Just one comment, particular to the IAI. Much has been accomplished over the years but what I miss the most is the energy that was there in the beginning.

I look at http://info-arch.org/ and all the dreams and ideas captured in those conversations have been accomplished in one way or another, but I don’t feel the energy is there anymore.

The energy still exists across our community, but the IAI today is not playing the role of facilitator; of an entity that helps that energy and people’s ideas happen.

I’m sure Steve would have said yes to the IAI offering something as simple as server space and domain name for the UX Book Club. This is the kind of thing that the IAI could do a better job at, rather than try and own anything in particular. Just give people the tools they need to get their ideas going.

In a networked (and commoditized) world, one of the few currencies of real value is trust. (Kevin Kelly’s right-on take on this: http://tinyurl.com/2vvroo) Because of this, an important “possible future” for associations is to provide a trustworthy space where people looking for professionals in a particular field, or looking to become professionals in that field, can find the tools/resources/mentors to get them rolling. Something like a medieval guild, but without trade secrets.

The infrastructure is secondary — these conversations can happen in any platform (Facebook, Usenet, the IAI mailing list, etc.), as can the initiatives they spawn. Ownership is also secondary. (“The community owns it.”) The most important thing is for there to be a big enough community (that self-identifies as such) to provide the critical mass that allows initiatives like this to go from a spark in someone’s brain to something useful in the real world.

(The really critical piece that these orgs provide is the “self-identifies as such” bit.)

- Ownership – as you pointed out, folks can and do get stuff done. Have an idea, do it. The idea and the artefact is owned by the community – it may be the same community that the organisation looks after, but the organisation doesn’t own it. I’ve seen this go wrong a lot in the past…

- The distribution point is a really good one. What if the entire point of an organisation was put folks in touch with each other to get your ideas out there, says that clearly and doesn’t pretend to do more than that. That’s cool and a reason to belong to something.

Let me unpack it, now that I have more than 140 characters: All initiatives are startups, from the bookclub to a local meet up. You can build a wiki, but how to get the word out? Mailing lists are a good choice, but because they are closed they have a limited distribution (no SEO, for example.)

An organization, be it professional like IAI or a magazine like B&A can provide distribution in the form of readers and pagerank. By acting as a hub that pulls related matter together, they act almost like a UX Yahoo– a portal that can send users to the initiative you are promoting.

Even if all IAI did was act as hub for matters IA, it would already be providing a valuable service in supercharging these efforts.