Associations NOW Presents

Workforce Development in Associations: AI, Adaptability, and the Power of DEI

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Lowell Aplebaum, EdD, FASAE, CAE, CPF, from Association Rockstars, leads a conversation with Haley Jones, director of member engagement at the American Staffing Association, and Joe Lindhal, CEO of Mission MSA. Together, they explore the evolving landscape of workforce development in the association sector, discussing the influence of AI, the importance of adaptability, and the critical role of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The conversation highlights how DEI drives organizational success, urging associations to lead by example, embrace inclusive practices, and nurture a culture of acceptance and continuous learning.
 
Check out the video podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwM9JWpnOWM
 
This episode is sponsored by Visit Omaha.
 
Transcript
 
Lowell Aplebaum  00:05
Welcome everybody to episode two of Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. And we'd like to thank our episode sponsor today Visit Omaha for the support of this podcast. My name is Lowell Aplebaum. I'm the CEO of Vista Cova, typically hosting the Association Rockstars podcast, but really excited and overjoyed to have the opportunity today to facilitate a meaningful conversation around workforce development with two brilliant minds in our community. And rather than read a speaker bio, which probably would not have you still tuning in, we're going to have the opportunity to hear a little bit about the own professional journey from our two panelists today. So for each of you, I'll ask you one at a time, if you could please tell us a little bit about who you are and where you work, as we're thinking about workforce development and professional journeys that have led you to places of the association community. Tell us a little bit about your journey. Haley, do you want to go first?
 
Haley Jones  01:07
Sure. So I'm Haley Jones. I'm the director of member engagement at the American staffing Association in Alexandria, Virginia. I spent my entire career in the association space, but I got started through being placed at my first association from a staffing firm, ironically, X amount of years later, so I don't necessarily age myself. I now work at the trade association that represents the person who was once a member who got me into associations to begin with. I started in associations through member care, was answering the 800 line processing applications. Moved into the membership department. I spent the first half of my career in membership. The latter half has been in governance and volunteer management, leadership development. And then the last almost five years now has been also in the DEI space. I oversee a team of four people who run all of the, basically eight of the nine engagement programs that ASA has. My main focus is our DEI initiatives. I think where I've gotten to where I'm at now, I attribute a lot of it to being a DELP Scholar. I'm in the 2019 to 2021 class, and got access to mentoring and executive coaching and just education opportunities that I ordinarily wouldn't have thanks to Visit Detroit that sponsored everything, and that was a turning point for me and my career and finding my voice and just putting me in a leadership position, where I still work on this now, but where people see me as a leader and I also finally see myself as one too.
 
Lowell Aplebaum  02:48
I love that.  Hopefully, as we were able to go into a discussion around workforce development, that sort of transformational journey from an employee to a profession to a leader, hopefully we can dig in a little more on those stages as well as we think about that, Joe, please.
 
Joe Lindhal  03:03
Yeah, so I'm Joe Lindahl. I serve as the CEO for Mission MSA, which is a nonprofit organization for patient advocates and research around multiple system atrophy, which is a rare neurodegenerative disease closely aligned with Parkinson's, but has the size and progression of it. I am with MCI USA, which is a management company, so I think I share many similar stories and journey as Haley. I was placed through a temp staff firm with the Association Management Center right after I graduated with a degree in journalism from DePaul. Go Blue Demons! In front of the recession where newspapers were failing, no one wanted to read or at least pay for it. The whole industry was turned upside down. So I was placed in this firm and I ended up really loving the world. This, I think, is a very common story for us, association professionals. Starting in marketing, really, after the first two years of more operations and governance, moved out to DC, where I got to work for the Child Life Council, and then also worked at the American Staffing Association, where Haley is now, where I had my "association, full circle moment." Like, I get to support an industry that really has done so much for me to where I am now. And then I moved back to Chicago, worked for AMC again, serving as a senior ops for specialty nursing groups, and eventually as an executive director and to where I am now. So it has been a rapid journey. You open your eyes and like, oh my gosh, what has happened? But it's been a lot of fun, and I'm really excited to talk about the workforce journey and workforce development.
 
Lowell Aplebaum  04:43
I hope that you will continue, both of you, to insert sort of personal reflections of your own stages of your professional progression as we talk about the larger workforce development. What's interesting, I think about both of your backgrounds - besides, it's amazing that both of you found sssociations by being placed in them; I'd be interested in a research study of what that percentage looks like as we now go into a discussion on workforce development - there's really a duality that we're discussing. One is the place of workforce development within the association community itself, and then the larger societal challenges or opportunities of workforce development across many industries. And I imagine from an American Staffing Association, you're looking many different lenses. We all, of course, are well matched in the association industry. So I welcome either of those paths that you want to explore with the top I'll start thinking broad, which is just as you think about workforce development in general, from what you've experienced and from your insights, what trends do you see? What would you identify as some of the big markers of challenge, opportunity or the way things are go? Haley, do you want to go first?
 
Haley Jones  05:52
Yeah, so this is something we do talk about a lot with our members, and especially in hearing what they're seeing as they're putting people to work, and one of the biggest ones is probably the emergence of AI and the fact that people really need to learn it. And there are people who think that AI is going to remove other people from the workforce, and then that probably will happen in some instances. But there's also a way to use AI as more of a partner and not much for a replacement to your responsibilities, and being able to learn how to use it to help with maybe administrative tasks. Or several of us have used it for writer's block, and then going back in and using it to going through it with a to read, for comprehension, to make sure that what it does dump out is, one it's accurate, or you make it accurate, and also that it makes sense. But it gives you the opportunity, if you are using it, to be able to focus on higher level work and higher value things. But I just had a conversation about two weeks ago about this, where everyone's starting to learn AI now. I had an owner the other day say, "I'm going to become obsolete. So I'm learning how to do all of this now." He's, I think, in his 60s, and has been in the business for over 30 years, but is also trying to keep his business relevant. It's just been interesting to see the different facets of it. There's also a bias issue when it comes to AI that we can get into later, but because that definitely can hurt minority communities in certain ways. But yeah, we've been talking a lot about AI and just also really upskilling to learn that or learn other skills to help further your career.
 
Lowell Aplebaum  07:34
Joe?
 
Joe Lindhal  07:35
The general workforce piece, I think some of the trends that when we look for talent, at least from an employer standpoint, is, we are looking for a kind of willingness to adapt, having some comfortability with technology. And how we operate as a workplace is we are almost completely remote, so our team is everywhere. There has to be the level of comfort of having these video conversations, having to use SharePoint, how to do video calls, how to be comfortable doing some of these things that are really important. And from piggybacking on what Haley's saying is as small staff especially, AI presents a lot of opportunity. I think it's not going to replace a lot of what we do yet individually, but it certainly can act as an accelerator or simplifier in a lot of our processes. For example, we have a support line that is open where you can speak with a social worker if you have any questions about your diagnosis. No one really generally knows about multiple system atrophy until they have to know about multiple system atrophy. And in that context, you're dealing with folks that want everything they want to literally swallow the ocean, and it's a really hard thing to do. And so what we do have a social worker that's available to talk on the phone answer emails, but we're exploring like we know what the common questions are. We know where people need to go to where can I find a movement disorder specialist? Where can I find a clinical trial? How do I manage my symptoms? We can create a chatbot based on our documents that will answer 75 to 90% of those questions immediately. Our helpline is only open from nine to five, but we deal with a global audience. So someone from Australia has a question they want an answer. We think we can create a resource that's going to be really useful in that regard. So I have a person that is a licensed social worker, that has a level of comfortability with the technology. Might not have walked in as a coder or developer, but is willing to learn and ask the questions to those that can do it. How do we train it? How do we make sure it's transparent? What biases? How do we make sure it takes these two outputs that's really important from a workforce place, because that way, I'm not training two skills they have a level of comfort they're walking in with.
 
Lowell Aplebaum  09:57
I love that we've started in terms of discussing workforce development with really front and center, the role of how AI is impacting workforce development today and for the future. What's interesting, I think, is if we look at historical trends of where workforce development issues and discussions have been, it's really been that, like your career journey has been defined by being able to demonstrate the skills and experience that you have, right? That's what your resume shows. Does the skill and experience align to the position you're looking for? But what you two are discussing is actually this intersect that's not, perhaps not, about rate interested to hear about the skills you have. It's about how much you're able to demonstrate an ability to adapt to the skills that you will need.
 
Haley Jones  10:41
It kind of reminds me of 2020 and obviously we all had to go virtual, and suddenly everyone was learning how to use Zoom. And I remember for myself and what we were doing. We used Zoom already however, we didn't use it as often as we do now. And everyone laughs about I remember when I had to just make a phone call, and now if someone calls you on the phone, it's weird. And I became the resident Zoom expert. There's two of us on staff who all of a sudden it was like they know how to do this. So let's have them run this virtual conference on Zoom. And when we have breakout sessions, even now, for one of our virtual conferences, I get the one that's the most difficult to set up, because I know how to do it. I saw one of my chapters ran, I forget what the platform was, but she ran virtual conference, and then started offering her services to others because she had already paid for the platform. So she offered it to other chapters and other organizations, and she would run logistics in production of their entire virtual conference. That became another stream of income. She just adapted and learned how to use it and became this expert at it. But I feel like AI is about to become that same situation where you're figuring out how it works best for you, how you can use it to move your either yourself or even your organization, forward, but we ought to adapt to it.
 
Lowell Aplebaum  12:02
So I think the question I would ask based off of that really tangible, excellent example is, as you think about workforce development, both for those seeking positions and those seeking positions, what is your perspective of what that looks like in a different context, when it's about, as you're saying, finding someone who has the agility to adapt to what we're going to need. Right? From your perspective in workforce development, either, how does a candidate display or demonstrate that agility, or from your perspective, how do employers seek that agility that's not just based off of "give me your resume of all the things you've done," because that doesn't display that, right? I'm wondering if either of you have perspectives about from either side of that. We've talked about AI, this would have been a very different conversation 24 months ago.
 
Joe Lindhal  12:48
Yeah,I think it's a tough thing to get at times like, it's not you're like, you're it's not on a resume, it's not in chronological order of how my past experiences would be a perfect fit for this role, this opportunity in your company. For, I would say, like, entry level folks, they don't have that. They're an intern, maybe. But asking the questions around some more than interpersonal like, how have you been a chameleon? And then also asking, here you have the job description, I'm happy to walk you through it in more human terms, because sometimes these jobs because they already read like they've been written by robots at times. But how do you just say, "Hey, this is what I need. Give me an example from your perspective. How do you make this work? What would you do differently?" I even give them like test scenarios, saying, "This is the issues the opportunity with what when the landscape of tools or processing. What would you do?" It doesn't have to be perfect. You don't know like the disease per se, but I just want to give a general sense of how does your mind work? How does it adapt? And can take things that aren't necessarily crystallized, but absolutely can be flexible, and put them into work that advances whatever industry, or that's how like as an employer, that's what and from a talent perspective, that's what I look for, especially for folks that are coming into a small staff organization. We have titles, but the reality is, we're doing what's best for the patient and the care partners, and we want to find a cure. That's it. That's the North Star. So if it comes outside your job description, and if you're really good at zoom, or you're really good at implementing X, Y or Z, I think you'd be willing to do it, it, be it in research or advocacy or awareness, that's what we look for. Yeah,
 
Lowell Aplebaum  14:32
I doubt that if an association executive actually had a business card that was the title of everything they did that would fit on a business card. What you just shared, Joe, in terms of the idea that I love...the "how have you been a chameleon?" That the demonstration through application of how someone would say that they would deal with a situation and adapt, is really interesting. We all are really enmeshed in the association world, part of which the mission of many. Organizations is to support individuals on their professional journeys. Do you have any perspectives from a place of how we help the individuals that belong to our organizations get better at demonstration of this adaptability? How are organizations that are supposed to be your partners in supporting your professional success actually helping people learn how to be adaptable in the skill sets they need for the future.
 
Haley Jones  15:24
I honestly get an opportunity with a lot of the programs that we do. The majority of our members are small businesses. Many of them are jacks of all trades, and they're putting people to work. I say, I don't, Joe, I don't know if you ever said this too is, having worked at ASA, that the staffing industry, to me, always reminded me of the association industry, and that there's an association for everything. There's a staffing firm for literally any job that you can think about and what we do a lot of our programming, in some cases, it's to help strengthen their own internal workforce, but also to help them guide the candidates that they're placing, or the clients that are accepting the candidates and working with them, and different ways to hopefully either adapt to what they're about to hire or be higher into and succeed. But we have one member in particular who I always love hearing about them, their focus is skills first, and so they're taking these great skills that their employees or candidates have. And they're finding the best fit for them in the workplace. I think of one story where a person is actually someone who had special needs and he was not doing well at a job site. He was also non-verbal, so he couldn't necessarily express what he didn't like about the job. But they knew that he liked something down the street, because he was always going to a car watch, and was an amazement at these cars. So they thought, why don't we focus on what he likes and see if we can get him a job down there? He still works there, and he dries off the cars in a car wash, watches them go through. But he's succeeding in this role because it's something that fit him, and they focus on his skills and interests.
 
Lowell Aplebaum  17:03
First, I love that the people-center approach to that, that how do you balance the needs of an organization or a company, and what they think they need is a skill set by recognizing the strengths and interests and potential in the individuals that work for that company, and have that be something that can be, hopefully something in harmony. That's a really nice picture of what ideally a workforce could look like.
 
Lowell Aplebaum  17:27
We'd like to take a quick break from the conversation for a word from our episode sponsor, Visit Omaha.
 
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Lowell Aplebaum  18:26
I want to shift, if I can, a little bit, just to recognize that while there are sort of general workforce challenges out there, I'm curious, as we go into a D&I lens, what roles do you see the associations playing in the future of workforce development when it pertains to diversity and inclusion? Do you think there's a role for our professional organizations as we think about workforce development paths and have a lens towards minority communities or the need for a more diverse workforce?
 
Haley Jones  18:56
It's an unfortunate reality that we have to put it this way sometimes, but it's also effective. DEI affects your bottom line positively, if done correctly, and that's something that I work for my I'm the staff liaison to our IDEA group, which is inclusion, diversity and equity advocacy. And we are just promoting the business case to our members and to understand why these inclusive practices essentially help your bottom line, help your retention, with your employees or candidates, for that matter, but also just make it a better place and environment to work. But I think that one of the ways that we can play a role in this is just at least setting not a standard per se, but maybe a good example, I always hesitate to say best practices, and I try to say effective instead, but showing effective ways that you can incorporate dei into what your workforce and by helping them succeed, I just think that that's where associations can help and having things that they can model after. Even for other orgs who are modeling DELP-like programs for their respective organizations, that's where ASAE, I think, has played a huge role. We've all seen the success of the DELP program, and we're starting to see other organizations do something similar to try to have that same success for whatever that population is.
 
Joe Lindhal  20:17
I totally agree. I think there's a lot of different responsibilities associations and nonprofits have when they represent a whole industry or profession. You have so much access, in theory, to thought leaders staff that can help elevate communities that haven't been seen or heard from in a really meaningful way. There's systemic issues I think that associations can certainly play a role in. I also think that there's an opportunity and a responsibility for groups like ours to elevate, purposefully and intentionally provide invitations and access of almost a see it, and you can be it kind of situation like I think ASAE has done a pretty good job of that from a personal perspective. As an association management professional coming into the industry, I'm a member of the AANHPI group that we recently formed three years ago, and one of the first things I said of why I even want to be a part of this--shout out again to DELP because this is where this conversation starts--is my barrier has been, I have never seen anyone that looks like me be in a CEO position of a large association. One person I knew that was the name only, and now I think I can call him my mentor is Richard Yep, who was with the American Counseling Association. That was it. And for me, I think we have a responsibility to ask that question of, "Why aren't there more folks that are actually reflective of the country and the world that we live in places of influence?" Because we shouldn't be. And I do think there's a responsibility for associations to be reflective of their industry, and there are underrepresented people and communities that have the ability to be elevated, not because of tokenism, but because they're really good at their jobs, and they have to do it. And eventually you want to get to a place where it isn't a big deal, but it is. I notice every time, as an Asian American, is elevated to senior level position, or when there's a Fellow at ASAE, and I think it's really important that see it, you can be it, so it really supports the next generation, the workforce development, saying, that's cool. I never saw an Asian American male in this capacity, and that is an actual viable place for me, because I won't be the only one. I do think that there's a responsibility there for groups like ours, of why we exist as nonprofits and associations.
 
Lowell Aplebaum  22:45
How do you think associations can prepare themselves for these evolving workforce needs, thinking back to where we started, right like adaptability and what we need to demonstrate in the future for successful career journeys. How do associations prepare themselves to be able to address those workforce needs, while also, as you're saying, meaningfully maintaining a focus on minority communities, knowing that it creates a better whole community, a better industry, a better bottom line. Haley, as you said, right, all the benefits of doing so. Any thoughts or examples you've seen about how associations prepare themselves or take action on that?
 
Haley Jones  23:21
I think you have to be prepared and also forward thinking. I was on a program, I guess, last month, and we were talking about the legislation against DEI or the threats that are coming out, one of which is from the other VP candidate, and they're trying to flip the acronym on its head and make it negative. And someone said, we have to be ready. I challenge you all to be ready for this and prepared for something like this so it doesn't throw you off when it comes because what you see now are people not necessarily walking back their initiatives, but they're changing names of it, so that they're not under, kind of falling under this category. But I think it's just being able to really have some foresight and being ready for it, but also leaning in and not walking it back the way that people seem to have started doing right now.
 
Joe Lindhal  24:16
I don't have terribly much to add.  I think preparing the the wants and the need to the workforce, while keeping a focus on underrepresented or minority communities is one in the same. I just feel like what we here to see from folks that are coming up is they want to have that type of education. They want to have these discussions. This idea of bringing a whole self to work is valuable, and so how do we as employers or supervisors or whatnot, prepare ourselves for that? How are we going to react to that? What level of conversation, what level of resources do we want to put around this? That's what I think is really an interesting conversation, because I think the conversations you might have with your managers, your directors, your admins, your coordinators, probably sound different than the CEOs. And how do we get to a closer alignment and transparency around what is valuable when we prepare the workforce for the DEIA-type of discussions and what's the expectation of the employee from the employer? Is it an email celebrating a AANHPI Heritage Month and then nothing happens? I don't know. And how are these questions being asked earnestly and honestly? So I see this as one of the key needs for workforce development and consideration moving forward.
 
Lowell Aplebaum  25:41
I know we talked about a number of questions beforehand, but both of your responses makes me want to ask one  last one, which is not on the list, which is...I'd love to hear if you have any thoughts about the implications and needs of culture within an organization as we think about minority community involvement, commitments, implicit or explicit, to diversity, inclusion, or in general, a shifting workforce trends like, what are the those cultural pieces internally that are going to lead to better organizational success in workforce development. As I heard in elements of both of what you said, not just process, but culture. Do you have any reflections on sort of insights of cultural commitment or direction organizations need to embrace to see more workforce development success. I'd love to hear any of those cultural reflections.
 
Haley Jones  26:30
I think for me, it mean that just not tiptoeing around it. DEI is not a bad thing, and I think sometimes people get uncomfortable with it. And it's not always meant to be comfortable conversations when you're talking about certain things, especially for us as minorities, who see things through a different lens, experience things completely different than others do. Because sometimes people do just look at us differently because of the color of our skin or because someone who might have a disability or whatever it is. But I think that just having open discussions about it, having awareness around certain things, giving time and space for people to be able to celebrate certain things. In our office, we either have a monthly activity, or we have training, or we have some kind of celebration around food, because that brings people in the doo. But a lot of it is usually ways to just teach people about things they might not know. You know, in February we did a  we called it Bagels and Black History Month. But our the whole kitchen was filled with fun facts about black history that some you would think people knew. And there are others, like one of them, which was a hot topic, was about Reading Rainbow, the theme song being sung by Chaka Khan. A lot of people didn't know that. I can't tell by your face if you know what I can, but it was such it was a fun fact that it was something that everyone was talking about for a week, but it was a space for people to learn things about my culture, and we've done it for a couple of other celebration and awareness months as well. But I think having space for people to do that makes a big change, and also, I would hope, even with some of the trainings, just helps people maybe take a beat before they say something that might be deemed offensive, or it might change their perspective moving forward. Yeah,
 
Joe Lindhal  28:24
I think that the culture is...we always I think we all ask that question if we're interviewing or doing the interview. It's a hard one to answer and when and someone asked me that I was I say to me, culture is walk into a room and you basically already know what the expectations are of you and the people in the room, what are you committed to? And so I think culture can be viewed a lot of different ways from different lenses, and that's part of it is being okay with people will experience and perceive things differently based on their own perspectives, but we're all pushing towards this one goal. Here's what's acceptable, here is what's not. But I think it has to be the culture of acceptance and learning and being willing to say, "Hey, I don't know." I think it's a good idea to ask employers and employees of what their expectations are around some of these things, because they like Haley said, they can be hot buttony, but they don't have to be like, I'm just like, I just want you to bring your whole self. And if I don't know something or like, I'm of the age where pronouns are still new to me, but I will ask now, like, I've learned a lot as a older-ish millennial, at this point, I want to learn except the whole person, and I think there's strengths in that
 
Lowell Aplebaum  29:41
time goes by very quickly, and I have at least 20 more questions I wanted to ask, but we'll wrap up our time with this last one, which is, just as you think about the range of our conversation today and the intersects of adaptability and AI into really building a stronger workforce, towards embracing that priority of diversity, inclusion, and how that can help strengthen workforce and providing those opportunities and aligning culture the borrowings we've gone through. For those who are listening in, if you were to share with them a closing thought, a one-piece-of-advice or one takeaway that you're walking away with, what would be the one piece that you would hope people would remember from this or start from our conversation today. And I had Haley introduce herself first. So Joe, I'm gonna go to you first for a conclusion.
 
Joe Lindhal  30:28
Advice usually comes from a wise person, and I'm trying to think how wise I am. It's just my perspective, but I guess my one piece of advice is wherever you want to work, and when you think about workforce development, just think about the whole person. You don't spend any more time with a group of people or in a place than you do at work. I don't spend as much time my wife, my kids. This is it. This is where you spend a bulk of your time. So you can be professional. You can obviously not bring your full 1,000% authentic self. I don't think we do that other than maybe in front of a mirror every once in a while, but understand that like they're bringing a wide range of background and experiences to the table, and be ready to embrace that. I think it's positive.
 
Lowell Aplebaum  31:15
Haley?
 
Haley Jones  31:15
So I'm also going to offer advice, and this comes from the lens of...I was a college basketball coach, so I tend to operate with my team the way I would operate with my players, especially in terms of development. So I would say just as far as development of your employees, it's finding out what motivates them; finding out what interests they have and maybe where they see themselves going in their career. But not necessarily long term, but at least in the next few years. I've done that every year I ask why--one person on my team has actually been with me for over a year--and every year since I've become her supervisor, I say, tell me what you want to work on this year. Tell me where you want to go, where you see yourself going, as far as your career, because she's decided she really likes associations. She finally started referring to herself as a component relations professional. And so I said, "Tell me what things you want to work on so that I can help you get there. Because in my eyes, I'm developing you either for a promotion where we're currently at or for whatever your next role is, whether it's at our association or not." And I enjoy coaching people, and so that's the approach that I take, but it's really finding out what gets them going so that you can encourage that and cultivate it moving forward.
 
Lowell Aplebaum  31:23
I love that. We can't thank you enough, both of you, for your time today, for being willing to bring your wisdom and your insights and your experience you've all benefited from it, and really good thoughts on the workforce ahead and how we need to be chameleons for success in there, in the skills that we develop and bring forward. Thanks to everyone for listening to this episode of Associations NOW Presents. We hope you'll join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals, discussing the challenges and opportunities in the field today and highlighting the significant impact that associations have on the economy the US and the world. Again, we'd like to thank our sponsor Visit Omaha. For more information about them, you can check out visit omaha.com/meetings. We hope that you subscribe to our podcast on Apple Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. For more information on workforce development in the association space, visit Associations NOW online at associationsnow.com We hope you'll join us next month, where we'll have part two of our discussion on workforce development. We hope to see you there. Thanks so much for tuning in.
Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings. 

Sustainability in Action: A Holistic Approach to Events

In our inaugural episode, recorded live at the ASAE Annual Meeting and Exposition in Cleveland, we hand over the hosting duties to Kiki L'Italien, host of Association Chat. Kiki engages in a lively discussion with Virginie De Visscher, executive director of business events for Destination Canada, on the crucial topic of sustainability in events. Together, they explore how sustainability spans environmental, sociocultural, and economic dimensions, advocating for a holistic approach. Virginie provides inspiring examples from Canada, including innovations like green roofs, urban beehives, and local food initiatives, underscoring the importance of incorporating cultural elements to enhance event experiences.
This episode is sponsored by Destination Canada. 
Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings. 
 
Transcript
Michelle Mason  00:04From ASAE, this is Associations NOW Presents, a podcast for association professionals tackling issues and challenges that affect our community. I'm Michelle Mason, CEO of ASAE. We hope you enjoythis episode. Now, let's tune in and hear what the experts are discussing.
Kiki L'Italien  00:22All right, we are live. Do you hear this background noise? We are live at ASAE annual, at the Super Bowl of meetings in Cleveland, Ohio. I am Kiki L'Italien, and I am guest hosting the inaugural podcast episode of ASAE's new podcast. I usually host a podcast over Association Chat. I got a chance to jump over here. And with me is our inaugural podcast guest
Virginie De Visscher  00:53Virginie De Visscher.
Kiki L'Italien  00:54I wish you could say that as well as you do. With the last name, L'Italien, and you think I'd be better at this. But anyway, I'm so glad that we're here. I'm so glad that we're talking and I saw you on stage today, and can I just say you were fantastic. It looked like you were like born to do this. You just dominated the stage. You were radiant. 
Virginie De Visscher  01:17I think I was inspired by who we were introducing, Amanda Gorman.
Kiki L'Italien  01:21I know. Weren’t we all? Amanda Gorman is not just inspirational. I do believe she's a magical being. I You though, let me tell you, you had an important message, and Team Canada has an important message. That's why you're here. Let's talk about the keyword sustainability, sustainability. We could say it together, sustainability. So I'm super excited to talk to you because for several reasons. One is because I love Canada, but the other is because this is the inaugural episode, inaugural episode of the first ASAE podcast, and they're launching it here. This is supposed to be somewhat of a different format than all of the rest. We get to be the lucky ones. And I'm looking at this list of questions, but all I can do is stare across at you right now and see that you're beaming. You're radiating. I saw you on stage this morning with Amanda Gorman also sharing the stage opening keynote. And you're up there and you're talking about sustainability and being maybe when people hear the word sustainability, they don't think of it as being particularly exciting. But at the same time, a lot of travel here was disrupted because of harsh climate conditions, right? We had these horrible storms. People had a hard time getting to ASAE Annual. Interesting that one of the big features that you're talking about for Canada is Destination Canada is doing some amazing things with sustainability. So I want to go into that. I want to open with that and talk about the fact that it is a really important topic. It is something that I think more and more event planners are finding to be increasingly important for the way that they decide where they're going to post their meetings. And I think that when people start looking for is there something meaningful behind the word sustainability that's happening? They're going to ask these questions. So sustainability, what's happening? Why is this such a focus for you and Destination  Canada? And what's got you fired up about it right now?
Virginie De Visscher  03:36I think it's a combination of things. It's a passion subject. First of all, it's a personal passion subject, but I think it's undeniable. Like you mentioned, the recent climate events that impacted Cleveland, like these are impacting all of us across the planet. In Canada, we're not immune, and things are happening and we see it. We have a beautiful country, and we want to make sure that it stays that way. So events are disruptive in an ecosystem. By just bringing large amount of species into another ecosystem, you're disrupting the environment. So what can you do to keep less of that disruption, and on the opposite side, how do you maximize the benefits that you bring into a destination with events? Sustainability is a topic that we've really taken on this Destination Canada, but as Team Canada is a whole effort countrywide through a national sustainability plan that really means a lot to us, because we want to still be there for generations coming ahead. And I'm not saying that cliche. I really mean it.
Kiki L'Italien  04:32Yeah, I was talking with someone about the fact that we were going to have this discussion, and her association is focused on looking at how meetings use their waste. And so she said, “Are you going to ask any questions about that? Are you going to ask, like, what they're doing, how they're working with different meeting planners to figure out how to create more sustainable meetings?” And I said, that's a really great question. Let me go ahead and add that to the list. What are some of the ways that you're working with different people, different associations and organizations that are coming in to have meetings in Canada. 
Virginie De Visscher  05:04There's lots of different ways how you can approach it, but first, maybe we should define sustainability. Let's do that. Let's define it. When you say the word sustainability, there's a big assumption that it's just about environmental. Yes, but it's not just that. It's not all the green stuff and what you do in regards to saving the planet, it's all about the people and the culture as well. So when we define sustainability, we want to make sure that all three pillars are encompassed into it. So of course, environmental sustainability, but then it's the sociocultural and economic side. So you want to have an impact on local economies when you're coming to meet somewhere, but also that cultures are thriving and people are healthy and people are there for the long term. So when we really see it as all encompassing and not just environmental, that was the first thing to do. But then the realization was, everybody is a part of it. It just it's not put the blame on someone, or don't think you can't do anything about it. It belongs to everybody. We all live on this planet. We all have people that we care about around us for future generations to come. So what can we do? And that was when we started our national business event sustainability plan. And keep in mind, we're a national organization, so we're not necessarily in the city level, but it's very important that we create that leadership for people to move forward and our organizations to be more sustainable. I think COVID really impacted that way too, when meetings were all of a sudden not happening. Sure the environmental footprint was - -well, the environment benefited, right? Nobody was moving anywhere, traveling. But look at all the negative impact that happened. So many businesses shut down. People were not thriving. Knowledge was not being shared, so all these positive impacts and legacies of events were not happening, so it's all about maximizing the benefits and minimizing the negative potential environmental footprint. So then the birth of the plan was to get all destinations on board to be more sustainable for meetings.
Kiki L'Italien  06:57Do you think that you're getting enough questions about this? Do you notice that there is an increasing amount of interest? I hear talk about it, right? I hear people say that they're interested, but I don't know if, in actuality, that the conversations have changed, have they? 
Virginie De Visscher  07:14There's  more questions. It's undeniable. We've done a lot of surveys on this, and it's quite visible that right now, it is supplier driven. There's a lot of barriers still to having more sustainable meetings. Cost is one of those biggest barriers, and the second one is lack of knowledge of what you can implement. And so on the supplier side, they've really taken that on venues and hotels, even airlines, to be honest, have taken a stance and been more sustainable, offering more options, whether it's waste diversion or the way energy or electricity is fed into the building, or food and beverage options. So all of that venues and destinations have really taken a stance on how they can make that easier for associations to meet and incorporate them. So while we're not seeing as much coming from the association world and asking for sustainable practices. More and more the responses from the destinations that are bidding on these opportunities are including sustainable practices.
Kiki L'Italien  08:10Yeah, I think everybody, when I'm looking at associations, the executive directors reporting to their boards, do we want more and more to be able to include this thing that makes everyone feel like they're doing their part. They're doing the thing that's going to make the planet better. I hate to sound a little bit cynical, but actually, from a bottom line standpoint, I think it actually ultimately is better for everybody, even from the bottom, not a standpoint, to be thinking about that bigger picture. Because if we don't have a planet, we can't have more meetings. You know, we can't continue to have associations. And so the other part that you touched on was sustainability, talking about these pillars, talking about being concerned about the cultural side of things. How is Destination Canada showing support and offering up opportunity means to support those measures?
Virginie De Visscher  08:59So that's a really fun one, seeing that we have so many diverse communities in Canada. We're a mosaic of people that have come from all over the world, but also coming into a land where indigenous peoples were here from time immemorial. And so how do we showcase all of what Canada is made out of, and through sustaining those cultures for multiple generations to come, and so integrating them into programs for meetings is one way to do it. So I'll give you an example. For Canada night at ASAE, we're actually going to have a fashion show, and what we're doing is we're featuring an indigenous designer. So we’ve brought a Metis company called AnneMulaire, and she's an extremely environmentally and socially conscious organization and company, and she's actually going to be doing a fashion show with the pieces that she's created, telling that story. 
Kiki L'Italien  09:53Stop. I am so interested. I want to be there and see this. This is amazing. I love this. 
Virginie De Visscher  10:00So one way is we're keeping the culture alive. She can share her story through fashion, but at the same time, we're economically sustaining her business. That's one way that we're actually walking the talks. It's not just about environmental that cultural and economic aspect is so strong in all that we do.
Kiki L'Italien  10:16So does that get frustrating when people only focus on that because it is important. But it does seem to be that everyone focuses on that one part and not all of these other things. 
Virginie De Visscher  10:26I wouldn't call it frustrating. I would say focus on the low hanging fruits first, and perhaps the environmental side is just the lower hanging fruit. It's easier to do the cultural side. You have to think it through a little bit harder and getting the help of the local host destination and what cultures they want to showcase are bringing local art. We've had workshops doing local moccasins and to bring that culture alive.
Kiki L'Italien  10:49Oh, that's so fantastic. Okay, so sustainability has been a major theme for you at this year's ASAE meeting. What has motivated team Canada? 
Virginie De Visscher  11:00So in 2022 when we launched the National Business Event Sustainability Plan, it was comprised of three sections. So the first part was education and coaching. So what we realized is that when people are uncomfortable or don't know the terms around sustainability, they will be less likely to talk about it. So phase one was really, what does net zero mean? What does carbon neutral mean? All these terms. So we rolled out workshops and education sessions across the country, just so many different partners. Phase two was knowing where we were at. It was benchmarking. So we partner with the Global Destination Sustainability Index, the GDS, and we had 16 destinations across the entire country. We're very big. We're second largest landmass in the world. So we had 16 destinations go through that entire benchmarking process to see where are we at? Where can we improve? If you don't know where you stand, you can't go up, right? So that's what we did. And phase three is storytelling, and we're right in the midst of that. So through this whole benchmarking exercise, we collected stories, initiatives around sustainability across the country, across these three pillars, and we are launching today our storybook. So Sustainability Storybook, which has 30 stories from across the country, which are examples of what you can bring in, like a virtual delegate bag, or the indigenous Fashion Show. There's also stories about incentives into sustainability or different ways to impact the communities that you're living in or having your meeting in. And that storybook has been launched, and we also have a sustainability stories pavilion that showcases eight of these stories here live at ASAE. It's just perfect timing of where we wanted to launch these initiatives.
Kiki L'Italien  12:41So earlier, you said that this was something that was personally important to you. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Why is sustainability particularly important to you? 
Virginie De VisscherYou mean me as a person? 
Kiki L'ItalienYeah, you as a human being, an actual individual.
Virginie De Visscher  12:56My background is in science and engineering, and I've always been close to the environment itself. I've traveled around the world, lived in Africa for many years, in Asia, and I've seen the impacts of the environment, but also on people around the world and what we can do and the changes over time. And I guess it's almost become a personal passion of mine that I have to do something I believe, very honestly, in whatever field you end up being, if it's medical or signage or entertainment or even tourism, you can do something about it. And so I'm in the tourism industry, I can do something about it. So I'm using that voice and that passion has to feel really good.
Kiki L'Italien  13:37When you go home at night and you're winding down, you have to feel like, wow, I feel like I'm actively making a difference. 
Virginie De Visscher  13:46I wish. But it's a journey, and there's so much more to do. So I think I will continue to be on that path. I don't think we have an end point on that one.
Kiki L'Italien  13:55Okay, we're on the journey together. So part of that journey is people are coming into the pavilion. They're experiencing that here. What's the next step that you hope that they leave that pavilion? What do you hope that they experience and walk away with from interacting with Team Canada?
Virginie De Visscher  14:11The way the pavilion is designed is that for every story, there's a question, and it's a question that hopefully asks for reflection. So it's: Have you thought about incorporating a cultural element in your meeting? Have you thought about doing this or that? And so what we hope is that booth--by the way, is staffed by a member of Team Canada--all throughout which will be sharing those stories. So it's a way to get people engaged, and maybe if one of them, or every person that visits, goes away with one idea that they can bring back to their meetings, whether it's a local pop up market in the destination that they will be needing to support different businesses that are local, that would be just so amazing. So that's what we really hope to spur and whether they need in Canada or not. Of course, we. Want them to meet in Canada, but it's can we impact that change in all of their meetings. 
Kiki L'Italien  15:04When an association is actually going about trying to implement sustainability practices or bring that on? I think you touched on this a little bit earlier. What are the challenges that they're facing? Are they trying to bite off more than they pinch What do you hear that they're running into when they're starting to go down that path?
Virginie De Visscher  15:24There's a variety of reasons, and it's not always the same for everyone, but here are some of the ones that I've heard quite a bit. So one is--and in no particular order--it can be an afterthought. So you know, the whole machine into sourcing next meetings is into place. RFPs out. So we're ready to look and then few months before the meeting, oh, wait a second, did we look at sustainability? Oh, that thing, yeah. So it's much harder to then put back into the meeting once you've gone so far adding it into the RFP and then your sourcing process is one way to go about it. The other challenge that we get is there's no one person to point it to, right? It's only starting now that you're going to have an organization's a sustainability person, so usually it ends up being on the side of the desk of someone for another task to ask to the meeting planner. And it becomes big, right? So if it's not the part of the mission or vision of the organization, it becomes secondary, so putting it as a priority and having a person really dedicated to it can help, and that takes time to create another one. Is definitely the cost. I mentioned cost before, but by sourcing more sustainable venues and sustainable destinations, sometimes that can be avoided because they're already incorporated in the destination. So there's ways to get around it. We're the sustainability sponsor for this event, so that sustainability stations that are around all the food stations, we support that because we believe in that.
Kiki L'Italien  16:50I have my bottle of water over here, the reusable bottle of water that I have so that I can refill it periodically. And I do believe that I was reminded ahead of time to bring that with me, yes, so that I could fill my bottle with the water around here, so that we wouldn't produce more waste. Is that you're doing? 
Virginie De Visscher  17:10Absolutely, we're supporting that. And since you can bring your reusable water bottle to the sustainability stories pavilion and get a free entry for a free registration for next year's meeting,
Kiki L'Italien  17:20Oh my gosh, I think I missed that part somehow. I think I missed it, but that's really amazing. And I would be so curious to see. I have seen a lot of these reusable water bottles going around. So pretty incredible. And what do you think as far as trying to get leaders to take ownership of their role in bringing that awareness into their strategy for their meetings, to think about sustainability, so it isn't an afterthought. I know that pavilion is part of that, but is there a way? Is there some sort of magic that you're weaving that it can get them to think about this stuff? 
Virginie De Visscher  17:56It's one person at a time. It really is. You get one person inspired and saying, “Yeah, I can do that.” I can bring that in. But I really hope, and maybe that's me, personally, speaking, the way I really hope to change the organization, world, association world, is understanding that no matter what field your association is focused on, sustainability is part of it, if you look at it, all encompassing. So yes, maybe you're in a medical field, and saving the environment is definitely not on your radar, but you're all about people. And so there is something that you can do to save people, and if you see it overall, as a company within sustainability, that makes sense. On our Sustainability Pavilion, we've actually aligned all the sustainability initiatives with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. So when you look at the 17 UNSDGs, everybody can relate to those. It's a universal framework and blueprint. So by doing that, we can put in a language that anybody can take regardless of what field they're in.
Kiki L'Italien  18:52I love that. I love that. And I feel like when people see the structure behind it and that alignment, it makes them feel safer to maybe do things that they'd haven't done before, right?
Virginie De Visscher  19:02It's all about starting. You know, it's one little step at a time. Don't try to chew off the entire thing at once, because that's really hard. Yeah, it's just one small step.
Kiki L'Italien  19:09Okay, so I'm going to ask you the hardest question ever, which is, because I know, get ready. You have so many beautiful destinations, so many beautiful cities. I'm not going to ask you to play favorites among your children, but I am going to ask you for some examples. Do you have some examples you could share with me about some of the fantastic offerings that really emphasize the sustainability efforts that Team Canada is putting forth? 
Virginie De Visscher  19:36Oh my goodness, there's so many of them. And so if I start listing them, I'm sure I will forget some and then I'm gonna have some unhappy partners.
Kiki L'Italien  19:42Let me just disclaimer ahead of time, she loves all of you. Like, you're all loved - all the destinations.
Virginie De Visscher  19:49I do, but there's some really fun examples out there, right? So if you look at first at venues and what some venues have done, anything from green roofs to beehives on the roofs. I'd be remiss. The Vancouver Convention Center is absolutely amazing with some of the energy. 
Kiki L'Italien  20:04I’ve been there. I was like, I actually had that experience and toured that and this was even, this is not a brand new thing, you guys. This is something that, I don't know, maybe it was 10 to eight years ago I went there, and that was a huge effort. So Team Canada's not new to this game. You guys have been trying to do this for a long time. 
Virginie De Visscher  20:24Yeah, for sure. So from the green roof fair to beehives in Toronto, to solar panels on the top of the convention center in Edmonton, to the recycling and sorting facilities at the panada conga in Montreal. There's so many amazing things, including the new BMO center in Calgary. They had a really fun initiative just recently when they did their opening. So they had listen to this one. This is really cute story. They had name badges that were made out of seed paper. And then they had a whole activity where they had a planter box where we could each plant our name tag, and so now our name tag would live as flowers forever on inside those planters.
Kiki L'Italien  21:04What I love about that is that we've seen like the sort of seed tags, but to actually have the ritual, the actual experience of doing that.
Virginie De VisscherVery moving.
Kiki L'ItalienIt's moving. It's community building. Every time you're looking at what helps people to feel like they belong, whether it's to a meeting, to a community of association executives. It's like you're looking for that piece, and that is something that brings people to that. I love that. That's such a good example.
Virginie De Visscher  21:30It's a beautiful example, but you have more and more. I was not so long ago at the Halifax Convention Center, and they had their food stations, and they had a sign in front explaining where the food was coming from. This food came from this particular farmer, and showed, really that locality of supporting local businesses into their food. So it was not only fresh, but it didn't have to travel miles to get there. Just more and more you're seeing those examples across the country, and that makes it super vibrant, and that's only touching the environmental side.
Kiki L'Italien  21:59So in some of these examples that you're giving me, people can go to the pavilion and they can, like, learn more about that sort of thing, and get those ideas, and get those stories as they're thinking, maybe considering, maybe exploring what's even possible. Because just as you were sitting here explaining some of these to me, I thought, I wish I could have just a compilation of everything that you're saying to you, like all of the examples, so that could go through and just be like, this is brilliant. Let's do this.
Virginie De Visscher  22:29So at the Pavilion, we can only showcase eight stories that are there, but in the storybook, you're going to have 30 stories. And again, that's still just scratching the surface. So when you reach out to us and even to all of our team Canada, partners, each of them can really share what they have like in depth, because everybody wants a different side of sustainability. Maybe you're not into the food part of it so much, but the cultural side's super important. So it really is a discussion with the organization about what's important to them. 
Kiki L'Italien  22:57Yeah, I think that sustainability is the key word here, but it's also about experience, and it's also about the feeling of belonging, of having a meaningful experience. When you're engaging with an event or a meeting and you're looking for something that is real.
Virginie De Visscher  23:14It's about being inspired. For example, at one of our events recently, instead of printing menus, we use little chalkboards. And so we just put the menu on the chalkboard, and then when we were done, we erased it, and then the next day there was the other menu. So there's just a little tidbit on how you just save a lot of paper. And people thought it was really cute. 
Kiki L'ItalienI love that. I think it's fantastic.
Virginie De VisscherLittle ideas like that. And what happened is a lot of the clients that were that event were like, oh, like you. I love that. I'm going to bring that back to my event. And so that's how the ideas spread.
Kiki L'Italien  23:45I don't know if this is in the pavilion, but maybe taking ideas too like it inspires you to have ideas. You build on them, and it's, Oh, I like that. And then building on that. Let me think of this. Is there a collective area? It's an idea. 
Virginie De Visscher  23:58Absolutely. Yeah, sources of best practices and things to bring forward.
Kiki L'Italien  24:02I love it. I love it. Is there anything that I didn't ask you to that I should? 
Virginie De Visscher  24:07One thing  I want to mention is the word sustainability itself. It's almost like an over loved term, right? Overused. And what happens with overused and over loved terms is that it gets people away from them. Oh, again, another talk about sustainability. But when you look, when you think about it, sustainability is sustaining something. It's maintaining status quo. And so is that really what we want? And so our thinking now, what's next for us is looking towards regenerative tourism. How can we actually do better, rather than staying where we're at? 
Kiki L'Italien  24:41Ooh, so I'm very intrigued. I like, I love this idea of building on it, and like growing and it's like generating these new ideas. I think that's fantastic. I love that.
Virginie De Visscher  24:54A 2030, Destination Canada strategy is aiming towards that, and maybe we'll have another chat in a little while. 
Kiki L'Italien  25:01I would love to have another chat about that. I like this idea of like the Oh, I'm getting inspired already. I love it. I love it. Okay. I am excited that we got a chance to be able to do this. We are so lucky. High five. You guys are hearing this clap, I hope in the background, because we just high fived for real, in person. It's unbelievable. The magic was here. ASAE Annual. Doing this inaugural episode of ASAE Podcast. I'm so glad we got to do this together.
Virginie De Visscher  25:32Thank you so much.
Michelle Mason  25:36Thank you for joining us for this episode of Associations NOW Presents. We hope the insights and stories shared today were valuable and inspiring. We look forward to having you join us again for our next episode, but until then, be sure to check out the latest from Associations NOW at associationsnow.com. Don't forget to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast so you never miss an episode. Until the next time, I am Michelle Mason, and this has been Associations NOW presents.

Associations NOW Presents Trailer

The American Society of Association Executives presents the all-new Associations NOW Presents – an original podcast series featuring prominent podcast hosts from within the association community, engaging in candid and in-depth conversations with industry experts. Each episode explores key topics relevant to association professionals, discussing the challenges and opportunities in the field today, and highlighting the significant impact associations have on the economy, the U.S., and the world. The podcast complements the existing Associations NOW publication, providing a well-rounded resource for association professionals. 
Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.