Greetings from Vegas -- where the RTNDA@NAB convention is under way, and where beforehand, on Saturday, RTNDA board members and other volunteers spent a full day looking to the future. President Barbara Cochran convened the meeting, and I worked as the group's facilitator.
RTNDA has long been the voice of broadcast journalism -- but board members realize that their traditional focus: radio and television -- is too narrow. Newsrooms are moving to digital futures -- and RTNDA has to do the same. But has to do so in challenging economic times, when media organizations are cutting costs. Members expect a real payoff for the dollars they invest in RTNDA, its mission and its services.
The planning group kept coming back to key questions: how do you make the organization indispensable to electronic journalists through improved or targeted services? How do you find new revenue sources in tight times? How do you make certain you've structured your operation -- from board to staffing -- for maximum effectiveness? How do you make certain your potential members and their employers give you credit for the work you're already doing on their behalf: First Amendment, open records, cameras in the courts, legal advice, training, reporting on media trends.
Strategic planning is tricky business -- figuring out what to hang onto, what to let go, what to do more of or less of -- or things you've never done before. It's not work that can be completed in a day -- so no final decisions were made. Plenty of planning work resumes after the convention, to get more voices and ideas into the process -- and to produce a final action plan.
I brought my video camera along, to give you a glimpse of the work in progress:
