ISSA Board Meeting

This afternoon the ISSA had its third board meeting with the new board, and I'm all the more optimistic about this board as ever. The goals for today's meeting were to reflect on the events we've done so far as a new board and brainstorm what we'd like to see happen next year. Going in, I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to communicate my vision for the organization, but thankfully, both the board and I are very passionate about what we see in the future for Information Science and the ISSA.

I didn't expect the meeting to go more than an hour, but after two hours, we still hadn't gotten through everything. I was extremely gratified to see that my board had put so much thought into it beforehand, and that we could really work as a team to come up with ideas together. I'm really excited for what next year holds for us.

So as far as my part goes, the next step will be to appropriately delegate tasks to people, and keep up with them to make sure that everything goes well. A lot of the things that I'll personally be working on are more qualitative and long-term, like collaborating for IS programs at other schools and with the ACSU, so I'll have to continue working with that. One of the greatest parts of being the leader of an organization is that I can take the long-term projects that I love, and still have the day-to-day stuff get done through delegation and management.

Another little thing I discovered today was how far a little demonstration of appreciation can go. Since we had a general meeting yesterday, an event the week before, etc, I felt like I might be fatiguing my officers with the constant work. So I decided that I would do a little something special, and pick up some cookies and candy for the meeting. I was pretty surprised by the reaction I got. People were really thankful and, I think, realized that I do in fact appreciate all the work that they do. So that'll probably become a fixture in my board meetings. I'll just have to work on coming up with some new dessert ideas to keep it from getting old.