural mismatch, and it just doesn't work. I would say that this is the most critical of skills for effective governance. Dave Coriale  32:49    I want to hit on one more topic before we wrap up, and that is, and Paul, you were nice enough earlier to bring me into the conversation by talking about the hardware and software, because I'm a tech person, right? That's what we do here at Delcor. Word technology alignment with mission, vision and business objectives. And one of the things that I've seen in governance is a struggle between the staff and the boards as it relates to the technology integrating with the strategy. I've said this a million times, that 10 years ago, we as technologists were order takers. Tell us what you want. We'll build it or buy it or buy it for you. Good luck. Now there's an opportunity for true strategic participation and saying, "Tell us your vision, tell us your objectives. Let us help you with the fidelity around the edges of that because we might know things you don't in setting that strategy or setting that objective." We might know capabilities that the organization could have. What do you feel like the role of the board and the governance body is as it relates to technology within a well functioning organization? Paul Pomerantz  33:49   I don't think it's ever been more critical. And it's funny what you say. I go back to when I first started in the industry, and that was in the last century, back those of the 19th century, roughly, and it was exactly what you say, but somebody else does that. It's a lower level task. Now it's it's not only a C-suite function, but the CEO is really expected to be conversant in the strategy and issues surrounding technology. And I think it comes down to a couple areas. One is assuring a seamless and excellent experience for the organization's constituents, whether it be its members, external stakeholders, whoever it is, the board has an interest in making sure that the organization is engaging accessible, that the experience of people who interface with the organization And the whole interface is technologically based, is a good one, and that we're getting information and we're learning from each person who comes in boards. Want to make sure that that experience is there, and that they're gleaning the information that comes from that. The second area, I think, deals with emerging technology, and particularly around AI. That has become a strategic item for virtually every board I talk to how is AI going to be used? How are we managing the risks of AI as well as the upside of AI? Do we have an AI strategy? How is it going to help us competitively, and how are our competitors using it? How are we using it and really looking through the future? How are we understanding its capabilities and moving forward. And the third area, I would say, would be in the risk management. The whole area around cyber crime. Cyber Risk is keeping every board I know up at night. Now, the larger the organization, the more pearls the risk, the more chance for the organization to be hacked for information to get out there, and then the deal with that. And so boards want to make sure that there's a good strategy towards dealing with the cyber crime, cyber risk, and that the CEO and this team are really on top of that, including that not only staff need to be well trained in dealing with cyber risk, but the board itself, and really all the commitments anybody interacting with the organization needs to be cognizant of the risk factors. So those are three that come right to mind. Mark, I may have missed some items there.  Mark Graham  36:13   Again Paul, perfect. I have nothing to add. Dave Coriale  36:15   Then I will ask you both to add one thing as we close out. First of all, I appreciate you spending the time and explaining this. This the AGI, sounds like an awesome new resource for the community. I would like to know what advice you would give an association leader that is looking to build that healthy culture and board relationship in 2025. What do you both have to say? We'll start with you, Mark. Mark Graham  36:37   I think it really comes down to spending time together and building that personal relationship, because that's where you're going to build, the trust, where you can be candid with each other. Paul spoke earlier, delivering bad news is much easier when you have a strong personal relationship with someone. For me, my recommendation for any chief executive with their board is spend more time with them. Paul Pomerantz  37:00   I thoroughly agree with that. And the other thing I'd say is, it's no secret, we're in a tough time. The world has been turned on its head. We're trying to understand this world that we're in, and I think having frank discussions with the board that talk about, what are the risks now to our organization, our professional industry, and what are the opportunities? And one of the tools that we talk about, it's in a lot of materials that the AGI has, is and it's and will be discussed in the issue of board brief that'll be coming out soon is the use of generative discussions at the board level. In other words, having a discussion at the board that's not about finding answers, but it's about understanding and just as a board discussing, what do you see as the new risk? What do you see as new challenges to you? What's your experience in your profession and your business, and how's it changing now? And what are some of the things that our association needs to be paying attention to? So it's really trying not to try to avoid the controversy, but as we said before, lean into it a bit. Don't create argument, but try to understand it. How are different members of your organization, different generations, different ownership models, how are they experiencing the changes we're seeing taking place, and how do we best navigate it as an organization? Dave Coriale  38:19   I love that piece in there, you said, try to understand it. It's a human nature. It's a common thing, especially when you're pressed for time, or don't have the relationship that you talked about, Mark to start assessing blame, as opposed to trying to assess and understand. So I think that's a super elegant way to put just try to understand it before you start solving it. Especially, and if I may be so bold, to offer my one piece of advice to this CEO and to the board, et cetera. It is something that you touched on a second ago, which is, don't cut spending on cybersecurity. We work with a lot of IT leaders, and It shocks me the number of organizations that the head of it is putting in the budget some type of cybersecurity, whether it's a tool to further protect, or it's education which is also going to protect, and they come back, and that's been what's cut. Yes, build a mindset of cybersecurity first in your organization. So again, thank you. I look forward to seeing you both in 3d in real life some point soon, but I appreciate very much the time we spent together here. Paul Pomerantz  39:19   Thank you, David. This was fun. Yeah, lot of fun. Thanks, David. Dave Coriale  39:23   Thanks everyone for listening to this episode of Associations NOW Presents. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today and highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy the U.S. and the world. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And for more information on this topic, visit Associations NOW online at associationsnow.com. Thank you.  

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest hosts Steven Stout, CAE, FASAE, and Katy Markert from Better By Association lead a timely discussion with Mary Kate Cunningham, CAE, Chief Public and Governance Officer at ASAE, and Jarrod Clabaugh, CAE, President and CEO of the Ohio Society of Association Professionals. They explore the potential impacts of upcoming tax reforms on associations and nonprofits, including the expiration of the 2017 Jobs Act provisions and new threats under UBIT. The conversation emphasizes the critical role of coalition-building, advocacy, and grassroots efforts to protect the sector. They also discuss strategies for engaging lawmakers and preview ASAE's upcoming fly-in event, focused on lobbying against adverse tax policies.   Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/3gSTzeScv7Q   Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript Steven Stout  0:04   Welcome everyone to Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast produced by the American Society of Association Executives. Today, sitting in front of the mic is myself, Steven Stout with the Texas Society of Association Executives, alongside my colleague and friend Katy Markert, who will be serving as your guest co-hosts for today's episode. Katy Markert  0:22   Hi everyone. I'm Katy Markert, also with TSAE, and we are so thrilled to be here with you today. Usually, Steven and I are on our own podcast, as he mentioned, Better by Association, produced by TSAE. And on our podcast, we refer to our listeners as "100-Percenters," because, as you probably know, association executives give 100% of themselves all the time. So you might hear us refer to that today. And I want everyone to know.  Steven Stout  0:49   Absolutely. So all those listeners hearing us for the first time, welcome to the 100- Percenter family. And for those who found us here from our other podcast, welcome back.  Katy Markert  0:58   Welcome back. Normally, I know we're used to speaking to what we think is just Texans, but I'm really excited that this is a national stage Steven.  Steven Stout  1:07   Agreed. We sometimes have listeners in Australia, China and the Netherlands. So being here makes total sense. Were you nervous about being here today Katy?  Katy Markert  1:16   What's funny is I wasn't until I heard that we were going to be on camera, and then all of a sudden, I got a little bit nervous, but usually we don't do that, but I don't mind. I'm just pretending that's not happening. And I don't know. I think after this, we've completed two seasons of our podcast, and I think I started off a little more nervous, but the more we've done in it, the more I realized we just have really great conversations, and I always learn something. And it's really lowered that kind of nervousness level for me. I really don't think about it too much, but what about you? I don't know. I'm starting. I'm getting the vibe that maybe you're you feel opposite. Steven Stout  1:51   Yeah, I was a little nervous. No, to be honest with you, I changed my shirt three times. I did the teenager thing in the closet, like I went through things and was like, "I have nothing to wear. I hate all my clothes." I was nervous. But now we think you said we've done this so much that it it feels like home when we get to do stuff like this. But the point of all this is that we are happy to be with you today, and thanks for having us.  Katy Markert  2:11   Yes, absolutely. Now, Steven, we are recording this the second week of December, right before the holidays in 2024 and we all just came out of Thanksgiving with our families and loved ones. Yes, and typically, at Thanksgiving, I just, I love my family. I just want to say that about how to say there is that one question that I get a little nervous is going to come up. Do you know the question I'm talking about?   Steven Stout  2:37   Why can't you be more like your sister, Sharon? Is that the one?  Katy Markert  2:43   It probably should be. But no, the question I'm thinking of has a lot more to do with politics, as we know should never bring that up in the holidays, and in particular this year, I was worried about the who did you vote for question?  Steven Stout  2:55   Oh yeah, that is a sticky one at family gatherings.  Katy Markert  2:58   It can be now, perhaps we can sidestep that question here, but there are some more important issues tied to politics that we should all be keeping a close eye on in the association space, no matter who you voted for.  Steven Stout  3:10   That's right. And today we are diving into one of those topics, and that is tax reform. Katy Markert  3:15   That's right. And luckily, we get to ask the questions and not answer them, because this is actually going to be complex in 2025 today, we are speaking with Mary Kate Cunningham, CAE, Chief Public and Governance Officer with ASAE.  Steven Stout  3:29   Alongside my colleague and bestie from Ohio, Jared Clabaugh, CAE, president and CEO with the Ohio Society of Association Professionals. Welcome guys.  Mary Kate Cunningham  3:40   Thanks for having us.  Steven Stout  3:41   Yeah, thanks for joining us today as we guest co host this podcast. Now, on our podcast, we always ask the same question to our guests, and we're taking the opportunity the same here. So our first question, it's an easy one, I promise. What is your fall-in story? How did you fall into the industry? As we all know, a lot of us did not go to school for this. We found this industry and fell in love with it and stayed so we'd love to hear your fallen stories and how you came across our space.  Mary Kate Cunningham  4:07   I can share that I worked on the Hill, and then I was at a think tank and struggling with kind of the lack of action sometimes that you have at think tanks. And my roommate from college, Beth Palmisano, worked in marketing at ASAE, and that is how I found ASAE, 12 and a half years ago. Steven Stout  4:22   Oh my gosh, wow. So you have your college roommate to thank for all this.  Mary Kate Cunningham  4:26   Absolutely, yes.  Steven Stout  4:27   I'm not sure I've ever thanked my college roommate for anything. So that's nice that your college roommate did something nice for you. And Jared, what about you? Jarrod Clabaugh  4:34   A buddy of mine actually worked for a newspaper here in Columbus, and he heard about a job offering with the Ohio Restaurant Association. They were looking for a communications director. In my life, I've only eaten in restaurants, never worked in one. So I thought, "What could I bring to that role? "And another college friend said to me, it's basically a PR job for an association, and that was almost 15 years ago, and that led to service on the Ohio Society of Association Professionals board, which led to me running the show here nine years later. Steven Stout  5:07   So you both have your college roommates to thank for your introduction to the space. Jarrod Clabaugh  5:11   Mine is a fellow RA and I'm not sure if he made the offer to help me out or to just give me a different perspective on going from real estate to something as sexy and as exciting as association management. Katy Markert  5:24   That's wonderful. We love that you guys made it into this industry, and we get to talk to you today. Now that we've got the softball question out of the way, it's time to get into what we're here to talk about. I just want to dive right in. So how will the expiration of the 2017 Jobs Act provision impact associations, particularly concerning UBIT compliance and potential new tax liabilities.  Steven Stout  5:48   A real soft want to get us started. Jarrod Clabaugh  5:50   Yeah, speaking of those sexy questions, yeah.  Katy Markert  5:55   Mary Kate, can you kick us off?  Mary Kate Cunningham  5:57   Sure, yeah. So I'm happy to talk about how much is at stake next year and why associations need to be at the table. There are a few bills that have major provisions that are expiring and well, the tax cuts and Jobs Act is one of them. There is, let's see, almost 10 trillion in proposed policies on the table, but there are a huge number of tax exemptions that are expiring at the end of next year. So that's why Congress has to act. We say Congress only acts when there's a deadline, and sometimes not even when there's a deadline, and this is going to be next year, the Super Bowl of tax there is the individual rates and the corporate rates that may change. And Congress is looking for a lot of revenue, and they're looking in every sector and profession, and that's why we're really concerned about the assistance community and not being a pay for this type of legislation. Steven Stout  6:47   And then why did they suddenly start focusing on associations, or the 501, C community? I should say Mary Kate Cunningham  6:54   So, there was two tax policy reports that came out in the summer, one from the Tax Foundation and one from Cato, and they are listing out all the different ways that associations are exempt, and they're advocating for taxing the entire 501, C community at the corporate rate. So it is really concerning. One is Tax Foundation, and one is from Cato, and we knew we were going to be prepared for a tax site next year, along with everyone else, but we didn't know that we were going to be specifically targeted to really have all non donation revenue be taxed at the corporate rate, which is right now, 21% that could change. So it's probably the biggest threat to associations in 30 years. Jarrod Clabaugh  7:37   There's also a threat, possibly, to what it could look like in regard to endowments, some of the lawmakers have mentioned that endowment should be taxed at the 35% rate as well, and that would obviously impact a lot of nonprofit organizations. Mary Kate Cunningham  7:51   Absolutely  Steven Stout  7:53   Jared you as a state group, you see this as a concern for you as well, obviously. Jarrod Clabaugh  7:58   We do, and we're trying to educate members about the fact that, as of right now, everyone is on the table. So a lot of associations have heard about this, but they've heard specifically that right now, it looks like Cato and the Tax Foundation are interested most at looking at 501 C threes. And from what Mary Kate and our colleagues on the Hill have been able to gather and share with us, if you have a 501, C designation of any type, there definitely needs to be some concern, and the fact that everything but donations are being looked at for taxation is a real threat.  Steven Stout  8:33   Yeah, that could change the life of a lot of groups, not or even maybe make groups some stop existing.  Jarrod Clabaugh  8:40   I agree with you, and I also think we're gonna see a lot more mergers and acquisitions. We saw a lot of that during the days after COVID and during the first couple years of the pandemic, but I think that something like this will pose a significant threat to a lot of our a lot of our entities. Steven Stout  8:55   Mary Kate, you mentioned think tanks, and I know think tanks like the Tax Foundation have proposed significant changes to ubit, including eliminating nonprofit exemptions for some activities, including new revenue sources subject to taxation, such as royalties and credentialing. How should associations prepare to counter these types of narratives? Mary Kate Cunningham  9:13   Great question, and yeah, it's really wild. We were preparing just to stop the expansion of ubit unrelated income tax. In the past, in tax reform, we've had to defeat provisions to tax, royalties, sponsorships, things like that. But this is really much bigger and across the board, taxing associations. So the question how can we go about defending against it? ASAE is launching a coalition of all 501 C organizations to speak for one song she and advocate to Congress why associations and nonprofits are exempt. Congress seems to understand they're expected to know every policy issue under the sun, and so they seem to understand for profit versus charity, but they don't really understand the associations, the other 501, C organizations. Why we're tax exempt, that we don't enrich our shareholders. We put that money back into the community, and we train the workforce, drive the economy, things like that. So we really have to be at the table to tell our story. There's going to be a ton of new faces next year, and there's a lot of work to do, as they say in Washington, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu, and that's why it's really important for associations to be part of the conversation. Jarrod Clabaugh  10:25   Just to piggyback off what Mary Kate said, it's also important to remember that nonprofits provide the most education of any group in the post secondary sector. We're providing services to the industry, to the world, the communities in which we operate that are often services that the government would have to subsidize if they're going to go away from allowing us to have access to the minimal tax exempt dollars we do have to enrich our communities. It's likely that government is going to have to get more involved and spend more money, which they claim is never what they want to do.  Steven Stout  10:57   Jared, how do you combat folks who aren't in the DC area that are like "This is a DC issue. It doesn't matter. We're in the state and we're fine. They'll sort it out up there, and we'll just keep our heads down here and just keep moving forward."What would you say to someone who said something like that to you?. Jarrod Clabaugh  11:11   I think I just tell them to look back at the last 10 years. If they look at how legislation in DC has impacted state organizations, regional and national organizations, it's very rare that something can happen anywhere in our 50 states that doesn't end up impacting us. And I also remind people about the old adage of as Ohio goes, so goes the rest of the country. I think many Ohioans we're lucky that we're headquartered here in the capital of Ohio, but you're right, Steven, there are organizations that are outliers, or that maybe have been their own islands for many years, and think it's not going to impact them. I just remind them of different changes in legislation that have impacted them, and the fact that they're the boots on the ground while DC is off making decisions that many of us don't agree with. If we put our hands in our pockets and don't say anything, we're allowing that change to happen. Yeah, we're trying to work with ASAE to make sure we can develop messages that allow our members to have a true grassroots focus, that they can elevate their message and get it in front of their lawmakers. The reality is, a lot of them know their lawmakers better than any of our state organizations or even the federal because they're right down the street because their constituents, which is a word I always want to remind our lawmakers of their constituents are involved with associations. One in five Americans is either employed by or part of an association during the span of their career. And if we remind people of that, I think it's a very strong message that we have a lot of force behind us. And as Mary Kate said, the economic drivers are essential to many communities. What might be a huge windfall for the federal government might shut down an organization that feeds the homeless, that that helps children have access to clothing that educates veterans. So that's a key aspect. I also think it's important to remember that most associations are two to five employees. They have smaller budgets than most for profit companies, and that makes them small businesses. And one thing that so many lawmakers campaign on is the idea that small business is the heart of America. So if they want to change the way that nonprofits operate, they're going to directly impact the success of small business.  Steven Stout  13:23   Yeah, I love that analogy. "Save the heart of America!" That's your campaign slogan, Mary Kate. you're welcome.  Mary Kate Cunningham  13:29   We'll get the buttons for our flying I do want to, since we mentioned the fly in, talk about ASAE's fly in is open for registration. Our dates are March 25 and 26th and you come to DC, we teach you about policy and asaes advocacy issues, including tax reform. And then you go to the Hill the next day in small groups with your states. Jared has been a state leader for many years, and it's really important, because every year there are new congressional staff and members of Congress, and when they meet someone face to face and learn about what associations do in their community, then it really changes hearts and minds. So that's what we're looking to do, and it's going to be really perfect timing for this fly in. It's going to be a period of tense legislation next March, so we're really excited to bring people to DC for that conference. Steven Stout  14:17   So thoughts some support, Mary Kate say the dates one more time.  Mary Kate Cunningham  14:20   March 25 and 26th ASAE fly in, we're going to be in DC, and we're really excited about it, and we will certainly have buttons to wear to go to the Hill and make our message known.  Steven Stout  14:30   Love it.  Katy Markert  14:31   No that's really great, and that's that kind of leads me to my next question. As we're talking about this 10 trillion in tax policies, my question is, how can associations advocate for the value that they provide that you've been talking about so they're not disproportionately taxed? Mary Kate Cunningham  14:46   I think there's many different ways joining our coalition, the Community Impact Coalition, where also we have a tax reform action list that you can join for ASAE, so you can get the latest on our issues. If you're not able to join the coalition. We will have ways to be involved the good and the bad part of the this tax threat is coming from think tanks. It's not currently bill text. We never want it to be bill text. We're trying to stop it in its tracks. Make this radioactive, but it means there's a lack of specifics about what it would actually cover, and we've just got to defend against everything, as Jared said, especially trade show income, investment income, things like that, are really concerning for associations. There are different ways to be involved that will share, join the coalition, joining ASAE's grassroots network, are two big ones, Katy Markert  15:35   And how do they do that? How can they join the Coalition? And how can they join the grassroot network?  Mary Kate Cunningham  15:40   We will share the links to join that will be in this podcast description. How does that sound? Steven Stout  15:45   So convenient? We'll put it right in front of you. Jarrod Clabaugh  15:47   I would say one thing that Mary Kate and I have been messaging this a lot, but the stories on the ground are going to be what matters. What does the 21% tax look like on an organization that, again, feeds those in need. They're saying that there's 3.6 trillion I believe that they can get from our sector in the first year, what's that going to look like the second year, when half of our sector is gone? Yeah, and the people who know me on this podcast know I like to develop a one liner or two, but I can passionately say that I'm tired of nonprofits continuing to fix for profit problems, and we're really relied upon in our communities to ensure that those in need get help. And we're being asked again to not only continue to finance maybe some wasteful spending, but we're also being told that the work we're doing isn't enough, and so I think that it's getting that message out from those communities that are local. I'm a part of my local Kiwanis, this would vastly impact the work we do to feed our community's children and to offer scholarships that are truly the definitive difference between someone going to be college or university or not. So I think Katie to expound about what Mary Kate said. It's just merely reminding people that this isn't a segment, or that they're just looking at the quote, unquote wealthy associations. This will impact all of us, and that will ultimately impact every community in our country. Mary Kate Cunningham  17:16   Jared, you're so right.  Jarrod Clabaugh  17:17   Can you repeat that? Yeah, exactly. That on recording one more time. I never hear that enough. Mary Kate Cunningham  17:23   How can we get our bullet points ready for here's the one top line message to the hill. And what would your association have to stop doing if you're paying a 21% tax on your net so we had a dental association say, here are the Mission of Mercy clinics we would not be able to put on for veterans, things like that. If you can get that ready so that when we call upon you to tell your story, you have it that is going to be the most impactful for sharing the real world impact with Congress. Steven Stout  17:49   Yeah.  Jarrod Clabaugh 17:50   A lot of this is just education. Yeah, I've spoken to a lot of groups now that don't even know about this, or they say it's somebody else's problem. They'll fix that for me. And we've all seen where not taking action has ended up hurting our communities in the long run.  Katy Markert  18:05   I love both of y'all talking about just like the stories that each association has, because truthfully, I wholeheartedly believe in storytelling, and that's how people remember us and how we can really impact people and connect through their emotions and the stories that we tell. So just hearing you talk about those specifics and how it will impact the communities, I think, is such a huge impact. Jarrod Clabaugh  18:27   Yeah, now is not a time to be humble.  Mary Kate Cunningham  18:30   Yeah, absolutely. And I think ASAE--the AC board--sees what a big threat this is, and they've invested up to a million dollars in from our reserves in this effort, and now we've raised over $300,000 for the coalition itself. So there's a lot of energy and enthusiasm, and we know there are smaller organizations that will be able to find it in their budget, but there's other ways they can definitely help. So definitely be thinking about what's your one liner? What would happen in your community if your associations didn't exist.  Jarrod Clabaugh  19:01   Mary Kate, how many organizations are involved with the tax coalition reform group right now?  Mary Kate Cunningham  19:06   We are at over 40 now.  Steven Stout  19:08   That's great.  Mary Kate Cunningham  19:09   Yeah, we're in our soft launch phase, but it's just really growing quickly, and we are excited to tell the story. There's going to be such a competitive environment, and because of all the legislation that'll happen next year. That's why we really need the support to be able to break through the noise Jarrod Clabaugh  19:26   And correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the new administration said they want to put together some type of tax plan within the first 100 days? Mary Kate Cunningham  19:34   Yes, there's so much pressure to move quickly on this, both from the administration, the kind of pressure to continue their the legacy of the tax cuts and Jobs Act, and then in Congress, they know there's the first 100 days are where the most action happens. They have the most momentum. There's some debate about, if they're between the House and Senate, of course, on what the actual strategy will be. The House wants to go first with tax reform. I think the Senate's more interested in some other policy first, but it will be regardless, intense policy making period, and we really need to be at the table there. Jarrod Clabaugh  20:08   That times the fly in at a great point in this discussion.  Steven Stout  20:11   I was going to say that sounds like the first part of the year is going to be very important for this fight that we ahead of us. Jarrod Clabaugh  20:16   And as all things political, there's a good chance that this will not have a stamp on it by the end of 2025 that does not reduce the concern, but we have those wonderful midterm elections that will start, I think, on day 101 of the next administration. So I think it's important that we realize that this may be a battle that no from both the federal level and state and regional that we have to keep our eye on in the long term? Yeah, I've also been trying to remind groups that are mainly state based that whenever the federal government finds money somewhere, it isn't long before state and local start looking at that as well. If this doesn't get defeated at the federal level, we need to realize that the states will likely start coming for revenue as well.  Steven Stout  20:58   Yeah, that's a great point. Jared, I think people forget about that piece of it. And I like that you pointed out that this fight may not have an expiration date. It might be a while, a long fight, which makes sense. Mary Kate, why the ASAE  executive board  put so much faith in you and money behind the fight.  Mary Kate Cunningham  21:14   Yes, having something like a laundry list in the Tax Foundation report of all the different ways to tax organizations is really concerning because it just exists for tax policy staffers to go back and look at so it's very concerning. Steven Stout  21:28   Yeah, many new members of Congress, we talked a little bit about that. There's a lot of those now lack historical context on the tax cuts and Jobs Act. You talked a little about the fly-in Mary Kate, but how can associations educate policy makers to protect the sector's interests? Mary Kate Cunningham  21:43   Absolutely, yes, there are going to be a lot of new faces, and we're going to have sign on letters where we'll ask your association to join. And the way we divide the sign on letter when it goes to the hill is by state elected official can pull it open and see, I'm from Arkansas. Here are all the Arkansas associations. So really, every voice counts there. I think that will be really important, and it will be certainly a tough road for because the margin is so thin in the house, and some of those elected officials are going to join the administration. They're going to have elections to replace them. It's going to be, I think, a really interesting but tough path ahead to get this legislation through the house, in a situation where almost every member of Congress has a veto, in a sense, in the house, because there's such a just a few vote majority, then I think it's really means that every voice is important to be educated on this issue. Yes, it'll definitely be an interesting time the new Congress, yeah.  Jarrod Clabaugh  22:41   And I know one thing Mary Kate and I have talked about is, you know, maybe there's a lawmaker or a legislator that's within our own organizations, or maybe we have a connection to those folks. Let's find those voices. Let's elevate those voices in a way that helps others realize that the impact of our industries and the work that we do, because let's face it, it comes down to friendship, no matter where you are in your career and in your role. Yeah. So if you fellow lawmakers in DC who maybe are in your caucus that can share the value of association management and the great work that nonprofits do, they're automatically going to trust their voices more. So that's something that I've been trying to work with my membership to do is finding those wonderful voices and finding those strong advocates, because we need as many people to talk about the great work that we're doing as possible. Mary Kate Cunningham  23:30   That's so true. And if you have a connection to a member of Congress, we are mapping that. So if you can email [email protected] and we're working on the map of all the members of Congress who's received awards from associations, who's a member of an association, exactly what Jarrod said there. If you have a connection like that, you're a trusted voice within them, and that's super helpful. And we have one member of Congress who is on the Ways and Means Committee, who is an ASAE member might carry, and it's just so great to have someone who understands association management. He said association management is similar to being in Congress. It's like juggling jello or we can have those connections. I think the better. So it's public policy at ASAE center.org and send us who you're connected to. We just had a member over the weekend tell us that they're connected with Billy long who's going to be nominated to run the IRS. So things like that can always be super helpful to us.  Steven Stout  24:25   Yeah. So you pointed out you get your talking point ready of what your priority is, and then if you have a connection, make sure you inform you guys you have that as in your arsenal as you take on this fight. Mary Kate Cunningham  24:36   Absolutely. And we're looking for also, we're looking at charities to join the coalition, and we're looking at the charities that are both connected to members of Congress and to the incoming administration. All the different ways to be connected are great. Jarrod Clabaugh  24:49   Yeah, and I would just indicate that the leadership at ASAE has been very engaged with the state leaders. They are working very closely to support the work that the SAEs do. And they want to make sure that we have a place at the table. And ultimately, I think that's something we need to remember, that we can't let this be a deep sea issue. This has to be something states are delivering. I've had some members tell me that we're not worried about this, and what I tell them is, I'd rather blow out a candle than try to put down a forest fire. So at this point, we know it's out there. We don't know what's going to be in a bill, or if there will even be a bill, but it's better to be educated about it than to be surprised.  Mary Kate Cunningham  25:27   Absolutely, it's so much harder to defeat something when there's already bill text so absolutely Jarrod. Jarrod Clabaugh  25:32   And Mary, Kate and I were both saying many prayers that it would not be a trifecta. We knew that if one party won a segment of the government we had a better chance at this, but the way things came out up until just last week, they were still calling races. But the way this came out is Congress is controlled in both houses by the Republicans, and obviously the administration is Republican, so we need to be on top of this. Mary Kate Cunningham  25:56   Yeah, it just adds to the sense of urgency when one party is able to move forward because they can use reconciliation, which is the process to get something through the Senate, without having to get the 60-vote majority. So they'll be able to use that. There are some quirks within it, but they'll be able to use that to pass tax before Democrats use it to pass the Affordable Care Act. Republicans use it to pass the tax cuts and Jobs Act in 2017 so it reduces the hurdles that they have to get to. It's still immensely complicated to find that many votes. And if you might remember, the Republicans lost 22 votes on the budget resolution to start reconciliation for tax reform last time, and they lost 12 votes on the actual tax reform. So it'll be a tough road to make everyone happy in order, they don't have 12 votes to lose this time, unless they find enough Democrats. So it will be really interesting to see how that all unfolds. Jarrod Clabaugh  26:46   And just as a reminder, this would have been a threat no matter which party won, I've been encouraging all of my members to dust off their copies of the West Wing and remind themselves how we can all be a voice and all be a part of this fight Steven Stout  27:00   Practice, walking and talking and like the doing the West Wing. Jarrod Clabaugh  27:04   Correct, Aaron Sorkin is yet to financially support any of my commitment to the West Wing, but I would say that it's a good reminder that we have a voice and we can get involved. And Mary Kate and her team are doing so many positive things for the industry in DC, but this is just a reminder of how we can all come together. One message I've been really thankful that I can deliver to my members is, no matter what your role in the association spectrum is, if you're a CVB, if you're a hotelier, if you're a financial services firm, this will impact the work associations and nonprofits are doing in your communities, and it will impact what you're doing. And as a has been phenomenal at bringing together the many various stakeholders in this to make sure we're all a part of the conversation and to make sure that the messaging that's being delivered to our lawmakers and to our members is not beltway heavy. It's how people talk where they are, it's understandable, it's applicable. And that's, I think, why these grassroots messages are going to be so important to winning this fight.  Katy Markert  28:09   Yeah, I love hearing the breakdown the house and how close it's going to be. And you mentioned that there's not bills written, there's not current language yet, but are there some specific legislative items that associations should be keeping an eye on.  Mary Kate Cunningham  28:24   Outside of tax reform, I have to take the time to talk about our we've got really exciting legislation that is positive, that might pass a tax reform next year. So the freedom to invest in tomorrow's workforce Act is the legislation, and it would open up 529  savings accounts that are tax favored to be able to be used for certification and licensure. So we have 149 co-sponsors in the house and 25 in the Senate. It's one of the most bipartisan bills in Congress, and it was actually passed through the Ways and Means Committee in July. So our plan is to reintroduce in January and do our best to make sure this legislation is included in tax reform, it has a really low score, about 85 million over 10 years from the joint tax that means it's more of a possibility to be included, and it's really an offensive measure as well, because every office that we meet with, we explain all the certifications that associations provide, how we train the workforce. We frankly, lean on a lot of the blue collar certifications, because every legislator wants a stronger workforce, and the people that can transition to a great career really thrilled about the work. We have a coalition, the tomorrow's workforce coalition, to try to help get this passed, with over 900 organizations that have joined on that is a free coalition next year, because it's a Super Bowl of tax we're doing everything possible to try to get that included in the tax bill. That's one positive. And then  Jarrod Clabaugh  29:46   I just want to interrupt here real quick and say that part of that 529, the success forward, has been ASAE working with lawmakers and their members to get that message across. I think we've at least two years, maybe three. We've been in DC during the fly-in talking about the importance of this piece of legislation and how it would expand accreditations to various parts of our communities. As Mary Kate said, this helps every level of your society. So it's not geared at just as of right now, 529s can only be used for colleges and universities, and there are a lot of younger people in today's workforce that they don't want to go that route. So what better way than expanding those offerings without a huge hit to their investment? And the success of this is related to as a ease work through the fly in and obviously their ongoing campaign. Katy Markert  30:37    Yeah, that's great.  Mary Kate Cunningham  30:39   Oh yes. And obviously, Ohio, your society, has been really helpful as well. Jared and yeah, the fly in every year that helps us get co-sponsors. It's just that type of shoe leather lobbying is really useful for sharing the message on the hill. Jarrod Clabaugh  30:54   It's easy to ask a lawmaker, do you not want to help more of your constituents work and make better careers and spend more money and stay in your communities. Mary Kate Cunningham  31:02   Absolutely, it's such a bipartisan piece of legislation, it's really exciting to work on. Steven Stout  31:07   Yeah, so that's a win. Mary Kate, any other wins we should know about? Mary Kate Cunningham  31:11   I think that something to put on the radar that I've had a lot of members ask me about is there is more, I think, of a concern about telling our story, especially in the house, Ways and Means Committee, I think there's a little more skepticism about associations and a need to do that education. And I just want to highlight a bill that passed the stop terror financing and tax penalties on American hostages act that sounds like something we can all be in favor of stopping to American hostages paying taxes. But within that legislation, it's HR, 9495 a lot of members have asked about it, because it would allow the Treasury Department to revoke the tax exempt status of a nonprofit deems to be supporting terrorism. Our concern is that any kind of unilateral power that it's giving to remove tax exempt status. So it's something just to be aware of, and it's a reminder of how we need to show Congress how associations are the incredibly strong governance that we have. I think we are not the target of this legislation, but just something to consider as Congress looks to provide more oversight on tax exempt organizations. There's really a strong need to explain who associations are, how we benefit the society. And I'm really thrilled we have new economic impact research that Oxford Economics did for ASAE, and we have a map on our power of associations website that we'll share the link to, where you can look at every state and see the number of associations, the number of employees employed by associations, the taxes that we pay for State and Local and that's really helpful for quantifying the power of associations to Congress, and something that we'll continue to do next year.  Steven Stout  32:54   Yeah, that's so powerful, too here in Texas, that helps those types of data points really help us here to make the case here in Texas for our existence. So thank you for all the work you do with that piece. It's very important to us. I will tell you guys, you got me a little fired up. I'm ready to, like, I need, like, a boxing montage with Eye of the Tiger, like, I'm ready to knock some stuff out. But before Katy gets to her last question, I wanted to ask Mary Kate, if people are listening, and they've never been to the fly-in before, and they want to get involved. They hear your passion. They hear Jarrod's passion. Can you give people a sort of little snippet of what a fly ins like if they've never done one before? Because I think it sounds like we need everybody that can come this year, whether you've been coming for years, or this will be your very first time. We need everybody, as you said, to help us with that shoe leather, lobbying, lawmaking, explain the fly in a few one more time for those folks who have never, ever been. Mary Kate Cunningham  33:43   Absolutely. So it's March 25 and 26th we have every type of folks attend, from association lobbyists to CEOs to people who are in association  management but have never gone to the hill before. So we will teach you everything you need to know. It comes with a lot of CAE credit hours. We're finding out the exact amount now, but we will do a 90 minute prep webinar in February to teach you the basics of a hill meeting, how to request them, how to join your state groups, and the top level on our policy issues, which are going to be taxed in our five to nine bill. And then when you come to the fly in on the first day, we will have a special first timer session that kicks off at 11, and we'll do more practicing Hill meetings in small groups. And then we will have speakers from the hill and then teach you the policy issues. And then we also provide some general government relations kind of education, because we know people need to help justify their attendance and registration. Sure, this year we're gonna have an ethics credit, which is very exciting. We get help people with doing CAE renewal, and then we'll do a short session on political communications. We're gonna have some great experts join us. It's more important than ever to try to break through the noise. So excited about that session. So we'll give you all the education, and we'll put you. Into state groups, and then you will go to the Hill the next day, and we will have a lunch on the hill, and then you'll do your meetings in individual groups, and we'll give you the packets that you bring to the Hill show you how to do it. And it's a really great way to learn about advocacy from if you're new. And then we have seasoned professionals go and help share the message with Congress, and I would say, if you haven't done Hill meetings before, don't be intimidated. You're often meeting with someone who's 25 they want to hear about your industry. So just explaining what your association is and the benefit you provide to the society is super helpful. And then ASA, staff can always follow up that there are specific policy questions in our lobbying team. Jarrod Clabaugh  35:38   They also provide digital copies of everything that you'll share. Last year, I went on one of the meetings I was in. I handed them the paper copy, and they looked at it paper. So it's nice, because you literally can sit right there and say the PDF is in your inbox. So they've got that information. It's easily shareable. It's easily understood. It is written in layman's terms. They do a great job of making, you know, the fly in simple and understandable. And like Mary Kate said, there's no reason to be intimidated at the end of the day, these people, they want the same things we do. So sitting down with them and trying to better our society is what all of us are doing. It's just trying to bring everyone to that same point. Great, all great stuff. Yeah, Katy Markert  36:19   Thank you all for breaking that down. I really it's really helpful to know that you prepare and it's not as intimidating as one might be with that. You guys, thank you all so much for chatting with us today and sharing this hugely important information. We do have one last question. We asked the same question as we mentioned at the beginning of the podcast to all of the people we interview, and we just want to know, why do you think being engaged with organizations like ASAE, TSAE, OSAP, why is that so important? Mary Kate Cunningham  36:52   I would say it's just the sense of community and the continual learning that it provides. I think that's what makes life worth living. I think that joy that it brings you is super important. Jarrod Clabaugh  37:03   And I would reiterate that. I would also say our unofficial tagline here at OSAP is we build relationships, and ultimately, that's what this is all about, relationships that benefit our communities, no matter what that community might be, no matter what role the nonprofit or the association is playing. I think that when you don't have that type of connection, it leaves you out in the cold and having these types of relationships and being able to pick up the phone and say, Hey, Steve, and I have a question about it means funny. You mentioned that we just dealt with that. We're picking up the phone and saying, Mary Kate, what do you think about x? And it helps keep those issues on one another's radar, but it also allows us to discuss them with people that understand what it is we do. Yeah, and everybody on this call works for an association. And how many times in your life have you had someone say to you, is that really a thing? So it's nice to know and to network with people who understand what the thing is. So that's what I think the benefit of involvement with national and regional associations is Katy Markert  38:03   thank you guys so much for everything that you do and for being with us today. Steven Stout  38:07   For fighting the good fight, man. I wish the flying was like today. Mary Kate, I am ready. Let's go. Let's go.  Mary Kate Cunningham  38:13   Absolutely, we appreciate it. Yeah, you in the fight and Steven Stout  38:16   We'll be there. Thanks again to Jarrod and Mary Kate for joining us today, and thank you for listening to the Associations NOW podcast. We really appreciate everyone listening. And again, thank you guys for all that you do for all of us across the country, not just in our states, but nationally as well. We are all deeply in debt to you. Thank you both.  Jarrod Clabaugh  38:32   Thank you.  Steven Stout  38:33   I find it's always best when you have a complex problem like tax reform, it's best to just throw a bunch of smart people at it to help solve it. Katy Markert  38:39   Exactly, No kidding. So many of the issues with tax reform could really hurt associations, but with people like Mary Kate and Jarrod fighting alongside us, I really feel like we have a chance to affect a positive turnout.  Steven Stout  38:52   Here, in my head, I have this image of Mary Kate on a black horse with half her face painted blue, Braveheart style. Yeah, totally Braveheart. And she rides up and down, yelling at the association community that we need everyone to join to fight to protect association on tax reform. We don't get hyped. And he face is blue. We follow her into battle. Katy Markert  39:10   I love it. So Mary Kate is William Wallace in this scenario I see, okay. Steven Stout  39:14   But yeah, just go with me here. And she ends with a rallying cry. Instead of to fight English, it's to protect our 501. C status and UBIT. Katy Markert  39:23   I love it. I'm with you.  Steven Stout  39:25   Thanks 100-Presenters for joining us today on the Associations NOW Presents podcast. Be sure to listen to this and other episodes of the podcast wherever you find your favorite podcast.  Katy Markert  39:35   And we want to thank our guests, both Mary Kate Cunningham and Jarrod Clabaugh. Also, thanks to ASAE for letting us co-host today's show.  Steven Stout  39:42   Very exciting. And if you want to continue hanging out with me and Katy, check out Better by Association, an original podcast produced by the Texas Society of Association Executives. You can also find us anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts. Thanks for listening, everybody. Bye. 

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host KiKi L'Italien, host of Association Chat, leads a conversation with award-winning leaders Lori Anderson, President and CEO of the International Sign Association, and Debra BenAvram, CEO of the Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies. The conversation delves into authentic leadership, highlighting the importance of amplifying women’s voices and fostering community within the association world. Lori and Debra share their personal leadership journeys, reflecting on pivotal moments, influential mentors, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. Topics include overcoming challenges, the value of mentorship and peer networks, and the significance of foresight in navigating leadership complexities. They also discuss strategies for maintaining personal growth and resilience, with practical insights on mindfulness and intentional time management. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/bhWVK64OpzQ?feature=shared   Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript   KiKi L'Italien  00:00 Welcome to the Associations NOW Presents podcast, I'm your guest host, KiKi L'Italien, and if you're thinking, "Hey, I know that name or I know that voice," you're right. It's because you usually hear me over at Association Chat. But today, I'm excited to be hosting this special episode of Associations NOW Presents, because we're continuing this powerful conversation that really started at what's called ASAE's The Exchange. And this is a women's leadership event that is really special, and our focus today to continue on this discussion is authentic leadership. We're talking about authentic leadership, the power of women's voices, and how we can build a supportive community in the association space. So joining me are two inspiring, award winning leaders, Lori Anderson, President and CEO of the International Sign Association, and Debra BenAvram, CEO of Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies. So I want to just do this, and start out at the very start, to just say congratulations, because, as I understand it, even though you've both won awards before, you have just recently been recognized, Lori as 2025 Trade Association Executive of the Year, and Debra, you were recognized as a 2025 Professional Society Association Executive of the Year. Congratulations to both of you. 01:33 Thank you so much KiKi L'Italien  01:34 Yes, it's really amazing to be here. And I have to say, I have followed your work for many years and watched you in this space, recognized leaders. And so what I thought we could do today is just start off by talking about your personal journeys into leadership, because I know that each path is unique. Definitely in the association industry, there can be many different ways that we get to where we are, but I'm sure that there are shared experiences that have shaped both of you. So I thought what we would do is maybe start with what inspired you to step into these leadership roles. So were there pivotal moments or mentors who helped guide you along the way? So Debra, I'm starting with you. What about it? What made you decide to step into this leadership role in the first place?  Debra BenAvram  02:25 Thanks you so much, KiKi. I would love to tell you that I had this grand plan from the age of five to become a leader and to do it by this age and set all those goals. That's really never been my style. So when I was thinking about what sort of led me to this moment, I think what I might have been was not savvy enough to realize that I wasn't supposed to ask questions or ask permission, and just always threw myself into opportunities. My last organization, when there was a clear need for a new strategic plan or a new area that we needed staff leadership in, I raised my hand and but I did that by doing it, and I think that, for better or worse, led me to have lots of different experiences that I didn't know maybe I wasn't supposed to have or be asking for. And when the CEO role opened up at that organization, I had this out-of-body moment where the board was telling me that the position was now open, and I said, "I'm right here. Why don't you put me in that role?" And that was not particularly characteristic of me, but it is what ended up happening. I applied for the role and took it, and what inspired me was that I saw I could be the change. I saw what change could be. I saw what possibilities were. And I love the power of associations and bringing people together. And I think we do that with our staff, and we do that with our volunteers and our members. I just love that. It was really inspired. And I wanted the opportunity to do more, to keep throwing my hat in and keep bringing that forward and growing the business and growing the value that we were delivering to our members. And I loved what I did there, and I got to, now, get to do that at a different organization, in terms of what maybe mentors or who inspire me. A pivotal moment for me in terms of putting myself around the right colleagues was at an ASAE Annual Meeting shortly after I became CEO. So this is going back long time and Arlene Pietranton and the late John Graham led a round table for young CEOs—because I used to be a young CEO—and there were not so many of us at that time, but we sat around this table, and I got to see not only meet colleagues, some of whom today are among my very best friends, both within the association, community and personally. But I got to see what it looked like to be a giving colleague and to be around colleagues like Arlene and John, who were just freely sharing their experiences that moment in time which I can see in my head as I'm telling you this story that led me to recognize I needed to get into peer groups because I was reinventing wheels, and I was alone. No matter what level of leader you are, you're alone in some way, shape or form. And very quickly, I got myself into a few different peer groups and tried them out. And some fit, some didn't. And I learned how to build a community, a kitchen cabinet of people that I could learn from that were similar to me, that were different from me, that had more experience or less experience than me. And that gift, really, that got from what I learned from ASAE colleagues—whether I did that within the framework of ASAE or not—that is what I really credit the rest of my career journey to this day is being in this community and building peer networks within it that I can learn from with, be vulnerable with and learn from each other's experiences. KiKi L'Italien  06:16 When you are talking about that, it resonates so much, because I think, what if we didn't have some of these important connections that we had made? And it really is, you can get so much further when you have those relationships in place, and you can ask the questions and get the information that you need, or make the connections that you need to in order to advance. How about you, Lori? What about for you? What was your story? Lori Anderson  06:43 That's a has some similarities to Debra, when my very first career was a teacher. And I knew I didn't want to do that forever. And I quit without any plan, and that was terrifying. So I look back at the things that have helped me grow. It's that I do things that are scary, but I ask for help, and asking for help is critical. I found a career coach because I literally had no idea what I wanted to do, and I remember the restaurant we were in. I remember the table we were in, and he asked me a pivotal question that changed my life. And the question was, "What gets you hot? What gets you mad? What gets you boiling?" And at the time, it had to do with politics, whoever was in office at the time. And he said, "Why don't you do something there?" And I went, "I can't do that. I'm a former music teacher." And he goes, "Why not?" And it got me thinking, why not. And it took me nine months to convince a member of Congress to hire a former music teacher. And it was scary. Those nine months I didn't have a job, and all of a sudden I was in a position of doing something that I was just really passionate about, and people would be coming and lobbying me. And I thought maybe I could do that. So then I started looking at getting a lobbying job, and I happened to land in an association where the Vice President of Government Relations was also involved in music. So there was this music connection, I think he sang for the Kennedy Center Choir or something like that. And his wife was a music teacher, so we had that weird connection right away. And he was such a mentor, and he threw me into like Deb, gave me challenges, and just saw what was in me, that I wasn't just a former music teacher, right? I had a lot to offer, and he kept challenging me and giving me assignments that I thought I could never do, but he also encouraged me to join, and in this particular association, there was no other member of ASAE, and it was a large Association, and I joined ASAE, I joined Women in Government Relations. I joined WGR Toastmasters. I honed my speaking abilities, and those connections got me where I am. In fact, the recruiter who called me for my current position knew I was looking through WGR Toastmasters, and she recommended to the recruiter to call me. It's all about connections. It's all about finding people. And when I started at ISA, I needed new connections. I wasn't really in government affairs anymore. I was in a leadership role. I joined CEO groups. Debra and I met in a CEO group, and then we ended up on the as a board together at the same time. And so our leadership paths followed. That the importance of reaching out and connecting to other folks. And even now, there's not a question I get. What do I do with this particular problem? You have a group of people, groups of people who can help answer the question, and that's the beauty of associations, because everyone's willing to help, and the people who are willing to help. They really become your network, your support group, when things get really tough or when things are going great.  KiKi L'Italien  10:29 Okay, first of all, I know so much more about you now. This is fascinating, and I have follow up questions for when we meet up at something down the road, what type of music? What got you involved? But we're not going there today, I noticed some themes in both of your responses so far, definitely about the community and the importance of connections, but then also, it's those connections that were helping you overcome challenges. And so I wanted to ask this question about when you look back and you think about your leadership style and what you've learned over the years, what specific challenges or opportunities have influenced your leadership style within the association world.  Debra BenAvram  11:12 For me, I feel that every experience, every challenge that we each face as leaders, our leadership journeys, our philosophies, our understanding of ourselves and how to really amplify our strengths and own where we need to say it's not our bailiwick. To me, I think that I'm always doing that. So I could give you an example like COVID or a turnaround, which I've done several of. But ultimately, I think it's not always the big it feels in leadership, like it's these big, pivotal moments, but even how we respond in those big, pivotal moments is because of all of the small moments along the way that are how we build our philosophy. So my philosophies around silo lists, ideally organizations and staff empowerment and volunteer empowerment and transformation of culture that came from not one experience. It came from so many different things. Yeah, KiKi L'Italien  12:19 I think that those challenges, they're what makes us, hopefully, stronger when we make it through it, when we get on the other side of it. But I think that it's not hard to say that. I'd say over the past five years, being an association leader has maybe had more than its fair share of challenges compared to just taking a look around the world and what's happening maybe a little bit more challenging. It's definitely, I think, for both of you to have been going through this leadership journey together, to be learning alongside each other, and then also to be winning these awards together. It's amazing that there are these sort of milestone moments that you've shared in leadership along the way. Lori, have you thought of a challenge that maybe, I don't know, helped you hone your leadership style or figure out who you are as a leader today? Lori Anderson  13:11 That is continually evolving, right? It's not stagnant. I remember hearing things and those may be the start of a switch, right? You just hear even somebody ask you one question, like the career counselor back when I was very young, "What gets you mad?" The question that changed my life. The things I hear a top executive of the company, Freeman, I was at an event, and she asked to write down on a piece of paper to describe my organization's culture, and I was "oh my gosh. I don't know if I can." I know what I think it is, but I don't know what my team is that led a whole multi year journey into creating a culture statement that one little question. When I first started at ISA, there was a hesitancy of the board. The governance was pretty broken, and the board was not willing at the time to learn how to be a better board. There was one chair who I suggested, how about we go to a CEO symposium and just see if we can learn how to be better? And we sat in that room, and the light bulbs went off for him, that there is a better way to function as an organization, and that opened the window just a little. And I think about the big transformations I've done is when the window opens a little and you say that breeze is coming through, I want to bring on the wind, right? And you take little steps, and it results in that big transformation. I've heard other people say you should never be in an organization more than five years because you stagnate. At first, I listened to that and thought I was doing something wrong, and then I realized I need to listen to myself if I'm continually challenged. You. If I'm continually finding new growth, and I love who I work with, and I enjoy their company every day, and I appreciate and have the support of my board, Why limit myself to five years? It's been 20 years with the organization, and I'm never bored, and I always have challenges, and so I keep looking for these little windows. Now, if the window is constantly shut, then maybe I should look somewhere else, or that someone should look somewhere else. But if you always have that opportunity for a new breeze to come through and to ride on that breeze a little bit, then go for it.  KiKi L'Italien  15:39 That's really fascinating. I'm thinking about how we're hearing you should be listening to others. You should be talking with others and learning from others, but maybe also knowing when you shouldn't listen to others and to listen to yourself too, not to forget that part. So one of the questions I wanted to ask you both had to do more about mentorship, and especially for young professionals, people who are maybe early in their careers, who are trying to figure out, yeah, this mentor, how do I find the right people? How do I find my group, my kitchen cabinet, and when they begin to seek out building that sort of that connection and that network. How would you advise them to go about fostering meaningful connections that can truly help them? Because I think at least in my situation, I would say in my experience, I've had to learn right because not everyone should be a part of that group, but you shouldn't listen to all of the voices. So Debra, I know you had shared a little bit earlier about how you found these different groups. So do you have any thoughts on this?  Debra BenAvram  16:50 Yeah, I have definitely have thoughts around how to approach finding mentors. To me, the first place it starts with is introspection. What are you looking for yourself? So you're looking for an advisor who can tell you what to do when you don't know how. I'm not sure that always exists, but that might be more of a coach, an executive coach. Are you looking for someone to prop you up and help you develop? Are you looking for shared experiences, which is different from advice, but we can glean ideas which is really important. And you may be looking for all of those things, but your journey around them is really different. And Lori said, with her example, everyone's looking for your career journey, your mentorship path. It's yours, just because people talk all the time about aspiring CEOs and get a mentor to help you be CEO Well, you know, this job is for some people, not for everyone. You need to think about what you want to do and what are the things you need to build in your toolkit. And then, okay, so then who are the right types of people to be around to do that? And by the way, that's multi-directional. You have people reporting to you or within your organization who are different levels, who are amazing mentors, who you learn from all the time. You don't have to call someone and say, will you be my mentor? And let's match on an app here. There's lots of ways to engage and be mentor. I think that when we think about what that looks like, what we want from each group, each person, I would encourage emerging leaders to then prioritize, right? So for me, I really liked peer groups because I got a lot out of that. And I tell my team all the time, you have all the power put a note on ASAE Collaborate, and you will have more people than you know what to do with for a new peer group. But that is doable. Talk to people and ask them to find one or two. But the more clarity you have around what you're looking to learn, what experiences you're trying to be around, the types of leaders you want to be around that, frankly, are really different from you. When I call Lori with a problem, which I certainly do, I do not want her to tell me that I'm brilliant. I want her to give me some actual feedback. And I need that from my mentor. If that's what you want from your mentor? Get clarity if you call someone to be a one on one mentor for you, you meet someone a leader you admire that maybe shares a career path that you would like to explore, or has grown their position and stayed in the same position for a long time. What are you asking of them? Are you asking them to meet with you once a month and push you on something? What does that mean to you when that word needs something different to everyone? I think that whatever you do, get around people, one on one groups get around people where the interaction. That leaves you feeling like your bucket is fuller than when you arrived, and so is theirs, because those are the relationships that you're going to foster and invest your time in those experiences, and when it isn't right, I've been in peer groups where they're great people, but it's okay to say I got what I needed out of this experience from a mentorship perspective, and now I need to move on. I think as you do that, you'll build this cabinet of experts, of thought partners that you'll learn to count on over your career when you have different challenges. But it's not all things. To say, it's, I don't think one size fits all. And what leadership?  Lori Anderson  20:46 Yeah, I agreed with Debra completely on this. And just to add on to that, you need to go into a peer group or a relationship, even if it's a one on one mentorship role, I tend to gear more toward peer groups. I don't know if one person would have everything I needed any given moment. So I have hundreds of mentors, because I can look around the room and say, I wish I had more of that, or that would be great to explore this way of leading. But very important, you need to give as much as you get. Because if you were in a peer group or a relationship, and you are just sucking out answers, and you're not stopping everything to help someone else. There's a level of trust that doesn't happen. I really try every time in my many groups, when a question comes by, I don't know the answer, but I know someone who may, and I connect them, because the true value of being in an association is that village, and it's unique. I don't know if many other professions that have this type of supported atmosphere, maybe because most of us aren't direct competitors, therefore we aren't at each other competitively. Deb's members are nothing like my members at all, and so we can share more, but I stop everything, and that includes with former employees who have reached out to me and say, I need a new change. I drop everything. I connect them with recruiters. I get my ear to the ground. I put things out to help them. And you have to give as much or even more than you take from any experience with a peer group. KiKi L'Italien  22:26 So in hearing this again, I'm it's very affirming, because I think that anyone who's listening to this that says it's great, it's maybe they looked into having the right people around them. What I'm hearing is you evolve. You figure out what works. So don't fall in love with the idea of perfection, like you're gonna land with just the perfect five people that are going you're and you're all gonna elevate together. Maybe you do, but most of the time it's probably something more, like you try different things and you figure out your group that maybe ends up working, and it depends on what you're looking for. But help; help others too. Don't just focus on what you can get out of it. So that sounds like good relationship building advice too, not just for mentorship, but for life in general, right?  Lori Anderson  23:15 100%. And sometimes, see, you're in a your group, and you're thinking, I'm not getting any value of this. Or you go to a conference and you're not getting any value. Sometimes that one sentence, that one little idea, can snowball when you get back to the office and your time away could be exponentially enhanced just by that one little germ of an ace of an idea. KiKi L'Italien  23:40 I love this because you're talking about the crack in the window, and you're talking about the one little idea I get, the idea that you're paying a lot of attention for that moment of inspiration to hit, where you're able to take that and learn and grow. And I think that we can all learn something from that. That's a great approach. I want to shift gears and maybe talk a little bit about foresight. That's one of the things that it's a discipline that's become more and more important today, I think, because it's such an unpredictable environment and so Lori and Debra, how has practicing foresight impacted your approach to leadership, especially during moments of uncertainty? Lori Anderson  24:23 We've developed at ISA a leadership meeting, which involves a board and three other elected steering committees. We call them, and we have an annual event in a January of every year that isn't about the current year. And I did that as purpose, because the budget's already set, the organizational plan, all of that set for that calendar year. Now we're meeting in January to do what to talk about, what next, not even the next year, but even two or three years from now. And sometimes there's themes to this meeting, this event, which started, oh, back in 2013 I guess, was the first one we did. It was just the hints being said about struggles finding workers that led to developing an entire workforce development program. And each of these events starts to germinate some thoughts on what are the next challenges that could be coming down the pike. We have used ASAE foresight works in this exercise. We have sometimes focused on particular themes. We bring in some keynote speakers that can help facilitate the long term. But I think it's the mindset that the meeting is not about the here and now. It's all about the future. We're in the next one in January of 25 we're talking about demographics, or maybe the importance of adding value graphics instead of demographics. And we're looking at trying to understand the values that are inherent in our stakeholders. We don't know what that's going to end up, but that will be long term. Like, what does that mean for 26, 27 and  29 and beyond? And that's how we've employed foresight. How it changes my leadership again, I think it's back to the same thing we've talked about. It's those little, teeny things, listening for the nuances and what I can do to challenge myself and to challenge the organization. KiKi L'Italien  26:27 So for people who and Debra, I'm going to go to you next. For people who are listening to this and not watching it, you should just know that I was back here like clapping visibly. You can't hear it, but you could see it because I was so excited about hearing about the value graphics. There's some really great work out there by David Allison. He's the one that coming to our event. Yeah, he's remarkable. You want to follow up on that? Pick up that thread and Debra, let's talk about it. What is the roll of foresight for you? Debra BenAvram  26:58 I'll pick up from where Lori left off. She gave some really great and I'll add from a leadership perspective, and one thing I think is really important is to remember that it is not your job to have all of the foresight. It is not your role. It is your role to make sure that the organization and the right people are having that conversation, and that can be very hard as we continue on our leadership journeys, to remember that our superpower isn't knowing how to do everything or about everything, it's knowing how to create the environments where the right things end up happening, and making sure that that's also the expectation of you for whoever it is that you report to that you're having that conversation. What are the expectations that might be for you with foresight, if you have deep subject matter expertise, that's going to be different than if you don't, but that conversation is really important. And then how you're leveraging your board. What's the board culture? Some boards don't love to have really big picture, pie in the sky conversations, and then your role in that leadership development journey for them is very different than if you are working with a board that has been doing that for a long time. For me, a tactic that I always employ, no matter what role I'm in, is sort of setting some North Stars like, what are the things that are for me really always going to be true, transparency, risk taking, possibilities, growth mindset, when I can bring those into the foresight conversation as a leader, those are my tools. I use those tools to hopefully open possibilities up for others. So an example for me would be as AABB explored the new frontier of bio therapies, which we're really positioning AABB in the same thread from lorries of workforce development, we were able to problem spot what's a problem in the industry that's no one's going to have solved in three years, when we would come out with a solution, and we ended up delivering the first in field credential. We stood up an entire credentialing program and delivered that, but we wouldn't have done that if we weren't talking about what's coming down the pike. We have to be able to see around corners, and that's a skill set that we don't all have, and that our teams, our staff and our leaders don't always have. So focusing on how we develop that create environments for people to learn those skills and ASAE foresight works is a really fantastic tool.  KiKi L'Italien  29:45 Speaking of looking around corners and all of that, what I'm hearing is that you both have expressed that being adaptable, I'm paraphrasing, but being adaptable, being flexible. So recognizing where your resources are that may not originate with you, that you don't have to have all of the answers yourself, but to look around for those opportunities or those insights that you can take to help guide and lead and maybe open up those conversations that will help to get the organization into the direction it needs to go in. We can't have a conversation about women and leadership without addressing this Glass Cliff phenomenon. And for those who aren't familiar with that, many women find themselves promoted to these high stakes roles during times of crisis, and this is called the Glass Cliff phenomenon, where it's like, oh, you're thrust into this position of authority, and now you need to solve all of these problems. And for many women, when they find themselves in this role, it's shocking. I don't know anyone who is just thank you for giving me this chance to feel like I'm in a precarious situation. Have either of you felt this or faced this challenge? Lori Anderson  31:04 I was by my first boss in the association world, who I admire greatly, and he was the first person I invited to come to the awards ceremony. He's long retired and doesn't live around here anymore, but he meant so much to me because he really supported me. He also welcomed my inquiries into how to improve myself. For example, it was a light bulb moment when I was told we need an international program Lori, create one. I'm simplifying it. And this is a pretty big industry. What? But I realized that I didn't need to have the answers. But if I could help a committee succeed, then all of a sudden, everything grows. And so I asked my boss, I went, I would like to take meeting facilitation training, and here's a course, can you send me up to Boston for a week? And he said, Yes. And from that moment, it was like this sliding door moment, because I was struggling. I didn't know how to keep things going, I didn't know what to do, and I gained skills into learning that it wasn't me who needs the answers, but I could learn how to ask the right questions to get a group to figure it out, and all of a sudden, the groups I was now assigned more and more groups to lead, that they were succeeding, and that not only helped the organization succeed, it helped My career succeed. And I still employ that same philosophy to where I am. Now it's I don't have the answers, but if I can help in any way to ask the right questions to get to an answer, then we're all in a better place. KiKi L'Italien  32:55 That's so interesting. Something you said, it made me think about an issue that I just came across with the organization that I work with, and that is that I think that something that you did there, not only did you recognize that you didn't need to have all the answers yourself and that you could explore, but a committee could help, but you also sought training. You looked for training, and you proactively went out and said, Ah, here is the training I could use. And then you went about figuring out if you could get it. And it's fascinating, because the organization I work with just recently, the CEO came up and said, we have this budget for training, but no one's asking for additional training like they people weren't coming, proactively going and saying, we need this. And I think it's really interesting that here you have listeners, here you have someone who is an award winning leader, who is saying, I realized that I needed this additional training, and you weren't afraid, she wasn't afraid to go after it. So that's something that I thought was interesting, that you shared there, that I think is a differentiator, maybe for some people who been asked to do this thing, and I don't know how to do it, it's maybe looking around, yeah, to see what's around you. But also, what do I need to learn? What do I need to do?  Lori Anderson  34:21 And I still do this,  KiKi. In 2023 I was stuck. I didn't know how to get out of my rut. I sought an executive coach, and I sought one that could basically slap me a little bit get me out of my rut, not somebody who is warm and fuzzy, but somebody who could really push my comfort zones. And I've used coaches throughout my career in various parts of my career, and I just needed one. So yes, back way ages ago, I sought out help in learning how to be a better meeting facilitator, but I still do that to this day.  KiKi L'Italien  34:56 Oh, good. That's so good. How about you, Debra? Have you worked with coaches? Have you gone out and gone after those additional training moments? Debra BenAvram  35:05 Absolutely, I've worked with coaches for a long time, and knowing what you want out of that relationship, and Lori said she want to kick in the pants, so that's going to help you find the right coach for me as well. Training for me, one of the things more recently that I've been working on is getting exposure to the business world outside of association. So I joined an organization called YPO, which is a young professional organization, CEOs, global CEO organization, very few non profits and associations. That's giving me a completely different opportunity to develop new skills and exposure to new types of businesses, because we all know associations are businesses. It's our tax status that we benefit from, but the end of the day, the numbers do have to add up. So I knew that was exposure that I need, because I know the association space. Where do I take it next in this very fast changing world? I think when we're put into a new opportunity, there's a crisis happening, and we feel this weight as leaders, that someone has trusted us, an organization has trusted us, our boss has trusted us to solve the problem or to find the solution, and we fall into this trap. And I think a lot of female leaders definitely fall into this trap of thinking that being the champion for the solution means being alone and being the only one who can do and to both strategically think and do and be the answer. And sometimes we put that on ourselves. Sometimes it's put upon us, to be honest, but sometimes we put that on ourselves. When I think about those moments when I've asked someone in a crisis to take something on, and when it's been a part of my own experience, I'm thinking about building transparency, which I share is one of my North Stars of transparency and being clear on communication along the way, celebrating small wins. Don't wait until the end to find out. Like your one ends like glory. Just shared how she was talking along the way. Can I do this? Can I you're sharing your thought pattern, so your leadership, your excellence, what you bring, don't wait till the end, the end and outcome of the New International Strategy, which was what you were asked to do in the example you gave Lori, make sure that you're exposing whoever you're talking to with your thinking, How do you think? How are you showing that you're expanding? What are the questions you're asking to look outside the particular area of your portfolio, to connect the dots to other areas of the business and to other aspects of how the business connects to the broader world around you. When you give people the opportunity to see have a window into your brain that lets them engage, that brings intellectual curiosity from them, and you're having conversations along the way. Something I'm not strong in is making sure to celebrate strong wins. I know about myself I'm like, three years from now already, I'm excited about the win, but my brain's moved on, so making sure that I'm communicating those small wins, and making sure that you're adjusting your plans, your experience based on your new knowledge, the skills you're developing, but also the feedback that you're getting. In other words, don't put it on yourself to be alone. Let somebody tell you're alone, but until they tell you're alone, figure out how to engage others communicate really effectively and share what you need to share, to highlight what you're doing, and highlight where you need others to plug in.  KiKi L'Italien  38:57 Wow. This is like a master class in leadership, because Debra, that is a growing edge for me that I have to work on. This celebrating the wins, but showing that thinking along the way so other people can learn, celebrate, understand and believe in and be part of your parade, versus like watching from the side and It being some big mystery, this window into your brain approach so important to be able to communicate like that, so that other people can buy in along the way. And I think that's such a great point. I think of it is showing your work. I was always getting in trouble in school for not showing my work. I had to, and I'm like, oh, but they have to write it out. And I think that's something that, even to this day, it's, yeah, show your work, let other people in on it, because, hey, guess what? Maybe they can contribute, or maybe they can join your parade and get excited about the things that you're doing. It's not something to be fearful of, which I think is what holds me back. Sometimes, some. Pick apart my ideas and all of this, but it's something where it's an opportunity, right? And it's only something that can help build trust. So that's a great point. I have one more question. I could really, honestly, I think, talk to you both for a long time, but I have one more question that has to do with just being a leader. It has its own set of demands. I think we've all decided a long time ago that there is no balance with life, right? You're just always trying to figure out your best, but it's challenging when you're trying to do all of these things beyond the career skills, what areas of personal growth for you have been essential to your success and your resilience as leaders. Are there other areas of your life where it's not just going out and getting say that training and facilitation or working with committees or what have you, or learning about what it's like to be entrepreneurial and that kind of thing, but is there something in your own personal growth outside of those things, directly impacting your skills at work, that you look at, that helps you, that you find, that is essential to your success.  Lori Anderson  41:09 It's a mindfulness journey for me. I have gone to mindful retreats. I started meditating many years ago. I'm grateful to say it's many years ago now, and 2007 I went through a cancer journey. So I'm a breast cancer survivor, and what they don't tell you when you go through it is the hardest part mentally, is after you go through all the treatments, because then you imagine that every hangnail and every thing is possibly another round of it, right? And in this process, I discovered the importance of mine. I read books I had Tolle's "Power of Now," and some other books by various monks, etc, that more appreciate the present moment and not constantly imagine what's next, because what you imagine is that it's imagination. It's not real, and that's a continuous process, and that is a journey we are all on to various degree, and you never complete it. You never win it. And being comfortable with the moment at hand is maybe the biggest challenge we could ever face.  Debra BenAvram  42:25 Beautiful.  I wish I could tell you I had the kind of mindfulness practice that Lori has developed and that I admire so much I I'm a little bit more of a work in progress that maybe I care to met, but I think that for me, over the course of my career that I've ebbed and flowed and COVID really helped me open my eyes to making good choices about how I decide to spend my time and how I decide to spend my discretionary time. And we could go to dinner with an ASAE colleague every other night. We can go to everything we get invited to, and we can, I can, I'll own the statement, then really end up not getting much out of any of those experiences. So what I've tried to do in my own practice, in my own life, is really be intentional about how I'm spending my time and how I want to show up for myself and for others. How does that translate? It translates into I've said no to some things, and I've stepped back from some things that maybe I gave to maybe I did that had run their course, and I've stepped up into other things that have really been a bigger part of what I want to do. So some of those are making sure to spend time or travel with my son, who's an international athlete. So that's one on one time when I can't always work having that special time. We have dinner as a family every night. That's hard to do, I know, but that's what happens in the BenAvram house. Our son's 21. He's a college now, but we still do that with our daughter, and then making choices around spirituality and around the things that really, from a volunteer perspective, make a difference. For me, my family supports an orphanage in eastern Uganda that helps girls who would otherwise be on the street and double down on that and a few other really important issues that for me fill my bucket, even though their time, that allow me to use the skills I have built in my career as a leader, but allow me to get something very different out of that, and then bring that back to my family. So I'm still on that journey, but I think I'm getting much better at choosing the things that from a time perspective, I both give and have a meaningful ROI in whatever it is for me that I decide that needs to be. KiKi L'Italien  45:01 It's beautiful. It's beautiful. I can't tell you both how much I it was just such a pleasure to speak with both of you today, and I've learned something, and I know that the listeners are going to learn something too. So thank you both for sharing your wisdom and your insights. Debra BenAvram  45:20 Thank you so much, KiKi and Lori, always a pleasure. Thank you. Lori Anderson  45:25 I can't wait to share the stage with you in March. It's so exciting. And thank you, KiKi, for this opportunity.  KiKi L'Italien  45:31 So I just want to say to our listeners, thank you for joining us. Be sure to subscribe to the associations now podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. For even more association goodness, visit associationsnow.com, ASAE, of course. And then if my voice didn't completely rattle your cage, you might want to check out my regular podcast, the Association Chat podcast, which you can find over on associationchat.com, until next time everyone, stay true to your vision, keep sharing your stories and remember every conversation offers a chance for change you.

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Lowell Aplebaum, EdD, FASAE, CAE, CPF, from Association Rockstars, continues the conversation on workforce development in the association space. He speaks with Eduardo Arabu, CEO of the National Hispanic Corporate Council, and Justin Bradley Reyes, membership manager at the Latino Corporate Directors Association. They discuss the importance of creating safe, inclusive spaces, the value of mentorship and sponsorship, and the role of proactive networking in fostering equitable professional growth through associations. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/dRs0LFsHltE   This episode is sponsored by Visit Omaha.   Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript   Lowell Aplebaum  0:03   Greetings everyone. Welcome to episode three of Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. It's my pleasure to be with you. My name is Lowell Aplebaum. Typically, you'll catch me as host of Association Rockstars. It is my pleasure and my honor to be the host of this episode today, which is a part two, as we look into workforce development as our theme. We'd like to thank our episode sponsor Visit Omaha for their support of this podcast. And if you've not yet listened to part one of this two part series on workforce development, we'll be right here. Lowell Aplebaum  0:39   So go on, take a listen and come on back for our conversation today. And we are excited to have two wise, wise individuals from our community for our conversation today. For each of you all, just give a brief introduction, a sentence about certainly your name and your organization, but I'd love for to hear each of you introduce yourselves, if you will, with a little bit about your own professional journey, right? So we think about workforce development, what developed you in the workforce? And today's conversation is going to have a large focus on network and community and relationships. So feel free to put into your own journey story, any critical relationships that were really important to your own journey along the way. And so let's first start Eduardo Arabu is the CEO the National Hispanic Corporate Council and the Latino DEI Collective. Eduardo. You want to tell us a little bit about yourself and your own journey? Eduardo Arabu  1:38   Yes, absolutely. Thank you Lowell for that wonderful introduction. I'm thrilled to be here and be a part of this conversation with my colleague Justin Reyes as well. A little bit about myself. Yes, I am the CEO at the National Hispanic Corporate Council, that organization focused on helping Fortune companies on their competitiveness and corporate performance around workplace and marketplace strategy. And so we work with major Fortune 1000 companies are under Hispanic and Latino strategy for talent, customer, supplier, community relations and their employee resource group as well. The Latino DEI Collective focuses on amplifying, cultivating and elevating Latino DEI practitioner. So Chief Diversity Officer, Vice President of Diversity Equity and Inclusion, not only in Fortune company, but government, nonprofit, sports and many other sectors as well. I'm based in Chicago. My background is Venezuelan. I consider myself bicultural. So was born in Venezuela, but grew up in Chicago, Illinois. I spent about seven years in Washington, D.C., as well. I think my career trajectory to where I'm at is a little bit unorthodox. Many of you in the association space, we didn't sign up for it. We were voluntold to put you into it, and here we are. My background consisted of corporate functions, HR and government affairs, public policy. I have my time in Washington, D.C., and so more of a business public policy background also works in sports and Government Affairs and many other functions as well. One unique opportunity that I had was to complete a fellowship with the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute, where I had a chance to go to Washington, D.C., working corporate affairs and government affairs as well. As we mentioned, relationship, the executive director of the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute, when I did my fellowship forward several years, was the executive director at the National Hispanic Corporate Council. So we're emphasizing on relationship. My time as a fellow in that program, go on to go to work in force and go to pursue a Master's Degree in Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon. End up back in Washington, D.C., and I get a phone call from then executive director at CHLI now executive director at NHCC, and he taught me to be the number two person, right hand person to support the National Hispanic Corporate Council. Five years later, the board promoted me to Executive Director, then CEO, and ever since then, been looking for ways to contribute, collaborate, into the association sector and give, take, learn, connect, learn, all those wonderful opportunities as well. Lowell Aplebaum  4:21   Excellent. Thank you. And our second, no less distinguished, wise thought leader for today. Justin Bradley Reyes, is the membership manager for Latinos Corporate Directors Association. Justin, why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey? Justin Bradley Reyes  4:36   How do you Lowell or Hola, as I'm trying to implement into my vocabulary, especially in the tune of Hispanic Heritage Month. But as you mentioned, my name is Justin Bradley Reyes. I'm the membership manager at the Latino Corporate Directors Association, and have been privileged to hold this role within LCDA over the last couple of years, almost three years and everything membership, managing membership, recruiting Latino talent, developing our regional networking, engagement with our members in the field, and just ultimately, just empowering members to utilize the resources the network, the people at LCDA, to amplify their journey to corporate board. A little bit about LCDA before I dive into myself. LCDA has been fully functional for about 10 years, and the mission of the organization is to create a pipeline for Latino talent, Latino executives, the creme de la creme of corporate America into serving on corporate boards. There's a ton of data out there. Feel free to visit latinocorporatedirectors.org. But just a little snippet is the fact of the matter is with the US population of Latinos, at about 20% of the US population. Latino representation on corporate boards, specifically within Fortune 1000 companies, is at about 5% and so our mission is typically to create a pipeline so that we can reach parity and ultimately support corporate organizations to create a network where they may not have a Latino executive in hopes to elevate the deep pool of Latino talent that does exist, unfortunately they may not have the network to get to that point again as a membership manager, day in, day out, it's been a privilege to be a part of an ecosystem of highly accomplished Latinos, first NASA astronaut and later director of NASA, Dr Ellen Ochoa, a powerhouse attorney, Roel Campos. You have individuals like Marty Chavez who are on the alphabet board. It's just phenomenal that I have the chance to work in support of these individuals. Although I'm not a corporate America expert, through my role as a membership manager, I'm able to contribute to the machine that is LCDA. Now, over the last nine years, I've made a career in association management, or as I tell some folks, I'm in the acronym business. So whether it's the national association home builders, NHB, ABC, NASDA, now, LCDA, I've had the opportunity to be a part of something much larger than who I am. It allows me to scale the impact of my work beyond where I call home, and it's really because I have an inborn fondness for associations that merge public and private partnerships to uncover solutions for whatever industry that they serve. And so that's just been a phenomenal journey, and it all started with an organization called NASDA, National Association of State Departments of Agriculture shortly after graduating from college, with the intention to teach in the classroom, which I did. But just before that, I had a brief sit in DC where I had the opportunity to attend congressional meetings and just interact with these senior policy officials around agriculture. A few months before that, I was working in the fields of South Texas wearing boots and jeans and a cowboy hat and just working my butt off, just lots of manual labor, and then shifting to a setting with suits and policy, it just really transformed my outlook in life and expanded the horizon that I have in terms of what can I do, not just in education, but professionally. And it was so infectious that two years later, I decided, let's make this a full time gig. So after working two years in the classroom, started with NHB, and been all downhill since then. I am Latino, a Mexican-American distend. But of course, being from Texas, being proud Texan, I am Tejano, which for the audience, if you don't know what that is, it's an individual of Mexican-American descent, born in Texas. So thought to be a little extra there. But anyway, small town in Texas. My family is multi-generational American but really the back load of my family is we're ranchers, we're farmers, we're cowboys, and so it was really a great to be a part of that. But again, fast forward today. I now call Charlotte, North Carolina home with my wife, a government affairs professional with Lowe's, who used to be a trade association professional, as well as my niece Raylene, and, of course, my two fur babies, Bailey and Begonia. Lowell Aplebaum  9:12   Thank you. In both of your journeys, there is this aspect and this element of network and community. And so as we're thinking about workforce development, I want to talk about that for a little bit. I want to talk about from two or three angles. So the first let's talk about for the responsibility of associations and organizations that often are the organizers right of these critical places where professionals come together, where the opportunity is should be in the room for those relationships to be made that can then lead to career journeys, to those opportunities that nordo You said someone to tap you on the shoulder, to say, No, you need to come to to my organization and work here. We need to have you. I'm just curious about either of your perspectives, about what role you think associations, the organizations themselves, and leaders can play in facilitating more equitable networking opportunities, whether that's live at conferences or remote or hybrid ways. Right? How should associations create the spaces so more of those critical connections can be made?  Eduardo Arabu  10:17   I would say, to answer your question, the responsibility falls on two sides of the coin, right? One is individual. As leaders in that space, whether entry level or more senior role, have a responsibility to make sure that they find the most opportunities that they can program, get involved, volunteer, all that good stuff from an individual perspective. But I also think that the organization also has to be intentional, and part of that process, and so in terms of creating equitable networking space and so forth, is to evaluate their own principles: DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion and belonging, or as ASAE called it, conscious inclusion. And to evaluate organizationally, top down, bottom up, where can they be more inclusive and offer those opportunities? And so whether it's at the organization, board of director, the executive staff, the middle management, entry level intern, all the way internally, from a workplace perspective and also from a marketplace perspective, your customer, your stakeholders, your members, also community relations effort and supply chain supplier diversity, and also granting opportunity from external perspective as well. But I think if the organization can be intentional on what they want to do and provide those opportunity to make those connection, right? The networking, I think it's really important to create capacity building, to create access to senior leader, to create assets or pathways of career mobility, career navigating, and even just offering safe space and ways to feel inclusive and belonging, right? Those employee resource group or affinity groups, or a ways where you can be other at your level or of your background, and have that space to have conversation, whether it's work related or career development or many other opportunities. So organizations that are intentional, and I keep bringing that up there, they want to make that conscious effort to provide networking platforms, I think, really add to the inclusivity and engagement of the associate at the organization Lowell Aplebaum  12:32   On either of your journeys, both of you sound like you've had meaningful moments where you've connected with key individuals that have Been accelerants along your own journey along the way. Do you feel like that? Either of you are naturally inclined, like you walk in the room and you just feel comfortable talking to anyone, right? Or there are those that perhaps walk in the room and feel like, who am I supposed to talk to? The obligation you started with there Eduardo, which is the individual obligation for building the professional community that you need. And I just want to leave it open as you think about the experiences you've had or the experience that you would impart in terms of advice or insight to those listening in, how do you go about building that community? How do you walk in the room and figure out who to talk to or actually talk to anyone? Justin Bradley Reyes  13:17   Yeah, I'll chime in here. So I think I'm a little bit of an outlier, but it's because of my mother's upbringing. She was a very social person. Unfortunately, she did not have the opportunity to finish her high school education, but that didn't limit her career outlook. First Center of Excellence was doing the work that she did and commanding the respect of the community that we served in, whether it was ironing or cleaning. My mom in the community, small town, Cotulla, she would clean the homes of the judges, the county sheriff, these just influential individuals in the community. And because of that, it exposed me to a network that was just non traditional. And so with that said, I'm like I said a little different. When I walk into a room, I just I'm inquisitive. I'm very curious about how things work. I love to learn how other people's stories, to borrow lessons that I can apply to myself. But more than that, it's about I'm a sponge, and whatever I learn or whatever experiences that I'm able to have, whether or not their mind. You know, I try to share that with other young Latino professionals, other young professionals who may not have the opportunity to sit in the same spaces that I do, and just to impart just these antidotes of interactions that I have and and I think ultimately, what it falls on is just to get to that point, it's creating these safe, intentional spaces for these individuals with untraditional pathways in terms of careers and supporting them, instilling self efficacy, instilling opportunities to develop strong, soft skills so that we're better able to communicate. I think that's really what. It is at the end of the day, is communicating, but more than that, it's about executive presence. How do you advocate for yourself, asking the right questions and following up on interactions? You have this moment where you're in a room, virtually, you're in person, where you meet these folks, but what's the follow up? What are these? I say simple, but best practice this so that you're able to develop a much more authentic relationship from rapport, because then it's almost like an interview. You're checking each other out and seeing, do we vibe with each other? And if we do, how do we intentionally continue this relationship? Where one I can borrow from? Maybe it's your platform, your access. Maybe you're a hiring manager or influential in that space. And likewise, I think Eduardo had mentioned this earlier. It's a two way street. So one I learned from you, but likewise, in interacting with me, you learn a little bit about me. Now, I'm only one part of the greater Latino ecosystem of 20 plus countries, but that little sliver of interaction, I would hope, would educate you and teach you a little bit more about a culture that's just different than what you're used to. Eduardo Arabu  16:10   I think, just to keep you very humble, actually, a phenomenal networker is an individual that really goes out there and make it happen, even if it's just a simple introduction or simple hello or so forth. They want to give them a shout out for that. He's always challenging me and saying, Hey, do you know so? And do you know so? And I'm like, No, I don't. How do you know them? ABC, and he's always make those connections. Super excited to be with him. I think we're on a different spectrum of being introverted, extroverted, and somewhere in there, we would manage accordingly how we want to engage in the reception and a conference and a meeting and so forth. And I think for most multicultural people of color and folks, we tend to be very inclusive and welcoming, right? We want to build community. We want to break bread together, right those type of scenarios. And when we go to the quote-unquote "corporate world" or association or professional world, we tend to be a little bit more introverted, not sure how our culture or how we interact, mix them well with more of a professional trick type of environment and so forth. It's looking for ways to build those relationships, make those connections be meaningful, follow up and things like that, but you never know who you can meet in the room. And I really think it takes practice. It takes a little bit of preparation. It takes a little bit of best practices in terms of how to network, how to introduce yourself. People love to talk a lot about themselves. So how do you pose question? Then let that person take the burden of the pressure and let you be more of a listening and looking for ways to make that connection. Oh, you were in DC, so was I? Oh, you're from Chicago. When they right, you start to build those common trades, common skill, common goals and things like that. That nothing the burden, the pressure. But it's not easy, and it all depends on the person level of confidence to do that, and over time, practice, make perfect. Lowell Aplebaum  18:11   We'd like to take a quick break from the conversation for a word from our episode sponsor, visit Omaha. Ad Read  18:18   Welcome to Omaha, where productivity meets the after party, where unprecedented growth takes flight with a $950 million airport expansion, where 346,000 square feet of downtown convention space and 3500 plus downtown hotel rooms meet 90 restaurants, pubs and shops within walking distance, where morning lattes meet five o'clock craft cocktails, where colleagues meet and are sprawling 72 acre downtown urban oasis, where in 2027 a modern street car will take you to even more entertainment, restaurant and hotel options for more information, check out. Visit omaha.com. Backslash meetings. Lowell Aplebaum  19:10   Most of you had a overlap of talking about creating spaces. Justin, you refer to it around the idea of forming a network happens best in that safe and intentional space. Eduardo, you were talking about an inclusive space that you feel like you belong. I was wondering if either of you could just reflect on moments that you've walked into these spaces and you have felt that the space has been designed to be inclusive and safe and intentional, right, like when that has been done. Well, is there anything you can describe so that those listening that want to create those spaces, right? What would you say when you walked into those spaces? What had been done that you experienced that? So maybe there's something there to learn from. Justin Bradley Reyes  19:56   I guess. Can I go ahead and chime in here?  So as I mentioned. I'm about nine years into association management professionally, but as a member, a volunteer, an advocate, a leader, I've been a part of an association since I was 14, so almost 20 years. It is at 20 years. But when you bring that up, the first thing that pops in my head FFA, which used to stand for Future Farmers of America. But what was phenomenal about this association was that I grew up in a predominantly Latino community, but in the greater ecosystem FFA, it's pretty diverse. Not once did I ever feel like I was less than in terms of being Latino, we would wear these blue corduroy jackets with our names and where we're from in the back, and that's what united us. And what was phenomenal about it was just the the culture, the ecosystem of support, passing it back, if you will. Here's the FFA model, learning to do, doing to learn, learning to live, and living serve. I'm in my 30s, and I still live by this day in, day out, and it's because of the positive experiences that I had there that had it not been for the FFA, I would have never joined agricultural Teachers Association of Texas when I was a teacher, or the American rabbit Breeders Association when I was trying to figure out, how am I going to select the appropriate rabbit project for my students, and then later on their life, ASAE, Association Forum. These are organizations that that one had a culture where I could be my best authentic self, but likewise allowed me to expand my knowledge, to seek assistance, mentors, and ultimately, to this day, sponsorship from peers like Eduardo, who are able to elevate my profile to a much wider audience, so people know that I'm here, and if there's an opportunity for me to connect and help, reach out and I'm there, when you talk about that, it all started very early on with that student organization. Eduardo Arabu  22:00   For me, I've been officially involved with Association space for the past 10 years - first five years as the deputy at NHCC, and now a CEO. So it's been a collective of 10 years. But from a formal professional development, career development and things along those nature, maybe for the past two years, mostly, so to the ASAE, which have been a phenomenal platform. I've never seen anything where leaders of different organization come together to support each other, from A to Z and creating all the different spaces, whether it for us, by us in a certain demographic or culture, into intersectionality, into allyship and to bringing others to the room and so forth. So I never experienced anything. And so shout out to ASAE for what they do and the work that they do with conscious inclusion and many other aspects of their programming. And so I think it's important to not only create those spaces, but also seek it out. Yeah, you don't know what you don't know. So if you're trying to be on a corporate director, the LCDA is a space for that. If you're trying to advance your career in accounting, there's the so-and-so association of accounting or engineering or law or medical, whatever it may be that there are many organizations that support that development within those organization, we need to make sure that they're inclusive and not just one particular group, one particular demographic. And what we spoke earlier about creating those spaces allow for inclusivity, belonging workforce development and many other areas, but then also having inclusive intentional programming. And I benefit a lot of this by going to program that our bridge program to grad school, bridge program to working on Capitol Hill, Bridge Program to Corporate America. These are not only safe spaces, but they're intentional and they're inclusive and promote that certain community to advance whatever sector, whatever field organization that they want to participate in. Lowell Aplebaum  24:04   Time always goes by quickly on these conversations. I want to ask one more question, I think, and then we'll start to wrap up. We've been talking about on the journey about creating spaces and creating connections, and the critical nature of relationships and support of workforce development within the minority environment, but also in the general funnel. We live in a day and age where, as much as people love to be together, time is a challenge, and the cost and distance to being in person can be just wondering in your experience, either of you, as you think about a more hybrid or mobile or virtual opportunities for professional community connection, creating that inclusive space that could elevate the voices we need to see shine and learn. Do you have any reflections on how that aspect of virtual right, that aspect of distance, comes to play in terms of workforce development, building a career, seeing strong minority voices be part of our leadership?   Justin Bradley Reyes  25:00   So, I've had the opportunity to work remotely over the last nine years, spending seven years in Kansas City and now Charlotte, North Carolina. But one of the most significant challenges in working for an organization like LCDA that's completely remote is staying top of mind within networks. So what does that mean? Without the ability to walk in a room and be seen day in day out. I think, especially for minority professionals who work remotely like myself, we just have to work a little extra harder to ensure that we're noticed and that we're again top of mind, whether it's for career volunteering or simply contributing to projects with that said, what can be done. And I think a lot of that for me within ASAE, for example, is showing up to the ASAE Annual Meeting, showing up for micro-volunteering opportunities. One, I'm giving back to the community. But two, I'm able to interact with other individuals who hold values like myself and forging genuine relationships, or at least for me, finding new role models that I can follow on LinkedIn and on the Internet of Things, and borrow themes of their leadership that I can apply to in my home and community. But with that said, it can be challenging, it can be cost prohibitive. I think organizations like ASAE, with their DELP program, with the CAE scholarship, with the USAE/ASAE travel scholarship, those types of programs help minority professionals overcome these cost barriers. These individuals are wanting to show up, but sometimes, as it may cost a significant amount of dollars and investment just to get to the location and to register and all that. So I think that's really important for organizations and associations to keep in mind, how are we creating an equitable space, and if it doesn't exist, what are some resources that we can allocate so that communities like remote working minority professionals can utilize, so that can share the space, contribute to that culture and ultimately grow professionally. But I think, again, those are just some of the things that that I think have helped me, personally in my own journey, Eduardo Arabu  27:20   I've had the opportunity to work remote for about 10 years before it was cool or necessary. However you want to look at it, some people adjust differently for that. Some people like it. Some people don't. And there's lots of challenges around that space of hybrid remote. Return back to office strategy. There are some opportunities and challenges for our conversation in terms of professional development and workforce development as well. I think if we look at it from an internal perspective, that visibility, it's harder when you're working remote or hybrid, especially if you're onboarded virtually, if you have a remote team, if you are 100% hybrid, 100% remote, you may not have those traditional water cooler conversation or some other opportunities of senior leadership seeing you, and I think that's very important to have that visibility that you consider for project or promotion, mentorship and many other opportunities. So you have to take it upon yourself again, personal responsibility. Think out, connect, reach out, identify if it's not available, then start it or start that conversation with some colleagues and so forth. Your career growth is tied to the network that you're able to build, because that is capacity building. Part of that leads to mentorship, opportunity, and, more importantly, sponsorship opportunity. The difference between that mentors help you grow and advise you and coach you the sponsorship. They talk about you when you're not in the room. They are intentionally saying that after I leave or after this project is done, so and so if pipeline for the next level or the next opportunity, or what it might be, I think it's important for you to challenge yourself. If it's a two, three days work week in the office, try to make it three or four, try to do the best you can. And I always adjust it and become accustomed to certain liberties of working from home, but make sure that you are navigating that part correctly, that you are showing up to at many meetings. You're on campus as much as you can, and then when you're there, you're strategically reaching out to mentor sponsors, senior leaders, asking for project networking, hosting a happy hour, whatever it may be, all of those opportunities, and then also externally, if the other part of the conversation is, where can you externally get with ASAE volunteer opportunity, your society, community volunteer leadership position, and many other ways and not wait? For the day, that you need your next job or your next role, that you are actively building a network. You're actively branding yourself, promoting yourself as a thought leader, as a strategist, someone who is competent, someone who's accomplished and have the confidence to lead and manage the next phase of their career and an opportunity for that, an organization as a whole. How can they offer everything that I just mentioned? How are they intentionally creating the state space, the inclusive programming, allowing for development when you're in person, team, development, capacity, building, asset to network, all of that, not only waiting for someone to ask for it, but as an organization offering it, and at least listening to what are the needs of the associate and how can they play a role in that integrated workforce development. Lowell Aplebaum  30:52   Love it. All right. I have at least five thoughts that pulled from our conversation today, but I'll let you two go first. Just as we're winding down from our conversation or from your own life experience, as you think about workforce development--the roles and the place that you have had in your own journey, and those that are looking and listening to this conversation to be a guidepost, a partner along the way of their own journey--what is one piece of advice or one insight that you would take and share if someone is looking to take the next step on their professional journey? Eduardo Arabu  31:29   I would say one piece of advice is maybe a couple of pieces of advice we don't want this to end. I would say one is to be unapologetically yourself and be bold. It is who you are and ask for things. Raise your hand, speak up, let others know your career path. Take an assignment. Just being very vocal of who you are and what you want and the expectation, and hopefully the organization is able to create those pathways. If not, you may have to seek opportunities elsewhere, but at least you are true to yourself to your goal, and hopefully that leads to the objective that you have.  Justin Bradley Reyes  32:08   Well, man, so many thoughts here as well. The first thing that gets in my mind is this term that I've been using for a couple years that learned from a mentor the Greater Kansas City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Carlos Gomez, get your hands in the matzah. What does that mean? Get in the kitchen. It's one thing to see the cook making these exquisite meals, but it's another when you lend a hand. So with that said, whether you're a minority professional or not, I think it's really important for us. Eduardo mentioned the allyship aspect of it, right? There's an association for everything, especially when you talk about minority serving organizations that their mission statement or their mission objectives, just like Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, is you don't have to be the premier expert, but you can augment your understanding. You can augment your efforts by partnering with organizations like the one Eduardo leads at NHCC; ALPFA, the Association of Latino Professionals for America. If you're talking about public policy, if you're trying to recruit government affairs professional, guess what? The Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute has a program that brings in interns to work in Capitol Hill who work around public policies. There are organizations out there doing great work to serve different parts of lack of parity on X, Y and Z, but be uncomfortable in getting comfortable with getting involved with contributing to that point, mentorship, sponsorship, hiring. That's another thing too. Is what are your organization's hiring best practices? Are you regionally attracting talent beyond a 50 mile radius of your organization's located? Are you targeting HBCUs? Are you targeting HSI? Like I said, we can go on and on. Of course I would have to throw in. But you have organizations like SACNAS, the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans and Sciences led by my mentor, Juan Amador. I have to give him a shout out there, because he's really what got me into the scene and where I'm at currently. But again, there are these organizations led by passionate people who are committed to the mission statements, and if it's a daunting task, just reach out and ask questions. You might uncover opportunities for formal partnerships, but at the very least, if that's not the outcome, it's at least learning a little bit more. Not just about learning more, but it's about ignoring less. And so that's what I challenge, not only minority professionals, but our allies in the community, is get involved within these ecosystems. You never know who you're going to meet. You never know what you're going to learn that's really going to create a significant impact in the organization, and ultimately, the industries that you serve. When you think about workforce development, Lowell Aplebaum  34:55   Love it. I'll just say two or three of the questions I'm walking away with from the. The brilliance you all have shared today. I love the question of, how do you stay top of mind in your network, right, especially when we're at distance? How do we do that? How can our organizations create the opportunity for meaningful visibility so that those who could benefit from mentorship and sponsorship find those opportunities to do how do you come to professional relationship development opportunities with questions and curiosity you become top of mind by learning about others. And then the one I took near the end, how do organizations create safe space and inclusive proactively and not wait for someone to ask for it? Just a few of the questions I captured from you all. Eduardo and Justin, thank you both so much for spending time with us and for sharing your perspectives as we talk about this critical topic. Eduardo Arabu  35:42   My pleasure.  Lowell Aplebaum  35:44   Thank you to everyone who is listening in to this episode of Associations NOW Presents. We hope you'll join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals. We discuss the challenges opportunities in the field today and highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy the US and the world. We'd like to thank our episode sponsor Visit Omaha once again for more information you can check out visit omaha.com meetings and be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts for more information on workforce development in the association space, visit associations now online at associationsnow.com Until next time, stay out there. Stay leadership. We look forward to talking to you again soon.  

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Lowell Aplebaum, EdD, FASAE, CAE, CPF, from Association Rockstars, leads a conversation with Haley Jones, director of member engagement at the American Staffing Association, and Joe Lindhal, CEO of Mission MSA. Together, they explore the evolving landscape of workforce development in the association sector, discussing the influence of AI, the importance of adaptability, and the critical role of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The conversation highlights how DEI drives organizational success, urging associations to lead by example, embrace inclusive practices, and nurture a culture of acceptance and continuous learning.   Check out the video podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwM9JWpnOWM   This episode is sponsored by Visit Omaha.   Transcript   Lowell Aplebaum  00:05 Welcome everybody to episode two of Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. And we'd like to thank our episode sponsor today Visit Omaha for the support of this podcast. My name is Lowell Aplebaum. I'm the CEO of Vista Cova, typically hosting the Association Rockstars podcast, but really excited and overjoyed to have the opportunity today to facilitate a meaningful conversation around workforce development with two brilliant minds in our community. And rather than read a speaker bio, which probably would not have you still tuning in, we're going to have the opportunity to hear a little bit about the own professional journey from our two panelists today. So for each of you, I'll ask you one at a time, if you could please tell us a little bit about who you are and where you work, as we're thinking about workforce development and professional journeys that have led you to places of the association community. Tell us a little bit about your journey. Haley, do you want to go first?   Haley Jones  01:07 Sure. So I'm Haley Jones. I'm the director of member engagement at the American staffing Association in Alexandria, Virginia. I spent my entire career in the association space, but I got started through being placed at my first association from a staffing firm, ironically, X amount of years later, so I don't necessarily age myself. I now work at the trade association that represents the person who was once a member who got me into associations to begin with. I started in associations through member care, was answering the 800 line processing applications. Moved into the membership department. I spent the first half of my career in membership. The latter half has been in governance and volunteer management, leadership development. And then the last almost five years now has been also in the DEI space. I oversee a team of four people who run all of the, basically eight of the nine engagement programs that ASA has. My main focus is our DEI initiatives. I think where I've gotten to where I'm at now, I attribute a lot of it to being a DELP Scholar. I'm in the 2019 to 2021 class, and got access to mentoring and executive coaching and just education opportunities that I ordinarily wouldn't have thanks to Visit Detroit that sponsored everything, and that was a turning point for me and my career and finding my voice and just putting me in a leadership position, where I still work on this now, but where people see me as a leader and I also finally see myself as one too.   Lowell Aplebaum  02:48 I love that.  Hopefully, as we were able to go into a discussion around workforce development, that sort of transformational journey from an employee to a profession to a leader, hopefully we can dig in a little more on those stages as well as we think about that, Joe, please.   Joe Lindhal  03:03 Yeah, so I'm Joe Lindahl. I serve as the CEO for Mission MSA, which is a nonprofit organization for patient advocates and research around multiple system atrophy, which is a rare neurodegenerative disease closely aligned with Parkinson's, but has the size and progression of it. I am with MCI USA, which is a management company, so I think I share many similar stories and journey as Haley. I was placed through a temp staff firm with the Association Management Center right after I graduated with a degree in journalism from DePaul. Go Blue Demons! In front of the recession where newspapers were failing, no one wanted to read or at least pay for it. The whole industry was turned upside down. So I was placed in this firm and I ended up really loving the world. This, I think, is a very common story for us, association professionals. Starting in marketing, really, after the first two years of more operations and governance, moved out to DC, where I got to work for the Child Life Council, and then also worked at the American Staffing Association, where Haley is now, where I had my "association, full circle moment." Like, I get to support an industry that really has done so much for me to where I am now. And then I moved back to Chicago, worked for AMC again, serving as a senior ops for specialty nursing groups, and eventually as an executive director and to where I am now. So it has been a rapid journey. You open your eyes and like, oh my gosh, what has happened? But it's been a lot of fun, and I'm really excited to talk about the workforce journey and workforce development.   Lowell Aplebaum  04:43 I hope that you will continue, both of you, to insert sort of personal reflections of your own stages of your professional progression as we talk about the larger workforce development. What's interesting, I think about both of your backgrounds - besides, it's amazing that both of you found sssociations by being placed in them; I'd be interested in a research study of what that percentage looks like as we now go into a discussion on workforce development - there's really a duality that we're discussing. One is the place of workforce development within the association community itself, and then the larger societal challenges or opportunities of workforce development across many industries. And I imagine from an American Staffing Association, you're looking many different lenses. We all, of course, are well matched in the association industry. So I welcome either of those paths that you want to explore with the top I'll start thinking broad, which is just as you think about workforce development in general, from what you've experienced and from your insights, what trends do you see? What would you identify as some of the big markers of challenge, opportunity or the way things are go? Haley, do you want to go first?   Haley Jones  05:52 Yeah, so this is something we do talk about a lot with our members, and especially in hearing what they're seeing as they're putting people to work, and one of the biggest ones is probably the emergence of AI and the fact that people really need to learn it. And there are people who think that AI is going to remove other people from the workforce, and then that probably will happen in some instances. But there's also a way to use AI as more of a partner and not much for a replacement to your responsibilities, and being able to learn how to use it to help with maybe administrative tasks. Or several of us have used it for writer's block, and then going back in and using it to going through it with a to read, for comprehension, to make sure that what it does dump out is, one it's accurate, or you make it accurate, and also that it makes sense. But it gives you the opportunity, if you are using it, to be able to focus on higher level work and higher value things. But I just had a conversation about two weeks ago about this, where everyone's starting to learn AI now. I had an owner the other day say, "I'm going to become obsolete. So I'm learning how to do all of this now." He's, I think, in his 60s, and has been in the business for over 30 years, but is also trying to keep his business relevant. It's just been interesting to see the different facets of it. There's also a bias issue when it comes to AI that we can get into later, but because that definitely can hurt minority communities in certain ways. But yeah, we've been talking a lot about AI and just also really upskilling to learn that or learn other skills to help further your career.   Lowell Aplebaum  07:34 Joe?   Joe Lindhal  07:35 The general workforce piece, I think some of the trends that when we look for talent, at least from an employer standpoint, is, we are looking for a kind of willingness to adapt, having some comfortability with technology. And how we operate as a workplace is we are almost completely remote, so our team is everywhere. There has to be the level of comfort of having these video conversations, having to use SharePoint, how to do video calls, how to be comfortable doing some of these things that are really important. And from piggybacking on what Haley's saying is as small staff especially, AI presents a lot of opportunity. I think it's not going to replace a lot of what we do yet individually, but it certainly can act as an accelerator or simplifier in a lot of our processes. For example, we have a support line that is open where you can speak with a social worker if you have any questions about your diagnosis. No one really generally knows about multiple system atrophy until they have to know about multiple system atrophy. And in that context, you're dealing with folks that want everything they want to literally swallow the ocean, and it's a really hard thing to do. And so what we do have a social worker that's available to talk on the phone answer emails, but we're exploring like we know what the common questions are. We know where people need to go to where can I find a movement disorder specialist? Where can I find a clinical trial? How do I manage my symptoms? We can create a chatbot based on our documents that will answer 75 to 90% of those questions immediately. Our helpline is only open from nine to five, but we deal with a global audience. So someone from Australia has a question they want an answer. We think we can create a resource that's going to be really useful in that regard. So I have a person that is a licensed social worker, that has a level of comfortability with the technology. Might not have walked in as a coder or developer, but is willing to learn and ask the questions to those that can do it. How do we train it? How do we make sure it's transparent? What biases? How do we make sure it takes these two outputs that's really important from a workforce place, because that way, I'm not training two skills they have a level of comfort they're walking in with.   Lowell Aplebaum  09:57 I love that we've started in terms of discussing workforce development with really front and center, the role of how AI is impacting workforce development today and for the future. What's interesting, I think, is if we look at historical trends of where workforce development issues and discussions have been, it's really been that, like your career journey has been defined by being able to demonstrate the skills and experience that you have, right? That's what your resume shows. Does the skill and experience align to the position you're looking for? But what you two are discussing is actually this intersect that's not, perhaps not, about rate interested to hear about the skills you have. It's about how much you're able to demonstrate an ability to adapt to the skills that you will need.   Haley Jones  10:41 It kind of reminds me of 2020 and obviously we all had to go virtual, and suddenly everyone was learning how to use Zoom. And I remember for myself and what we were doing. We used Zoom already however, we didn't use it as often as we do now. And everyone laughs about I remember when I had to just make a phone call, and now if someone calls you on the phone, it's weird. And I became the resident Zoom expert. There's two of us on staff who all of a sudden it was like they know how to do this. So let's have them run this virtual conference on Zoom. And when we have breakout sessions, even now, for one of our virtual conferences, I get the one that's the most difficult to set up, because I know how to do it. I saw one of my chapters ran, I forget what the platform was, but she ran virtual conference, and then started offering her services to others because she had already paid for the platform. So she offered it to other chapters and other organizations, and she would run logistics in production of their entire virtual conference. That became another stream of income. She just adapted and learned how to use it and became this expert at it. But I feel like AI is about to become that same situation where you're figuring out how it works best for you, how you can use it to move your either yourself or even your organization, forward, but we ought to adapt to it.   Lowell Aplebaum  12:02 So I think the question I would ask based off of that really tangible, excellent example is, as you think about workforce development, both for those seeking positions and those seeking positions, what is your perspective of what that looks like in a different context, when it's about, as you're saying, finding someone who has the agility to adapt to what we're going to need. Right? From your perspective in workforce development, either, how does a candidate display or demonstrate that agility, or from your perspective, how do employers seek that agility that's not just based off of "give me your resume of all the things you've done," because that doesn't display that, right? I'm wondering if either of you have perspectives about from either side of that. We've talked about AI, this would have been a very different conversation 24 months ago.   Joe Lindhal  12:48 Yeah,I think it's a tough thing to get at times like, it's not you're like, you're it's not on a resume, it's not in chronological order of how my past experiences would be a perfect fit for this role, this opportunity in your company. For, I would say, like, entry level folks, they don't have that. They're an intern, maybe. But asking the questions around some more than interpersonal like, how have you been a chameleon? And then also asking, here you have the job description, I'm happy to walk you through it in more human terms, because sometimes these jobs because they already read like they've been written by robots at times. But how do you just say, "Hey, this is what I need. Give me an example from your perspective. How do you make this work? What would you do differently?" I even give them like test scenarios, saying, "This is the issues the opportunity with what when the landscape of tools or processing. What would you do?" It doesn't have to be perfect. You don't know like the disease per se, but I just want to give a general sense of how does your mind work? How does it adapt? And can take things that aren't necessarily crystallized, but absolutely can be flexible, and put them into work that advances whatever industry, or that's how like as an employer, that's what and from a talent perspective, that's what I look for, especially for folks that are coming into a small staff organization. We have titles, but the reality is, we're doing what's best for the patient and the care partners, and we want to find a cure. That's it. That's the North Star. So if it comes outside your job description, and if you're really good at zoom, or you're really good at implementing X, Y or Z, I think you'd be willing to do it, it, be it in research or advocacy or awareness, that's what we look for. Yeah,   Lowell Aplebaum  14:32 I doubt that if an association executive actually had a business card that was the title of everything they did that would fit on a business card. What you just shared, Joe, in terms of the idea that I love...the "how have you been a chameleon?" That the demonstration through application of how someone would say that they would deal with a situation and adapt, is really interesting. We all are really enmeshed in the association world, part of which the mission of many. Organizations is to support individuals on their professional journeys. Do you have any perspectives from a place of how we help the individuals that belong to our organizations get better at demonstration of this adaptability? How are organizations that are supposed to be your partners in supporting your professional success actually helping people learn how to be adaptable in the skill sets they need for the future.   Haley Jones  15:24 I honestly get an opportunity with a lot of the programs that we do. The majority of our members are small businesses. Many of them are jacks of all trades, and they're putting people to work. I say, I don't, Joe, I don't know if you ever said this too is, having worked at ASA, that the staffing industry, to me, always reminded me of the association industry, and that there's an association for everything. There's a staffing firm for literally any job that you can think about and what we do a lot of our programming, in some cases, it's to help strengthen their own internal workforce, but also to help them guide the candidates that they're placing, or the clients that are accepting the candidates and working with them, and different ways to hopefully either adapt to what they're about to hire or be higher into and succeed. But we have one member in particular who I always love hearing about them, their focus is skills first, and so they're taking these great skills that their employees or candidates have. And they're finding the best fit for them in the workplace. I think of one story where a person is actually someone who had special needs and he was not doing well at a job site. He was also non-verbal, so he couldn't necessarily express what he didn't like about the job. But they knew that he liked something down the street, because he was always going to a car watch, and was an amazement at these cars. So they thought, why don't we focus on what he likes and see if we can get him a job down there? He still works there, and he dries off the cars in a car wash, watches them go through. But he's succeeding in this role because it's something that fit him, and they focus on his skills and interests.   Lowell Aplebaum  17:03 First, I love that the people-center approach to that, that how do you balance the needs of an organization or a company, and what they think they need is a skill set by recognizing the strengths and interests and potential in the individuals that work for that company, and have that be something that can be, hopefully something in harmony. That's a really nice picture of what ideally a workforce could look like.   Lowell Aplebaum  17:27 We'd like to take a quick break from the conversation for a word from our episode sponsor, Visit Omaha.   Ad Read  17:34 Welcome to Omaha, where productivity meets the after party, where unprecedented growth takes flight with a $950 million airport expansion, where 346,000 square feet of downtown convention space and 3500 plus downtown hotel rooms meet 90 restaurants, pubs and shops within walking distance, where morning lattes meet five o'clock craft cocktails, where colleagues meet and are sprawling 72 acre downtown urban oasis, where in 2027 a modern streetcar will take you to even more entertainment, restaurant and hotel options. For more information, check out visitomaha.com backslash, meetings.   Lowell Aplebaum  18:26 I want to shift, if I can, a little bit, just to recognize that while there are sort of general workforce challenges out there, I'm curious, as we go into a D&I lens, what roles do you see the associations playing in the future of workforce development when it pertains to diversity and inclusion? Do you think there's a role for our professional organizations as we think about workforce development paths and have a lens towards minority communities or the need for a more diverse workforce?   Haley Jones  18:56 It's an unfortunate reality that we have to put it this way sometimes, but it's also effective. DEI affects your bottom line positively, if done correctly, and that's something that I work for my I'm the staff liaison to our IDEA group, which is inclusion, diversity and equity advocacy. And we are just promoting the business case to our members and to understand why these inclusive practices essentially help your bottom line, help your retention, with your employees or candidates, for that matter, but also just make it a better place and environment to work. But I think that one of the ways that we can play a role in this is just at least setting not a standard per se, but maybe a good example, I always hesitate to say best practices, and I try to say effective instead, but showing effective ways that you can incorporate dei into what your workforce and by helping them succeed, I just think that that's where associations can help and having things that they can model after. Even for other orgs who are modeling DELP-like programs for their respective organizations, that's where ASAE, I think, has played a huge role. We've all seen the success of the DELP program, and we're starting to see other organizations do something similar to try to have that same success for whatever that population is.   Joe Lindhal  20:17 I totally agree. I think there's a lot of different responsibilities associations and nonprofits have when they represent a whole industry or profession. You have so much access, in theory, to thought leaders staff that can help elevate communities that haven't been seen or heard from in a really meaningful way. There's systemic issues I think that associations can certainly play a role in. I also think that there's an opportunity and a responsibility for groups like ours to elevate, purposefully and intentionally provide invitations and access of almost a see it, and you can be it kind of situation like I think ASAE has done a pretty good job of that from a personal perspective. As an association management professional coming into the industry, I'm a member of the AANHPI group that we recently formed three years ago, and one of the first things I said of why I even want to be a part of this--shout out again to DELP because this is where this conversation starts--is my barrier has been, I have never seen anyone that looks like me be in a CEO position of a large association. One person I knew that was the name only, and now I think I can call him my mentor is Richard Yep, who was with the American Counseling Association. That was it. And for me, I think we have a responsibility to ask that question of, "Why aren't there more folks that are actually reflective of the country and the world that we live in places of influence?" Because we shouldn't be. And I do think there's a responsibility for associations to be reflective of their industry, and there are underrepresented people and communities that have the ability to be elevated, not because of tokenism, but because they're really good at their jobs, and they have to do it. And eventually you want to get to a place where it isn't a big deal, but it is. I notice every time, as an Asian American, is elevated to senior level position, or when there's a Fellow at ASAE, and I think it's really important that see it, you can be it, so it really supports the next generation, the workforce development, saying, that's cool. I never saw an Asian American male in this capacity, and that is an actual viable place for me, because I won't be the only one. I do think that there's a responsibility there for groups like ours, of why we exist as nonprofits and associations.   Lowell Aplebaum  22:45 How do you think associations can prepare themselves for these evolving workforce needs, thinking back to where we started, right like adaptability and what we need to demonstrate in the future for successful career journeys. How do associations prepare themselves to be able to address those workforce needs, while also, as you're saying, meaningfully maintaining a focus on minority communities, knowing that it creates a better whole community, a better industry, a better bottom line. Haley, as you said, right, all the benefits of doing so. Any thoughts or examples you've seen about how associations prepare themselves or take action on that?   Haley Jones  23:21 I think you have to be prepared and also forward thinking. I was on a program, I guess, last month, and we were talking about the legislation against DEI or the threats that are coming out, one of which is from the other VP candidate, and they're trying to flip the acronym on its head and make it negative. And someone said, we have to be ready. I challenge you all to be ready for this and prepared for something like this so it doesn't throw you off when it comes because what you see now are people not necessarily walking back their initiatives, but they're changing names of it, so that they're not under, kind of falling under this category. But I think it's just being able to really have some foresight and being ready for it, but also leaning in and not walking it back the way that people seem to have started doing right now.   Joe Lindhal  24:16 I don't have terribly much to add.  I think preparing the the wants and the need to the workforce, while keeping a focus on underrepresented or minority communities is one in the same. I just feel like what we here to see from folks that are coming up is they want to have that type of education. They want to have these discussions. This idea of bringing a whole self to work is valuable, and so how do we as employers or supervisors or whatnot, prepare ourselves for that? How are we going to react to that? What level of conversation, what level of resources do we want to put around this? That's what I think is really an interesting conversation, because I think the conversations you might have with your managers, your directors, your admins, your coordinators, probably sound different than the CEOs. And how do we get to a closer alignment and transparency around what is valuable when we prepare the workforce for the DEIA-type of discussions and what's the expectation of the employee from the employer? Is it an email celebrating a AANHPI Heritage Month and then nothing happens? I don't know. And how are these questions being asked earnestly and honestly? So I see this as one of the key needs for workforce development and consideration moving forward.   Lowell Aplebaum  25:41 I know we talked about a number of questions beforehand, but both of your responses makes me want to ask one  last one, which is not on the list, which is...I'd love to hear if you have any thoughts about the implications and needs of culture within an organization as we think about minority community involvement, commitments, implicit or explicit, to diversity, inclusion, or in general, a shifting workforce trends like, what are the those cultural pieces internally that are going to lead to better organizational success in workforce development. As I heard in elements of both of what you said, not just process, but culture. Do you have any reflections on sort of insights of cultural commitment or direction organizations need to embrace to see more workforce development success. I'd love to hear any of those cultural reflections.   Haley Jones  26:30 I think for me, it mean that just not tiptoeing around it. DEI is not a bad thing, and I think sometimes people get uncomfortable with it. And it's not always meant to be comfortable conversations when you're talking about certain things, especially for us as minorities, who see things through a different lens, experience things completely different than others do. Because sometimes people do just look at us differently because of the color of our skin or because someone who might have a disability or whatever it is. But I think that just having open discussions about it, having awareness around certain things, giving time and space for people to be able to celebrate certain things. In our office, we either have a monthly activity, or we have training, or we have some kind of celebration around food, because that brings people in the doo. But a lot of it is usually ways to just teach people about things they might not know. You know, in February we did a  we called it Bagels and Black History Month. But our the whole kitchen was filled with fun facts about black history that some you would think people knew. And there are others, like one of them, which was a hot topic, was about Reading Rainbow, the theme song being sung by Chaka Khan. A lot of people didn't know that. I can't tell by your face if you know what I can, but it was such it was a fun fact that it was something that everyone was talking about for a week, but it was a space for people to learn things about my culture, and we've done it for a couple of other celebration and awareness months as well. But I think having space for people to do that makes a big change, and also, I would hope, even with some of the trainings, just helps people maybe take a beat before they say something that might be deemed offensive, or it might change their perspective moving forward. Yeah,   Joe Lindhal  28:24 I think that the culture is...we always I think we all ask that question if we're interviewing or doing the interview. It's a hard one to answer and when and someone asked me that I was I say to me, culture is walk into a room and you basically already know what the expectations are of you and the people in the room, what are you committed to? And so I think culture can be viewed a lot of different ways from different lenses, and that's part of it is being okay with people will experience and perceive things differently based on their own perspectives, but we're all pushing towards this one goal. Here's what's acceptable, here is what's not. But I think it has to be the culture of acceptance and learning and being willing to say, "Hey, I don't know." I think it's a good idea to ask employers and employees of what their expectations are around some of these things, because they like Haley said, they can be hot buttony, but they don't have to be like, I'm just like, I just want you to bring your whole self. And if I don't know something or like, I'm of the age where pronouns are still new to me, but I will ask now, like, I've learned a lot as a older-ish millennial, at this point, I want to learn except the whole person, and I think there's strengths in that   Lowell Aplebaum  29:41 time goes by very quickly, and I have at least 20 more questions I wanted to ask, but we'll wrap up our time with this last one, which is, just as you think about the range of our conversation today and the intersects of adaptability and AI into really building a stronger workforce, towards embracing that priority of diversity, inclusion, and how that can help strengthen workforce and providing those opportunities and aligning culture the borrowings we've gone through. For those who are listening in, if you were to share with them a closing thought, a one-piece-of-advice or one takeaway that you're walking away with, what would be the one piece that you would hope people would remember from this or start from our conversation today. And I had Haley introduce herself first. So Joe, I'm gonna go to you first for a conclusion.   Joe Lindhal  30:28 Advice usually comes from a wise person, and I'm trying to think how wise I am. It's just my perspective, but I guess my one piece of advice is wherever you want to work, and when you think about workforce development, just think about the whole person. You don't spend any more time with a group of people or in a place than you do at work. I don't spend as much time my wife, my kids. This is it. This is where you spend a bulk of your time. So you can be professional. You can obviously not bring your full 1,000% authentic self. I don't think we do that other than maybe in front of a mirror every once in a while, but understand that like they're bringing a wide range of background and experiences to the table, and be ready to embrace that. I think it's positive.   Lowell Aplebaum  31:15 Haley?   Haley Jones  31:15 So I'm also going to offer advice, and this comes from the lens of...I was a college basketball coach, so I tend to operate with my team the way I would operate with my players, especially in terms of development. So I would say just as far as development of your employees, it's finding out what motivates them; finding out what interests they have and maybe where they see themselves going in their career. But not necessarily long term, but at least in the next few years. I've done that every year I ask why--one person on my team has actually been with me for over a year--and every year since I've become her supervisor, I say, tell me what you want to work on this year. Tell me where you want to go, where you see yourself going, as far as your career, because she's decided she really likes associations. She finally started referring to herself as a component relations professional. And so I said, "Tell me what things you want to work on so that I can help you get there. Because in my eyes, I'm developing you either for a promotion where we're currently at or for whatever your next role is, whether it's at our association or not." And I enjoy coaching people, and so that's the approach that I take, but it's really finding out what gets them going so that you can encourage that and cultivate it moving forward.   Lowell Aplebaum  31:23 I love that. We can't thank you enough, both of you, for your time today, for being willing to bring your wisdom and your insights and your experience you've all benefited from it, and really good thoughts on the workforce ahead and how we need to be chameleons for success in there, in the skills that we develop and bring forward. Thanks to everyone for listening to this episode of Associations NOW Presents. We hope you'll join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals, discussing the challenges and opportunities in the field today and highlighting the significant impact that associations have on the economy the US and the world. Again, we'd like to thank our sponsor Visit Omaha. For more information about them, you can check out visit omaha.com/meetings. We hope that you subscribe to our podcast on Apple Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. For more information on workforce development in the association space, visit Associations NOW online at associationsnow.com We hope you'll join us next month, where we'll have part two of our discussion on workforce development. We hope to see you there. Thanks so much for tuning in. Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings. 

In our inaugural episode, recorded live at the ASAE Annual Meeting and Exposition in Cleveland, we hand over the hosting duties to Kiki L'Italien, host of Association Chat. Kiki engages in a lively discussion with Virginie De Visscher, executive director of business events for Destination Canada, on the crucial topic of sustainability in events. Together, they explore how sustainability spans environmental, sociocultural, and economic dimensions, advocating for a holistic approach. Virginie provides inspiring examples from Canada, including innovations like green roofs, urban beehives, and local food initiatives, underscoring the importance of incorporating cultural elements to enhance event experiences. This episode is sponsored by Destination Canada.  Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.    Transcript Michelle Mason  00:04 From ASAE, this is Associations NOW Presents, a podcast for association professionals tackling issues and challenges that affect our community. I'm Michelle Mason, CEO of ASAE. We hope you enjoythis episode. Now, let's tune in and hear what the experts are discussing. Kiki L'Italien  00:22 All right, we are live. Do you hear this background noise? We are live at ASAE annual, at the Super Bowl of meetings in Cleveland, Ohio. I am Kiki L'Italien, and I am guest hosting the inaugural podcast episode of ASAE's new podcast. I usually host a podcast over Association Chat. I got a chance to jump over here. And with me is our inaugural podcast guest Virginie De Visscher  00:53 Virginie De Visscher. Kiki L'Italien  00:54 I wish you could say that as well as you do. With the last name, L'Italien, and you think I'd be better at this. But anyway, I'm so glad that we're here. I'm so glad that we're talking and I saw you on stage today, and can I just say you were fantastic. It looked like you were like born to do this. You just dominated the stage. You were radiant.  Virginie De Visscher  01:17 I think I was inspired by who we were introducing, Amanda Gorman. Kiki L'Italien  01:21 I know. Weren’t we all? Amanda Gorman is not just inspirational. I do believe she's a magical being. I You though, let me tell you, you had an important message, and Team Canada has an important message. That's why you're here. Let's talk about the keyword sustainability, sustainability. We could say it together, sustainability. So I'm super excited to talk to you because for several reasons. One is because I love Canada, but the other is because this is the inaugural episode, inaugural episode of the first ASAE podcast, and they're launching it here. This is supposed to be somewhat of a different format than all of the rest. We get to be the lucky ones. And I'm looking at this list of questions, but all I can do is stare across at you right now and see that you're beaming. You're radiating. I saw you on stage this morning with Amanda Gorman also sharing the stage opening keynote. And you're up there and you're talking about sustainability and being maybe when people hear the word sustainability, they don't think of it as being particularly exciting. But at the same time, a lot of travel here was disrupted because of harsh climate conditions, right? We had these horrible storms. People had a hard time getting to ASAE Annual. Interesting that one of the big features that you're talking about for Canada is Destination Canada is doing some amazing things with sustainability. So I want to go into that. I want to open with that and talk about the fact that it is a really important topic. It is something that I think more and more event planners are finding to be increasingly important for the way that they decide where they're going to post their meetings. And I think that when people start looking for is there something meaningful behind the word sustainability that's happening? They're going to ask these questions. So sustainability, what's happening? Why is this such a focus for you and Destination  Canada? And what's got you fired up about it right now? Virginie De Visscher  03:36 I think it's a combination of things. It's a passion subject. First of all, it's a personal passion subject, but I think it's undeniable. Like you mentioned, the recent climate events that impacted Cleveland, like these are impacting all of us across the planet. In Canada, we're not immune, and things are happening and we see it. We have a beautiful country, and we want to make sure that it stays that way. So events are disruptive in an ecosystem. By just bringing large amount of species into another ecosystem, you're disrupting the environment. So what can you do to keep less of that disruption, and on the opposite side, how do you maximize the benefits that you bring into a destination with events? Sustainability is a topic that we've really taken on this Destination Canada, but as Team Canada is a whole effort countrywide through a national sustainability plan that really means a lot to us, because we want to still be there for generations coming ahead. And I'm not saying that cliche. I really mean it. Kiki L'Italien  04:32 Yeah, I was talking with someone about the fact that we were going to have this discussion, and her association is focused on looking at how meetings use their waste. And so she said, “Are you going to ask any questions about that? Are you going to ask, like, what they're doing, how they're working with different meeting planners to figure out how to create more sustainable meetings?” And I said, that's a really great question. Let me go ahead and add that to the list. What are some of the ways that you're working with different people, different associations and organizations that are coming in to have meetings in Canada.  Virginie De Visscher  05:04 There's lots of different ways how you can approach it, but first, maybe we should define sustainability. Let's do that. Let's define it. When you say the word sustainability, there's a big assumption that it's just about environmental. Yes, but it's not just that. It's not all the green stuff and what you do in regards to saving the planet, it's all about the people and the culture as well. So when we define sustainability, we want to make sure that all three pillars are encompassed into it. So of course, environmental sustainability, but then it's the sociocultural and economic side. So you want to have an impact on local economies when you're coming to meet somewhere, but also that cultures are thriving and people are healthy and people are there for the long term. So when we really see it as all encompassing and not just environmental, that was the first thing to do. But then the realization was, everybody is a part of it. It just it's not put the blame on someone, or don't think you can't do anything about it. It belongs to everybody. We all live on this planet. We all have people that we care about around us for future generations to come. So what can we do? And that was when we started our national business event sustainability plan. And keep in mind, we're a national organization, so we're not necessarily in the city level, but it's very important that we create that leadership for people to move forward and our organizations to be more sustainable. I think COVID really impacted that way too, when meetings were all of a sudden not happening. Sure the environmental footprint was - -well, the environment benefited, right? Nobody was moving anywhere, traveling. But look at all the negative impact that happened. So many businesses shut down. People were not thriving. Knowledge was not being shared, so all these positive impacts and legacies of events were not happening, so it's all about maximizing the benefits and minimizing the negative potential environmental footprint. So then the birth of the plan was to get all destinations on board to be more sustainable for meetings. Kiki L'Italien  06:57 Do you think that you're getting enough questions about this? Do you notice that there is an increasing amount of interest? I hear talk about it, right? I hear people say that they're interested, but I don't know if, in actuality, that the conversations have changed, have they?  Virginie De Visscher  07:14 There's  more questions. It's undeniable. We've done a lot of surveys on this, and it's quite visible that right now, it is supplier driven. There's a lot of barriers still to having more sustainable meetings. Cost is one of those biggest barriers, and the second one is lack of knowledge of what you can implement. And so on the supplier side, they've really taken that on venues and hotels, even airlines, to be honest, have taken a stance and been more sustainable, offering more options, whether it's waste diversion or the way energy or electricity is fed into the building, or food and beverage options. So all of that venues and destinations have really taken a stance on how they can make that easier for associations to meet and incorporate them. So while we're not seeing as much coming from the association world and asking for sustainable practices. More and more the responses from the destinations that are bidding on these opportunities are including sustainable practices. Kiki L'Italien  08:10 Yeah, I think everybody, when I'm looking at associations, the executive directors reporting to their boards, do we want more and more to be able to include this thing that makes everyone feel like they're doing their part. They're doing the thing that's going to make the planet better. I hate to sound a little bit cynical, but actually, from a bottom line standpoint, I think it actually ultimately is better for everybody, even from the bottom, not a standpoint, to be thinking about that bigger picture. Because if we don't have a planet, we can't have more meetings. You know, we can't continue to have associations. And so the other part that you touched on was sustainability, talking about these pillars, talking about being concerned about the cultural side of things. How is Destination Canada showing support and offering up opportunity means to support those measures? Virginie De Visscher  08:59 So that's a really fun one, seeing that we have so many diverse communities in Canada. We're a mosaic of people that have come from all over the world, but also coming into a land where indigenous peoples were here from time immemorial. And so how do we showcase all of what Canada is made out of, and through sustaining those cultures for multiple generations to come, and so integrating them into programs for meetings is one way to do it. So I'll give you an example. For Canada night at ASAE, we're actually going to have a fashion show, and what we're doing is we're featuring an indigenous designer. So we’ve brought a Metis company called AnneMulaire, and she's an extremely environmentally and socially conscious organization and company, and she's actually going to be doing a fashion show with the pieces that she's created, telling that story.  Kiki L'Italien  09:53 Stop. I am so interested. I want to be there and see this. This is amazing. I love this.  Virginie De Visscher  10:00 So one way is we're keeping the culture alive. She can share her story through fashion, but at the same time, we're economically sustaining her business. That's one way that we're actually walking the talks. It's not just about environmental that cultural and economic aspect is so strong in all that we do. Kiki L'Italien  10:16 So does that get frustrating when people only focus on that because it is important. But it does seem to be that everyone focuses on that one part and not all of these other things.  Virginie De Visscher  10:26 I wouldn't call it frustrating. I would say focus on the low hanging fruits first, and perhaps the environmental side is just the lower hanging fruit. It's easier to do the cultural side. You have to think it through a little bit harder and getting the help of the local host destination and what cultures they want to showcase are bringing local art. We've had workshops doing local moccasins and to bring that culture alive. Kiki L'Italien  10:49 Oh, that's so fantastic. Okay, so sustainability has been a major theme for you at this year's ASAE meeting. What has motivated team Canada?  Virginie De Visscher  11:00 So in 2022 when we launched the National Business Event Sustainability Plan, it was comprised of three sections. So the first part was education and coaching. So what we realized is that when people are uncomfortable or don't know the terms around sustainability, they will be less likely to talk about it. So phase one was really, what does net zero mean? What does carbon neutral mean? All these terms. So we rolled out workshops and education sessions across the country, just so many different partners. Phase two was knowing where we were at. It was benchmarking. So we partner with the Global Destination Sustainability Index, the GDS, and we had 16 destinations across the entire country. We're very big. We're second largest landmass in the world. So we had 16 destinations go through that entire benchmarking process to see where are we at? Where can we improve? If you don't know where you stand, you can't go up, right? So that's what we did. And phase three is storytelling, and we're right in the midst of that. So through this whole benchmarking exercise, we collected stories, initiatives around sustainability across the country, across these three pillars, and we are launching today our storybook. So Sustainability Storybook, which has 30 stories from across the country, which are examples of what you can bring in, like a virtual delegate bag, or the indigenous Fashion Show. There's also stories about incentives into sustainability or different ways to impact the communities that you're living in or having your meeting in. And that storybook has been launched, and we also have a sustainability stories pavilion that showcases eight of these stories here live at ASAE. It's just perfect timing of where we wanted to launch these initiatives. Kiki L'Italien  12:41 So earlier, you said that this was something that was personally important to you. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Why is sustainability particularly important to you?  Virginie De Visscher You mean me as a person?  Kiki L'Italien Yeah, you as a human being, an actual individual. Virginie De Visscher  12:56 My background is in science and engineering, and I've always been close to the environment itself. I've traveled around the world, lived in Africa for many years, in Asia, and I've seen the impacts of the environment, but also on people around the world and what we can do and the changes over time. And I guess it's almost become a personal passion of mine that I have to do something I believe, very honestly, in whatever field you end up being, if it's medical or signage or entertainment or even tourism, you can do something about it. And so I'm in the tourism industry, I can do something about it. So I'm using that voice and that passion has to feel really good. Kiki L'Italien  13:37 When you go home at night and you're winding down, you have to feel like, wow, I feel like I'm actively making a difference.  Virginie De Visscher  13:46 I wish. But it's a journey, and there's so much more to do. So I think I will continue to be on that path. I don't think we have an end point on that one. Kiki L'Italien  13:55 Okay, we're on the journey together. So part of that journey is people are coming into the pavilion. They're experiencing that here. What's the next step that you hope that they leave that pavilion? What do you hope that they experience and walk away with from interacting with Team Canada? Virginie De Visscher  14:11 The way the pavilion is designed is that for every story, there's a question, and it's a question that hopefully asks for reflection. So it's: Have you thought about incorporating a cultural element in your meeting? Have you thought about doing this or that? And so what we hope is that booth--by the way, is staffed by a member of Team Canada--all throughout which will be sharing those stories. So it's a way to get people engaged, and maybe if one of them, or every person that visits, goes away with one idea that they can bring back to their meetings, whether it's a local pop up market in the destination that they will be needing to support different businesses that are local, that would be just so amazing. So that's what we really hope to spur and whether they need in Canada or not. Of course, we. Want them to meet in Canada, but it's can we impact that change in all of their meetings.  Kiki L'Italien  15:04 When an association is actually going about trying to implement sustainability practices or bring that on? I think you touched on this a little bit earlier. What are the challenges that they're facing? Are they trying to bite off more than they pinch What do you hear that they're running into when they're starting to go down that path? Virginie De Visscher  15:24 There's a variety of reasons, and it's not always the same for everyone, but here are some of the ones that I've heard quite a bit. So one is--and in no particular order--it can be an afterthought. So you know, the whole machine into sourcing next meetings is into place. RFPs out. So we're ready to look and then few months before the meeting, oh, wait a second, did we look at sustainability? Oh, that thing, yeah. So it's much harder to then put back into the meeting once you've gone so far adding it into the RFP and then your sourcing process is one way to go about it. The other challenge that we get is there's no one person to point it to, right? It's only starting now that you're going to have an organization's a sustainability person, so usually it ends up being on the side of the desk of someone for another task to ask to the meeting planner. And it becomes big, right? So if it's not the part of the mission or vision of the organization, it becomes secondary, so putting it as a priority and having a person really dedicated to it can help, and that takes time to create another one. Is definitely the cost. I mentioned cost before, but by sourcing more sustainable venues and sustainable destinations, sometimes that can be avoided because they're already incorporated in the destination. So there's ways to get around it. We're the sustainability sponsor for this event, so that sustainability stations that are around all the food stations, we support that because we believe in that. Kiki L'Italien  16:50 I have my bottle of water over here, the reusable bottle of water that I have so that I can refill it periodically. And I do believe that I was reminded ahead of time to bring that with me, yes, so that I could fill my bottle with the water around here, so that we wouldn't produce more waste. Is that you're doing?  Virginie De Visscher  17:10 Absolutely, we're supporting that. And since you can bring your reusable water bottle to the sustainability stories pavilion and get a free entry for a free registration for next year's meeting, Kiki L'Italien  17:20 Oh my gosh, I think I missed that part somehow. I think I missed it, but that's really amazing. And I would be so curious to see. I have seen a lot of these reusable water bottles going around. So pretty incredible. And what do you think as far as trying to get leaders to take ownership of their role in bringing that awareness into their strategy for their meetings, to think about sustainability, so it isn't an afterthought. I know that pavilion is part of that, but is there a way? Is there some sort of magic that you're weaving that it can get them to think about this stuff?  Virginie De Visscher  17:56 It's one person at a time. It really is. You get one person inspired and saying, “Yeah, I can do that.” I can bring that in. But I really hope, and maybe that's me, personally, speaking, the way I really hope to change the organization, world, association world, is understanding that no matter what field your association is focused on, sustainability is part of it, if you look at it, all encompassing. So yes, maybe you're in a medical field, and saving the environment is definitely not on your radar, but you're all about people. And so there is something that you can do to save people, and if you see it overall, as a company within sustainability, that makes sense. On our Sustainability Pavilion, we've actually aligned all the sustainability initiatives with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. So when you look at the 17 UNSDGs, everybody can relate to those. It's a universal framework and blueprint. So by doing that, we can put in a language that anybody can take regardless of what field they're in. Kiki L'Italien  18:52 I love that. I love that. And I feel like when people see the structure behind it and that alignment, it makes them feel safer to maybe do things that they'd haven't done before, right? Virginie De Visscher  19:02 It's all about starting. You know, it's one little step at a time. Don't try to chew off the entire thing at once, because that's really hard. Yeah, it's just one small step. Kiki L'Italien  19:09 Okay, so I'm going to ask you the hardest question ever, which is, because I know, get ready. You have so many beautiful destinations, so many beautiful cities. I'm not going to ask you to play favorites among your children, but I am going to ask you for some examples. Do you have some examples you could share with me about some of the fantastic offerings that really emphasize the sustainability efforts that Team Canada is putting forth?  Virginie De Visscher  19:36 Oh my goodness, there's so many of them. And so if I start listing them, I'm sure I will forget some and then I'm gonna have some unhappy partners. Kiki L'Italien  19:42 Let me just disclaimer ahead of time, she loves all of you. Like, you're all loved - all the destinations. Virginie De Visscher  19:49 I do, but there's some really fun examples out there, right? So if you look at first at venues and what some venues have done, anything from green roofs to beehives on the roofs. I'd be remiss. The Vancouver Convention Center is absolutely amazing with some of the energy.  Kiki L'Italien  20:04 I’ve been there. I was like, I actually had that experience and toured that and this was even, this is not a brand new thing, you guys. This is something that, I don't know, maybe it was 10 to eight years ago I went there, and that was a huge effort. So Team Canada's not new to this game. You guys have been trying to do this for a long time.  Virginie De Visscher  20:24 Yeah, for sure. So from the green roof fair to beehives in Toronto, to solar panels on the top of the convention center in Edmonton, to the recycling and sorting facilities at the panada conga in Montreal. There's so many amazing things, including the new BMO center in Calgary. They had a really fun initiative just recently when they did their opening. So they had listen to this one. This is really cute story. They had name badges that were made out of seed paper. And then they had a whole activity where they had a planter box where we could each plant our name tag, and so now our name tag would live as flowers forever on inside those planters. Kiki L'Italien  21:04 What I love about that is that we've seen like the sort of seed tags, but to actually have the ritual, the actual experience of doing that. Virginie De Visscher Very moving. Kiki L'Italien It's moving. It's community building. Every time you're looking at what helps people to feel like they belong, whether it's to a meeting, to a community of association executives. It's like you're looking for that piece, and that is something that brings people to that. I love that. That's such a good example. Virginie De Visscher  21:30 It's a beautiful example, but you have more and more. I was not so long ago at the Halifax Convention Center, and they had their food stations, and they had a sign in front explaining where the food was coming from. This food came from this particular farmer, and showed, really that locality of supporting local businesses into their food. So it was not only fresh, but it didn't have to travel miles to get there. Just more and more you're seeing those examples across the country, and that makes it super vibrant, and that's only touching the environmental side. Kiki L'Italien  21:59 So in some of these examples that you're giving me, people can go to the pavilion and they can, like, learn more about that sort of thing, and get those ideas, and get those stories as they're thinking, maybe considering, maybe exploring what's even possible. Because just as you were sitting here explaining some of these to me, I thought, I wish I could have just a compilation of everything that you're saying to you, like all of the examples, so that could go through and just be like, this is brilliant. Let's do this. Virginie De Visscher  22:29 So at the Pavilion, we can only showcase eight stories that are there, but in the storybook, you're going to have 30 stories. And again, that's still just scratching the surface. So when you reach out to us and even to all of our team Canada, partners, each of them can really share what they have like in depth, because everybody wants a different side of sustainability. Maybe you're not into the food part of it so much, but the cultural side's super important. So it really is a discussion with the organization about what's important to them.  Kiki L'Italien  22:57 Yeah, I think that sustainability is the key word here, but it's also about experience, and it's also about the feeling of belonging, of having a meaningful experience. When you're engaging with an event or a meeting and you're looking for something that is real. Virginie De Visscher  23:14 It's about being inspired. For example, at one of our events recently, instead of printing menus, we use little chalkboards. And so we just put the menu on the chalkboard, and then when we were done, we erased it, and then the next day there was the other menu. So there's just a little tidbit on how you just save a lot of paper. And people thought it was really cute.  Kiki L'Italien I love that. I think it's fantastic. Virginie De Visscher Little ideas like that. And what happened is a lot of the clients that were that event were like, oh, like you. I love that. I'm going to bring that back to my event. And so that's how the ideas spread. Kiki L'Italien  23:45 I don't know if this is in the pavilion, but maybe taking ideas too like it inspires you to have ideas. You build on them, and it's, Oh, I like that. And then building on that. Let me think of this. Is there a collective area? It's an idea.  Virginie De Visscher  23:58 Absolutely. Yeah, sources of best practices and things to bring forward. Kiki L'Italien  24:02 I love it. I love it. Is there anything that I didn't ask you to that I should?  Virginie De Visscher  24:07 One thing  I want to mention is the word sustainability itself. It's almost like an over loved term, right? Overused. And what happens with overused and over loved terms is that it gets people away from them. Oh, again, another talk about sustainability. But when you look, when you think about it, sustainability is sustaining something. It's maintaining status quo. And so is that really what we want? And so our thinking now, what's next for us is looking towards regenerative tourism. How can we actually do better, rather than staying where we're at?  Kiki L'Italien  24:41 Ooh, so I'm very intrigued. I like, I love this idea of building on it, and like growing and it's like generating these new ideas. I think that's fantastic. I love that. Virginie De Visscher  24:54 A 2030, Destination Canada strategy is aiming towards that, and maybe we'll have another chat in a little while.  Kiki L'Italien  25:01 I would love to have another chat about that. I like this idea of like the Oh, I'm getting inspired already. I love it. I love it. Okay. I am excited that we got a chance to be able to do this. We are so lucky. High five. You guys are hearing this clap, I hope in the background, because we just high fived for real, in person. It's unbelievable. The magic was here. ASAE Annual. Doing this inaugural episode of ASAE Podcast. I'm so glad we got to do this together. Virginie De Visscher  25:32 Thank you so much. Michelle Mason  25:36 Thank you for joining us for this episode of Associations NOW Presents. We hope the insights and stories shared today were valuable and inspiring. We look forward to having you join us again for our next episode, but until then, be sure to check out the latest from Associations NOW at associationsnow.com. Don't forget to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast so you never miss an episode. Until the next time, I am Michelle Mason, and this has been Associations NOW presents.

The American Society of Association Executives presents the all-new Associations NOW Presents – an original podcast series featuring prominent podcast hosts from within the association community, engaging in candid and in-depth conversations with industry experts. Each episode explores key topics relevant to association professionals, discussing the challenges and opportunities in the field today, and highlighting the significant impact associations have on the economy, the U.S., and the world. The podcast complements the existing Associations NOW publication, providing a well-rounded resource for association professionals.  Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.