Fall… The Season of Change

We’ve entered fall, another season of change. Although the weather still feels very summer-like, it will change in the months ahead. Like the weather, we see world dynamics changing almost daily. We will be voting on policy and local government leadership changes in November and we may be facing changes at work or at home. Change makes us uncomfortable because the future isn’t clear and consequently human beings usually don’t tend to embrace change. 

IABC-OC has been experiencing change over the past 18-24 months. As with other professional associations in Orange County and across the country, we’ve seen our membership numbers dip approximately 10 percent. On the flip side, over the same time period, our Second Tuesday Luncheon attendance has grown by about 50 percent. Things are changing and it’s gotten our attention. When you don’t understand what is causing change, you want to know why.

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less”, said General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, 2003. As much as we don’t crave change, we’re open to it. Your IABC-OC leadership likes irrelevance even less. We hope you share our feelings and our desire to figure out how IABC needs to change to stay relevant. 

If you desire to keep IABC-OC relevant, we’d love to hear from you. We will be conducting phone interviews to find out how we can continue on as a relevant organization. We’ll need interview participants and they don’t need to be members. In fact, we’d love to hear from non-members!

Each interview will last approximately 15 minutes. Once we get the one-on-one interview results, we’ll need volunteer leaders to help us develop a change plan and implement the changes necessary for continued relevance.

Change is hard. It’s a challenge and we can’t do it alone. We hope you’ll join us. Join IABC if you’re not already a member. Join in the phone interviews so we can better understand the needs of professional communicators in Orange County. Join our leadership team so we can implement needed change.

I look forward to hearing from you and learning whether you would be willing to join us to grow an IABC that provides the substance you crave on the job every day.  By working together, we can ensure that IABC will provide what you need to propel you into a more prosperous and satisfying future as a professional communicator.

Please feel free to reach out to me at 949.622.1218 or via email here.  Please follow the chapter on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and join our LinkedIn group.

Best,

Sarah Willis
President, IABC Orange County