Executive Foresight

I participated this evening in what started out originally as ASAE’s "Leadership Book Club." The name of the program is now "Executive Foresight" and it no longer rests only on one book, rather it focuses on a topic and the facilitator chooses several books, articles, blogs, etc. as resources. This is all within the association community, so the focus is on how the ideas apply to managing associations.

Tonight’s session was facilitated by my friend, colleague, and business partner, Jeff De Cagna. The topic was “unbundling,” which refers to a trend (among associations and more broadly) to offer more customized offerings, meeting diverse needs instead of bundling services or offers into one package that fits all.

It was an interesting discussion. You can, in fact, hear the whole thing yourself because Jeff has recorded it and posted it to our Association Renewal Blog (but get comfortable, the recording is 70 minutes). In the next day or so I’ll post some of my own thoughts on that blog as well.

Jamie Notter

14.12.2005 at 11:39 am

Hi Sue,
I don’t remember that topic being hit specifically. We talked a bit about the “long tail” concept–that the aggregate value of the large number of songs, for instance, that only a couple of people want, is actually greater than the combined value of all the hit songs that everyone wants. But taking advantage of that actually REQUIRES technology (amazon, itunes). It’s cost prohibitive to offer that variety in a physical space. So I don’t know that meetings would be naturally unbundled like that.
But I do think there is some room for unbundling. I posted a comment on the AR blog that talked abou the notion of “control” in this context. The traditional model has associations controlling the content (tightly) at the meeting. It is based on an assumption that the association adds value by culling out the best and brightest content. If associations were to cede some of this control to the participants, meetings could be a lot different and could possibly appeal to MORE people. It’s not complete unbundling, but it’s a possibility.

2 Comments

Sue Pelletier

14.12.2005 at 10:07 am

I haven’t listened to the recording (yet), but did he talk about “unbundling” when it comes to the annual meeting? That’s one area that would be hard to break down, I would think. Be curious to hear your thoughts.
Jamie Notter

14.12.2005 at 11:39 am

Hi Sue,
I don’t remember that topic being hit specifically. We talked a bit about the “long tail” concept–that the aggregate value of the large number of songs, for instance, that only a couple of people want, is actually greater than the combined value of all the hit songs that everyone wants. But taking advantage of that actually REQUIRES technology (amazon, itunes). It’s cost prohibitive to offer that variety in a physical space. So I don’t know that meetings would be naturally unbundled like that.
But I do think there is some room for unbundling. I posted a comment on the AR blog that talked abou the notion of “control” in this context. The traditional model has associations controlling the content (tightly) at the meeting. It is based on an assumption that the association adds value by culling out the best and brightest content. If associations were to cede some of this control to the participants, meetings could be a lot different and could possibly appeal to MORE people. It’s not complete unbundling, but it’s a possibility.