Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes are inevitable. Just like those lazy writers who can’t help mentioning David Bowie lyrics when they write about change. (Hey, wait a minute!)
The ASJA isn’t immune to evolving times. But at times, we’ve been too cautious about taking action to adjust. Not anymore. Our leadership has been shaking up the joint for
the last few years, and now we’re pressing the accelerator a bit more.
Our main challenge—and our main opportunity—is to get a better handle on who we are and why we’re here. You know, simple stuff! Here are four things we want to accomplish:
1. GET DEFINED: WORK THAT MISSION MUSCLE
One of the best ways to expand ASJA’s influence and voice in publishing is to become a
bigger organization with more heft. But how? Should we focus just on experienced freelance writers and nonfiction book authors or expand to include more writers like those who only produce custom-content or novelists?
We’re debating the future of ASJA’s boundaries right now, and we haven’t come to conclusions yet. We’re working to balance our need to be relevant with our nearly seven-decade commitment to traditional nonfiction journalism.
2. GROW RIGHT: PRUNE HERE, WATER OVER THERE
Last year ASJA contracted with the Kellen Company, which provides administrative
services to dozens of professional associations and trade groups. Led by our longtime
Executive Director Alexandra Owens, Kellen employees run our day-to-day operations. (All ASJA’s elected leaders are unpaid volunteers, so we need time to focus on other stuff like, you know, making a living.)
Kellen employees help in other ways too. Last fall, a top company official met with the ASJA board and helped us start the process of “strategic planning.” He not only kept us alert and awake, no mean feat, but also inspired us to think both big (How can we support our mission to help all writers?) and small (How can we better help our individual members survive and thrive?).
Essentially, we’ve been discussing what our priorities are and, just as importantly, what
they aren’t. We can’t be everything to every independent writer. We have to prune our
vision so we can grow in the right direction.
This is where ASJA’s member services come in. As you’ve seen, we’ve revamped and upgraded ASJA Magazine, and we recently surveyed members about the benefits you value most. We want to matter even more to you, and we’re figuring out how to do that.
3. FLY HIGH: MAKE SURE WE’RE NOT WINGING IT
As independent writers, we’ve sometimes better at making pitches and chasing facts
than being deeply organized. Haphazard planning and execution may be fine for many
of us, but it’s not an ideal approach to managing a professional association.
That’s why we’re dramatically overhauled the inner workings of ASJA’s committees,
which are full of volunteers devoted to a wide range of services like advocacy, teleseminars,
conferences, fundraising and much more.
Earlier this year, ASJA board members and committee leaders went through training in how to be more organized and streamlined.These concepts are more than buzzwords: We want our committees to be focused, responsive and relevant. We’re well on our way.
4. LOOKIE LOO CENTRAL: BUILD A GLASS HOUSE
It’s easy for strategic plans to gather dust on a shelf somewhere, or whatever the equivalent is for a PDF that sits forgotten in a download folder. Fortunately, Kellen staffers have set up a system that will force ASJA’s leaders to be accountable.
You’ll have a role to keep us on track too. In coming months, we’ll let you know about ASJA’s road to the future: Where we’re going and how we’re going to get there. If we go off track, you’ll be able to tell us to knock it off.
It won’t be easy for some of us to move to this new era. And by “some of us,” I mean me. I’m about as organized as a gnat with ADHD, and I have trouble (SQUIRREL!) thinking beyond next week, let alone next year.
But to shamelessly borrow another Bowie song lyric: Time may change me, but I can’t trace time. Once I get well organized, I plan to figure out whatever the heck that even means.