I’ve been on the board just about 8-1/2 months, so I’m not doing too bad on updates, but think I’ll try to post twice a month – otherwise I tend to lose the details that you might find interesting!
The call for nominations has ended and I’m out of the loop until the nominating committee announces the candidates. I haven’t seen much in the blog space about who submitted an application, looking forward to seeing some good posts once the slate is announced.
Related to that, one of the things I heard a couple times was people disqualifying themselves for various reasons. If you know you don’t have the time or can’t afford to miss work, that’s a good reason to opt out. Knowing that you’ve been using SQL for less than year is a good reason to decide you’re not ready. It’s good to try to assess whether you meet the minimums and if you’re well below that, discretion isn’t a bad thing. On the other hand if you’re close, why not take the chance if you’re really interested? It’s easy to find reasons not to run, but it’s also perfect ok – even good – to get in the game and let the committee pick the best candidates. The truth is you could meet all the qualifications and still not make the cut if you’re up against some real stars. Don’t make the decision based on who else is running, if you’re interested, get in the game. Start thinking about the election next year, what can you do to be ready?
I mentioned in an earlier post that I was selected for the office nomination commitee. After a lot of thought, I’ve resigned from the officer nomination committee and submitted myself as a candidate. I don’t intend to publicly campaign as there isn’t a precedent for that, nor to privately campaign – I’ll do the interview and do the best I can, and we’ll see from there. If I get the job I’ll spend my two years in Marketing and then see where I stand personally and professionally. If I don’t, then I’ll see if I can get a different portfolio for my 2nd year and see where things are personally and professionally when it comes time for reelection.
Why?
A couple reasons. One, and the best I think, is that I'd like to take a crack at the marketing job. I think Bill G and his team have done a decent job of marketing the Summit and that needs to continue, but I feel like - perhaps unfairly - that less work has gone into marketing PASS itself. Of course I'm by no means a marketing genius, but the job is about setting tone and direction and I can do that. The other, and in reality one that is just as interesting to me, is that by being on the committee I lost the ability to talk about the process. I think transparency is needed and while I won't have access to the top secret details, I will be able to write about my own experiences without violating any rules. Whether I get the job or not, I think we need to show the members how the system works, and also encourage potential board members who want to set some ambitious goals.
Part of it also about the commitment currently required. Right now a President can expect to spend nine years on the Board. At least one year as Director, 2 as VP Marketing, 2 as VP Finance, 2 as President, 2 as Immediate Past President. I think that's a bad system because few people have the enthusiasm plus career flexibility to maintain the kind of involvement that those jobs really require. It's there to make sure the President totally knows the business, but I think that's unrealistic and unnecessary. Few CEO's go through all the VP level jobs on the way to the top. As it stands you should really only aim for a VP if you can go all the way, and I think that cuts the pool and over taxes the few that do. Time to talk about this more!
Work is under way to set up badges (images) for bloggers, chapter leaders, and more, and put them on one centralized page. In addition, we're going to host a few different sizes of PASS ads and give bloggers the option to hot link to them, giving PASS the ability to quickly distribute a message - 24 Hours of PASS for example. Note that those ads will only be about PASS activities, not any third party products. Brent and Jeremiah are helping out a lot on this and really driving it forward.
No monthly board meeting this month, we had a number of directors that had scheduling conflicts and we elected to cancel. Even though we rarely do more than vote on a few issues I think it's a shame to miss any type of collaborative event, and it's on my list to talk to everyone to see if we can't have those calls even if we don't have enough present to vote.
I'm also in the early stages of talking with Blythe & Greg about asking chapters to set up their own LinkedIn group. Networking should be an intrinisic part of chapters and PASS, and LinkedIn is - to me of course - the easiest way to promote that. That does leave the question of when and how to use PASSPort, and it's on my list of things to do before November to come up with recommendations to make it more interesting or to downsize it. Take a look and send me comments, and I'll talk more about that sometime between now and November.
