When organizations see a need or opportunity for a new industry group or consortium, they sometimes wrestle with the conundrum of how to resource the formation and launch of the organization. For some, the prospect of taking this work on themselves is attractive for several reasons, including the perceived ability to tightly control decisions, realize potential cost savings, and accelerate execution. Given the complexity of getting a new association off the ground, however, the “do-it-yourself” approach can be fraught with hazards.

A Return on Investment (ROI) Scorecard is a set of principles and analytic techniques for improving an organization’s performance and ensuring value is being received from a particular activity. Typically, a scorecard would include financials, customers (or individual memberships), and the usage engagement of the value proposition provided by the activity (or in this case, the association membership). When using the ROI Scorecard, you are investing in your association’s long-term success by sharing the complete value by including the organizations non-financial goals.

With the increased adoption of blockchain technologies across a wide array of business and societal functions, the notion of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs – pronounced “dows”) are now becoming more of a reality versus a far-flung idea of the future.

I’m always amazed how many professional associations do great things and then forget to tell anyone about it. Your organization’s accomplishments shouldn’t be a secret. Good news is inspiring, and your audiences—stakeholders, association members, future members—will want to share in the moment.

Disastrous events. We’ve all had them. I remember standing with my boss behind a pillar at an event in 1999, as he was unable to look at the room we had set for 700 and only had 50 attendees. My attempts to promote the event–fell a little flat.