The Importance of Playing Away Games

When you think about an “away game” you might flash to your kid’s hectic soccer schedule or a team sport you played back in your glory days. For my association, NASCIO (National Association of State Chief Information Officers), it means meeting our members (in all 50 states and six territories) and our association strategic partners (too many to name here) where they are.

I spend a good portion of my daily work talking with our members about the struggles in their states and helping them come up with solutions to problems. We are a first stop sounding board when needed. Our team travels to state capitals, testifies before state legislatures (like Amy Glasscock did  in Ohio in May—starts around the 18 minute mark) and provides briefings for our members. We also spend a good portion of our time speaking at association partner conferences, much like I did last month (LEX-LAS-DEN-LEX in four days).

(As a side note, if you’re wondering who I am and why I’m writing this blog, I’ll give you a bit of background. I have over 20 years of experience in association management and have worked in government affairs, policy and with the media during that time. I’ve been at AMR for a little over 12 years and oversee NASCIO’s policy, publications and external media presence. But back to the point of why we’re here…)

Playing away games doesn’t always mean actually being out of town. We have regular syncs and touchpoints with our members and strategic partners. Need a member of our team to talk cyber? government affairs? state CIO organizational models? state CIO priorities ? IT accessibility? We got you.

We have always had this philosophy at NASCIO, but we accelerated it during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. When others might have been taking a back seat, we increased our offerings and communication to members and strategic partners. Testifying in a state house looked a lot different then (states hardly allowed remote testimony prior to 2020) but we got it done.

Fast forward to 2025 and our country’s associations and members are facing additional hurdles with tax code and federal funding uncertainty as well as changing memberships and disrupters like generative artificial intelligence. But we won’t fade into the shadows in 2025 either. Now is the time to ramp up our association’s presence and use our expertise to continue to boost our members. Whether that means getting on a plane or getting on a Zoom meeting, there’s just no substitute for getting out there and sharing your good work. NASCIO’s policy team members represent just a few of the AMR whole team who works daily to make sure our association members have the support they need to solve problems, deal with emerging issues and whatever else might come their way