In the March newsletter to LIBA members, I wrote of “disruptive innovation”, a concept that was introduced by the Harvard Business Review more than 30 years ago. In essence, the automobile was, for sure, a “disruptive innovation” but the buggy whip maker didn’t go out of business because of the new-fangled automobile. He went out of business because he forgot what business he was IN. He thought he was in the buggy whip industry he was actually in the “transportation initiation” business. The whip was used to get the horse going.
Just like the horse a product was required to “get the automobile going” that was equally, if not more vital, to the automobile than the whip was to the horse the crank, and they were notoriously unreliable and broke a LOT. Had he remembered what business he was in the buggy whip maker could have pivoted and been the first AutoZone. They were already his customers. Someone did it why not him.
My challenge to LIBA was let’s not forget what business LIBA is in. Very simply LIBA has always been in the business of promoting and supporting growth. Whether that was through direct or indirect support of small business owners, advocating for pro-business policies at the local level (e.g. city and county), providing networking opportunities or echoing their concerns to elected leaders it was all about GROWING our businesses and GROWING our community.
But it’s also fair to say that LIBA needed to re-focus. To re-focus on the business we’re in, re-focus on city and county issues, re-focus on adding value to members.
In addition to nearly a dozen additional member benefits that have been made possible by leveraging technology, LIBA has taken the following steps to focus on the business we are in.
• Renamed our Government Affairs Committee to Public Policy (Government Affairs just constantly brings to mind Bill Clinton, Elliot Spitzer and if you’re old enough, Gary Hart).
• Introduced the 5 Pillars of LIBA, Public Policy, Networking, Community Access, Business Support and Leadership Development, if a considered activity is not clearly associated with one of those pillars, we shouldn’t do it. (see liba.org)
• Emphasized a focus on entrepreneurship (growth) and local issues (city and county) vs. state
• Moved the focus of our Monthly Luncheons more towards the Business Support and Leadership Pillars (e.g. artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship) and less on politics.
• Updated the Mission Statement on the website to remove references to supporting or endorsing candidates. LIBA, Inc. has nothing to do with that.
• Clarified the multiple entities of LIBA, LIBA Inc; LIBA Foundation and LIBA PAC. Specifically, no portion of LIBA, Inc. membership dues are used to support, directly or indirectly ANY PAC activities. (see liba.org) and all involvement with the PAC is purely voluntary.
• Moved the PAC activities off the liba.org domain and over to the PAC’s separate domain and email addresses, libapac-ne.org
The bottom line is, if you own a business LIBA needs you, and you need LIBA. I honestly don’t care if you vote democrat, libertarian, independent or republican. I don’t care if you vote at all. Or just want to leverage LIBA for networking, that’s fine too. No matter which of LIBA’s pillar or pillars speak to you there’s a place for you at LIBA. What’s good for business is good for ANY business. Hope to see you at an event soon.