Making Your Association the Place Members Want to Be With Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE

Full Transcript

Bill Sheehan (00:00):

On this episode of Learning by Association.

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (00:03):

I don’t think membership is a thing. Monetized community was disrupted when LinkedIn did it for free. So to continue to hold on to member experience instead of understanding what your market share is and understanding your mix of customer acquisition and such and such and converting them to loyal customers over time and blah, that I think is the missed opportunity for us.

Bill Sheehan (00:30):

And I love that you said this, they’re not members, they’re in a way, customers, right? And when you think of the customer experience, how do you make them keep coming back and wanting more as an association?

(00:45):

Welcome to Learning by Association, a podcast brought to you by D2L, where we delve into the ever evolving world of associations and the challenges they face in navigating the currents of change. I’m Bill Sheehan, and I’m thrilled to be your host. Join me and our guests as we explore the role learning plays in driving associations forward and how it can impact every part of your organization, from recruiting, to engagement, and renewals, to staff development, business strategy and more. So, let’s dive in.

(01:15):

So I’ve been seeing some research out there from McKinley and Marketing General and others about what are the big concerns for associations moving into 2025 and beyond? And you look at some of the top challenges, depending on what reports you look at, but increasing operational efficiencies, that’s always going to be up there. Improving the member experience. Improving the member engagement. And then always, and this is always either in the top five and it’s getting even higher, is finding ways to increase non-dues revenue.

(01:57):

And I think in all of those areas, increasing efficiencies, and increasing the member experience, and increasing non-dues revenue, and membership acquisition and renewal, again, a lot of that is going to start with relaying that to the board, “This is where we got to go and this is what you’re paying me to do and me and my staff to do.” In your conversations with your board and on your listening tour, particularly on the association side, are you seeing some of those same concerns, like how can we be more efficient and effective and really increasing that member experience so the association itself can be seen as that single source of truth, and something I don’t have to belong to, I want to belong to? Are you seeing some of those same type of challenges and concerns?

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (02:50):

You’re putting me on the spot here. So I just had my whole, “Say the thing,” right? I just said that for 20 minutes and now here I’m about to be like, “Well…” So I’m going to say the thing. I tend to be in a minority percentage of our professional society, members and peers and all of that, because I’ve been around the block a long time. I don’t think membership is a thing. Monetized community, it was disrupted when LinkedIn did it for free. So to continue to hold on to member experience instead of understanding what your market share is and understanding your mix of customer acquisition and such and such and converting them to loyal customers over time and blah, that I think is the missed opportunity for us.

(03:39):

What we’ve looked at at the forum is that we spent a lot of time, effort, and energy over the last three years. And I’m not saying we don’t do membership, I’m saying we spend so much time on the 20% of joiners. We’ve been doing this a long time, Bill, it’s not like we haven’t heard this language before. When you said this list, I am not kidding you, I thought about the membership needs assessment that I did for APIC 20 years ago, and it said these same things. And the disruptors who are out there right now who just run around in a mansion rent free in my mind, like Chief, I love you Chief, coming for you. Chief is beautiful in the sense of, they didn’t need to figure out any of those things. They understood the niche of what they were trying to do and they leaned in on that. It wasn’t perfect. We tried to perfect it.

(04:33):

So I think that in talking to the boards around operational efficiency, member experience, member engagement, non-dues revenue, it really is, how do I position my organization to sell something that’s so sticky that anybody would want to buy it? And stop competing with the old and your next alphabet. So I was on a panel with some experts who was helping this healthcare association kind of retool their mission and what that looks like. And so all of the other association leaders, powerhouses, alphabet leaders like myself, yeah, I call us like the alphabet soup. So the alphabet leaders like myself, and we’re on the calls. And everybody was saying kind of the same thing, and I’m not going to sit here and say no to them. Yes, do a survey of your members and see what they actually want and such and such and such and whatever.

(05:23):

But while they was talking, I was on my, because I was in the office like I am today, so I’ve got multiple screens like the matrix. So I was in my thing like the matrix, and I was like, “Well, yo, who’s your competitors?” Not your alphabet, the for-profit one, I go to the for-profit site. I’m asking some other questions about that. “What do you guys own as a brand identity? What does it look like? You’re still trying to talk to your members. Why not own the moniker of women and kind of look at women’s health around a whole umbrella and look at these things. Why not look at this competitor?” And the person who was doing the research gathering said, “Huh, four of the members talked about this, but nobody in the staff is talking about it.” Then stop talking to us at the alphabet and go join this group and get with it.

(06:05):

So I don’t think that when I say the things, I’m happy to be wrong because as soon as operational efficiency comes up, we’ve had it. We got to tighten the belt, I got to do it. We got to do it so that we can be able to fund the future, not just this. We had to make hard decisions. So as association professionals, especially secondary ones, but every association I’ve ever been to has a member banquet, a member thing, an honors gala, some kind of member reception or whatever. And during the hard times, tighten that belt.

(06:43):

But as soon as we start to move into a different time, people have expectancy that those things come back. But at an inflation rate and a growth rate and what it costs now, I’m sorry, I don’t know if y’all know that McDonald’s don’t cost the same as it did. I just found out, I mean, I didn’t just find out, but McDonald’s is from Chicago, so you know what I mean? The burgers that my grandmother used to get for us, it was four that she would get and it was like eight grandkids. I don’t know how she did it, but she made it work. Those are not the same. So to be able to have, and for some of the larger meetings that I go to, the AGU is one of them. When you have 30,000 people coming and then your cost have gone up by 8 to 10% and their expectations are the same as it was in 1980, how do you keep up with that?

(07:35):

So I think that as business leaders, it’s fun, and I’m going to give just, I name-drop all the time, you know that, but her name is Velma Hart, and Velma gave a podcast interview earlier this year and she said something for us, for Artesha us, of this like, “We need to be businesses and think businesses and make decisions like a business.” She said, “Don’t forget the heart of what we do. Don’t forget the heart that’s in the mission.” So balancing this need for member experience, most of the members that are active and say what they want are 20 to 25% of your membership. They’re not the ones in the streets.

(08:18):

So I don’t just talk to members on my listening tour, I went and talked to people who never joined. I went and got data around the fact that in the whole time Association Forum has been here a hundred plus years, we’ve never gotten more than 40% of the market share. All I do is dream about what and the reason why. Well do we have data? Do we have… And when I sit with them, I know why, because I’ve worked at associations, especially the large medical ones. They don’t see themselves as association executives. That’s not what they told their mom. I’m a data researcher that works at the American Medical Association.

(09:03):

So I think that this is an interesting conundrum, and when we get on panels together, and when you invite me back, we’ll talk about it because I also think, I remember eight years ago saying things like, “Well, when are we going to start to accept digital currency? How many boards right now have their own Bitcoin or blockchain resource or really looking into it? Who’s into crypto? Because I want to talk to you.” Right? Who’s accepting not just credit cards, remember when that was… Bill, we’re of an age. Remember when that was a thing? E-commerce.

Bill Sheehan (09:39):

Right. Yep. Well, I think to that point, and you’ve touched on this, is the fear. It’s just the unknowing of a digital currency. Right?

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (09:52):

Exactly.

Bill Sheehan (09:53):

And so how do you help educate that? So it was the digital transformation and then there’s the currency, particularly the younger generation coming up for associations. Because I do think that back in the day when we were in association, and this, I’m going to date myself, this was before the internet where associations really were the original social network.

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (10:14):

Exactly.

Bill Sheehan (10:14):

The only way you really got to meet with like-minded individuals was at an event or a show. You didn’t have the cellphones, you didn’t have the Zoom, you didn’t have computers at that time that could do these type of interactions. And so you needed to go. And I think what happened is associations kind of lost that a little bit, or the fear that of these disruptors of the cellphone and the computer, where now all of a sudden you, you’re introduced to other ways of getting that information, but you’re not necessarily getting the network, right? You’re getting information, but you’re not able to talk to like-minded individuals.

(10:52):

And I think right now, a huge concern, and I love that you said this, they’re not members, they’re in a way customers. And when you think of the customer experience, how do you make them keep coming back and wanting more as an association? But you got to get that younger audience. Back in the day, you’d look back and you saw a whole bunch of younger people saying, “Yes, I’m going to come into this industry. I’m going to come into this association to help advance my career.” You look back now, there’s so many different avenues they can go down now to advance their career. And I think it’s important now, and I think associations are at this critical flash point where they’re uniquely positioned to actually rise above that clutter and be that single source of truth, for lack of a better term. But I do think you have to start thinking of them as customers that you could lose them-

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (11:48):

Exactly.

Bill Sheehan (11:49):

… if you don’t provide what they’re looking for. And I think you get back to that, you got to listen to them and ask these questions, but then I can hear a thousand association executives saying, “Bill, we want to do that. We don’t have the time.”

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (12:04):

That’s bull. I love you all. I love y’all. I know you busy. There’s only seven staff out there. I’m doing more things than maybe I should be doing. Leverage the technology. How many of us are actually using Gemini and Chat and other things to brainstorm? Not write marketing copy, although I am getting wonderfully skilled at doing it myself. Because I am not, y’all know me. I am not a marketer. Okay. That’s not my jam. But one of the, because I’ve been doing a lot of research in the AI field, just like everybody else, but I’m not interested in what ChatGPT is going to replace jobs. They said that about, to your point, websites, remember cellphones, remember all of those things. And yet I’m still looking to like, we need a front desk person. We need people. It just is.

(12:56):

So AI is a different thing, but one of the top researchers at last year, maybe 15 months ago I listened to a podcast and he said, “Enough executives are not brainstorming with it or having their teams brainstorm with it. They’re so scared of it.” But it shrinks down the amount of time. Put all these aggregators in and get some ideas and push your thinking. Right now because it’s scrolling all of the websites, all of it, and taking all the energy to run the world to run ChatGPT alone, I ask it questions like data synthesis. So any career, but I asked a question like, what is the largest budget association in America? Well, lo and behold, it’s right here in Chicago, around the corner, right? The American Medical Association. And I think it was something absurd, like $456 million. Like what, Lord? Okay, we all need to call them. But then I asked the other question, of the 6,600, I think it’s 6,800 at this point, associations in the United States. What’s the average revenue size? Do you know what it is?

Bill Sheehan (14:08):

I don’t.

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (14:09):

2 to 3 million.

Bill Sheehan (14:11):

Okay.

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (14:12):

So now when I’m talking to my partners, don’t I sound well versed. I just googled it, basically the new age Google, which is ChatGPT, but now I can talk to you about how to break into the market, stop trying to go after this 400 and such and such, but don’t hit them over the head with this because that’s more than they going to get in six years. Instead, maybe show how they could broker with somebody else, D2L has these beautiful relationships, to buy a license, to be able to do this, to be able to leverage it to be… Right? Now you’re adding value.

Bill Sheehan (14:44):

Yep, exactly. And I want to add to that too, because when I keep talking about the harmonious atmosphere now between suppliers and associations, from that standpoint, suppliers like a D2L, and there’s thousands of other suppliers out there in your industry, they are more than willing to help and provide staff or resources to help you if you need to do outreach. Are you kidding me? The suppliers will help sponsor a survey or listening tour for the good of the industry, and they’ll even work to help do that.

(15:25):

Trust me, D2L, I always say we want to be part of the DNA of every association we work with. We don’t just want to be a partner for two or three years. Just like you want to have a member or customer for life, we want to have a client for life. So how do you do that? We have a lot of other resources we can bring to the table, as do other suppliers. So don’t be afraid to reach out and say, “Don’t just sponsor my dinner. I want to do something, maybe help offset some of my LMS or my AMS, help those.”

(15:59):

But we need to survey our memberships on maybe two to three times a year to make sure we’re hitting the mark. Lean on the suppliers. They can help do that. So you really touched on that, and that’s where the board can help that too. So I’m glad you brought that up because I do think that’s where things are moving within the association space. You can’t do it all yourself. You weren’t really started or you’re not really set up to create an AMS or to create an LMS. You need to rely on suppliers to do that.

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (16:31):

Exactly. Well, and yeah, you need to also understand how to leverage technology, period. So I love what you said too because I always, when people say, “Well, what is it that you want?” I will say it, we need production. You know somebody at Beyonce’s hairstylist, so I need you to call her to see if she’ll come to Women’s Executive Forum, or whatever the case is. I am not scared to ask for what it is that I actually want, even if it’s a unicorn. And I think that thinking differently about their funders, and so I just need their money, you all know, for instance, insert any industry because right now, again, I’ve been of this association of association, alphabet soup for a long time. I know almost everybody, and if I don’t, I’m going to find you. I will find out who you are, I will find you.

(17:19):

But as I think about other industries, like at APIC, when I wanted to understand global expansion, and we didn’t have an international chapter program at the time, it wasn’t about getting more members. It was about how do we get these services over to the nurses over in Saudi Arabia. One of them came to our annual meeting, so let’s start a relationship and actually in Egypt to make sure that they’re getting hand hygiene protocols over there. And oh, they want journal [inaudible 00:17:47]. It wasn’t about membership. It wasn’t about those things.

(17:51):

So I think that as we look at the opportunities, really the partners are just more of the information, more of your brainstorming. Yes, they can fund it and fund the research, because we also went out with our industry study. I’m just going to say to everybody as you’re looking for your partners, and this is what we had too for our research, we didn’t just say, “Help us survey our members.” It doesn’t matter what our members say. What we wanted to do is how do we get broader? So we went to academia, we went to our partners to say, “Hey, who do you know that is 17 as well as not in our industry anymore?” And we went. Then we were able to then put it with an overview of, “Okay, now let’s bring our academic partner in.” We have a partner with the Center for Creative Leadership. Let’s bring their global team in. We have a partnership with Visit Omaha, and we brought the Gallup organization in to our board meeting around these results.

(18:52):

These are world-class organizations. I didn’t pay them because I ain’t got no money. I asked my partners to say, we want a bigger thing because I know that my grand calling of my career is to have an on-ramp and an off-ramp for any professional who wants to bring their talents here. So I think that asking and sharing your dream with others, you, D2L, as well as others know what my dreams are. I want to make sure that our industry thrives in the future and that our people today have access to skills that whether they work in an association or they go into the corporate sector, they will at least be able to compete. And that I think is what keeps me up at night, makes my board, like will you slow down? But also it makes me feel with joy when we do have a win, because I know that I’m giving it back to the whole ecosystem.

Bill Sheehan (19:54):

Yeah, and that… See, and that to me can actually expand quickly when you do that. As I said at the beginning, your attitude obviously is very contagious. When you walk into a room, Artesha, it lights up and everyone starts to light up as well. And I think that that’s where associations, I think need to really start leaning a little bit more on the supplier base to begin talking to those non-members. Because here’s where I think… Non-customers, shall we say, and here’s why, because your suppliers are dealing with everyone in that industry, some are members and some are not, where associations can grow. And I think it’s a fiduciary responsibility not only of the board, but I think of suppliers as well to make sure that our association grows and stays healthy.

(20:51):

So the association staff, be it your person who’s in charge of membership engagement or membership and marketing, talk to your suppliers and say, “Hey, listen, we got to come up with a strategy. We already have 40% of the market. I want to go after that other 60% that you’re talking to on a daily basis as part of your pipeline. So how do we get you to start talking about our association when you’re talking to these customers? Are you a member of Association Forum? You’re not? Why not?”

(21:21):

I mean, and I think that’s where the associations start needing to lean on suppliers because that’s a win-win-win. We win as an organization because now we brought a member in there, the association wins because they got a new member in there, and the person that joined just has now access to these wonderful resources that are trusted, accurate, and complete types of information. And I’d love to get your thought on that because you’ve touched on that is do you think that those suppliers within your industry would be willing to, I know we would, but are you seeing that from other, the exhibitors and stuff to say, yeah, we want to bring more members into this organization?

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (22:04):

Absolutely. Absolutely. Traditionally at Association Forum, our main, not all, but traditionally, our main funders were the Destinations. So they were the ones that kept the organization afloat for a lot of years and a lot of energy around that. One of the things that we’ve been strategic about is expanding the tent to let more different types of suppliers come in. Not one of them has said, “We don’t want to help you fund the future, or we don’t want to give back to the community.” Now, the opposite side of that, however, is that most of the alphabets, I’ve been in associations for decades, most of us are like, “We want more money.”

(22:52):

So for what? So that you guys can still talk about operational efficiency and member experience for decades? When you have a chief that came overnight? You have these other groups that are master class, that just has subscription based, that is putting learning out there? Coursera, that is encroaching on certificates. I can go on and on and on. But then the other part, when I ask you for data of who attended and what happened with them, you don’t have that. So I do, and I just tap dance and stuff it down. Everybody’s sort of like, “Here’s the open rate and here’s how we follow them and here’s how we got to geotag and here’s…” Because maybe growing up with grandparents who grew up during the Great Depression, every dollar counts, every piece counts. So when my staff, they’re like, “Oh, here she go again,” if we don’t have data, it don’t make sense.

(23:44):

But this piece around the fear in the right thing, I think for us, the thing that we haven’t talked about today enough, I think the supplier partners and the association professionals, it’s uncertain. There’s no certainty. Not today. Not in 2025 and as we move forward. So you’re going to have to get comfortable with not just acceptable risk and all of those risk tolerances. I’m talking about walking right off the cliff. I’m talking about just walking right together. Like no wait, we going to drive, like Thelma and Louise, we just going, baby, we going off the cliff.

(24:23):

Because I have faith. I have faith. But I couldn’t have known that my career, I didn’t set off to be A CEO. So I just wanted to do good work and get a good job and do good work and get a good job and do… Right now, I think about the dental association that has low enrollment rates, that is trying to figure out what the latest research is going to be around that, that has the population numbers are lower, and oh, by the way, the US government is maybe talking about taxing them at a different level.

(25:09):

You can go into your bedroom and close the door and say, “Oh, no.” Or you could start to think, “Will they need dentists in Mars? Well, what will we need to learn in order to get to Mars? Well, is Elon going to have a dentist on the thing? Well, if not, well, how do we advocate so that he can make sure that dentistry is in the future? And oh, by the way, do we have an alien dentist practice? If not, well then how do we start to map alien teeth?” Do you understand what I’m saying? That is an applied curiosity, a skill of the future, a skill of today. But that could help you start to iterate with ChatGPT, with AI, with any of the other machine learning tools, with D2L, with your other partners. Just brainstorm with them, talk to them about it, and start to model, “Huh, while we still are doing this core thing that we do, let’s put 10% into this future thing.”

Bill Sheehan (26:06):

Yeah, I agree. And I think the other thing too with association, and I’m really now preaching to or discussing from the association staff-

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (26:16):

You can preach. My grandfather was a preacher. You better come on with it. You better come on with it, Bill.

Bill Sheehan (26:22):

From the organizational standpoint, I was in an association, it was a trade association at the time, and at the end of every board meeting when they went into their executive session where the staff has to leave, the association would always ask a question, which was, “Do we want to keep this association open or shut it down because it served its purpose and we’re going to move on and going to go in a different direction?” And it was always the same thing, “Well, if we do shut it down, we’d probably have to create an organization again to represent our needs.” And I think sometimes where association staff has forgotten is that you can’t do everything for everybody. You can’t. You have been, the association itself, again, was formed, regardless of what industry it is, be it nursing or construction or engineering or food or what have you. It was really designed to make sure that we protect our industry, we promote the goodness of our industry and we help advance the industry. And that can be typically through training and education and then advocacy issues and the like.

(27:24):

But the job was that the board of directors would kind of dictate the policies, this is what we’re going to work on this year, and then you guys implement that. And what I think a lot of association staff are fearing is we got to keep every single one of our members happy and answer every single call and do that. And the answer is, you can’t do that. Right? You can’t. And that’s where you kind of need to lean on others who can help advance your cause.

(27:49):

And that’s why I say there’s a natural extension when you’re talking to a supplier who’s out there talking to everyone else, “Promote our association. You guys pay to come to our events and sponsor our dinners and what have you. Get out there and promote the goodness and the value and the necessity of our association and getting in there and belonging.” And that’s where, and you and I have talked a little bit about this, but I think associations themselves need to get on college campuses and some of these trade schools and start promoting the value of associations. Because when I was in school a long time ago, the only one I really knew of was the National Basketball Association. I didn’t know what [inaudible 00:28:26].

(28:27):

But I spent my entire career in that. And I think the associations and the suppliers who have access to this, and even companies like D2L who work with thousands of universities, we can help get those folks on campuses or at least make some introductions on how best to talk to and get into the schools and get into these trade schools and start talking about the value of associations. And I know ASAE does and I’m sure Association Forum, but we need to promote that a little bit better.

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (28:57):

I think you’re right on. You’re right on with that. It’s an interesting piece because this is my first secondary association. I’ve never worked at an AMC. I’ve never worked at ASAE, PCMA or Association Forum or anything like that. I know for a fact that when I think of many medical association staff and whatever, they do have student chapters and career things and whatever the case is. Our issue at this side, the secondary is that we don’t have a career path. We don’t have a, I’m going to work as an association executive of association executives. So most of the association executives at the American Medical Association, I just did a pitch for the American College of Surgeons a couple of years ago, and the first thing I asked in the Menti poll, I’m not new to this. I’m a speaker and all of that. I said, “What do you tell your mom that you do?”

(29:55):

Many of them, many percentage do not even say that they’re this or that. So then it’s like, okay. I think the other part, going to the college campus is really important, understanding that we need a brand identity, but also, especially right now, and I love that you said the trade, not just the four year institutions, not just those community colleges, I would’ve never known in my working class life if I didn’t stumble into an association that there were all these resources available. As a black woman in America that was a technologist that didn’t have no degree but wanted to rule the world, I didn’t know that there was resources available for me. I didn’t know that there were people out there that just wanted to help me with some networking and mentorship and whatever the case is. So we need an ad campaign. I remember the nurses, my dad is a nurse, was an army nurse, and he’s a big 6’3 type guy, like an athlete, and he was a nurse too, yeah, the candy striper kind of jokes that I got in high school.

(30:55):

But anyway, but my dad, in the nineties, in the eighties, there was this huge ad campaign from the ad council for nurses. There was a nurse shortage in the United States. It was just on USA Today, the channel where I used to watch all my little dance party USA, but there would be all these commercials and I’d be like, “My dad is a nurse.” That kind of energy. We need something like that for associations as a whole, but then also this unique place where people can work that drives whatever industries forward, whether it be in certification, whether it be in coming up with new competency models, whether it be partnering with academia around research, all of these things. But we also do, we’re like leadership development in action because many of us have to come up with different solutions. We’ve got to build consensus, we’ve got to lead committees.

(31:53):

Being a staff liaison to a committee is a unique skillset, I will say, especially in some groups, because even though you may be the highest of PhDs, you definitely feel like a secretary when you have the chair that makes you feel a certain way. You know what I mean? I’m not your secretary, I am the senior vice president of the such and such. You don’t talk to me like that. Well, I need you to take a note, okay, but I’m going to take this note right now, but you better get it together.

(32:22):

So I think that there’s a lot of different pieces. I don’t want to end my whole hour with you and with all of this, like, y’all better get it together. I will say this, and I know you’re going to close me out in a little bit. I’m so hopeful and excited about the future of associations, especially the more research I do about AI. There’s going to be a need for peer-reviewed, trusted resources, and that’s where we fit in. And community.

Bill Sheehan (32:55):

I can’t agree with you more. And I think the association community has to not look at AI as a threat.

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (33:04):

Nah.

Bill Sheehan (33:05):

And I got to be careful, because I’m going to give Microsoft something, but it’s really a copilot, it’s a knowledge catalyst, right?

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (33:10):

Yeah.

Bill Sheehan (33:11):

And I think that we got to remember that AI really generates from human intellect and human entering information into the ChatGPT or what have you, but it’s not a subject matter expert, and I don’t think you’re going to replace the association staff. They can utilize it to help for certain things like meeting minutes, and the typical, for lack of a better term, mundane type of task they can do. When you’re writing policy statements or the like, again, it has to be vetted, you can’t trust it, but it can be a knowledge catalyst. It can help narrow things down, particularly in education when you see, like at D2L, we’re doing a lot where we can help course creation and it helps make the subject matter experts’ time much more, that you don’t need to travel. It can be utilized in a much more efficient way, and we’re seeing great success on that.

(34:07):

But I think to your point, I’m hopeful in what I see when I look at the horizon. Again, I’ve been in the association 30 years. It’s been a wonderful career. I hope I’m in it for another 30 in that. But I do think, to your point, that advertising campaign on the importance of associations and the value they play, particularly in today’s environment where there are so many different ways of getting information that can be either trusted or not trusted. But I can almost promise you the information coming out of an association is pure and it’s good and it’s solid. You can trust it because it’s been vetted by subject matter experts before it’s been disseminated.

(34:53):

And that’s where I think associations really have the chance to rise above all this clutter out there and be that single source of truth. And I think that what you’re doing at the Association Forum is an excellent example of how associations can really make change and bring a community together to advance and to see value and a return on investment. I think you’re a leading example of that. So I can’t thank you enough for your time, Artesha. You’ve been very generous. I know you’re busy.

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (35:26):

Thank you.

Bill Sheehan (35:27):

Are there any, I wanted to give you the last portion, just what you see the future for associations moving forward.

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (35:36):

I see us being nimble, agile, and able to drive missions into the future, if we can tap into our ability to let go of what we knew so that we can grasp what we need to know in the future.

Bill Sheehan (35:55):

I like it.

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (35:55):

There it is.

Bill Sheehan (35:56):

I like it, Artesha. Again, thank you so much for being part of our podcast today, Learning by Association. You’ve been wonderful. I’m sure we’re going to see you on some panels as well.

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (36:07):

Thank you.

Bill Sheehan (36:07):

And you’ll see me at a bunch of Association Forum events.

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (36:12):

There it is.

Bill Sheehan (36:12):

You can count on that.

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (36:13):

Thank you, Bill. This is fantastic.

Bill Sheehan (36:15):

Thank you very much. Take care, Artesha.

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (36:17):

Thank you.

Bill Sheehan (36:18):

Bye-bye.

Artesha Moore, FASAE, CAE (36:18):

Bye-bye.

Bill Sheehan (36:21):

You’ve been listening to Learning by Association, a podcast where we delve into the ever-evolving world of associations and the challenges they face in navigating the currents of change. This episode was produced by D2L, a global learning innovation company, helping organizations reshape the future of education and work. To learn more about our solutions, please visit www.D2L.com, and don’t forget to subscribe so you can stay up to date with new episodes. Thanks for joining us, and we’ll see you next time.