Rex Hammock, one of the leading bloggers out there, is doing some guest blogging for American Business Media (ABM), a trade association of which he is a member.  In his introductory post on the ABM blog he shared this nugget:

As a note of transparency, my company works with several large national
associations in publishing their member magazines and providing online
editorial services to them. (ABM is not one of these.) And
so, in addition to my willingness to serve in another voluntary role
for ABM, I also have a professional interest in trying to understand
the role of participatory media (I call it conversational media) in the
context of associations. I believe associations have a unique
opportunity to serve as neutral platforms for conversations — they
certainly do so when they host meetings. I’ve spent the past decade
trying to encourage clients and other publishers to embrace ways to
amplify the voices of those they serve, rather than view those voices
as threats or competition. I hope the blogging committee and this blog
can help me keep ranting on discussing that topic.