What was the Culture Collective's purpose and what do you believe to be its lasting impact?

The Culture Collective was a group of members that were selected by various sources, mostly the president, the AIA president at the time, the leadership, the board of directors.

And our charge was not really study, a high-level analysis of how we were going to achieve this change in the AIA, in the board structure, in the elected officials in the way and how to assist the various components throughout the institute in how to make that happen and how to bring the best value possible to the membership because that really was the I think the charge of the repositioning effort to laser focus the long-term planning of the organization and to deal with the current and financial and organizational needs of the AIA as a whole by changing to strategic counsel for the global knowledge and the board for the fiduciary responsibilities.

So the Culture Collective was basically in charge of organizing those thoughts in how to change the culture of our AIA from that very huge board structure that takes an elephant to move a rock up the mountain to something that was more nimble, more open, more transparent to the membership that took advantage of the upcoming technological, social, and other ways of communicating that were coming into the realm.

So we studied, okay, let's start a social media programs throughout the Institute.

At that time, it was Facebook and Twitter.

So we all learned to Twitter.

Why has public awareness been such an important part of your work?