If you are keeping up - you will know that I don’t generally recommend books - specifically yes - but generally - no. But - I do recommend people. People who write, draw, comment, present, create a constant stream of ‘stuff’ that more often than not relate to and fit into my personal ‘world view’ - if that doesn’t sound too grand?

Two such people - Christopher Lochhead and Gina Bianchini - whose work truly intersects with PHI⑊PIN.

Gina posted 🔗 this to LinkedIn yesterday - and I was taken by the final line.

Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations. Clubs have been the source of innovation, community, and strength in America for over 250 years.

💬 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America - 1835

I would take it a step further. Not just America - across the world.

I have been commenting for a while now how traditional clubs, societies, associations, business chambers et al are generally experiencing - and reporting - reduced membership with the blame too often pointed at ‘the young people who don’t want to join’.

My opinion? #FlawedThinking.

I thought it might be useful to take my comment on Gina’s post (🔗 full comment here) and expand it;

There are clubs growing .. and look inside you find conversation happening now, not saved up for a quarterly newsletter. Intelligence shared across the membership, not locked in inboxes. Recognition given in public, the moment it’s earned, not read off a list at an AGM half the members skipped. A library of what the club knows, open to browse - not a filing cabinet only the secretary can find. A pulse you can actually take, any day of the week - not once a year at renewal time, when it’s already too late to ask why someone left. In short a club focussed on and delivering value to all members at all times in all places.

Any business or organisation that is 100 years old and continues to operate in the same way as they did 100 years ago will die .. why is a club, association, chamber, society going to be different?