AANA Sponsored Leadership Listserver ?

There continues to be discussion regarding how to improve online communications within AANA in both directions. I am lead to believe that AANA leaders "monitor" communications, but rarely respond directly. Members become frustrated from lack of leadership response. Leaders that respond, at times face criticism from the membership and from the other leaders. So, with the exception of election time and a few exceptional leaders, it is rare for leaders to publicly engage the membership.

Presently the online listservers that require AANA membership have less than 1000 subscribers. IF, somehow we were able to enroll every AANA member we would have more than 30,000 subscribers. Attempting to manage the potential volume of messages would be a daunting task, however we all know that the majority of online subscribers are lurkers, rarely offering their perspectives.

There have been ongoing efforts to have an official AANA sponsored listserver, however the unmoderated CRNAtalk and the heavily moderated Candidate's forum have proven that these two extremes are not acceptable.

I am re-thinking our traditional listserver format and wondering if the following format offers any value to members or leaders. What if AANA sponsored a leadership list server in which only AANA elected leaders and state presidents could POST, but every member could READ the messages ?

This would reverse the current way we use listservers, and members would assume the lurker mode and leaders would lead the discussion. We could develop a means for members to communicate to this forum, by way of their state president, but immediate responses would be limited to current leaders. Periodically we could have an "open mike" where any member could post their comments and concerns. This is not an attempt to stifle membership, but rather replicate an open board or business meeting and hopefully engage both leaders and members in thoughtful, respectful dialogue in an ongoing timely fashion.

Share your thoughts,

Dennis Gundersen