Re: communications

[Robert Pries <robertpries@embarqmail.com>]

Sue: I was suffering from the heat after digging Irises for our local sale yesterday and cut my response short but I wanted to say a bit more.

First; Thank you for coming on AIS Discuss. I believe the greatest shortcoming of the American Iris Society is a communication deficit. In our age of quick communication much more is expected than we sometimes produce. But the other problem is people do not want to hear about those things they are not interested in. They do not wish to be bombarded with posts. I am sure some would view this one as excessive. So it is difficult to manage the correct degree of contact.  It is hard to reach those that want to voice an opinion without boring those that would prefer not to be involved.

Please everyone feel they can contact me and I will try to pass along complaints to the proper quarters. If I become overwhelmed with posts I may cry uncle, but for now I think I hear too little, not too much. There are many plans for AISbs future that should develop out of membership input.

Early this year our committee talked of doing several surveybs. The volume of work that is produced by the five members of the marketing and PR committee is phenomenal. I often wonder if I am expecting too much, but so far no one has rebelled. One great tool for surveys is Survey Monkey. It can provide a running tally of responses as they come in. It is free for the first 100 responders. But we have a Society with over 4,000 members and to be able to include everyone would require buying the premium package for a year. Skinflint that I am, I would not do this, unless I could get the maximum value for our buck. Many directors, like myself, often spend their own money to accomplish a task and thus our volunteer organization can often be expensive for the volunteers. Sadly we do not always have the resources to do otherwise. The new surveys have not yet emerged because of the time involved in creating them and the desire to get the maximum benefit.

Sadly some of our current communication platforms have been questionably effective. If a message is put onto AISdiscuss to RVPs could we get an acknowledgement that they have received the message? Perhaps that should most appropriately be directed to the sender, or would we want to be barraged by all the responses going onto discuss, assuming every RVP responded.

Similar communication problems exist with affiliates. As a case in point; When the affiliation fee was changed, I heard complaints that some affiliates had to call special meetings to approve this expenditure in time to respond for affiliation. I do not know about the timing of all this but have to acknowledge it could have been better. Was this a communication problem? When the affiliate talk was set up, the only board member that was included was the affiliates rep. It was presumed that some people would prefer to remain anonymous in their criticisms. I made the motion to originally create this post. I was hoping to hear suggestions from affiliates. As a sales person I always view problems as opportunities. But I did not get the feedback. One member of the affiliates group referred to it as AIS disgust, because the only people responding, were complaining and not giving suggestions. The complaints were not reaching the people like myself who would have taken them seriously!
  and tried to provide answers. Those less vocal just tuned out. I think we need to re-examine this conduit.

In todaybs world it is possible to reach membership directly. We keep saying that the world is moving faster, but we still think in terms of waiting to the next board meeting to discuss something. Opportunities and events are constantly presenting themselves and a quarterly Bulletin can seldom respond fast enough. Kelly has suggested to me about the possibility of a News Blast. For those who wished to sign up, it could provide news alerts to our members, perhaps monthly or as needed. This may be in the form of collections of very short messages often linked to websites with more information. Or one can look at the model of the Daylily Society of E-News. Perhaps something in between these should be considered. If something exciting was happening it could be quickly conveyed to members electronically. Perhaps a perk of e-membership! Certainly these types of communications should be explored.

If we are to grow as a society we need to be listening as well as telling. I would hope we can improve a great deal in both areas.

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