I found this interesting new Pajamas Media blog via Instapundit. The blog's subject is the "China Syndrome" aka "sucking up to China." Now, for me the topic isn't on my front burner, but I do witness the phenomenon right here in the association community via the ASAE's International SIG. I have to snark on this one, that listserv really bugs and I'm subscribed at this point out of a sort-of rubbernecking ethos.
From what I can tell, the impetus for this book was that the folks who wrote it, Jeff De Cagna , David Gammel , Jamie Notter , Mickie Rops and Amy Smith , were “concerned by the instinctively conservative approach to organizational stewardship that far too many association executives and volunteers continue to pursue in the early years of the 21 st century.” I took notes throughout the book, and now I realize they are far too extensive to make a very good book review. And I am definitely the choir that this book is preaching to. However, I really, really liked the problems these folks addressed and they pretty much slaughtered and butchered several sacred cows. This book is not extensive narrative or heavily footnoted, but it is based on the collective experience of 5 people who together have worked with many different organizations, and the collective themes will be familiar to anyone in the field. On a meta level, this book takes observations of what’s happening in the