Association Marketing Springboard

If you're enjoying Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody, you'll probably also like Charles Leadbeater's We-Think. Here's one passage from We-Think that struck me.

"[Ivan Illich] argued that as people become dependent on the expert knowledge of professionals they lose faith in their own capacity to act." - Charles Leadbeater in We-Think

Leadbeater goes on to describe We-Think as collective self-help.

While we association bloggers have been making the connection between the message in these books and the future of associations, there is a lesson in how our members relate to each other as well. The expert knowledge of professionals is no longer the only source for help making a decision. Easy, mass-collaboration is re-wiring our brains. We're getting more confident in our own abilities and the collective intelligence of our peers. The way people relate to each other is changing. The way people relate to organizations is changing. What our members want, both personally and professionally, is changing. How do you tap into this new mindset? It's a multi-faceted question.

• Empower the individual
• Empower easy group forming
  
• Remove obstacles to personal development
• No contribution to the collective is too big or too small
• Decisions happen out in the open
• Foster one-to-one communication on a massive scale
• Enable one-to-many communication initiated by members

Are your members on the verge of We-Think? Can your organization help enable and facilitate the new mindset?