By association

On Wednesday I'm off to Lisbon to chair a two day conference on behalf of CIPR Inside - the Chartered Institute of Public relations' Internal Communications group previously called the Internal Communications Alliance.

All credit to new Chairman Paul Massie and Lee Smith for giving the group a new lease of life and putting in place a great programme of activity for the year ahead focused on internal reputation management and change. It takes energy and persistance to be on the committee for a professional association. Liam and I were members of the ICA committee for years before work committments got the better of us and we became so embarrassed at the amount of consecutive weeks we could never make the conference calls that we decided to call it a day.

Fortunately, now we're joining CIPR Inside's new panel of 'expert advisors', which means we get to be nosy and opinionated about everything that's planned and go along to events to hear what's new in the world of IC, but without the responsibility of being committee members. Excellent!

Professional associations - why the lack of enthusiasm?

In the research we've just done about how IC people are developing themselves, joining a professional association came very low on people's priority lists. Anyone shed any light about why?

We try to keep our links with all three professional associations for IC people. We're judging some of the awards for the CiB this year and Darren Crozier keeps us in touch with goings on as president of the CiB in Scotland.  And I think Jacqui Hitt has put on a really good programme of events for the IABC's UK Chapter as VP of Development for the past twelve months, which we catch up about over lunch, dinner or long phone chats now and again. 

Jacqui and Darren have both written pieces for our soon-to-be-published report about development for internal comms people giving their views about the benefits to be had from being part of professional associations, including:

• A formal programme of events & workshops
• Networking & sharing ideas & best practice
• Validation & confidence that you're doing the right thing from award programme feedback
• A sense that you're not alone when you realise other people are struggling with the same issues
• Personal development through being a committee member and organising, chairing or speaking at events

I'm hoping Lee Smith will also be able to write about the benefits he's seen from being part of the CIPR's continuous professional development scheme.

I've certainly got a lot to thank CIPR Inside for. It's where I first started to build a network, realised I was interested in the whole IC development agenda, got involved in writing the Intercomm matrix and was forced up on stage to speak at conferences.  I even have them to thank for first introducing me to Liam. (At least, I THINK I should be thanking them!)

Anyone want to share what you've got from being a member of a professional association, or explain why you can't see the attraction?

Sue

Comments

[Mark]

My own view is already within the article - there are 3 professional bodies to choose from. CiB, IABC, and CIPR. Each has their own pros and cons (reading the IABC magazine always helps me sleep), but none are outstanding.
In the dark ages when I was in HR - you joined CIPD, it was like a police warrant card.
Over time I hope that we Internal Communicators set up our own chartered body, which will give greater weight to our profession. I would like to be in the Fellowship of Internal Communicators, only because I like the acronym.

[Fiona Gibson]

Three different professional bodies, three sets of fees. For me, it's all about what I can afford to do, and at the moment, it's using contacts I already have and buying books, not professional association fees. I hope Mark's vision comes to fruition, as then there'd only be one set of fees!

It would be good to have these bodies talking to each other and maybe offering a discount for multiple memberships - I bet loads of people struggle knowing which one to join and can only choose one.

[Sue]

Hi Fiona and Mark,

That's kind of what Inter-comm was all about several years ago in the UK. The CIPR, IABC, CIB and the other ICA (part of the Work Foundation as it was then - now merged into the CIB - so at one stage there WERE four!) were trying to see how we could work together.

Unfortunately only the development side of things ever really got off the ground. We put together the Intercomm matrix, set up the Intercomm website to house it and held an initial education & development event ... and I kept the website at least vaguely updated until about a year ago, when we finally took everything down and redirected everyone to the websites for the individual associations.

Now and again the organisations do collaborate on events or have reduced event rates for each others' members, but that's as far as it goes.

Gets worse when you have a foot in other professions too. I'm also in the ICF (International Coaching Federation) - another set of fees and, although I read all their stuff, there's no way I've got time to start getting more involved, going to events, etc.

Sue

[Liam]

I think it's made worse by the fact that these bodies are run by volunteers (at least with the UK version of the IABC/ IC section of the CIPR).

Which means that you get these bursts of energy from different associations from time to time when a new set of people get busy and then it waxes and wanes as people's day jobs take over. The effect is that momentum peters out every couple of years until someone else gets up a bit of enthusiasm - which all means you never get lasting momentum.

Would Mark's idea of a dedicated association overcome that problem????

Liam