I would like to bounce my views of the manic world of JALT off one part of Swan's piece, the section concerning the so-called "menuizing" of JALT's membership services. As we discussed the issue on again, off again, for over two years on JALT's Executive Board (EXBO) e-mail list, the idea was and still is basically this: let members have more control over how their money is spent by letting them pick and choose from a menu of membership options.
Where I have to disagree most with Swan is his view that the issue of "menuizing" membership services "is only tangentially structural in nature." Of course, as it has been so far treated (read "marginalized," "ignored" "personalized" or even "willfully misconstrued") by the leadership of JALT, the issue IS probably "tangential." But if acted upon, the effects on the structure and functions of JALT could prove profound in a most positive way. This might even include some sort of glasnost and perestroika for the often private, incomprehensible frenzies of "lurchership" (a portmanteau term that neatly combines "leadership" with "to lurch") which are supposed to be passed off publicly as real financial planning and budgeting, but which always leave only one sure thing: that JALT will face still yet another financial crisis (the only uncertainty being who will be singled out for personal recrimination by JALT's acrimonious, in-fighting tribe the next time around).
Swan explains that the logic of the menu plan "is that the invisible hand of supply economics, JALT members picking and choosing from a variety of membership options, . . . will enable the organization better to know where to apply its resources" but then dismisses the practicality of the idea because "the general consensus seems to be that it would be very difficult to implement this proposal without substantial risk to chapters, or to other JALT institutions, such as JALT publications".
However, when I made the proposal on EXBO list (let's call this the Jannuzi variation #999, as I am sure the origins of the idea do not deserve my name), Locke and Smith and the "invisible hand" were not the central ideas on my mind. What I envisioned was a deliberate, planned way (1) to make membership more appealing (i.e., cheaper but more along lines of what most members I knew wanted) while (2) putting some sort of rational mechanism in place that would enable the organization to change itself in light of what members liked enough to pay for -- making it also obvious what needed to be improved. So what I was really trying to discuss was a means by which the organization could control its own reforms while receiving a direct line of information on how it was meeting members' wants and needs. A smart, bottom-up feedback loop that might create a learning organization -- basic Demmings and TQM actually -- if 7-Eleven can do it for stocking shelves with rice balls and sandwiches, why not JALT and its services to members? You have to understand that, at least in my three years of participating actively on EXBO list, ALL debate about the listing ship of JALT foundered on the shoals of anecdotal evidence (a great rhetorical ploy to stifle debate, that one) and broke up on the rocks of ignorance: we don't know what the whole membership thinks, you don't really know either, and we have no way of finding out. Meaning what? We don't really care what the membership thinks, at least not to the extent of finding out by letting them have some say in the matter. Perhaps.
I will concede that if the menu scheme were viewed only as promoting competition and internal markets (something JALT already has by the way, but a contest based on the opaque cross-group interactions of only a hundred people or so), it could be said to lead to a zero sum game of winners and losers. But what about the zero sum game that has already been played out? Among other things, look at the unexplained disappearance of JALT Journal (JJ) from the publishing schedule last autumn. Look at the diminishing appearance and size of TLT. Look at the annual finances that barely leave JALT with enough money to put on the next annual conference while never putting away any surpluses for the future. (Ed. note: read the brief financial report on page 1.) A sympathetic reading of the menu proposal and its possible benefits really turns upon making an explicit connection of it with JALT's structure and functions (which tend to be static and dysfunctional, even in face of crisis after crisis). JALT, as a professional organization that should exist first for the benefit of all its members, can be split up into these basic services: chapter membership and local meetings; two national publications (TLT and JJ, a discount for the annual conference, and SIG membership. But this has to be brutally scrutinized. Just what does your 10,000 yen actually provide you with? You get the monthly TLT, the (I think) annual JJ, and an automatic membership in the chapter nearest your mailing address. JALT takes your 10,000 yen and tells you, here is what you get, like it or leave it. The annual conference costs something like an extra 15,000 yen in conference fees alone (and the membership discount does not make it much cheaper than what non-members pay to attend). SIG membership (how many members still don't even know what a SIG is, let alone how many different ones they can join?) is an extra 1,500 yen per SIG (with more and more SlGs making their main services, a publication and possibly attendance at a mini-conference, available to non-JALT members at prices that are only a bit more expensive than what JALT members pay).
The idea behind the menu-of-services proposal is that you, as a paying member, can get more out of your membership fees by deciding better how they will be spent on the services important to you. In making your choices, you also exercise a vote on what you think is important in JALT and tell it where it needs to improve if it wants to receive more of your money. Now that is an idea that seems to frighten the leadership, but I have no doubt that it would be much less daunting a proposition if it were put straight to all the members of JALT (and all the possible members who don't join because 10,000 yen with no choice is probably not seen as a good deal in a consumer society).
A basic JALT membership, then, might start at something like 5,000 yen with these services: national membership in JALT and TLT subscription (with TLT subscription exchangeable for a chapter or SIG membership). For 7,500 yen you might buy TLT plus a choice between a chapter OR a SIG. For 9,000 yen maybe JALT could provide you with this: TLT, one chapter, one SIG. For 10,000 yen, a member could choose among extra SIGs and extra publications (JJ and JALT Applied Materials series). These are just examples; the goal is to achieve flexibility where now there is none. The idea is not simply to put the competing parts of JALT into an end-game contest and then get rid of what isn't popular; rather, the idea is to build into the organization specific feedback loops on what needs to be improved and reworked, information which then cycles directly back into getting more members and more feedback and more improvements, and so on and so on. If anything, I had in mind an expansion of services that was based on what ALL members wanted enough to choose and pay for. If we are going to subsidize certain activities and services, at least make them somewhat responsive to the membership. Another envisioned benefit to all of JALT is that it might directly help the stagnant membership and finances (yes, the two are related). If basic membership costs less, JALT could get more members; more paying members mean more cost efficiencies in providing the most popular services. They also mean increased revenues from membership as well as from advertising and the commercial sponsorship that larger membership attracts. Finally, a higher level of participation (with a financially justified expansion of optional services) at SlGs, chapters, and the annual conference could only better help us to run an organization that depends mostly on grass-roots involvement (I assume that if people consciously choose to pay and join at these levels, they may also choose actually to participate).
The time for rationalizing JALT's finances while getting membership up has come. I think these interrelated goals can best be met with a menu plan for membership. With a menu of services that provides some choice to members, ALL members will have a direct vote in running the organization. Suddenly the invisible hand that so far has had no say becomes visible and actually guides the flows of the organization and its numerous activities and allocation of human resources and finances. If that now amounts to a thousand mutinies on the "Granship" of JALT, I say, so be it!
Charles Jannuzi <jannuzi@hotmail.com>