A good friend of mine who works on the IABC staff finds the discussion taking place on Allan Jenkins’ blog disturbing. I don’t know what aspect of the discussion is distressing, but I’m guessing it’s the fact that a candid, no-holds-barred debate about IABC is taking place and IABC has no control over it.

Welcome to the real world.

The conversation so far features 23 separate comments from a handful of participants, including former IABC chair Charles Pizzo, Robert Holland, Eric Eggertson, David Murray, Jeremy Pepper, Brian Kilgore, Allan himself, and me. The focus of the conversation has meandered, as conversations do. Lately it has focused on the role of chapters and the kind of reinforcement IABC should give them. That’s an interesting focus for a conversation that began with Jenkins exhorting the current IABC chair to step back and let his successor get an early start on his agenda.

In one of the early comments in the discussion, Charles Pizzo recognized the shift:

This topic has shifted from Jenkins’ initial post to an all out discussion of IABC. So why don’t we (members) offer that discussion, more appropriately, on IABC MemberSpeak? or to association leaders?

The question is whether taking the discussion to MemberSpeak really is more appropriate. If, as the oft-quoted authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto maintain, “markets are conversations,” it seems to me that IABC leaders and staff should participate in the discussion wherever it occurs. You can agree or disagree with Jenkins’ post, but the fact that it stimulated a discussion is what participatory communication is all about.

Of course, if MemberSpeak—IABC’s members-only message board—provided a useful forum for such an exchange, this conversation might have happened there long ago. It’s not, though, so it hasn’t. IABC does have a channel that could have sparked a far more robust discussion than Jenkins’ blog. The IABC Chair’s blog could have raised these issues. It could even have launched a discussion in response to Jenkins’ post. Instead, as of today, the latest message posted to the IABC Chair’s blog is dated January 16 under the headline, “It’s a New Year!”

There are a lot of missed opportunities rolled up in the failure of the IABC Chair’s blog. One of the biggest is the opportunity to own the issue. While conversations can and will take place wherever they erupt, it’s hard to argue with the advantages to those conversations happening on your own turf. I first saw this principle in action at Monsanto, back when Jay Byrne (president of the PR agency v-Fluence) worked there.

Monsanto is an activist target based on the genetically-modified products it makes and sells. Byrne convinced management to establish Web forums for discussion of the issues. A message board was at the heart of the effort, attracting opponents and advocates alike. Why would management allow negative comments about its products on one of its own sites? Because, as Byrne explained to me at the time, at least the conversation was happening on Monsanto turf. “We can’t control the message,” Byrne said, “but we can own the issue.”

(An opt-in e-mail newsletter was another case in point. The newsletter covered any news about the genetically-modified organism debate, whether it supported or undermined Monsanto’s point of view. Again, management wondered why they should distribute news that contradicted its business goals. Byrne replied that a newsletter that contained only news supporting the company’s position would attract only readers who were already on Monsanto’s side. By becoming the clearinghouse for all such news, anybody interested in the topic would subscribe and opponents would be exposed to information that supports the company’s position. It was a brilliant strategy.)

The zealots on the extreme side of the opposition would never be swayed. Everybody else, though, was willing to engage in a discussion and hear alternative viewpoints. Even those who decided to continue their opposition had improved perceptions of Monsanto, which hosted the discussion was clearly willing to listen.

While Monsanto dumped the message board after Byrne left (symbolizing the need for a champion for any initiatives that run counterintuitive to traditional management thinking), General Motors has picked up the ball and run with it on its Fastlane blog, where Vice Chairman Bob Lutz is perfectly content to let readers vent negatively in response to his posts. GM has gained nothing but praise and improved reputational points in return. (Remnants of Byrne’s work at Monsanto are still online at the now half-assed Biotech Knowledge Centre.)

Which brings us back to IABC, the organization of which I’ve been a member since 1977 and to which I am thorougly committed. It is not up to members to find and use an inadequate forum like MemberSpeak to start a spontaneous discussion of the association’s form and function. It is up to IABC to spark the conversation in a forum that lends itself to the conversation. Hosting the discussion on its own turf in the appropriate place will not only benefit IABC through improved member perceptions, but also by setting a communication example for its members to follow.

Until the Chair’s blog is reshaped into such a channel, though, IABC won’t own the issue. Allan will, along with anyone else with the right audience and the willingness to start a conversation. Like it or not—whether you’re IABC or any other organization—the conversation is going to happen. Part of your communication strategy should be to bring the conversation home so you can own the issue.