At the beginning of the year, as I finished paying the dues to my various professional organizations, including ASA, I couldn’t help but notice the expense. It seems reasonable to expect more pressures on payment for professional services, which may lead, at least, to stagnation of our incomes. My spouse, when looking at our family budget, has asked me what I was getting out of these memberships. When family budgets get tight, elective and low-value spending will be dropped first.
So what do we get for ASA and state component society membership? I don’t think pride in our profession is enough today. In the 2011 book on association management, Race for Relevance, the authors noted that rapid advances in technology, higher member expectations, increased competition, and diverse member markets have made the individual calculation of the value of membership to be very different today as compared to a few...
