Fellow blogger (and now good friend) Dave Sabol listed his top five takeaways from the ASAE & The Center annual meeting and then tagged me and some others to do the same. I reserve the right to add to these once I’ve had more time to think about them, but here goes.

1. We are very little without our friends. I go to annual for a lot of reasons. I speak there, I schmooze there, I make connections that lead to future business there, I listen to great presenters and learn things there, I enjoy different cities there. But the absolute best part of this meeting was the set of interactions with individuals that had real personal meaning for me. When Virgil asked me how my father was doing. When the Txtmob crew stayed out WAY too late with me. When a stranger came up and said “Hey, you spoke about staff meetings in Marco Island, right? Well, let me tell you: it works!” When Jeff, David, and Mickie, and I still managed to laugh at our own inside jokes (we missed you, Amy). Maybe it’s just what is going on around me these days, but the content of the meeting—as great as it was—seems to melt away compared to these experiences. Thanks, everyone.

2. We are perpetuating our problems and don’t see it. This meeting always has great thinkers saying great things. The association community as a whole really cares about its future and its success and it devotes TONS of brain energy to making things better. But the number of times that we end up solving the WRONG problem seems to be increasing, in my opinion. The intentions are good, but we too often ask the wrong question way up front, but keep going down the path. The really good thinking ends up happening down the path, where it can’t make as much of an impact. In some cases, the good thinking can actually make things worse.

3. We must change our language. At one point in my notes, I wrote down (as if I were screaming it): Stop the drivel! I’ve had it. The clichés have robbed us of all of our meaning. I know David Cooperider’s work and think it is powerful, but I didn’t get it when he made his talk (and yeah, he needs to work on delivery). Good thinkers and mediocre thinkers are all using the same language now, so it’s hard to tell the difference. I know I’m guilty too, but we need to change this. We need to say things with sharp clarity, even if it hurts. Too often we choose language that makes us sound right, rather than being clear or illuminating.

4. We are not going to “control” our way into the future. I guess this one isn’t new, but it seems to be for a lot of associations. Centralized control won’t disappear as a concept, but it seems clearer to me that it won’t be the driver of growth and success any more. Take a look at what parts of your life/work where success depends on you being in control or exercising direct power (over). Those are the parts to change.

5. I can apparently only handle 3.7 days of nonstop extroversion. My apologies to those who saw me during the last three tenths of a day!