When is it time to say goodbye?

CEO Viewpoint:

I attended the AE session of the OAR conference facilitated by NAR Past President Richard Mendenhall and I really connected to two of his points. One of the slides that I found particularly thought provoking was "Is our association programming decaying or developing?". This may seem an easy answer on the surface but when I thought about some of the examples on the slide I thought that the answers may not be as obvious as they seem.

The first bullet point on the slide with the above title question was Going Paperless. At first, the immediate thought is that this is a developing trend and programming and services should be geared towards that. Then I remembered our 4 generations in membership and remembered that Gen Y LOVES to get mail. As the mom of two Gen Yers I can attest to the validity of that statement. I also thought about the success of our recently launched newsmagazine. There is something to be said about holding something tangible in one's hand. At the end of the session, Carolyn House, AE of the Enid Association of REALTORS distributed their new Enid REALTORS magazine. It too appears to have met with rave reviews. I personally thought it was incredibly well done but I would expect nothing less from this talented colleague.

Carolyn had explained that this was a mission of sorts of one of her board members. One of the reasons OKCMAR launched its magazine was at the request of two directors. I loved that our magazines were so incredibly different- it speaks to the drive and creativity of association staff. So while it appears that going paperless is a developing trend- returning to paper for some things also appears to be a growing trend. Again that multi-generational facet of our membership cannot be ignored.

On our break, I was speaking with a REALTOR who expressed frustration at the low registration of an event that seemed to have high support and a lot of excitement. They ended up canceling the event. I commiserated with our cancelled REALTOR follies. I thought of events I have attended recently (many non-REALTOR). It seems that we are willing to agree their are 4 generations in the marketplace with needs, but have we really accepted it and then the next step, embraced it.

I believe we need to look at (and not be disappointed with) smaller turnouts and smaller groups and perhaps tailor our event programming to these small-scale events. The next step make the event count! Knowing that numbers may be smaller, using our time, talent and resources to make them WOW happenings. A great example of this was the NAR RCA event. I believe there was about 50 of us who participated and NAR pulled out all the stops. I loved how they connected with their demographic- we had a custom tour (our tour guide was fantastic and a REALTOR) of Wrigley Stadium and then we ended the evening with "REAL" Chicago food- sliders and deep-fried Mac & Cheese in a newly opened sports tavern. We had a singing contest with baseball teams (we had to run around and find our teammates which forced us to meet and talk with our RCA counterparts across the nation). It was so much fun and I left with contacts and education about how other RCA's are operating.

My point is that there was no feeling of disappointment in the small crowd instead there was the mindset that with a small crowd they could do something very fun, very unique and have a WOW effect on all who attended. I challenge the committee members of 2010 (and hope you challenge staff right back) to embrace the 4 segments of our membership and tailor events and programming to each segment. Focus on the end result not the number count. How can we WOW you in 2010?