Last time I wrote about some of the things you may have missed during tax season. Today I want to start talking about what we’re doing to achieve ACA’s “Ends”, and I want to talk specifically about the Brain Trust Project.
That ACA members have the financial planning, practice management and marketing resources they need for professional success, no matter where they are in their practice life cycle, has been designated as a special emphasis End (goal) by the ACA Board of Directors. Stop and think about that goal for a minute. Think about the variety of ways in which ACA members practice. Think about their differing strengths in knowledge and experience. Think about everything that is needed for a successful practice from “idea” to “retirement”. Think about how many different ways ACA members define “success”. Overwhelmed yet? If yes, welcome to my world!
Seriously, this is a lofty goal (and it’s only one of five lofty goals), but what an inspiring one! The possibilities are so exciting. And how much would your ACA membership be worth to you if we could fully deliver on this promise?
There are hundreds of things we could do to pursue this goal, but the Board has helped to focus our efforts by making the Brain Trust Project the highest priority for 2012. Specifically, the Brain Trust is to be fully functional in the areas of Staffing and Marketing by our 2012 Conference, with a project plan for completion of all other areas also due at that time. So what does this really mean and what’s in it for you?
The common definition of a “brain trust” is a group of experts from various fields who serve as unofficial consultants on matters of policy and strategy. Sounds very close to how ACA members describe one another. “They’re my back office.” “They’re the 150+ business partners I can call on at any time.” “I can’t be an expert in everything, but I’ve got ACA to back me up.” The ACA brain trust is its members and their collective knowledge, supplemented by experts, vendors and resources from outside the organization.
But knowledge is messy. It can be incomplete, incorrect, out of date, scattered, poorly presented, and overwhelming in its volume. (Sort of sounds like how some members describe the intranet/member site/online community – yes, Arlene, we need a name!) Enter the Brain Trust Project.
The Brain Trust Project is about taking ACA’s collective knowledge and classifying it, organizing it, filling in the gaps in it, and making it easily accessible to ACA members. There’s an amazing team of ACA members coordinating this effort – Kelly Adams, Mary Alpers, Frank Corrado, Jim Davis, Jill Gianola, Ted Roman, Chip Simon, Bill Starnes and Troy Thompson, and over the last couple of months they’ve been hard at work defining the project and the processes needed to complete it successfully. This has involved building mind maps of the knowledge ACA members need in the areas of Staffing and Marketing, deciding on the categories of knowledge assets contained within the brain trust, and identifying the different ways in which ACA members will want to access all this incredible knowledge.
At the same time, the staff supporting the project (I, Joy and Arlene) have been working to identify both the opportunities and limitations of our technology in implementing the project.
Over the next few weeks, our efforts will mesh as we begin a review of a small sample of our available staffing and marketing knowledge and apply the classification systems that have been developed, then test the search and retrieval systems. Once we’ve verified the systems work, the team will start recruiting for task forces to handle the reviews while they move on to the next phase.
Early next week we’ll be launching a community which any ACA member can join to receive updates about, give feedback on and participate in discussions about the Brain Trust Project. Look for your community invitation in your email.
In the meantime, let me leave with the following responses the team members gave when asked “What is the difference this project will make in the life of an ACA member?”
- Lightning fast and useful/accurate responses to queries
- ACA as the member’s back office expanded exponentially with more resources
- Material is there and they found it
- Preserve and enhance our sense of community
- Identify new member experts – a way for established members to keep up with new members and what they offer
- A way to find out things you don’t even know to ask for (I don’t know what I don’t know)
- Value latent in ACA is now readily available and unleashed
- Attracts great new members
- ACA is your first employee
- No failure
- Saves time and money
- Helps you discern when a shift is needed in your business – reduces opportunity cost
- Process for incubation of new ideas
Pretty cool, huh?