Jumping the Curve.

Guy Kawasaki is a revolutionary espousing rules for revolutionaries. The CEO of Garage.com, a venture capital investment bank providing funding services for high-tech and life sciences startups, has played a role in his share of revolutions during a career that included a stint as chief evangelist at Apple Computer during the 1990s. He has even written a book with the title of (surprise) Rules for Revolutionaries.

I was one of about 250 participants whom Kawasaki entertained and challenged during ASAE's Strategic Leadership Forum last month. In all, Kawasaki offered 10 rules for revolutionaries. You'll have a chance to read and contemplate all of the rules and other insights from the forum in our forthcoming coverage of the experience. For now, I'd like to focus on one of Kawasaki's rules for catalyzing revolutionary change: You have to jump curves.

By that, Kawasaki means going beyond the previous revolution...to the next curve. Amazon.com, he says, is an example of revolutionary change in that it offers 10 times the books offered by book superstores, which were the previous revolution. "Don't think 10, 15, 20 percent better," says Kawasaki. "Think 10 or 20 times better."

I reflected on Kawasaki's comments a few days after he made them as I listened to an inspired--and inspiring--Frank Doyle, CAE, vice president of professional development at ASAE, outline an ambitious vision for rolling out a new educational model based on core competencies in the field of association management and integrating executive training, career development, and career-long learning--all in a highly accessible way. It's going to take some doing, but Frank and his team's vision and plan for a future of "leaders developing leaders," as he put it, exemplify the kind of curve-jumping you can expect from ASAE now and in the future.

Look for us to jump some curves in the pages of ASSOCIATION MANAGEMENT, as well, as we strive to deliver innovative and useful editorial content. Take a look at this month's package. Our cover story, "Compare and Contract," reports on ASAE's most recent Association Executive Compensation and Benefits Study. The package might not start a revolution in association compensation practices, but it will certainly give you some grounding in current practices, as well as offer some advice on the topics of navigating employment agreements and attracting and retaining staff.

As for the balance of the feature well:

* "Becoming a Board-Savvy Executive" outlines a practical approach to helping our board build its governance capacity and strengthen the partnership between board and staff.

* Two articles--"New Ventures Add Value" and "Further Adventures in E-Commerce"--explore strategies for doing business online.

* "The Case for a Coach" describes the process of working with an executive coach to address career and management challenges.

* "Top-Notch Talent" is a glimpse at the winning entries in ASAE's Gold Circle Awards for communication excellence.

There's lots more that I can't cover in the space of this column, but I'd like to mention one more thing before closing. At the Strategic Leadership Forum, as in many forums, there was plenty of talk about replenishment--what one does away from work to revitalize and refortify oneself for the effort of leadership. Most effective leaders practice replenishment, according to forum speaker Barbara Mackoff. I invite you to turn to page 120, where this month we feature "Music Man" Don Tharpe, who when not immersed in his role as executive director of the Association of School Business Officials International spends some of his off time playing his guitar. Now I don't know if Don is going to form a band and start playing gigs, but I do know from talking with him that he gets a great deal of joy and refreshment from his musical hobby. And why not? He--and we--should take the time to restore our perspective and our resources. After all, we've got some curves to jump.

KEITH C. SKILLMAN

Editor

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