Conference badges can give a lot of information: name, title, social handles. But one element that tends to be missing is an attendee’s preferred pronouns.
At ACES: The Society for Editing’s 2019 Conference, attendees could add preferred pronoun stickers to their name badges.
While the sticker is useful to attendees, it also highlights a discussion point among copy editors—when The Associated Press Stylebook began allowing the singular “they” in some cases back in 2017, it was big news for ACES’ members.
And though it might seem redundant for cisgender attendees, using pronoun stickers (or, if you prefer, pronoun ribbons) can usher in a new, more inclusive meeting standard.
Many associations work according to a product-line model, where, in addition to membership, they create and sell various resources and products. Garth Jordan writes on Association Success that the business world’s shift to diversification and ease of use has challenged the core work at many nonprofits.
“The result of diversification has been a plethora of product lines that are difficult to navigate, buy, access, and use for the average member,” he says. “And instead of being organized around holistically solving the challenges of our members, we are more likely to structure our associations around creating more and more products, of which many have such meager consumption we should be questioning their existence.”
Jordan suggests stepping back and evaluating your association’s structure. Is it purposefully designed to care for members in a contemporary way? If not, it might be time for a new process.
Please select this link to read the original article from Associations Now.