President’s Message- Joan Lee, March 24, 2014
Dear Member:
Back on December 18th, Maura McLaren facilitated a session with Trillium Chapter’s Board Members. As most of you know Maura is a Chapter Member, National’s Treasurer and sits on National’s Business Model Task Force. The objective for the group during the session was to look at the current Business Model and identify which two or three stakeholder segments they believed were the most important in CSAE’s current business model. Board Members were then asked to envision the Future Business Model (next 24-26 months) and to answer these questions:
- For whom are we creating value? Which two or three new or previously underserved stakeholder segments should CSAE consider serving as part of a future business model?
- What new organizational capabilities will CSAE need to develop to deliver on these value propositions?
- What should CSAE stop doing to free up organizational resources for building new capacity?
The results from this session were then compiled with the responses from the other Chapters.
On Wednesday, January 22 the Chapters’ Presidents and Vice Presidents (and our Chapter’s Executive Director, Tracy Blyth) met at the Leaders’ Forum with National’s Board and their focus that day was on designing potential new business models for CSAE. The session was facilitated by Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation who has experience working with associations in this regard.
It was a great (albeit tiring) day spent with a highly engaged group of people who took the time to carefully consider different segments and business models. I came away impressed with openness of the group, the number of new ideas generated, the recognition that CSAE is one organization and that improvements are likely to impact the entity as a whole.
National’s Board met with Jeff the next day to discuss the process and it was clear that there is a significant amount of work still to be done – ongoing consultation and communication with the Chapters, members, stakeholders and other segments are critical. No decisions were reached by the Board and the Business Model Task Force continues to meet every two weeks.
We have been assured that the Task Force will carefully consider how to maintain flowing communication and continued engagement. The Chapter will continue with its updates to you.
Joan Lee, CAE
President, CSAE Trillium Chapter
