Environmental scanning is more than reading news sources and writing reports about the activity, and it's more than an exercise undertaken leading up to a strategic-planning session. Done well, environmental scanning--the monitoring, interpreting, and acting on trends and conditions affecting your industry, profession, and association--draws a community into a thoughtful and ongoing discussion about how the environment is changing and what that means for the future. The value, point out the authors of
Environmental Scanning for Associations lies in a collaborative sense-making of the conditions in which an organization operates. Good environmental scanning becomes a basis for strategic action.
This book takes into account the organizational nature and unique conditions of associations and
- Lays out a framework that explains the basic elements of a scanning process for associations
- Explains the fundamental concepts that are critical to success when establishing a scanning process
- Provides illustrations and scanning reference tools from associations
Whether you are just beginning an environmental-scanning effort or you want pointers for improving your current activities, this guide is designed to help.
