Like every year, the 2025 ASAE Annual Meeting & Expo was at once too much and not enough. There was an overabundance of sessions, conversations, tradeshow floor overload. There was not enough time to see everything, to go deep on topics that were particularly compelling, and (for at least this attendee) to hang with the emotional-support dogs featured at one vendor booth. 

Regardless, there were plenty of interesting discussions throughout the conference in Los Angeles. Here are three that caught my attention; please share your own in the comments.

Governance isn’t what it used to be, and can’t be what it is now. There are disruptions everywhere you look—politically, socially, economically, in terms of your association’s workforce. So what’s a sensible strategic planning period now? One year? Three? Five? Should the whole idea of strategic planning be jettisoned in favor of something fully iterative? Opinions varied throughout the conference, but the consensus is that not only do association boards need to be more fit for purpose, but that their focus needs to intensify to get through the next rough patch. 

“Being OK is no longer good enough,” said association leadership veteran Richard Yep, FASAE, CAE, at the session “Navigating and Explaining a New World Order to Your Board.” Boards and planning still play a critical role at associations, he noted, but CEOs need to play a stronger role in clarifying the stakes to their board, and helping them to triage the risks that the association and its industry is facing.

Amid that, flexibility was the watchword at #ASAE25, as speakers consistently prompted leaders and staff members to cultivate rapid-response skills around communications, advocacy, and crisis management. “Train your staff to have flexibility in scenario planning,” said ConferenceDirect global account executive Nathan Wambold, CAE. “That can turn small teams into really mighty teams.”

AI is everything—and nothing without humans. Is generative AI fancy predictive text or a pathway to greater creativity? A source of greater efficiency or an industry-wrecking job killer? There were plenty of opportunities to debate the point in LA: Thirteen sessions featured “AI” in their title, and plenty more took the subject on in the room. During the session “Navigating the New Workforce,” American Mensa CEO Tamesha Logan, MBA, CAE, pointed to research showing that not every association has to hit the panic button: “High touch” associations and industries will still demand human interaction, and even tech-friendly fields can use AI to augment, not replace, its processes.

Still, it can go too far, as keynote speaker Susan Cain noted—reflexively asking ChatGPT to write your newsletters or marketing copy is a sure-fire way to deliver well-formed but inauthentic content. “[Content] really does have to have a personality of the community’s founder, leader, organizer,” she said. “It is so easy—believe me, I have felt the temptation—it’s so easy to ask ChatGPT to write up the newsletter, write up the announcement for the gathering, or whatever it is. And what I’ve noticed is whenever I ask ChatGPT to do something like that, it produces a beautifully constructed, completely flattened-out version.”

Leaders need new leadership pathways. It’s not just the “polycrisis” that is challenging association CEOs—it’s remote work, a variety of generations in the workplace, a host of new work styles. It can be hard for leaders to adjust, but one theme that emerged from the “Leadership Team of the Future” session is that executives do best when they emphasize strategic leadership over management details. 

“I’m trying to challenge the ways that CEOs are gatekeepers,” said Christina Lewellen, MBA, FASAE, CAE, President and CEO of the Association of Technology Leaders in Independent Schools. “Why are we gatekeeping time? Why are we gatekeeping PTO? Why am I gatekeeping their personal development budget?” Instead, she suggested, focus on bringing in trustworthy people, building their trust in you, and empowering them within the budget you have.