Association Management Alert - The EXODesk is Coming

For anyone obsessed with education, this video is a mind-blower.  Here is a must-read article that details more about the company behind this amazing new platform, as well as their plans to begin installing these EXODesks in elementary schools in Panama.  The debate about association education needs to take a quantum leap forward if we are planning on staying competitive in this new arena. 

This is one more example of how education, (in terms of technology as well as what we are learning about how learners learn), is changing at an exponential rate, while many associations are still debating whether or not members will "find value" in attending a webinar.  One of your greatest, most mission critical member benefits is education and you may be doing very well at it at this very moment.  The question is, what happens to your educational programs if, in just a few short years, we begin inheriting learners who are immersed in sophisticated platforms like this from the time they are in elementary school?  We are going to look Jurassic, and not in that "Hey, look at that cool brontosaurus" way.  I mean in that "Velociraptors are going to wreck your day" sort of way.

If content is king, then delivery is queen.  We are all aware of the inherent tension in any association between serving members today and trying to position them to move into the future. The problem is, we used to have time to have a slower, more organic type of growth in our association programs.  Now, we don't.  We have to find a way to make larger jumps forward, even if we lose some folks along the way.  There are others waiting for us at the other end.

We aren't doomed.  But we must find ways to begin making large bets on a future that our boards can't even see.  Eventually, I truly believe associations are going to have to find a way to build a superstructure for themselves and begin collaborating on a scale we have yet to imagine.  Your association might not be able to handle the R&D on these types of educational advances on your own, but as a profession we have a TON of talent and resources.  We just need a broader conversation about what association learning means and how we can collectively obtain the technology, and the know-how to use it with members of all industries and professions world-wide.

That's a conversation worth having.