What keeps you up at night?

It’s natural for the tone of these monthly columns to be optimistic and upbeat. CLSI is on a positive trajectory by all measures – from stakeholder and customer feedback, both formal and informal; growth in membership; expanding document sales and distribution; as well as fiscal strength, increasing numbers of volunteers, and customer service enhancements, etc. However, when you are an organization focused on quality, there is always room for improvement.

One of our Board members recently asked me, “…so what’s happening at CLSI that keeps you up at night?”  I found it an intriguing question, and I answered as follows: While we have a solid strategic plan that sets a clear course for CLSI, one issue that is perhaps most difficult to address is product diversification.  We have more than 180 consensus standards, guidelines, reports, toolkits, videos, etc., but sales are highly concentrated in our top 25 products.  How do we diversify by finding and providing new products and services that have high member value?  How do we quickly respond to address timely issues while staying true to our consensus process? How do we find an acceptable method to archive or cancel revisions to less popular documents without alienating their champions and key users? 

Over the past 6 months we have asked many of you for your suggestions to these critical issues via a variety of communications mechanisms, and you have responded with some outstanding ideas. Specific suggestions and action items are being evaluated, and the Board of Directors will no doubt deliberate many of these options during its meeting on the 2^nd & 3^rd of November.

The good news is that ‘what keeps me up at night’ are the challenges created by a growing and healthy organization.

Sweet dreams.

Please be sure to check out our membership report, which will be posted on 6 November at www.clsi.org; just click on the “about CLSI” link.

Glen [ return to top ]