For a few years Seth Godin has been asking us to ask ourselves, think and talk about: what is school for? Perhaps no other question is so important to our country. As technology makes past necessities obsolete, as the needs of the market changes, as world problems grow greater what kind of leaders and problem-solvers do we need and how do we champion them? What is school for?
We can start asking a similar question in our association community. What are associations for? Many associations were built to solve a problem that doesn’t exist anymore. Are we comfortable with merely helping members be more competent? Or do associations exist to fulfill a much larger mission? Are we really, really doing more than offering professional development and networking? If that is our biggest value what will become of the profession? What will become of us? What are associations for?
Would you like to get together with a group of like-minded professionals to discuss this question? Let me know.