If you have been in an organization for very long, you already know what a waste of time meetings can be. Seth Godin says make meetings more expensive — it might actually make them cost less. Because you will have fewer. See his tips here.
Doug Brock is an automation engineer who had given up his ISA membership. He just saw a copy of the association magazine and he started to wonder, “Are ISA and other associations still relevant?” See the comments. I have added one.
Gary, Thanks for pointing to Seth Godin's post… it should be mandatory reading for all meeting schedulers!
Thanks for linking Gary. Jon, James, Eoin, Jim. and you all have varying yet valuable responses to my question of whether associations like ISA are still relevant . The more I think about the responses, the more I think that this issue is a problem with most organizations not asking then listening to what their customers and stakeholders ask of them. The issue isn't just isolated to ISA or IEEE. Banks, higher learning institutes, airlines, phone companies…all fail to provide us what we find valuable. In Jon's words, "the $64,000 question is" will they follow these online discussions and modify their offerings in ways that retain and grow their memberships.
As an engineer living in the UK the ISA meetings were always too far away, and the articles in InTech were generally irrelevant and/or poorly written. I let my membership lapse about a year ago.