Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Why cutting-edge matters

Growing up in Miami (pic), I remember Nick Buoniconti as a Miami Dolphin - and news his son Marc suffered a paralyzing spinal cord injury in a college football game. Nick and Marc are leading advocates for spinal cord injury research through their Miami Project to Cure Paralysis. Recently, the unexpected development of severely injured NFL football player Kevin Everett having movement resulted in sportscaster Bob Costas talking with Nick Buoniconti. The apparent reason for success: the physician in the ambulance on the field that day attended a seminar where a cutting-edge technique to preserve spinal cord functionality was instructed - and he applied that info.

Notable details:
1. there was a seminar that featured the cutting-edge technique2. the right person attended, and then used the information

Association executives are often in position to determine, suggest or influence content in courses and publications. Also have challenge of ensuring those who need info get it. Finding out what cutting-edge practices are happening in our respective industries, and providing to our memberships matters. It changed the future of Kevin Everett.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this post, Cindy! This kind of thing is exactly why I love working in associations--so it's always great to hear stories like this one.