<VV> Director`s Comments in Communique

[Dave Keillor]

Kent is 1,000% correct.  Corsa has to reinvent itself and eat its own
children.  I mean it needs to start with a clean sheet of paper and
build a whole new organization regardless of current membership or past
heritage.  Corsa is on a going-out-of-business track and
business-as-usual or incremental change won't work.  It might take a
couple of years, but in five years, Corsa won't exist if revolutionary
action isn't taken.

I saw a similar situation play out at IBM in the 80s and early 90s when
I was in a competitive analysis and strategy position.  IBM's biggest
revenue generator was mainframe hardware, but it was clear to many
people that mainframes were a dying breed.  This included virtually all
the executives that I interacted with.  The problem was that no one was
willing to be the one who killed the sacred mainframe cow.  It wasn't
until IBM was almost out of money -- and therefore close to Chapter 11
-- that the BOD woke up and ousted the then-CEO Akers and brought in
Gerstner and York to save the sinking ship.  To say that the new team
made major changes is an understatement.  Not everyone agreed with some
or all of those changes, but the company is thriving today.

I can't say that Corsa is thriving, but I can say that major changes are
needed to save it.  Not everyone will like some or all of those changes,
and membership will likely take a major hit, but the result of doing
nothing will be extinction.  Corsa has 4-5,000 members; what percentage
is this of total Corvair owners?

Dave Keillor
 

-----Original Message-----
From: virtualvairs-bounces at corvair.org
[mailto:virtualvairs-bounces at corvair.org] On Behalf Of Kent Sullivan
Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2009 11:57 AM
To: 'VV'
Subject: Re: <VV> Director`s Comments in Communique

Let me start by saying that I am a friend of Jackson. He restored his
'65
Corsa coupe in my shop. So of course my comments are going to be
somewhat
biased--unavoidable.

Jackson and I did not talk about his column before he wrote it but I
have to
say that I agree with a lot of what he wrote. CORSA is in serious
trouble,
folks, and there is no magic way to right this ship. Membership is
declining
overall, and it's unclear how to reverse this trend. We have to have a
plan
that deals with this very likely reality.

Jackson's language may be a bit tart, but I certainly prefer it to
another
round of "well, things aren't that bad--we only need people to get out
there
and recruit a few new members". Articles like that are not telling the
real
truth about what's happening and do a disservice to the CORSA
membership.

The hardest thing for an organization to do is to have the courage and
the
foresight to reinvent itself before the landscape changes so much that
it
has become irrelevant. That's what I see is happening to CORSA. The
"business model" is one that has been around for 100 years or more for a
non-profit club--but I believe it's clear that this model is going by
the
wayside, and fast. We can either choose to take the risk of changing
before
it's too late or essentially do nothing, and accept the risk that the
organization will continue to lose members until it can't survive.

So, specifically--I think CORSA has to take a hard look at the wisdom of
a
yearly rotating national convention. I don't think events like this make
sense in a world where gasoline is $4 a gallon (which will be back--we
are
just having a temporary reprieve) and where there are far more efficient
ways of having smaller, regional get-togethers that use the power of the
new
networking tools to connect people. A yearly face-to-face convention
made
the most sense when the ways of people staying in touch when they
weren't
face-to-face were primitive. That's not the case any longer and the
sophistication of social networking tools is increasing. And, an
additional
factor is the spread-out-ness of clubs in the Western Division. The
clubs
are overall smaller and are very far apart compared to the Eastern
Division.
Just getting a club to take on the task of holding a national convention
in
the West is a challenge now--we almost didn't get a bid for 2011. Denver
took it on, and I don't consider them a Western club geographically.
They
are certainly in the Western Division so their bid is valid. I just mean
that the fact that they are doing the convention is illuminating--no
clubs
west of the Rockies submitted a bid, from what I can tell.

Jackson and I both work in the tech industry and we are all too familiar
with how rapidly-changing demographics are affecting what people expect
an
organization to be. Mike says "lead, follow, or get out of the way" and
I
see Jackson trying to lead. It might just be that the direction he is
proposing is one that is pretty radical and therefore shocking to some
or
many current members. I can tell you that it's not at all shocking to
people
under the age of 30; in fact, it's becoming the expected way of doing
business.

--Kent

P.S. For those of you who don't know me, I served 7 years on the CORSA
BoD
and am a past president of the CPF.

P.P.S. If you send Jackson private email, please be respectful. He is
only
trying to help CORSA and if people fly off the handle at him, it's not
going
to help.