"A crisis is a terrible thing to waste."

Economist Paul Romer once said, "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste."


How can associations in general - and yours in particular - take advantage of this economic crisis by recognizing and capitalizing on opportunities to develop new governance models?


In a recent blog entry, CIO Lev Gonick discussed how the proliferation of technology has affected the practices of educational institutions. The evolution was marked in part by the way professors interacted with students by posting syllabi online and using e-mail to supplement their office hours. Soon, classroom presentations were supplemented by "student-published Web pages, searchable discussion forums, and collaborative wikis."


According to Gonick, "In a curve that has only been accelerating these past 20 years, we now have an educational economy of information abundance confronting an educational delivery system that was built for a time of information scarcity."


Gonick says that future generations will, "... look back at the global economic crisis of 2008-9 and reflect on which institutions were agile enough to make a difference by bringing the wisdom of their scholars together with the acumen of their technology officers and the ingenuity and determination of their university leaders. It’s actually not only the future of the university that is in play. How we produce, organize, and distribute open education resources is at the heart of the future of education around the world."


Associations such as yours are already adopting new technology-enabled practices. Join the DigitalNow community to learn what is already working and how you can apply best practices to your organization. DigitalNow 2009: The premier conference for association leaders Early Bird Registration is still availale!

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