Reinvention, Relevance, and Resonance: A new vision emerging for IABC

by Mike Klein:

Over the last few years, the environment facing membership associations in the communication space has been tough.  

Companies cut back on subsidizing memberships, vendors started throwing free, high-quality in-person and online events, and highly-moderated niche communities emerged as alternatives.

But in attending the latest World Conference of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), I saw a renewed vibrance in my encounters with IABC’s current generation of leadership. 

I also saw a number of other cues – like packed breakout sessions and an overflow “speed mentoring” session that locked senior members with new arrivals in short but intense bursts of advice and sharing – along with a strong contingent of new and recent additions to the IABC fold.

Before I go any further – a bit of full disclosure.  In Vancouver, I joined four of my peers in receiving IABC’s Fellow designation, the top honor IABC affords to its members.  And, as part of #WeLeadComms partnership with IABC, I facilitated a Member Forum where IABC leaders shared an organizational vision that was developed with extensive involvement from IABC’s members and stakeholders around the world.

But I wouldn’t be sticking with and working with IABC if I didn’t believe in it, and there’s a lot in this vision that excites me – things I see generating new optimism and momentum for the Association going forward.

The overarching themes of this vision are “reinvention” and “relevance.” 

This shows up in tangible ways – like the introduction of more flexible and innovative membership options that will remove some of IABC’s in-built obstacles to growth. It also shifts the playing field and focuses member involvement away from sustaining its own infrastructure and towards more member participation through mentoring and visible thought leadership.  

It also signals a move towards sharpening learning and development offerings for today’s professionals to address the quickly shifting fundamentals of our profession, and developing micro-certifications and new pathways into the profession as traditional entry-level opportunities come under threat, and sparking new research partnerships geared towards research that underscores the strategic and economic value of our work.

The vision also moves the Association towards new revenue streams, reflecting current appetites for subscription models and one-off purchases, and identifying global opportunities and the membership and revenue potential of new as well as current geographies.  

But what I find most remarkable and refreshing about this vision is that it shifts IABC’s organizational outlook – away from positioning IABC as a hierarchical institution that is owed support and resources, to an empowered community that is actively working to create a better climate for our work and engaging outwardly to do it. 

Indeed, there’s a theme that’s emerging about IABC that I find really encouraging: resonance.

In its shift away from being “the voice of the profession” to “a voice for the profession”, I see IABC members empowered to share their thoughts and ideas about the issues facing our industry vocally and publicly as IABC members and leaders. 

Building on the Association’s efforts to rein in its historic affinity for hierarchy and bureaucracy (work on which still needs to be done); an IABC that focuses on role-modeling (particularly in the way Members take each others calls and make connections with each other) – and on engagement with the broader profession -has massive potential to attract new members and followers as it begins to “walk the talk” more visibly than ever before.

So in essence, this vision combines a sharper internal focus with a more empowered external approach that relies less on central consensus and more on members taking ownership of the IABC presence in their online and offline communities.  

IABC’s emerging vision is a significant departure from its historical approach. 

It reflects the commercial realities of the need to grow from a smaller membership base, but also the greater opportunities that operational agility and a membership equipped to amplify its impact present to it. 

This is not a bid to go back to the “good old days” –  but to seize the available opportunities to position IABC for the future.

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IABC will be hosting its Annual General Meeting on June 24 at 4PM CDT, a time chosen to make participation as easy for its far-flung global membership as possible.  I look forward to attending and participating – and if you’re an IABC member, I encourage you to join me.

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Mike Klein is Editor-in-Chief of Strategic and an IABC Fellow. He is based in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Written by: Editor