I want to clarify my last post…
Like I have mentioned before, I have started to see the one on one value of IDSA. Ironically after posting a flame post on the NE conf I have met many designers that are heavily involved with IDSA and made many great friends that I think I will keep in contact for the rest of my career. I have taken on the role of creating a Pkg Section and even though it has been challenging, it has been a great experience and allowed me to really get a great perspective on this decently large area of ID. Not only has it allowed me to connect with other designers both personally and professionally, but it has also helped me grow as a design manager. So this is just a short description, but when you put in the effort and try with IDSA it does bring personal value.
Now to throw that las statement on its head, what I have done is a very small percentage of the members. My biggest issue with the organization is that not enough people either have the time or want to devote that amount of attention to the organization. Now some would say that if the member does not want to engage than that is their fault. My point is that you need to make the member want to engage. I am engaging now, because it is interesting to me and I want to grow my area of ID. Honestly I think this is because I am at the point in my career where I am no longer a real hands on design as now I am a design manager, and I want the new grads that I hire to be ready for the Pkg business.
My personal objective of growing the category is not appealing to a 19 year old ID student. Those are the ones that you are loosing. You already have me the 30 year old design manager all the way up to the 50 year old Principle. How do we attract the young entry level guys? I don’t know the answer to that, but what you are doing is not working. Do you have any stats on what the ages are that of your members? I think that if you look at this and take the students out of the equation, as they are a bios, you will find that most entry level straight out of school drop you. This is due to them not seeing value. You are no different than any other brand, you need to show value to the younger crown to keep them coming back as they get older. If you loose them in the beginning then it will be hard to get them back.
Edit::
One thing that would help ^^^ is a bit more visibility. Warren, I know we see you here addressing us and our issues, but I would like to see more IDSA representation on these boards. It would be great to see Clive and others on here addressing the IDSA issues as well as joining the other discussions. We have said this over and over, but you will get more feedback on these boards than anywhere else. Also by joining other discussions you will only develop a relationship (even if it is just online) with the member you are trying to recruit.