Can you define innovation? Maybe not—it’s an abstraction that can be hard to pin down—but we bet you know it when you see it.

That’s certainly true of the Associations Now readers who responded to our invitation to tell us about innovators they know in the association community. After putting a series of finalists to a vote on AssociationsNow.com, we’re happy to introduce the three innovators you told us you wanted to know more about. Brian Costanzo, CAE, developed a world-class global governance system. Jill McClure, CMP, CAE, tackled a tough public policy question by harnessing diverse voices in social media. And Erin Fuller, FASAE, CAE, took what may be the ultimate risk in associations—offering free membership—and lived to tell about it.

Innovation is exciting and meaningful because it combines the abstract with the practical. After all, an idea isn’t much good, and certainly not a driver of business success, until it comes out of the imagination and starts to do some real work. The association innovators you’ll meet here understood that—and made it happen.

(Photos by Bill Cramer/Wonderful Machine and John Johnston)