Member Participation Task Force

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The suggestion above by Christopher Harris could be really good. A defined set of qualifications would be helpful, though.
I am on the OITP Advisory Committee and the OITP/COL Telecom Subcommittee; we are commenting on draft ALA responses to FCC requests for comment. We, the committee/subcommittee members are pretty well up on the issues, but I don't claim exclusive knowledge of the areas covered. Other technology- and telecommunications-aware ALA members could also be a part of this effort.
I am sure there are other areas within ALA which could use a distributed network of interested but time-limited members for similar efforts.

I love the micro-engagement idea. That would be a great way for people to get involved even if they can't make it to Midwinter for a full committee appointment. Not sure what this would look like in a final form, but maybe something like having a pool of possible activities. Committee needs someone to review a document? Post it to the pool and ask for 10 people who can give 20-30 minutes each to read a document and post some responses.

"Engagement through brief meaningful encounters"

That will work for me!!!

Walt

I bought my membership to ALA (I think) in December. Since I am planning on attending ALA this summer for the first time (woohoo!), I went back and added the New Member Round Table, and I also added ACRL and LITA while I was at it. That was last month, and I have not heard anything yet- not a welcome email, even. I figured it was just because I did not add the memberships when I originally signed up.

I will be contacting the divisions in the near future- between school and work, there's not been much time!

(not telling which one)

I suspect the problem will not be resolved if somehow that specific division does not know. All divisions operate differently. Even if you do not want to identify it publicly, I would let that division know directly about your concern. If no one points out the lack of a new membership welcome at the division level, they may not add it in the future.

I don't think I have ever received a welcome from the divisions I have joined!

I've been in PLA for years but I guess it's time to drop that one.

I let my ALA membership lapse but decided in December to renew. I have not heard anything from ALA by e-mail or snail mail since. No auto generated thank you for your renewal. The only way I know my renewal went through was from the line on my bank statement. When it comes time to renew next year I think I will only renew with my state and local associations!

I think this would be a really interesting discussion, Chris, both the 95 theses in libraries and as applied to ALA. Do you have any particular previous practices or proposed new services in mind (alliteration notwithstanding)?

I'm not defending this in any way, but I wonder if something is coming via snail mail? I *think* that's how I got my divisional welcome last year.

So do you think this message should come first? When I joined last year, I also got snail mail from the director of the association I joined. Can't remember if I got email from her as well. Is there a point where the welcomes become too much or did this seem okay to the new member you talked to?

Jenny, the second message did not include a personal name for a contact. The closest it came to that was the "From:" address in the header; that address is webmaster@ala.org. Purely utilitarian.

This message is actually better than I expected it to be, although we sure do seem to sell things a lot overall.

Jim, can you find out if the second message verifying preferences included a signature file with information for contacting a live human being? One of my biggest frustrations is the amount of email we (ALA) send out that 1) is not conversational (it sounds like it was written by a robot), 2) is not signed, and 3) does not include information for further follow-up.

A few months ago, John Chrastka started (again) an internal discussion about making ALA communications (especially the website) more action-oriented and direct. Unfortunately, there is no good place on our site for him to point new members to, although we're trying to fix that with a new wiki. (Hope I'm not speaking out of turn, John, but they're good proposed changes!)

Jim, you have no idea how thrilled Louise Gruenberg and I are that you noticed this small change!

Seriously, though, here's the scoop so far. Until recently, internal discussion about OC centered on using it for committee and committee-like work, but also as the foundation for a social networking tool. However, we recently decided that the software is not viable for the social networking piece, so we need to build something separate for that. I can talk more about that if anyone is interested, especially since I think it has relevance for this group.

But to answer your specific question, this decision allowed us to refocus on OC for group work, so Louise and I did a preliminary evaluation of what needs to be fixed in the current OC product to make it usable for that purpose.

Unfortunately, "usable" translates to "lots of work" at this point, so we listed a lot of "bare minimum" things at http://wikis.ala.org/ocenhancements/ . The developer of the software that runs OC is going to look these over, tell us what we could do ourselves versus what he'll have to do, and then give us a quote for his work.

The size of that number will help us determine if we can move forward with the existing product or if we need to find something else.

So that's where we currently stand with OC. It's in a bit of limbo right now while we wait for the quote, and very little will happen until February because Midwinter is looming big.

I guess I should also post this update on the ITTS blog at http://blogs.ala.org/ittsupdate.php as well. I've been debating the best place to discuss OC, but I'm not sure where else to put it other than there. I also added a "status" section to the wiki with this update.

Finally, just to clear up any confusion, the "Announcements" link on the main wiki page is for the module in OC that lets community owners post announcements. It's not intended to be a place for announcements about OC on the wiki itself. If I didn't explain that clearly enough, let me know.

Please post more questions if you have them.

This manifesto mirrors many of the ideas about organizations presented in The Cluetrain Manifesto. I would love to hear some reactions to that book (or at least the 95 theses statements) from the Member Participation Task Force.

Laura's work is excellent, but is ALA ready to consider what it really means to move in this direction? For example, "The ALA will let go of previous practices if there is a better way to do things now, even if these practices once seemed so great." Or, "The ALA will be courageous about proposing new services and new ways of providing services, even though some of my colleagues will be resistant."

And before anyone thinks it, this isn't an age thing - or at least not a physical age thing. Is the collective mental age of ALA young enough to contemplate the chanage necessary to remain an active force in the new information environment?

Sadly, the ACRL blog is blocked in my organization. If this is part of the larger discussion about the member participation task force, is there a chance of having some of the major points re-printed here?

I would want an Association that is more concerned about library workers. I would like to see a stronger focus on the 35% of the library workforce that belong to unions. I would like to see more effort made to connect administrators and workers.
I would like to put "union" in the searchbox on the ALA website and find a link to a group or section or committee or discussion group in ALA that would provide me with an opporetunity for meaningful participation.

Every year I attend the TCC conference over an eluminateLive platform. Three days of synchronous/asynchronous participation at a nominal cost. And, I don't have to leave the library to do it.
For a one-librarian operation, presence is important. For a small community college that can no longer afford to send me to ALA, on-line conferences are the way we'll have to go.

I agree that a welcome message should be sent out but it should only be sent out if it is helpful and welcoming. The current message that is sent focuses solely on purchasing products or services. It should be rewritten to focus on how the new member can make the most of one’s membership in the organization. As others have mentioned not all information can be put in the email but links to helpful online resources should be included. Better yet what if that list of helpful links was customized based on type of library, job title, areas of interest selected when they registered, etc so we make sure they get information that is just right for them.

I would want to see a message highlighting the really great things the organization has done for society and its members over the last few years. Get me excited about being a member! Then, based on any section or round table affiliations I've marked, give me a checklist of things to do--go to the LITA blog, check in on this website to see if there are any committees you want to serve on--kind of a "to do" to be an active member. Finally, a list of the best resources ALA has for its members: publications, online resources, tools, communities, etc. There's a lot out there, but it's pretty disorganized and decentralized--some kind of "best of the best" would show people what's there. All of this could be done via e-mail or snail mail...or both!