SLA as an international organization

Question #5: SLA is an international organization. How can SLA involve and reach out more to members outside of North America?

Marilyn Bromley

Candidate for Director, 2012 SLA Board

 

David Meerman Scott wrote a FutureReady blog post on May 17 in which he said “The world works in real-time now. Speed and agility are an organization’s decisive competitive advantage. The mantra of the day is: communicate quickly. In real-time.”

I am convinced that SLA’s path to growth runs through the world outside North America, but to succeed in gaining and retaining new members in other countries and continents we need to be able to communicate quickly in real-time.

First, we must empower and support our non-NA chapters in their membership recruitment efforts, because the local relationship will always be the first and strongest connection.

Second, SLA needs to have the staff and technology bandwidth to provide extra support to our international members with custom, personalized help with GoToMeeting, Skype, podcast tools, blogs, YouTube, Flicker, and the range of social media tools in common usage today.  What about hiring a few really tech-savvy info pros who like to work from 10pm to 6am and offer them to our non-NA members as a free resource?

Third, as much as possible, help all chapters, divisions and caucuses provide audio and video casts of workshops either live or after the fact.  They also need to offer written transcripts, executive summaries and handouts immediately after the event.  If we can’t communicate in real-time, near real-time is absolutely essential.

Technology is bringing the world together.  Each of us can only act locally, but with global thinking we can ensure the success of our association and our profession.

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