Warning: Long post follows

If a blogger posts to the blogosphere and nobody responds, does it make a sound?

IABC (the International Association of Business Communicators) has been taking something of a beating lately over its recently-published strategic plan.

Or not.

While Ragan Communications’ David Murray has been sharply critical of the plan, it hasn’t generated more than a ripple anywhere else. Richard Becker, ABC, of Nevada’s Copywrite, Inc., mentioned the issue in a post, and there is a smattering of comments on the IABC blog, but beyond that, the taking-to-task of IABC is confined to Ragan’s properties.

(Disclosure: I have a financial relationship with Ragan Communications. I have been a member of IABC since 1977 and remain an active and committed volunteer.).

Here’s a quick recap:

• October 4—IABC Chair Todd Hattori disclosed the strategic plan in a post to the IABC Cafe, the association’s official blog. The post attracted a few comments, none critical of the plan itself.
• October 5—David Murray blasted the plan in a post to his “Shades of Gray” blog, hosted on the Ragan site. His principal criticism is the corporatese used the plan language. The post attracted several comments, most by a single IABC member who has let her membership lapse because she can’t justify the $300 dues. Both Hattori and IABC President Julie Freeman, ABC, APR, commented, as well.
• October 8—Murray follows up his post with another that reacts to Hattori’s explanation of the plan.  This time around, Murray attacks the elements of the plan and raises a new issue—the fact that staff, instead of the volunteer board, has developed the plan. Murray also suggests that IABC staff is risk-averse and interested in protecting their own jobs. This post produced 10 comments (including one duplicate) and a comment by former Chairman Warren Bickford.
• October 15—Freeman, ABC, APR, defended Todd and the plan in a detailed post to the IABC Cafe. The post produced no comments.
• October 24—Ragan gives Mike Klein—a Netherlands-based IABC regional board member a platform for opposing the strategic plan. Ragan.com articles are not open to comment (or reader ranking). Interestingly, Klein did not address the issue on his own blog, although he has raised objections to some IABC practices in the past.
• October 25—Murray’s interview with Freeman and Hattori appears on Ragan.com. The IABC leaders admit they could have done a better job communicating the plan and rebut the notion that staff is wresting power from the volunteer board.
• October 25—Richard Becker mentions the kerfuffle in a post that is more about Ragan Communications than IABC. Becker’s post draws one comment—from David Murray.

And that’s it. All of which raises a few issues in my mind.

If nobody cares, is it an issue?

As a journalist and industry observer, David Murray of course has every right to report on—and be critical of—anything that occurs in the communication space. But the overwhelming lack of any response to speak of from the membership leads to me wonder whether this is a controversy at all.

I am inclined to agree with some of the issues Klein raised in his Ragan piece, although I’m not sure any of them fit into the context of a strategic plan. By definition, a strategic plan establishes the broad goals an organization seeks to achive. Tactics flow from the plan but are not part of it.

This, by the way, is one of the reasons I don’t like strategic plans in general (a view I adopted after listening to association expert Jeff DeCagna address the issue). In a world in which things change with dizzying speeds, locking an organization into a limited set of tactics designed to fulfill a plan established long before the changes took place can make it incredibly difficult to turn on a dime, which is already difficult enough for volunteer-led associations.

Could IABC have done a better job writing and communicating the plan?

Sure, but that’s a dilemma with an underlying cause that nobody has addressed yet. IABC is an association and the staff are association professionals (and damn good ones, too; in my experience, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more dedicated group of professionals working in the association space.) But, with a few exceptions, they are no more communicators than members of the staff of the American Medical Association could be expected to perform surgery. The communications staff—led by the very capable Joseph Ugalde—is tiny and focused on marketing. IABC could use a full-time communicator, but that’s a new staff position in an organization that has been doing an excellent job of controlling costs. I’m not suggesting an answer to this issue, just pointing out the issue.

Has staff wrested control from the volunteers?

This is a ridiculous assertion. Staff works at the behest of the volunteer board and, in fact, was assigned the task of preparing the strategic plan by the board, which provides oversight of staff activities.

And this is just as it should be.

When I joined IABC in 1977—and for many years before and some after—the board was populated by people with long experience and plenty of discretionary time to dedicate to volunteer activities. This is no longer the case. This is not a slam on the current board—in fact, according to DeCagna, this is typical of all associations these days. Discretionary time has vanished and boards tend to be populated by younger professionals with less experience. The Ragan interview with Freeman and Hattori included this sidebar from a brief interview with DeCagna:

???Everyone has a job to do,??? he says. ???You???ve got to let staff people do their job. The board members ?? have day jobs.???

In fact, the founder of association management consultant Principled Innovation thinks the whole question is a ???somewhat a red herring,??? because what matters most is not who writes the strategy, but the ongoing interaction between the staff and the board after its written and as market realities change and make the plan obsolete.

I couldn’t agree more. Further, how many boards of public companies produce the strategic plan? Utter nonsense, of course—it’s the executive team (that is, staff) that generates the plan, which the board approves or disapproves.

Whether IABC’s board interacts with the staff to address market changes is entirely dependent on the board leadership. That’s Hattori’s job, and until I see signs otherwise, I have no reason to believe he won’t perform that job well.

Can members justify IABC dues?

I cannot tell you how much I hate this issue, which never seems to die. Freelancer Jane Greer, in one of her comments to David Murray’s original post, said she couldn’t find a compelling reason to pony up the US $300 to renew her membership.

Three hundred dollars per year is $25 per month. Most of us spend more than that on pizza. Most of us would spend more than that on a nice suit or dress for a job interview.

Of course, if you don’t perceive the value, $5 per month would be a waste of money. A couple of issues are at play here:

IABC delivers value to those who seek it. I’ve often made the comparison between IABC membership and different types of entertainment. I pay $10 (outrageous as that is) to see a movie in a theater. For that $10, I can sit back and be entertained. Note the passive verb. For considerably more, I can buy an admission to Disneyland. If I sit on a bench and wait for Disney to entertain me, I’ll be sorely disappointed. At Disneyland, you have be actively engaged to be entertained. IABC is more like Disneyland and less like the movies. Too many members, however, sit back and wait for IABC to deliver value rather than avail themselves of it.

Still, as I wrote some time ago, IABC and all associations need to think long and hard about how they promote their value. As Greer notes, she is able to tap into a network of professionals without being a dues-paying member. I can, too—my network through the PR blogosphere, MyRagan, the Melcrum network and a host of other online vehicles far exceeds the reach of IABC’s network (as a supplement, however, not a replacement). And when you consider that PodCamp Boston—a free and self-organized event—is attracted nearly as many participants as IABC’s annual conference, it’s clear that professional development is readily accessible without relying on associations. (Again, though, this is supplemental—I still derive tons of value from IABC’s PD offerings.)

As I noted in my earlier post, networking and PD remain vital offerings for a professional association. The question is whether these are the best benefits to promote in order to help people like Greer understand the value. Advocacy of the profession, professional standards, the code of ethics, research, the incredible store of case studies and samples—these are just a few of the tremendous efforts in which IABC is engaged that produce value for individual members and the profession. Jane! Isn’t it worth $25 per month to be part of that?

Isn’t all this a huge distraction?

There are much, much bigger issues for IABC to address. Like getting members up to speed on the massive changes occurring in the communication profession in general.

It’s always eye-opening when I speak to non-communication audiences. I ask how many people have heard of (for instance) Twitter. Among non-communication audiences, it’s usually about half. Among communicators, it’s more often something like 5%. It was impossible to find IABC members who would contribute regularly to the IABC Commons. Only a few regular participants inhabit the members-only Memberspeak message board. Participation in the IABC Cafe is anemic, at best. Only about 1% of the membership listens to the monthly association podcast, , Cafe2Go.

Communicators, as a profession, are woefully behind the curve when it comes to participatory communication, and I’ve come to the conclusion that there is one overarching reason for this: Communicators don’t like or understand channels over which they cannot exercise complete control.

But the importance of social media has grown to the point that communicators’ jobs are at risk if they cannot guide their organizations through this massive transition. The fact that members are so incredibly disengaged in the social media channels IABC has established is just another source of alarm.

But, in another respect, since fewer than 20 or so members out of 15,000 have chosen to comment at all on this whole issue, it probably isn’t a distraction whatsoever.

That lack of interest and engagement among the membership is, I think, the biggest issue of all.