Friends,
Fire is a fascinating thing, probably one of mankind’s most primal obsessions (even the most aloof can easily find themselves hypnotized by a crackling fireplace) and one of our most timeless symbols. God, Satan, love, hate, creation, destruction, sex, purity, war, peace. There’s no shortage of literature, art and music built around fire, no shortage of little pyros burning their eyebrows off seeing what a little bacon grease can do when thrown on a campfire. Or maybe there was just one of those?
In particular, the idea of rebirth after a fire, the proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes, is a common trope. Tragic as they have been, I’ve always been intrigued by the opportunities that large urban conflagrations, like the 1871 Great Chicago Fire (and lesser known, deadlier Peshtigo fire that same day) and post-1906 Earthquake fires in San Francisco (to which the phoenix on San Francisco’s flag, with a fiery motto of its own, pays tribute), provide to a city to start over and build back better, ready for the future. It’s not often that a burgeoning metropolis has a chance, whatever the cost, to trade its cow paths and shotgun shacks for grid systems and skyscrapers. We all know how painfully slow it can be to see urban change, between planning commissions and public hearings, environmental concerns and displacing citizens, so a literal blank canvas is a rare opportunity to think big and set yourself up for success for centuries to come. Some of those decisions, like expanding downtown into muddy bay wetlands with fill and debris, or building nice, fire-resistant buildings out of brick and concrete in earthquake country, can also have negative consequences for years to come.
But wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t have to wait for things to burn to the ground in order to rebuild better? If you’ve been reading your SEAOC Talk newsletter over the last few months (and I recommend you do, AFTER you read this newsletter, obvi), you may have seen some references to a SEAOC reorganization or SEAOC 3.0, as it’s come to be known. Starting as dinner conversations by SEAOC and Member Organization (MO) leadership in recent years and then kickstarted by the then-pending retirement of longtime SEAOC Executive Director, Don Schinske, the central question is pretty simple: if SEAOC and its four MOs never existed and we decided to start the organization(s) from scratch, what would we look like? The answer to that question, as your SEAOC Board and Committee leadership have come to realize, isn’t that simple.
And you, dear reader, might ask your own simple question: why change anything? Is it broken? I might best answer that by requesting that you imagine two buckets (or receptacles of your choosing): the stuff most of you see as part of your daily member experience, and the stuff most of you don’t, but your Board and committee leaders do. Let’s start with the latter.
Long story short (or long…), it’s getting more expensive to run an association of this caliber in the way we all have come to expect, and our dues (which probably haven’t been keeping up with those costs and about half of which are passed along to SEAONC and NCSEA) have never come close to covering our budget. Signature events, like our thrice-annual, two-day, in-person, heavily hyphenated technical seminars used to cover a lot of the rest of our annual programming, active committees, scholarships, research, and outreach, but those have been a casualty of said increasing production costs, remote work and more opportunities for remote learning. That means we rely on our generous industry and firm sponsors and the nominal (at-cost or below) fees to attend some of our events and seminars to put on all the things you see and experience as members. I’m proud of how much we are continuing to do with less and how much member engagement we are getting in a post-COVID world where many professional organizations are really struggling. As it stands, our situation is not dire but your SEAONC and SEAOC leaders have not been the sort to simply sit back and make do. We want to build an enduring organization in which membership is valuable and relevant for as long as our profession is, and we don’t want to wait until our cuffs are smoldering to do something about it.
That process will start with optimizing our collective back-of-house to find better efficiency and value. Our individual administrative teams are doing amazing work for our organizations, but do we need SEAOC and the four MOs to have five independent websites, separate event calendars, distinct member application forms? Do we need to publish five separate newsletters and social media feeds with different branding? Do we need five sets of accountants to handle our budgets and taxes? Could we get a better rate for managing our investments if we were to consider five endowments as one portfolio? Our new SEAOC Executive Director, Krystinne Mica, is actually an employee of SEAOC rather than an outside consultant and is working to build a team that can begin to take on that work more efficiently as well as transition to a unified Association Management System (a.k.a. AMS a.a.k.a. “website”) so that our five websites, calendars, member rolls, and bookstores can speak to each other. And you, dear reader, may ask: didn’t we just get a new website? To which I answer, “yes,” with a deep sigh. At TT, we’re currently slogging through a Sisyphean financial system transition that I’m told will definitely be worth it (good thing our CFO doesn’t read this newsletter…), so I know how painful these kinds of administrative changes can be for those in the trenches. But this kind of realignment is pretty much a no-brainer and something we probably should have done years ago. When finished, it will free up staff and volunteer time to focus on our Association’s vitality and reach, and free up funds to reinvest and improve your membership value.
As I see it, most of you won’t notice much as we wrap up this first (and maybe only) step of the reorganization in the next 18 months or so, beyond a new website to log into. Better, more efficient, but not all that different. We could stop there and already be better positioned for the future, but it’s the SEAOC Board’s intention to take this into more visible changes after that. Which brings us to the other bucket/receptacle (yes, I’ve finally returned to that metaphor…): the stuff most of you see and take part in during your daily member or sponsor experience. So, I ask you, dear reader: is that part suiting you well, or is it in need of a glow up or maybe some heavy reconstructive surgery? Are SEAONC/SEAOC/NCSEA meeting you where you are and suiting the way you live and work at this point in your career and in history? Are you connecting with your fellow members effectively? Which events should be in person and local and which should be remote? Are our current committees engaging and relevant at the state and local levels, or should we reimagine them? Are we trying to be too big or thinking too small? Are you seeing a return on investment from your volunteer time or sponsorship or membership dollar?
I don’t know if SEAOC could (or should) please everyone all the time, and given how unique the membership experience can be at each of our MOs, changing that experience significantly might be a bridge too far for many. But I do believe our collective Association is fortunate to be big enough to be able to maintain a wide variety of programming and engage most of our members most of the time. I believe it is possible to hang onto our traditions while starting new ones, that your member experience can be mostly the same, but much better. And I believe that if we’re afraid to change and take advantage of an opportunity for a bit of a renewal on the fly, we risk giving up the vitality that has kept SEAONC relevant for nearly a century.
So please let me and the rest of your Board know what you think about your membership experience, how you envision SEAONC and SEAOC as their best selves, or any concerns you might have about changes. As we enter our annual spring leadership selection process, consider nominating someone you trust to think big for your Association and guide it through some changes, maybe even yourself. And continue to stay tuned to SEAONC Post and SEAOC Talk for more details as we start this journey in the coming SEAONC year.
Yours in Change,
David Ojala
dojala@thorntontomasetti.com