Yesterday, I returned from a week away in Chicago and Dallas. It's been pretty quiet here during that time, I realize, but it was a very busy (and occasionally difficult) trip. So, there are several posts I intend to write before I leave for Australia next week, and I wanted to be sure to get this one up right away. During my session on "ungovernance" on Tuesday at ASAE & The Center's Annual Meeting, I posted a tag cloud of an article on the Carver policy governance model for non-profit organizations. The purpose of showing the tag cloud was to make a point about the language used in the article, which I regard as pretty typical of legacy governance approaches, because it is missing certain key concepts that I believe are essential to innovating the way associations engage in the work of stewardship.

After the session ended, Jason Della Rocca, one of the attendees, told me that he had been expecting me to post a tag cloud of my "ungovernance" article" from this month's Associations Now so the audience could compare the two visuals. Truthfully, it did not occur to me to produce such a slide at the time, but I thought Jason was absolutely right to suggest it, so I have created the above side-by-side tag cloud image for your viewing pleasure. You can enlarge it simply by clicking on it. (BTW, you can create tag cloud visuals of this type using the site, Many Eyes, which is made available through IBM.)

While not every word I used in my Tuesday session appears in the tag cloud, I'm extremely comfortable with the clear differences in language between the Carver model article and what I write about ungovernance. Based on the reaction to the session from many different people (more on that in a forthcomng post), I would say that "ungovernance" is a potentially revolutionary idea for the association community, but one that should move forward at a more evolutionary pace so that many different perspectives can be included in the dialogue around it.

If you would like to participate in that dialogue, please visit this site to request an invitation to a new Ning network I will be launching next month. We have a great opportunity to change the future direction of the association community by linking the imperative of business model innovation with badly-needed governance innovation. I invite you to be a part of an emerging organic process that offers the promise of solutions that are both imaginative and compelling. Welcome to what's next!