[Sig-l] Fwd: [Board] Retreat discussion items

[Kathryn La Barre]

Forwarding this from our President Andrew Dillon to the SIG-L list. What do
you, as SIG officers think about his questions? How can the SIG cabinet
represent your interests better as the ASIST Board discusses these issues
in a short time. Our SIG Cabinet Chair - Chris Landbeck will be our voice!
Please be sure to let us know your thoughts before July 19th when the Board
meeting occurs.

Thanks!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Andrew Dillon <adillon at ischool.utexas.edu>
Date: Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 9:37 PM
Subject: [Board] Retreat discussion items
To: board at asis.org


Colleagues

In anticipation of our retreat sessions in Montreal, I am again inviting
any input/suggestions on topics we might productively cover. For me, there
are several important conversations for us to have, and I outline some
basics here. Rather than just expand the agenda with headings, I encourage
you to give some thought to these general issues and then to let me know if
there are salient or additional themes that we should address as a group
while there.  The retreat is one of the only times we collectively explore
and shape future directions for the association in person so I hope we can
be as productive as possible during our time in Montreal. To prime the
discussion, here are some thoughts:

1)  Membership & Mission -- See attached document on membership numbers
over time. Our long term trajectory is very troubling and reveals what many
of us suspected, ASIST membership is on a long, steady decline. Do we
imagine ASIST will even be viable within 15 years if we continue in this
direction? What is the value added of joining and staying in ASIST?  I'd
like some practical ideas on what me might try to turn around the situation
we face but frankly, the topic really is much broader than membership
numbers and covers everything important we should discuss at this retreat.
 Do we have a clear mission as a professional and scholary society at this
moment in time and are we delivering on it? Our claim of being the premier
association for information professionals might be questioned by the
evidence so how might we address this? We typically tend to answer these
questions in very practical ways e.g., let's develop the conferences, the
publications, the membership structures etc. and I welcome such ideas,  but
there is a lingering broader concern for me about how ASIST fits in the
emerging world of information professional education, the growth of
iSchools, the general social interest in information issues. I'd like us to
really wrestle with this together.

2) Internationalization -- what does it mean for us now that we've changed
the name? What steps are we taking/can we take collectively to draw
international members to our association? Thinking broadly, should we be a
large international organization, a group of federated regional
associations, or is there some hybrid model we can follow, or does this
even matter.

3) Web presence. While we have a task force examining this, we do need a
broad discussion on our entire online existence as a professional
association. What is the experience of being an ASIST member and how can we
enhance membership through our online resources? Community is the essence
of a society but I suspect for most members, other than local contact and
the annual conference, the sense of being part of ASIST is quite limited
otherwise.

4) Association structure. I am sure I am not the only one who finds the
current structure and processes difficult to navigate and understand. As
currently construed, does the administrative structure of ASIST support the
type of association activities we wish to deliver? What alternatives might
there be? This runs across everything from the organization of HQ and the
roles of staff, to the forms of membership we offer,  SIG and Chapter
structures, models of conferences, collaborative partnerships etc. I
realize this is a potential minefield but we should at least start to
consider how we operate and why we do things the way we do.

I invite you to think about these issues, to add further, either
complementary observations or to suggest new ideas. IF you have an issue
you feel strongly about and wish to lead a discussion on, that would be
fine, just let me know. The main idea is not to think about these issues
for the first time at the retreat but to come with some thoughts formulated
and ready to share when we meet. To my way of thinking, all these issues
boil down to the key question of just we believe ASIST offers in 2013 and
beyond. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.



Best

A.






_______________________________________________
Board mailing list
Board at asis.org
http://mail.asis.org/mailman/listinfo/board
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.asis.org/pipermail/sig-l/attachments/20130712/29047f68/attachment-0001.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: membershipcharts62013.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 442359 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mail.asis.org/pipermail/sig-l/attachments/20130712/29047f68/attachment-0001.pdf