Mensa was founded in England
in 1946; Mensa America started in 1961. Lore has it that much of
our organizational structure dates from around then; also some our
practices and procedures. As we try to reverse the continuing
membership loss and forestall eventual oblivion, and (re-)create
local Mensa groups that will outlive us, perhaps it makes sense to
review how things were back then, compare the past situation to
today's, and consider how we can better work within the current
environment, figure out what might need updating, and how.
In the past, communication technology was rudimentary, and options fewer, by today's standards. One-to-many communication was pretty well established: think newspapers, magazines, books, radio, and later on, television. One-to-one communication was also common - e.g. letters and the telephone. Shortwave and Citizen's Band radio played minor roles. Physical bulletin boards existed, so did "vox populi" sections in newspapers, and graffiti. But real-time many-to-many communication wasn't really possible, except in person. Conference calls, listservs, electronic bulletin boards, and of course Zoom, were still in the future.
Therefore both many-to-many real-time communication, and/or real-time collaborative decision-making, required attending meetings in person. Regional, national, and international meetings required more effort.
People were used to this and were not only "joiners" but also "attenders." You could count and plan on this. So, a weekly sit-down meeting with a speaker, worked just fine.
Nowadays, freely available technologies support many-to-many
collaboration and communication, e.g. Zoom for live video
meetings. Also available: generalized "chat" applications (e.g.
Slack) and audio conferencing (e.g. freeconferencecall.com).
One-to-many communication now includes more options, e.g. TikTok,
Snapchat, Instagram. Facebook, already used by many - but not all
- has elements of both one-to-many and many-to-many communication.
There are very many options for communication. Considerations for
their use include cost, security, whether the product works well
on various devices and operating systems, and, of course, what is
the effect of "going electronic/digital"? Perhaps the biggest
consideration is dual: How many Mensans already use the tool, and,
how long do we expect it to be of use?
In-person attendance, meetings and gatherings
In the past, in-person attendance was required if you wanted either to:
socialize as a group, or,
have lots of at-hand choices for one-on-one or small group interaction - e.g. "breakout sessions".
Nowadays of course, many of the technologies mentioned in the
Communication section, support both. Mensa local groups already
provide Zoom attendance to many of their on-site/in-person
informative talks; Mensa book clubs meet via Zoom. Limiting
factors in meeting this way include:
Lots of people/Mensans are already tired of on-line meetings, for example from their workday.
It's riskier to discuss things in confidence, online - and/or it feels that way: people are less comfortable, less willing to discuss certain topics.
On the other hand, online meetings provide the opportunity for
listeners to comment privately/securely/secretly among themselves
while a presenter is presenting. Non-Mensa examples include
line-level employees making snarky comments in a chat session as
the CEO delivers a speech or pep talk. Online meetings can also be
very unstructured - e.g. Young Mensans just turning on the meeting
at/during study time, and not saying anything - with long periods
of mostly silence.
Entertainment options offered on the consumer model - "just pay your money and we'll deliver lots of fun", were limited. Oldsters will/can tell you that "You had to make your own fun" and "There wasn't anything else to do." Hollywood and local theaters, radio, and later, television existed, but options for these (e.g. number of channels, or movies available in a week) were fewer. Other forms of entertainment (such as amusement parks, cruises, video and audio feeds) were also limited. So people ran and held potlucks, turkey shoots, baseball games, "socials".
These required effort, organizational skill, general competence, and commitment. Also, consistency; for example, people expected that an annual event would be approximately like last year's. This all required effort, and there was social pressure to minimize freeloading.
You had to be polite, and get along with people you might dislike. There weren't a lot of alternatives. There were social mechanisms to help with this "gotta get along", and social pressure to enforce it.
Nowadays of course things in general are a lot easier.
Entertainment can be had cheap or free, and most people's
entertainment nowadays, as measured by hours per day, consists of
looking at a smart phone. There is really no compelling need, nor
much social pressure, to work to provide entertainment. This may
be seen in many ways - dwindling participation in school and/or
community plays, for example.
Government in the past was much smaller, especially on the
national level. Local organizations - both governmental and not -
shouldered more responsibility. More decisions were made, and more
work was done, at the local level. In living memory, counties had
poorhouses, people living in homogeneous religious communities
(e.g. a Catholic neighborhood) would often avail themselves of a
"shadow" or alternative problem-resolution process, school
curricula were determined by local school boards and/or schools.
This forced people to learn to run organizations. From nuts-and-bolts such as taking (good) meeting minutes, to parliamentary procedure, to budgeting, managing "people problems", charting direction, collaboration with others and other groups; these skills were from necessity more widespread.
In general people had to do a lot more for themselves. Baking, household repairs, tending to the sick and dying, navigating, getting to school and work. Not everyone was skilled at everything of course, but most people had to have a pretty good skill set generally. People today still do many of these things, but more as hobbies; and not everyone does them, it's a choice. You can't assume that of a group of 12 Mensans, all 12 will know how to bake, or chair a meeting.
The greater face-to-face in-person interaction made for natural limits on nastiness, meanness, foul speech, insults, irascibility and the like. The well-known current-day problem of remote, online and/or anonymous nastiness did not exist. People seem less likely to insult or offend someone face-to-face, also you're less likely to be nasty to someone with whom you've partnered, collaborated. If, for example, you've stood behind a hot stove for hours making pancakes for a pancake breakfast, you are less likely to verbally - or in writing - attack them.
The concept of "fighting words" was alive and well, and if a guy got too far out of line running his big mouth, he might get punched in the nose. There were stricter limits on speech, including offensive, potentially offensive, and/or socially unacceptable speech. This made for more civil behavior, and required people to learn, develop, and exercise greater self-control and politeness.
But the past was not a day of anarchy or free-wheeling spirits
each taking their own direction. Families were typically both
patriarchal and matriarchal, not only unapologetically so, but
just as a matter of course. People were more used to top-down
authority, especially after WWII but also at other times. Concepts
such as "theory Y management", though invented earlier, were only
fully developed and promulgated in the 1960s. In short, people
were more used to, tolerant of, and willing to work under the
assumption that some people give the orders and everyone else
carries them out.
Nowadays some things are different:
Groups can be self-organizing; you can "run up a chat group" in days if not minutes. You don't need to recruit, or file articles of incorporation, or go through an admissions/acceptance process.
You don't necessarily need organization-running skills. You often don't need the role of treasurer, you don't need a secretary. You don't need to know how to compose, edit, lay out. Incoming Mensans may not have these skills, may not be able to perform these functions, fill these roles.
People now inhabit a reality that offers a lot of fun and socialization, and which demands little. Vendors, backed by designers and engineers who labor assiduously, compete for attention and participation by offering push-button ease and high stimulation, tailored to one's preferences, predilections, biases, and foibles. A lot of "bang" can be had for very little "buck" or effort. It is silly and vain to castigate others, or lament this. Pretty much all we humans prefer ease, convenience, and lack of hassle, to the alternatives.
Just what are those alternatives? Hassle, drudgery, cost, even
commitment. There're a lot of minutiae for a treasurer to get
right, in order to run a fundraising effort - setting up a
GoFundMe site is way easier. Stuffing 500 newsletters or ballots
into envelopes is never fun and can be completely avoided while
still living a fulfilling life. As for a book club: reading the
selection in time for the meeting, and showing up to that meeting
on time every time, actually takes a lot of work. You can get
"takes" on books with a few keystrokes.
Throughout the above "then versus now" summary run a couple of
threads: changes in technology, and differences in people in the
context of an organization.
Some technical options are easier, better (faster, less irritating/cumbersome) and more alluring than Mensa's. Compare for example the user experience, and attractiveness, of Mensa Connect versus TikTok. People have choices and numerous options; if the technology we offer, use (and in practice, effectively mandate) people have an incentive to just say no. Better tech, in order to enable a better Mensa experience, should be a goal.
Here are a couple of opportunities for improvement:
Newsletters printed monthly and mailed out, and (more recently)
made into PDF documents and distributed via email and websites. If
you chat with long-term Mensans they can tell you that Mensa
newsletters, at least in some cases, were once really enjoyable
travel, literary, and photographic publications. But this manner
of communication has lost a lot of "penetration" or "reach". Many
Mensans don't even open the PDF, or in some cases, don't even know
that the local club has such a newsletter/publication. Fairly
often a local Mensan won't even know how to find the newsletter.
Therefore, we should consider replacing the positions of
Publications Officer and Editor with different roles:
Communications Officer, and multiple "tech leads". Of course if a
club still benefits from and enjoys a printed newsletter, and has
enough willing Mensans to staff it, then one of those tech leads
could be a newsletter editor just like today. Other tech leads,
with different skills, would manage other communication
technologies, such as:
Some responsibilities of the Communications Officer would be:
Scheduling technologies can enable, encourage, and eliminate
(meaning, cut out a percentage of) effort. They can also result in
different kinds of socialization; for example,
spontaneous/impromptu "pop-up" get-togethers, taking advantage of
unplanned or unforeseen/unpublicized events. Some of the
techniques, e.g. use of texting, use the same technologies which
could be used for communication in general; others, e.g. Calendly,
WhenIsGood.net, or YouCanBook.me, are specially designed for
scheduling.
Mensa Connect and other technologies currently provided by Mensa
America's National Office, are clunky and out of date. However
they offer at least one advantage: they're limited to Mensans. You
have to log on to access them, and to do that you need to be an
active Mensa member in good standing. Unlike some other
communication technologies and services, in extreme cases, persons
(Mensans) can be kicked off, excluded. Or in Mensa terms:
"moderated."
There are probably other technologies and avenues of improvement
that could be beneficially discussed, explored, and implemented.
But for overview purposes, starting a discussion, planning - this
is enough.
Section 1 mentions that people, including Mensans and potential
Mensans, are used to greater ease and less effort and
responsibility. Some of this may be addressed with technology -
try not to erect barriers to participation, greater than folks are
used to from their own life experience. So, for example, make it
easy to schedule an event & sign up for it, text reminders one
week and 2 days before the event, etc.
Of course there is a limit. An organization cannot reduce the
burden of effort and commitment to zero. Since many people do in
fact choose to not commit at all in any way, and also choose to
exert zero effort beyond thumbing their cell phones, this amounts
to a hard limit. Some people just are not, and will not be,
candidates for a membership organization - we may be able to
"reach" them but not include or involve them.
This factor in today's social landscape is relevant to all
membership organizations. Mensa, in addition, faces three specific
challenges.
The first and obvious challenge is that only 2% of the population
are candidates, which greatly limits recruitment. We are all aware
of this and accept it; there's little to discuss.
Compared to other clubs, Mensa appears to have a higher than
normal percentage of fractious, obnoxious, rude, and/or unpleasant
members; members who enjoy conflict, a fight. From what I can
tell, most or many Mensans recognize this. Reasons commonly put
forward include:
The above is a bare summary, and kind of incomplete, unformed,
incoherent: a complete treatment would require a whole essay or
even a book. For planning purposes it's enough to say, the
situation's probably unavoidable. From our own experience we know
that a sufficiently large group of Mensans is likely to include
some people that others just don't want to interact with. We have
to figure out how to deal with this. Ignoring the situation is a
bad idea; so is taking an idealistic attitude such as "It takes
all kinds" or "Maybe in time his/her 'rough edges' will get
polished off". Mensans and candidates do have choices. A common
reaction, or decision, to Mensan misbehavior and/or bad attitude
is to tacitly drop out. Exit the Zoom meeting, not go back to the
Mensa Connect forum, quit the organization. "Who needs that?" "I
don't have time for all of that." The loss is typically invisible.
Many organizations have criteria for membership, both explicit
and tacit. For example, fraternities and sororities have their
"rush" process during which current brothers/sisters can evaluate
potential ones; and "blackball" those found to be unsuited.
Potential Rotary members must first be sponsored by a current club
member, and then voted in by the board. Other organizations have
similar policies, guards, filters. Mensa has nothing like this. By
charter, by design, we have exactly the one criterion: scoring in
the top 2% on a sound intelligence test.
This problem appears to affect Mensa pretty much in every area of
function. So, for example, Mensa lost an expensive lawsuit when a
disaffected and/or expelled Mensan showed up at an Annual
Gathering. Organizationally there was nothing Mensa could do. He
was a paid guest at the hotel and had the right to roam the halls
and public areas, chat with Mensans, etc. The personalities
involved appear (from a distance) to have been combative; poor
judgement was exercised. Better to have an organizational
structure that could have avoided the problem entirely.
I will defer discussion of a solution to the relevant section
below.
One Mensan explained how, when she joined, she and her Mensa
buddies were in their 20s. Then, the same group of Mensans just
kept on, as they aged into their 30s, and 40s, 50s, and 60s. As
they all got older, so did the club.
Simple arithmetic tells us that for a membership organization to
continue to exist, we need to augment roughly 5% of our membership
annually. Similarly obvious is that to prevent the "aging out"
effect we must recruit younger people - in our case, probably
Mensans in their teens, twenties and thirties. We can't focus on
only teens 'cause they move away, get into other things (e.g.
college), don't need Mensa and drop out. Similarly we can't just
focus on recruiting persons in their 20s: they are quite possibly
in college or starting careers, and similarly liable to dropping
out.
That's looking forward. The situation today is that in many local
groups this has not been done, and we need to play catch-up.
Reports from regional and annual gatherings, printouts available
to LocSecs and Membership Officers of each local group, just
observing a Mensa meeting - tell the same story: Mensans are
getting older if not downright elderly.
Generally it seems, from Mensa Marketing personnel and from our
own experience, that Mensa actually does a decent job of
recruiting, including bringing in younger Mensans. But we then
fail to retain. A presumption is that we don't offer something
(anything?) they want, but also there's the common story - "The
new Mensan in their 20s comes to a meeting, sees all these old
people, and never comes back." One suggestion has been that if
only we had been able to get all the Mensans in their 20s to come
together at once, they might stay. Maybe a sort of "staged
admission" in which you can't attend/come in until there are more
from your age cohort? But that by itself seems a bit silly and
unworkable.
There are some behavioral things that could conceivably
ameliorate this "age mismatch" scenario but they probably won't
work. It's common for some old people, including some Mensans, to
discuss their own and others' health problems. This is a huge
turn-off to at least some young people. But suggesting to Mensans
that we not make our health problems a topic of conversation,
generates great resistance. "I like hearing and talking about
health problems" said one. "It's generational," said another
Mensan (in her 50s), "your generation hates talking about health
problems but mine likes to do so."
It is actually possible to split Mensa into three clubs. Rotary
does this: InterAct is for Rotarians up to age 18, Rotaract for
Rotarians up to age 40, and Rotary for all ages. Younger Rotarians
have the option of choosing whether to join their age-specific
group, or regular Rotary. It's a possibility for us, an option,
Mensa could do this - formally or informally. We do already have
Young Mensans, a gifted youth program, and a Mensa Honor Society.
This may not work so very well for a small club - for example,
Northern Michigan Mensa consists of around 70 Mensans. So, a
two-prong solution could possibly work:
Of course younger Mensans should be welcome to all local group
activities.
The above sections outline some challenges that Mensa faces. But
Mensa's not doomed, hopelessly overmatched, nor are we a fossil.
We have some assets:
People like us. Humans strongly tend to enjoy socializing
with people we feel are, and judge to be, like us. You can see
this just by observation - if you're willing to look at things
with a clear eye - and also, research shows it. We are more at
ease, we enjoy the experience more, with people we have
something in common with. Specifically to Mensa, smart people
enjoy conversing with other smart people. There's an ease, a
commonality; also a reward. Like the Mensa promotional poster
says: "When I attend a Mensa meeting I know I'll have an
intelligent conversation."
People not like us. Mensa offers a kind of real, true diversity of a kind no one else can. If you're a doctor or physicist you may work with a lot of intelligent people, but they all have the same professional interest. In Mensa you can and will encounter smart people from all walks of life, backgrounds, races, etc.
We are the premier brand, the "go-to" organization, for high-I.Q. persons. Some number of people don't know about Mensa, but this is actually addressable with, for example, newspaper articles or presentations. And if someone does know of an organization of and for smart people, it's Mensa they know of. We fairly regularly make the news.
This can be a strategy to resolve both:
the "old-timer" problem, and
the "irascible members" problem.
A statement one sometimes hears from Mensans: "I don't want to
just be part of a club, that's just a social club for smart
people." The Mensan who said this was active in running the
Northern Michigan Mensa scholarship program, and supporting the
Region 3 scholarship program; she was also active outside Mensa, a
dedicated volunteer. Other Mensans, hearing this, say that they're
quite happy to be part of a social club for smart people and don't
need/want to do volunteer work. Many members want to do both. The
next two pathways will briefly explore both these desires.
The buzz of socializing as a group may still only be gotten from, well, socializing as a group.
Also we need to support two sets of desires, functions, needs:
Some people just want to have fun.
Others are do-gooders wanting to change and/or better the world.
Yet others have both desires; sometimes shifting from one to the other.
This is not necessarily a challenge; just something to keep in
mind when planning
We need to make it easy to exclude, or more politely stated, not
invite, irascible people.
In the Information Technology ("I.T." or just "IT") world, it was
a common statement that we did not create systems - even though
that's just what we did - but rather, we supported and enabled
business processes; also of course changes in those processes. The
two go hand in hand. We need to use technologies that support the
kinds of socializing, cooperation, collaboration that people want.
irasicble
my first experience with Mensa Connect and the general discussion group.
- - -
*In the U.S.A. this was the heyday of clubs (or "membership
organizations) such as Rotary, Elks, VFW, and religious orders.
Membership peaked generally in around 1980 and since has steeply
declined.
We suffer from some of the same ills as other clubs, for example,
aging and shrinking membership. Multiple reports indicate that
when new Mensans in their 20s come into a room and see "all those
old people" they don't come back. One suggestion: find a way to
get the young people all together at the same time, so they won't
be turned off by the oldsters.
e in America, membership in clubs generally (e.g. Rotary, Elks,
Shriners, VFW) was booming at around and after this time, up till
around 1980, when membership in clubs peaked. The decline since
then has been steep. Most people reading this, have probably heard
or read the many explanations and proffered reasons: chief among
them "people don't join nowadays" and "we need to offer what
people want." The first of those two statements isn't actually
quite American Mensa's situation. Demand is steady and multiple
Mensans report that we do OK when it comes to new Mensans joining;
our problem is retention.
This document is designed to describe some ways that Mensa
America may be out of step with current reality; ways in which our
structure and function are no longer a good match with current
conditions. The proposition is that some of our technologies,
procedures, expectations, habits, et cetera, are really more
suited to the days when Mensa was founded.
Like the Mensa promotional ad says, "When I go to a Mensa meeting
I know I'll have an intelligent conversation." While this is not
quite actually true (Mensans frequently say and do dumb things),
at least the potential does exist. Like a Mensa website says, "the
machinery's there and sometimes it gets used." There is, and
(presuming no watering-down and/or error in admission to
membership) always will be a difference between a Mensa meeting
and any other.
The above list contains a bit of overlap and probably leaves out some things. It does, however, attempt to avoid:
blaming the young,
blaming societal, historical, or other forces or movements or developments that we can do nothing about, and/or
using terms such as "the sixties" or the "me generation", that may be no more than labels, not leading to actionable insight.
satisfied with the level of discourse they naturally get from
participating in those fields, and therefore not (need to) join
Mensa. Mensa does a good job of serving "the rest of us" who may
have "chosen different". But, along with that diversity of
interest comes a diversity of personality, which can include
differences in cooperative ability, agreeability. An example would
be a person who fails, on the grounds of sheer unlikeability, to
pass the interview that Harvard quietly uses pre-admission, could
still become a Mensan.