Association Management

• 
  Principled Innovation LLC

• My #tech10 update

  jeffpi1@gmail.com or @pinnovation on twitter (Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation LLC, the association community's leading voice for innovation!)

  7 Feb 2010 | 11:57 am

  Later this week, weather permitting, I’ll be downtown for ASAE & The Center’s 2010 Technology Conference at the Washington Convention Center.  I’m excited to see many P.I. Blog readers and my favorite association community peeps.  The Technology Conference is always a good time, and this year should be no exception! My session, The iPhone Volunteer: Why Mobile is the Next Great Platform for Member Engagement!, is on Thursday, February 11 at 4:15 pm.  If you’re going to be at the conference, I hope you’ll join me because this may be the only session during…

• Test post

  jeffpi1@gmail.com or @pinnovation on twitter (Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation LLC, the association community's leading voice for innovation!)

  6 Feb 2010 | 7:32 am

  Please ignore this test post. I’m trying to correct some problems with my RSS feed.

• Five words for 2010

  jeffpi1@gmail.com or @pinnovation on twitter (Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation LLC, the association community's leading voice for innovation!)

  4 Feb 2010 | 11:07 am

  As we settle into 2010, I’ve been thinking about the five words on which I’ll be focused this year.  I am sharing them here with the hope they may inspire association leaders throughout our community to think differently about what is possible in the year ahead.  Please let me know your thoughts in the comments below, and if you have your own words in mind, I hope you will consider sharing them. Intention–It has never been more important for associations to have leaders, especially in voluntary roles, who are intentional about building the inventive business models,…

• New mobile tech post on SmartBlog Insights

  jeffpi1@gmail.com or @pinnovation on twitter (Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation LLC, the association community's leading voice for innovation!)

  1 Feb 2010 | 6:31 am

  You’ll want to check out my new post on mobile on SmartBlog Insights, for which I serve as editor-at-large.  It is the first in a series of five posts I’ll be sharing on the Insights Blog in the coming weeks to expand on my Top Ten 2010 Trends for Associations.  Here is how I close the post: Without question, mobile will be a major topic of, hopefully, generative conversation across the association community throughout 2010.  How will you make sure that conversation occurs inside your organization? If you’re looking for a way to get the conversation going inside your…

• Free breakfast session on March 4

  jeffpi1@gmail.com or @pinnovation on twitter (Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation LLC, the association community's leading voice for innovation!)

  31 Jan 2010 | 5:49 pm

  If you’re an association executive in the Washington, DC region, I hope you’ll join me for a special free breakfast session on Thursday, March 4 in Alexandria, Virginia.  The topic of my talk is “Solving 21st Century Problems: How Associations Can Innovate to Thrive,” and I am presenting this session in partnership with my friends from Higher Logic, Powered by DUB and Vidzu.  Here is the session description: While association stakeholders attempt to solve the 21st century problems they face personally and professionally, many associations are still offering solutions…

• 
  Get Me Jamie Notter

• Paying the Price for Truth

  Jamie

  3 Feb 2010 | 5:51 am

  Last week I suggested that if you want a culture of truth in your organization, perhaps that needs to start at the top. Several of the comments chimed in with a "you're darn right it does." The top controls resources, the top decides strategy, the top sets the example, so they need to step up and lead the culture change. I get that, of course. The top does have an absolutely critical role to play. But deep down I wanted someone to jump up and say "NO!" Let's face it: I'm a systems guy and a Gen Xer, so ultimately I don't want the top of the hierarchy to actually be in charge. My honorary…

• A Culture of Truth Starts at the Top (?)

  Jamie

  27 Jan 2010 | 5:57 am

  I clearly have some issues with hierarchy, and since I'm all about systems, I often find myself pointing out ways that people who are NOT in official positions of power can work to make things happen, change things, etc. In general, if someone says X needs to come from the top of the organization, I find myself pushing back, arguing that while the top certainly needs to do something, you (in the middle, at the bottom, wherever) also can be doing something.But I wonder if that general philosophy does not apply as much to the challenge of building an organization where more truth is spoken.

• Leading Broken Organizations

  Jamie

  20 Jan 2010 | 5:57 am

  Bruce Butterfield has created an interesting dialogue over on the ASAE listserve when he compared the association community to the struggling/dying industry of newspapers. Maddie posted about it, as did Peggy. Glen Tecker did a pushback post, arguing that we shouldn't compare the plights of for-profit companies to associations because they have such different purposes. Quoting Glen, "Their [nonprofits] mission is to serve; not sell."First, I'll have to write another post on the notion that for profit companies exist solely for profit. That makes no sense to me because for profit companies are…

• Governance Month: "I don't want to be the one who screwed things up"

  Jamie

  18 Jan 2010 | 5:54 am

  I have heard this phrase a lot in the context of association governance (which is this month's theme on the Acronym blog, by the way). Jeffrey Cufaude mentioned it in a blog comment recently as one reason why association governance tends to be conservative. They don't take big risks, because people on the current Board who would vote to take those risks don't want to be remembered as the ones that made the bad decisions.Do you live your life that way? I mean, you are your own Board of Directors and you have a lifetime appointment. It will always be YOU that made that decision. Do you not do…

• Love Your Clients

  Jamie

  14 Jan 2010 | 6:02 am

  I know some people get a little antsy when you start talking about "love" in the workplace. That's their prerogative. I also know that some of the most brilliant people I know embrace the idea with reckless abandon. I have decided to join forces with those people. Love and passion and deep human engagement are not only acceptable in the workplace, in my opinion, I think they are going to drive the more successful organizations and enterprises from now on. This is not a new idea, nor is it particularly radical. But people seem to be afraid of it. So let's just explore it and take some of the…

• 
  Guilt by Association Blog

• The “Splinternet” is Bad News, and I blame Apple

  Frank Fortin

  27 Jan 2010 | 6:45 am

  Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research has written a must-read post on the splintering of the Web, saying that the golden days of the standardized, open-source Web are over. He says we should prepare ourselves for a world in which platforms function well enough within their ecosystems, but are deaf to the rest of the universe around them. Mobile devices and online networks are the most obvious examples. iPhone apps don’t work on a Blackberry, and vice versa. Facebook apps only work on Facebook. LinkedIn exists by itself in a corner of the world. Their citizens seem quite happy with this state…

• Forrester Updates its Social Technographics Model

  Frank Fortin

  20 Jan 2010 | 6:09 am

  Forrester Research (of which I am a fan) has just updated its Social Technographics Ladder, its model for measuring an audience’s engagement with social media tools. Josh Bernoff and his team have added a group called “conversationalists,” people who update their social networking site or their Twitter status at least once a week. Here’s the cool thing – their initial number puts the figure at 33% of all online adults in the U.S.  As Phil Rizzuto would say, holy cow! When I get some time [ha!], I’ll dig into our raw data and try to get a sense of where our…

• Roger and Don – and Innovation

  Frank Fortin

  18 Jan 2010 | 3:00 am

  The blogger Dan Blank last week used a scene from this season’s great final episode of Mad Men to illustrate the tensions in media today – and he could have been talking about associations, too. To recap Mad Men … for those not yet smitten … it’s 1963, just weeks after JFK’s assassination. As we know from our vantage point, the world is poised to change. Roger Sterling and Don Draper are two of the lead managers in a New York ad agency. Roger inherited the agency from his late father, and he’s been coasting through life lately. Don is a scrapper,…

• Mobile, Social and Search – The Plan for 2010

  Frank Fortin

  28 Dec 2009 | 12:57 pm

  The two important things happened to marketing and communications in the last five years. Communications became a two-way street – the audience became the community We expected our community members to find us. Now, they expect us to find them, wherever they are. The social part of this has been beaten to death for the last five years; I don’t have to go into that. But as the recent owner of my first smartphone, I finally internalized the game-changing nature of our always-on, always-everywhere world. The ah-ha moment for me was a New York Times article last year, where a 20-something…

• The Humble E-Mail: An Appreciation

  Frank Fortin

  5 Oct 2009 | 3:00 am

  Behold the humble e-mail. With origins known mostly to Internet anthropologists, it became one of the first killer apps of the Internet era. Marketers coveted its unprecedented direct access to individual consumers. They lusted after its potential for personalization. They rhapsodized over its near-zero costs. They exulted, “Behold, we have seen the promised land!” Then they ruined it. Who would have suspected that an ROI of one in a million would be profitable? And who knew that “V!^8ra” could be spelled so many different ways, yet still be recognized by the human brain? Thus, e-mail…

• 
  Thanks for Playing

• Career Spotlight: Association Management

  8 Feb 2010 | 8:03 am

  Student? Young professional? Experienced professional who's new to the field of association management? Know someone in one or more of these categories?Join me, ASAE chief staff executive John Graham, Don Dea of Fusion Productions, Velma Hart of AMVETS and current chair of the ASAE Board, and Bob Wolfe from the Solid Waste Management Association for a FREE webinar on Friday, February 26 and get all (well, OK, most) of your questions about careers in association management answered. Busy on the 26th? Don't worry - the webinar will be recorded and archived to the ASAE site afterwards.

• Friday Top 5

  5 Feb 2010 | 8:08 am

  You know it - it's the Top 5 Things that are GREAT about Being Snowed In!Getting to watch all those great movies Netflix sent me that have been sitting on top of my TV for a month.Being housebound tends to --> cooking/baking frenzy. YUM!Cats get some much needed cuddle time.Puttering. LOVE puttering.Roaring fires in the fireplace. Cozy (particularly when enjoyed with a hot toddy in one's hand)!Image credit: me! That's my spouse on our deck during the original Snowpocalypse back in December.

• Always the Last to Know: Posterous

  4 Feb 2010 | 12:51 pm

  I haven't really played with Posterous yet, but John Haydon says it's the bomb-diggity for automatically re-posting content out the wazoo, which is good enough for me!

• What I'm Reading

  3 Feb 2010 | 11:44 am

  You've got questions? Someone's got answers (and I'll try to point you to them) edition:Need some content ideas? Ann Handley has some tips. Social media efforts not working? Francisco Rosales holds up a mirror. Thinking about launching a blog? Francisco (who's apparently on a roll this week) has some advice. Blogging rules? Kelly Diels says "F it." (and no, that's not short for a bad word) - What if no one cares? Joe Rominiecki explains why that will force you to be better. What's going on at Social Media Week? Beats me (I'm not cool enough to be there), but SmartBrief can help keep my fellow…

• Always the Last to Know: Spredfast

  2 Feb 2010 | 10:40 am

  Ready to get serious about monitoring your social media campaigns? Spredfast might be your answer. The subscription-based service aggregates tracking information from blogs, video and photo sites, and all the major social networks into an easy-to-read social media reach dashboard.

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  Association Jam

• The Effects of Joining the Conversation

  rjleaman

  8 Feb 2010 | 10:33 am

  Amy Sample Ward calls out highlights from the recent Hatcher Group report, New Media & Social Change: How Nonprofits are Using Web-based Technologies to Reach Their Goals, which is "chock full of examples, best practices and data about the effects of joining the conversation online." 3 Vote(s)

• Public Relations Disaster Plans

  judithlindenau

  8 Feb 2010 | 6:23 am

  Here's the question: How can a crisis management plan be implemented in an age of social media? In a time when Susan Boyle can be an overnight hit, and "Pants on the Ground" a worldwide refrain in 24 hours, the opposite can also be true-as Toyota has just discovered with the world-wide recall of its defective gas pedals and obstructive floor mats. 5 Vote(s)

• Are Your Ears Burning? 20 Tools for Tracking Social Media Marketing

  rjleaman

  7 Feb 2010 | 8:33 am

  How do you monitor your brand and protect your hard earned reputation? There are many services and "online reputation management" tools, both free and paid, to help you to define keywords, or phrases you wish to track and then watches for any mention of your company name, products, or services. 3 Vote(s)

• Email Deliverability Tips For Your Non-Profit

  rjleaman

  6 Feb 2010 | 9:10 am

  Do you know how to get your organization's opt-in email delivered safely in the age of spam filters? Tom Kulzer of Aweber gives tips on how best to ensure that your nonprofit's email communications reach your constituents' inboxes. 3 Vote(s)

• Bamboo Project Readers' Guide to Blogging for Personal Branding

  macusersnb

  6 Feb 2010 | 9:10 am

  Michele Martin's readers share their best advice for using a blog for personal branding and job searching. 3 Vote(s)

• 
  Association, Inc.

• What People Are Missing in the Association/Newspaper Comparison

  Association Inc. (Kevin Holland)

  26 Jan 2010 | 4:54 pm

  There have been several posts recently comparing associations to newspapers. Maddie Grant reprinted a listserve comment and got a lot of comments on her post and at other blogs. The general gist of the original post is that newspapers are an industry in gut-wrenching turmoil, and so are associations. Somehow the whole thing turned into a discussion of “micropricing” — continued here on the Acronym blog. First of all — not all associations are in gut-wrenching turmoil. Second of all — I think micropricing as it was defined in the original listserve comment and…

• Thoughts on Non-Profit vs. For-Profit Tax Status

  Association Inc. (Kevin Holland)

  20 Dec 2009 | 6:31 am

  Matt Baehr posted a small piece to his blog asking, “What if Associations Were For-Profit entities? What would change in your organization? Would your organization change at all? … I would be willing to bet that associations that run themselves more like a for-profit are doing better than those that don’t.” The for-profit vs. non-profit question comes up occasionally among association executives. In comments to Matt’s post, Peggy Hoffman mentions Bruce Butterfield’s incubations, which often get pointed to as an example of innovation in this particular area.

• What If Associations Weren’t Afraid to Generate Serious Cash?

  Association Inc. (Kevin Holland)

  17 Dec 2009 | 6:08 pm

  ASAE’s Acronym blog is promoting what it calls “Big Ideas” month, though it really isn’t — it’s more like “What If?” month. So here’s my what-if question: What if associations weren’t so damn afraid to generate serious cash? Because you can, you know. Did you know that? Never mind your archaic governance structure, your internal politics, your consultants who think every little thing you do should be strategized or categorized, your bizarre “I don’t care about money, I care about mission!” attitude (as if…

• “Our Emails Are So Pretty, Our Messaging So Consistent … I Wonder Why Everybody Ignores Them?”

  Association Inc. (Kevin Holland)

  2 Dec 2009 | 3:11 pm

  Many associations spend a lot of money and time developing what they call “consistent branding.” They have a look, they choose a stylebook, and everything they send out — print, email, online — follows the guidelines to a tee. Unfortunately, it’s completely irrelevant. It may sound good in a meeting, it may make a nice checkbox in a strategic plan, but it doesn’t mean a damn thing. The point of sending something out is not to make you look good — the point is to get someone else to do something. (And a logo, an email template, a stylesheet are NOT a…

• What’s Blogging? Sounds Painful!

  Association Inc. (Kevin Holland)

  23 Nov 2009 | 4:10 am

  That title was actually the title of the first post made to this blog — or what would become this blog — exactly five years ago today. November 2004 seems like a really long, long time ago. I can’t think of a five year period in my lifetime whose start was so different from its finish, with the possible exception of 1988-1993, when we went from Cold War to New World Order to Deep Recession. (Ha! Remember that recession? It seems so cute now!) Five years ago, you didn’t need two healthy hands to count the number of association people blogging. Most of the folks who were…

• 
  EDM Blog

• What everyone should know about “percentages”

  Wes Trochlil

  2 Feb 2010 | 6:09 am

  I admit I’m a data freak. I loves me some good stats. But one has to be very careful when interpreting data, especially something like “percentage increase.” For example, in this article, the sub-head states: “Millennials show the highest increase in participation [of loyalty programs]” The article goes on to say “… participation jumped 19 percent year-over-year, with the most significant increase exhibited by Millennials (people between 18 and 25 years of age), among whom the level of participation spiked by nearly 32 percent.” But when the…

• Oh, the changes I’ve seen…

  Wes Trochlil

  28 Jan 2010 | 6:08 am

  The end of 2009 marked the end of my first decade as a consultant. In that time I’ve consulted with over 100 associations, ranging in size from 1 staff to over 700 staff. Ten years is a long time, especially in the technology realm. As I look back over those ten years, I see there have been many significant changes in technology, but two really stand out for me: Web-based databases. Of course, the ubiquity of the internet is no longer a big story. But consider that when I began consulting only 10 years ago, there was only one (or maybe two) companies in the AMS market that was offering…

• Don’t miss ASAE’s Technology Conference in February

  Wes Trochlil

  27 Jan 2010 | 6:20 am

  ASAE’s Annual Technology Conference is February 10-12, 2010, at the Walter E Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. You can learn more about it here. I’ll be speaking twice at the tech conference: Once on selecting an AMS for “small” associations, and in a lightening round of 15 key data management tips for leveraging your AMS. I hope to see you there!

• Less work now means more work later

  Wes Trochlil

  26 Jan 2010 | 6:01 am

  Very often I learn my clients are managing data in a way that is “easier” for now, but winds up creating much more work later. Some immediate examples: Using a third party registration company to manage meeting registration (less work) and importing the attendance data back into the primary database (more work). Managing lists of committees in Outlook (less work) rather than managing the committee lists directly in the database (more work). In both of these simple examples, staff is trading something for that easier work, though they may not know it. In the first case, the…

• Another great idea from an AMS vendor

  Wes Trochlil

  8 Jan 2010 | 6:12 am

  I like to give props to association management software (AMS) vendors when they do something really smart. Here’s another great idea from an AMS vendor. I recently had the opportunity to see an extended demo of DAXKO Connect, DAXKO’s association management software product. During the demo, DAKXO highlighted their “DAXKO ideas” portal (which you can see here.) The DAXKO ideas portal is for DAXKO clients to submit ideas and suggestions for improving the DAXKO products. As I understand it, these suggestions can then be voted on by other DAXKO clients, and DAXKO uses this…

• 
  mizz Information

• If I Were Mayor of Dunkin' Donuts...Oh Wait, I Am

  Maggie

  8 Feb 2010 | 12:41 pm

  Lots of buzz about Foursquare lately--in the association world, the marketing/social media worlds--and of course, my personal world, as my friend/co-worker Janet and I battle it out daily for mayorship of ASHA's National office. Meanwhile, on other, not totally unrelated fronts, Dunkin' Donuts is investing significant amounts of money and time into social media marketing. What do the two of these topics have to do with each other? Well, frankly--me--and the other majors of various Dunkin' Donut locations. Did you know that I am the mayor of not one but TWO different Dunkin' Donut locations?

• Why Businesses Should Think Twice Before Investing Money or Time in a Facebook Page

  Maggie

  4 Feb 2010 | 9:23 pm

  Not to be all "what if"--but the more integral to companies' social media efforts Facebook becomes, the more leery I am about the idea of putting business eggs in a basket over which one has no control. Twitter has already announced that it's testing some business features; Facebook pages, however, while clearly a business offering, are still dependent on individual profiles. This is a HUGE liability which is virtually never discussed--I've literally seen one blog post addressing the issue. Ok, so say you're the individual who initially set up a huge brand's Facebook page. First of all,…

• You're a Douchebag if You Think Foursquare Won't Sell Out

  Maggie

  3 Feb 2010 | 2:43 pm

  I recently read this post about Foursquare's quasi-offensive "Douchebag" badge. Apparently non-nerds find the term "douchebag" to be offensive and are imploring Foursquare to consider the delicate senses of the masses if they want to go mainstream. The author of the post, MG Siegler, asks: "This brings up an interesting dilemma for Foursquare: do they abandon some of the fun, quirky things that made the service what it is, in an attempt to go mainstream?" I doubt it's a dilemma for Foursquare at all--that's like asking Mark Zuckerberg if abandoning the privacy concerns of Facebook users is a…

• List of Nonprofit Social Media and Community Managers

  Maggie

  1 Feb 2010 | 7:24 am

  Every time I see Jeremiah Owyang's list of corporate social media strategists and community managers I wonder when he'll do a similar list for companies with fewer than 1,000 employees--or nonprofits, for that matter. I'm realizing he has his hands full trying to keep up with the list of enterprise social media types since the market for these jobs seems to be exploding, so I may as well just start my own list for nonprofits. I wasn't sure whether to call it Association or Nonprofit, so I'm going with nonprofit for now. I think his idea of linking to a Linkedin profile is a good one, so if…

• Is Work/Life Balance Possible In Social Media Careers?

  Maggie

  28 Jan 2010 | 7:11 pm

  I'll say right off the bat that this post is going to be half-baked because I'm rushing to write it because it's 9:30 pm and my husband hates when I'm blogging at 9:30 pm. But Ryan Paugh, Community Manager at Brazen Careerist, started a great discussion today in the Community Manager group there and I promised I'd write a post about it today. His question was Ok, I definitely want to ask everyone how they maintain a healthy work-life balance, blend or whatever you want to call it, as a Community Manager. It's something Maggie and I started talking about yesterday. Can you guys share any…

• 
  Insights from a Future Association Executive

• This May be Blasphemy, But...

  5 Feb 2010 | 12:15 pm

  I don't get Foursquare. There, I said it. I know it's the big thing these days, but I just personally don't see the value in it for me. Everyday on Twitter I see that everyone is unlocking all these buttons, becoming mayors of places, and developing their own online kingdoms or whatever... For me, it's noise.A usual complaint I hear from non-Twitter users is that they don't understand why you want to know what someone had for lunch today. As a Twitter user, I know that's not what people who get followers tweet about, but to me, this is almost the same thing. Why do I personally care that Joe…

• Some Tips on Streaming an Event Live

  12 Jan 2010 | 11:00 am

  So my organization recently beta tested streaming video using Ustream.tv for a state of the organization speech at an event. We asked three members to sit and watch the stream from home while it happened, and then provide us with feedback - both positive and negative.I also had left the event midway through, and watched it with a critic's eye from home. Here are a few tips I have for those of you wanting to utilize it:1. Know the Exact Layout of the Room - So we had seen the room in the hotel walkthru, and had what we thought was a good idea of how it would be set up. However, the morning of,…

• Addendum to my Big Idea Post...

  11 Dec 2009 | 2:15 pm

  So I posted yesterday about the Big Idea that essentially talked about empowering people at the lowest level.Well, today, I saw on Twitter a Guy Kawasaki post that linked to this really interesting post talking about 50 ways to foster a culture of innovation within your organization. I especially liked #s 8, 11, 35, 37, 41 and 50. These speak to the fact that Kristin Clarke's original big idea that she proposed is in fact a good idea in terms of empowering those who might be at the lower level. Those people often have great ideas, but might not feel as though the culture is in place to allow…

• Big Idea Month: Empowering the Lowest Level Staffers

  10 Dec 2009 | 1:16 pm

  December has been deemed Big Idea month by Acronym, ASAE & The Center's blog. They've asked association bloggers to either come up with big ideas and write about them, or write about some of the ones that were posted by readers in the comments section of the post linked above.One big idea I'd like to discuss and write about was proposed by Kristin Clarke: "What if associations promoted all of the lowest-ranking staffers to VPs for a week--what changes would they immediately make?"My first thought - WHOA! That's a big idea, and a radical one at that. However, I'd like to put a little twist…

• Blogging on the Forum Effect

  3 Dec 2009 | 2:57 pm

  Over the next four weeks, I am going to be blogging on the Association Forum of Chicagoland's FORUM Effect blog relating to something I have been doing for the last three + years: working from home.I wrote a story in their November/December issue on this topic, and am expanding on it in my posts over the next month.My first post talks about the first of the five D's of working from home that I developed - dedication. As you can see, I talk about how you must be dedicated to your craft, your association, and your co-workers to make working from home a positive experience.I'd like to thank…

• 
  High Context Consulting

• Web Career Tips for High School Students

  david@highcontext.com (C. David Gammel)

  2 Feb 2010 | 4:10 pm

  Someone on a list I belong to asked for tips to share with high school students considering a career in the Web. Here were my four tips: 1. View source. 2. Build stuff for your friends. 3. What they teach you in class is always going to be years out of date. 4. If you want to be successful long term, learn the business behind the site. What would you recommend to the same audience? Subscribe to the comments for this post? Tweet This! Share this on Facebook Share this on del.icio.us Digg this! Share this on Technorati Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon

• My Counter-Rant on Social Media ROI

  david@highcontext.com (C. David Gammel)

  14 Jan 2010 | 9:40 am

  David Meerman Scott posted a podcast rant against demands for assessing the specific ROI of social media efforts. Here is my podcast push-back on that rant. In short: Asking how social media can generate value for the company or organization is a perfectly valid question. Any social media advocate or expert has to embrace answering that question if they want to gain support from decision makers. It doesn’t have to be in dollars and cents but it must be answered in the context of how it contributes to the organization’s goals, strategy and operations. And thanks to David for…

• eReaders and Association Publishing

  david@highcontext.com (C. David Gammel)

  11 Jan 2010 | 6:48 am

  Reggie Henry, CIO of ASAE & the Center for Association Leadership, posted the following to Twitter this morning: Looking at all of the e-reader apps at CES just begs the question of when are we going to rethink association publishing… Interesting question! About six years ago a board member of a scientific society with significant publishing operations asked me how I thought the Web would change scholarly publishing. I answered that the peer review process was unlikely to go away, unless we change how we do science, but that the medium in which scientific content is published will…

• Video Interview about Breakthrough Results Online

  david@highcontext.com (C. David Gammel)

  8 Jan 2010 | 8:11 am

  The folks over at ASAE & the Center just released a video interview with me discussing my book, Online and On Mission: Practical Web Strategy for Breakthrough Results. In the interview I explain what a breakthrough results looks like online. You can buy a copy of the book for yourself via my site, Amazon or ASAE. ASAE members should buy from them to receive the greatest discount. Subscribe to the comments for this post? Tweet This! Share this on Facebook Share this on del.icio.us Digg this! Share this on Technorati Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon

• The Best Way to Increase the Perceived Value of Your Online Identity

  david@highcontext.com (C. David Gammel)

  2 Jan 2010 | 2:43 pm

  Post more original content than links to other people’s content. I see a lot of people on Twitter and in blog posts sharing dozens of links a day to other people’s content. Some of it is even good! However, if your goal is to enhance your own perceived value online, you’ll get a better return from posting your own ideas. Good content from you (in blogs, LinkedIn answers, tweets, etc.) will draw people to you over the long term. This is much higher value traffic than what you get by sharing links because they are coming to see what you have to say about something. A sure sign…

• 
  Midcourse Corrections

• The Big Tweet Theory: The Evolution Of A Conference Tweep

  Jeff Hurt

  5 Feb 2010 | 7:24 am

  Since 2007, people have gazed at Twitter and wondered how the Twittershpere developed into what it is today. It’s been the subject of much philosophical, religious and scientific discussion and debate. People who have tried to uncover the mysteries of the Twitterville development include such famous researchers as Danah Boyd, Chris Brogan, Beth Kanter, Charlene Li, Brian Solis, and Dan Zarrella. Many of these researchers have developed their own Twitter birthing theories as they watched the tweeting continue to evolve. Soon Twitter invaded conference, events and tradeshows. Albert…

• Roast Your Conventional Thinking: Reverse Your Perspective

  Jeff Hurt

  4 Feb 2010 | 5:13 am

  In the late 1950s before Seattleites were known as flannel-wearing, granola-eating, sandal-sporting, long-haired, liberal, hippie, indie-rock iPods listeners and fair trade coffee organic food freaks, a mysterious phenomenon occurred. People began discovering small pockmarks on their windshields. A mass hysteria developed as more and more Seattleites found these tiny scars on their vehicles. A pockmark plague scoured the Northwest. Two theories emerged as the cause of these indentations. Russians’ atomic tests had contaminated their atmosphere. Particles from the fallout combined with…

• Exhibitors Dissatisfied With Current Convention Housing Practices: Serious Problem Or Major Opportunity

  davelutz

  3 Feb 2010 | 7:50 am

  By Dave Lutz, Managing Director, Velvet Chainsaw Consulting Last week Expo Magazine Insights newsletter linked to a Trade Show Exhibitor Association (TSEA) exhibitor housing survey. The survey’s key findings are: 8% of exhibitors believe shows have fair convention housing practices. 69% of exhibitors book their hotel rooms through show convention housing bureaus. 89% of exhibitors feel that current deposits are not fair. 97% do not believe they receive the best rate possible when booking rooms for a convention in the housing block. 83% do not feel they have sufficient time to submit names…

• 16 Criteria For Choosing Your Conference Backchannel Tool

  Jeff Hurt

  1 Feb 2010 | 9:57 am

  So you’ve decided you want to help facilitate the attendee communication at your next event. You’ve set a goal to increase your onsite attendee engagement with each other and the speakers during the event. And your goals include listening and responding in real time, when appropriate, as well. Yet, you’re not sure where to begin or which tools to use. Let’s consider one of the most popular backchannel tools today: Twitter. Why has Twitter become so popular as a backchannel tool? Free Ease of use Short learning curve Fast Searchable Feels personable because thumbnail…

• Social Media Celebs, Eventprofs & Great Content Mix It Up At EventCamp 2010

  Jeff Hurt

  29 Jan 2010 | 12:29 pm

  Take 1 part social media. Add 1 part event and meeting professionals. Add 1 part social media specialists. Slowly stir in content from social media celebs, event professionals and attendees. Blend OpenSpace, Unconference and traditional conference elements. Let saturate at the Roger Smith Hotel in New York City. What is this a recipe for? EventCamp 2010, February 6, 2010, an unconference style event for meeting professionals on social media and today’s events as part of NYC’s Social Media Week. Who should attend? You. Especially if you’re interested in the intersection of…

• 
  Membership Marketing Blog

• How to Calculate where your Membership is Headed

  Tony Rossell

  5 Feb 2010 | 9:22 am

  Last month was really busy. I met with many organizations who are looking for help after a distressing 2009. And some of them do not realize just how much trouble they may be in going forward. When I meet with groups, I use a simple method to calculate where their membership is headed given their current metrics. It is called a Steady State Analysis. Using your current data, you can also do this analysis to see what the ultimate equilibrium of your association membership count will be. You can also use the analysis to model where it might be if you add more new members or have…

• Is your SEO Really Optimized?

  Tony Rossell

  4 Feb 2010 | 2:13 pm

  Do you think that your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is doing great? Well it may not be doing as well as it appears to you. I missed this news around the holidays, but amidst Google’s China news, they also announced that they were moving everyone to personalized search results. As they noted on their blog, “Today we're helping people get better search results by extending Personalized Search to signed-out users worldwide, and in more than forty languages. Now when you search using Google, we will be able to better provide you with the most relevant results possible.” In the past,…

• The Pathway to being a Remarkable Association

  Tony Rossell

  29 Jan 2010 | 10:48 am

  Next week, I have the opportunity to do a presentation taking a look at the future of associations. I will start the talk by reviewing the past. Specifically, I am going over the findings of ASAE and The Center in 7 Measures of Success: What Remarkable Associations Do that Other Don’t. As you may recall, this book resulted from a thorough study under the guidance of Jim Collins (Good to Great) comparing 18 matched associations. “The project’s value lies in discerning the often subtle differences between two well-matched organizations – what one association did or didn’t do to give…

• Membership Marketing: The Best Opportunity for Associations to Thrive and Succeed

  Tony Rossell

  19 Jan 2010 | 8:32 am

  Last year, I wrote an article for the Avectra Academy newsletter. Just now, in response to some social media dialogue comparing associations to the plight on today’s newspapers, I shared the link with my perspective. Take a look and feel free to post your thoughts here. Is traditional association membership on a death march or is it the best opportunity for associations to grow and thrive in the future? The Membership Marketing Blog is written by Tony Rossell, Senior Vice Presidnet of Matketing General, Inc. For more information, contact Tony at Tony@MarketingGeneral.com.

• Happy New Year!

  Tony Rossell

  31 Dec 2009 | 8:31 am

  Here is a thoughtful quote on which to end the year. “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” 1 I wish you and those you care about a peaceful and joyful 2010. 1. Albert Einstein (German born American Physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. 1879-1955)The Membership Marketing Blog is written by Tony Rossell, Senior Vice Presidnet of Matketing General, Inc. For more information, contact Tony at Tony@MarketingGeneral.com.

• 
  Mission to Learn

• The Power of Re-Reading

  Jeff Cobb

  9 Feb 2010 | 4:27 am

  I consider myself a relatively careful reader. I take little notes in the margins. Dog-ear important pages. Maybe jot a few things down in a notebook as I go along. And yet I am stunned whenever I happen to go back to a book for a second or even a third time how little I remember of the contents. I’m not talking about reading to study for a test, mind you. I can usually retain what I need to long enough for that sort of thing.  And besides, the days of having to take anything other than self-imposed tests are long behind me. No, I am talking about the book that I put on my list because I…

• The Short Goodbye

  Jeff Cobb

  7 Jan 2010 | 6:16 am

  A couple of posts back I wrote about Acting on the Obvious. Well, one of the obvious things in my own life is that I have not been able to give Mission to Learn the attention I’d like to lately, and it’s probably time to take a brief break rather than trying to “phone it in.” This approach also happens to jibe with what I have written before about reflection and under-appreciated learning strategies. So…  I am going to take my own advice and sign off until sometime the week of February 8. But before I go … Sincere thanks to everyone who visits the site,…

• 10 Personal Favorites from the M2L Archives

  Jeff Cobb

  5 Jan 2010 | 6:46 am

  [tweetmeme] Not too long ago I published the all-time top 10 posts on Mission to Learn based on the number of page views those posts have received. Getting a lot of page views is great – it means a lot of people are visiting the site – but the posts that are the most popular aren’t necessarily my favorites. Here, in no particular order, are 10 I’ve published over the years that haven’t made it into the ranks of the most popular but nonetheless rank very high in my own heart and mind: Is Your Brain In a Box? My take on some of the major myths and misunderstandings…

• Great Learning Resources for 2010 – A New Learning Monitor is Out!

  Jeff Cobb

  31 Dec 2009 | 5:44 am

  I’ve just published the year-end edition of the Learning Monitor, my twice-quarterly round-up of learning resources, news, and insights.  If you haven’t tried out the Monitor yet, this is a great time to start. It’s free, it delivers valuable content, and you can unsubscribe with a click if you decide it’s not for you. What have you got to lose? Here are just a few samples from the Learning Smorgasbord, which features nearly two dozen other great resources. Subscribe to the Learning Monitor and you will automatically receive the latest edition. Khan Academy The Khan…

• Acting on the Obvious

  Jeff Cobb

  30 Dec 2009 | 8:16 am

  As much as I am a fan of learning, I’ve also become more and more aware that I often don’t need to learn anything new. I simply need to recognize what I already know and do something about it. I need to act on the obvious. This means, among other things, that … … I need to unsubscribe from all those e-mail newsletters that I haven’t read for months (or that somehow, mysteriously started arriving in my inbox) … ditto for all of the blogs I am subscribed to but never read … I really need to re-read at least one book from the past for every two or three…

• 
  Reid All About It

• I Wasn’t Expecting That Reaction

  deirdrereid

  8 Feb 2010 | 2:18 pm

  I had a moment of bliss watching The Who perform last night at the Super Bowl halftime. I have loved The Who since junior high and remained an obsessive fan through high school, college and some years beyond – the type that had all their albums plus bootlegs (yes, this dates me), camped out for tickets and knew all kinds of arcane facts about them. Last night I was just a normal fan grinning ear to ear (and got a bit misty-eyed, I admit) as they played. I didn’t expect a dynamo performance, after all Roger and Pete are well into their 60s, the only survivors of the original four, and…

• Trade Show Swag: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

  deirdrereid

  3 Feb 2010 | 11:28 am

  We had a lively #assnchat on Twitter yesterday about trade show booth giveaways. I volunteered to write a summary, not realizing it would turn into the longest blog post ever. However, there’s lots of good info here — the #assnchat tweets as well as suggestions I received from Facebook and Twitter friends. A lot of us agree on what we like to take home from a trade show. Shelly Alcorn raised an important consideration — “What about sustainability? Can we give out cool things without just creating more junk?” Jeff Hurt recommended “contacting PPAI, the association for…

• A Community Model

  deirdrereid

  28 Jan 2010 | 2:02 pm

  My friend Mary Nations shared a video in one of her recent blog posts about a program at Southside Regional Jail in Emporia, VA that really captured me. Not only because it seems like a program that should be replicated at all correctional institutions, but also because it exhibits the positive benefits that a community can bring to its members and to its host institution. I encourage you to watch one of the Community Model videos created by the Center for Therapeutic Justice. There are two versions of the video – 5 minutes and 20 minutes. What’s going on in the Community Model? Do you…

• The CAE Journey

  deirdrereid

  22 Jan 2010 | 9:09 am

  CAE. Certified Association Executive. As many of my friends from outside the association industry ask, “what does that mean exactly?” According to ASAE it means that I have demonstrated “the knowledge essential to the practice of association management.” After reading this you may decide that in my case it should be renamed Certified Association Geek. The CAE journey gave me a deeper knowledge and understanding of association management, particularly in areas that I never had the opportunity to delve into before. Reading the texts while reflecting upon my ten years of…

• Recruiting Volunteers for a Membership Committee

  deirdrereid

  19 Jan 2010 | 2:12 pm

  Digging into my archives, I found an old document that I created a few years ago upon the request of one of our local Executive Directors. He wanted some talking points for a flyer he planned to send out to encourage members to get involved with their membership and ambassadors committees. In his association ambassadors welcome and introduce new members at events and make phone calls throughout the year to first-year members. This was before the days of social media so he was going to rely on getting this flyer out via renewal invoices, the e-newsletter and distribution at events. I decided…

• 
  Acronym

• Quick clicks: Snowy day edition

  8 Feb 2010 | 7:37 am

  This is a bit of a catch-up edition of Quick Clicks, so it's a little longer than usual. But if you're in the DC area (or elsewhere) and snowed in, what better time to catch up on your reading? First, I'd like to welcome to several new association blogs: - Aaron Wolowiec, a former Acronym blogger, has launched his own blog at AaronWolowiec.com. An early standout post: Exposing the silo effect. - Karen Tucker Thomas recently began the CEO Solutions blog. Early standout: Board orientation or board development. - Management Solutions Plus brings us The Common Thread blog, featuring a number of…

• Calling all association bloggers: Tech Conference coverage

  5 Feb 2010 | 7:33 am

  Just like at the annual meeting in Toronto, you can find all the action happening at ASAE & The Center's 2010 Technology Conference (next week! Feb. 10-12) on the conference Hub (that's http://tech10.org or http://tech10.org/m for your mobile device). It will pull through photo, video, Acronym posts, and, yes, lots of Twitter posts -- and it will be easy to tag Tweets to specific education sessions. Any people in the association blogging community who will be there and blogging about the conference, we'd love to pull your posts through to the Hub as well. We'll need you to set up an RSS feed…

• Free for a day

  4 Feb 2010 | 12:01 pm

  Some of you may have seen that access to the Wall Street Journal online—which normally requires a paid subscription—was free yesterday. At right, see a screenshot I grabbed yesterday. The free day was subsidized by a sponsorship from Acura, which of course got a nice big banner ad on the front page and more ads elsewhere throughout the site. I thought this was worth pointing to on the heels of the recent discussion that's been going on here and elsewhere about micropricing and, more broadly, pricing models in general for associations. This "free for a day" sponsorship is an idea that I…

• Score Some Success with Super Bowl Creativity

  3 Feb 2010 | 10:27 am

  Mind if I change the subject a sec? I want to talk sports a minute—Super Bowl football, specifically. Some members do, too. In fact, the Super Bowl can be a fun way to huddle with members, score some free press, and tackle a few tough social problems simultaneously. Here’s what I’ve seen some of your colleagues doing pre-kick-off this weekend to creatively highlight their organizations. Maybe there’s still time to throw together a special play of your own…. Feel free to post at the bottom. Whoa, despite a $3.2-million price tag for 30 seconds of ad time and tons of buzz about the…

• Insiders vs. outsiders

  2 Feb 2010 | 1:10 pm

  An age-old question: is it better to hire a new CEO from inside an organization or from outside? Today's Harvard Business Review Daily Stat points to a study that suggests that a CEO hired from within an organization is a less risky choice than one hired from the outside. The study, by Yan Zhang of Rice University and Nandini Rajagopalan of the University of Southern California, says "relative to outside CEOs, inside CEOs will tend to have a more 'even' performance across various levels of strategic change." The exact details of the study are more nuanced, of course, and they suggest that an…

• 
  Association Meetings

• Hands On Social Media Workshops - Let's Connect!

  jkhewett

  3 Feb 2010 | 5:42 pm

  Come join us for a 6-Part Hands on Workshop series learning to use social media applications. These sessions will be held in a computer lab thus allowing you a first-hand experience in using the technologies. Week 1 Feb 9: What is Social Networking - An Overview Week 2 Feb 16: Blogs and RSS Feeds - How to Create and Use Effectively Week 3 Feb 23: Facebook - Finding Friends and Fans, what do I need to know? Week 4 Mar 9: LinkedIn - Building your Professional Community Week 5 Mar 16: Twitter - What is a Tweet? Week 6 Mar 23: Bringing it all Together: Nings, Video, Wikis and Waves Attendees may…

• Are Your Ears Burning?- 20 Tools for Tracking Social Media Marketing

  jkhewett

  19 Jan 2010 | 6:22 am

  What am I reading today? As someone who is actively involved in many different social media campaigns I "try" to keep up with what is being said by others about my organization and the organization that we manage.  My favorite tool is "Google Alerts."  This blog posting by Merle has shown that my method is only scratching the surface, there are better ways!"Are Your Ears Burning?- 20 Tools for Tracking Social Media Marketing"How are you tracking what was said?

• Tweeting At Conferences And Events: The Good, The Better, The Best

  jkhewett

  12 Jan 2010 | 5:44 am

  What am I reading today? Today I am reading many of the blogs and twitter streams coming from the PCMA’s 2010 54th Convening Leaders Conference in Dallas Texas.  Many of my meeting and event planner colleagues are in attendance sharing their experiences.  One that I would like to share is from Jeff Hurt on the topic of Twitter.  For those of us who actively use Twitter we truly appreciate those who "get it"; those who tweet with value! To post a message in 140 characters or less does take some thought.  To create a message that shares information, resources, content in a…

• 
  SocialFish

• PR and Social Media: Across the Blogosphere

  Maddie Grant

  9 Feb 2010 | 5:00 am

  Lindy and I have been invited to post regularly on K Street Cafe,  a cool multi-authored blog about public affairs/public relations/advocacy and social media.  Here’s the blurb: “K Street Café is a blog where experts from a variety of backgrounds share new and novel ways technology, the Internet and social media are being used to shape public policies. As new media tactics are introduced, K Street Café will examine how advocacy organizations are continually changing the way they execute public affairs campaigns Contributors to the blog will highlight and analyze the shift from…

• Mailchimp Introduces Geolocation for Email

  Lindy Dreyer

  8 Feb 2010 | 5:51 am

  This is kind of a big deal. In a perfect world, we’d have clean email lists that include location data for each address. But my world is not perfect, and I’m guessing I’m not the only one.  So when Mailchimp announced that they’ve enabled geo tracking in their latest release, I pretty much did the happy dance right on the spot. How do they do it? Basically, they are able to track IP addresses for people who interact with you during the double opt-in process, by opening your email and displaying images, or by clicking on a link in your email. Is it perfect? No. But…

• Best iPhone Apps from Nonprofits and Associations

  Maddie Grant

  6 Feb 2010 | 6:17 am

  We want to write a post about the best iPhone apps from nonprofits and associations.   Help us out.  Do you have one already?  Tell us about it in the comments.  If not… are you ready to think about going mobile? We were!  … and we thought we’d test out the process of making an app.   We searched around and decided to go with AppMakr – simple and inexpensive (two prerequisites for experimenting, right?).  The process was easy.  This app works by pulling in feeds – from your blog, from your Twitter feeds, even from YouTube.  You set it up in minutes, and…

• Water Cooler Chat 2/5

  Maddie Grant

  5 Feb 2010 | 8:30 am

  Please join us for our Water Cooler chats, hosted in conjunction with Engage365, on FRIDAYS at 1 pm CST/2 pm EST. That’s today!! We’ll be talking a lot about all the various interesting issues around using social media at events… but as usual, we’ll also talk about anything else that’s on your mind. So come armed with serious questions / topics / issues / problems or just drop in to shoot the breeze on Friday afternoons. Can’t wait to chat with you! Last week we talked about a whole bunch of stuff, including Apple’s big iPad announcement and some…

• Gearing up for #Tech10

  Lindy Dreyer

  5 Feb 2010 | 5:33 am

  Maddie and I are getting ready for #tech10–the ASAE Technology Conference happening next week. Or, at least, we’re getting ready to get ready for #tech10. How did February sneak up on me? So…here’s what the SocialFish will be getting into while we’re at the conference next week. Our Session(s) RUTI Volunteer Town Hall: Building, Launching and Nurturing an Online Community–Thursday at 2:45pm. We’re gonna be talking about the process of launching an online community, using the ASAE Collaborate site as the case study. You’ll hear from people who…

• 
  Association Marketing Springboard

• Mailchimp Introduces Geolocation for Email

  Lindy Dreyer

  8 Feb 2010 | 5:51 am

  This is kind of a big deal. In a perfect world, we’d have clean email lists that include location data for each address. But my world is not perfect, and I’m guessing I’m not the only one.  So when Mailchimp announced that they’ve enabled geo tracking in their latest release, I pretty much did the happy dance right on the spot. How do they do it? Basically, they are able to track IP addresses for people who interact with you during the double opt-in process, by opening your email and displaying images, or by clicking on a link in your email. Is it perfect? No. But…

• Gearing up for #Tech10

  Lindy Dreyer

  5 Feb 2010 | 5:33 am

  Maddie and I are getting ready for #tech10–the ASAE Technology Conference happening next week. Or, at least, we’re getting ready to get ready for #tech10. How did February sneak up on me? So…here’s what the SocialFish will be getting into while we’re at the conference next week. Our Session(s) RUTI Volunteer Town Hall: Building, Launching and Nurturing an Online Community–Thursday at 2:45pm. We’re gonna be talking about the process of launching an online community, using the ASAE Collaborate site as the case study. You’ll hear from people who…

• Whitepaper tips on building capacity

  Lindy Dreyer

  20 Jan 2010 | 8:12 am

  Building Social Media Capacity 8 steps from our new whitepaper SocialFish Food Tips These tips were originally sent in our kinda monthly email newsletter, SocialFish Food. Here’s the original email. Here’s how to subscribe. Here is an excerpt from our new, free whitepaper, Social Media, Risk, and Policies for Associations. The purpose of the paper is to help folks like you develop good social media policies for staff and top volunteers. We also discuss a more general plan for building social media processes into your organization. Here are the basic steps, as we see them. Monitor…

• Going Viral isn’t Marketing…

  Lindy Dreyer

  22 Dec 2009 | 5:00 am

  …it’s advertising. Or maybe PR. And there’s a lot of luck involved. “Viral marketing” has become such a buzzword, with so many vendors promising “viral results”–ugh. Would it be great to create the next Pink Gloves Dance and be featured on national news outlets? Sure. Would it raise a ton of awareness? Yes. And if that’s what you’re trying to do, than great. But it’s not marketing. Not really. I talk a lot about word of mouth marketing and community-driven marketing (homage to Jeremy Epstein). Using WOM is a discipline. It…

• Build a better filter…keyword basics

  Lindy Dreyer

  4 Dec 2009 | 5:00 am

  “It’s not information overload. It’s filter failure.” -Clay Shirky Listening through the social web is one of the core skills that we all need to develop. I’ve been doing it for years, and yet I’m always thinking up a better way, a more useful keyword, or an improved lens. I challenge everyone reading this post to get back to basics this week, and improve your keyword searches. That means using operators like AND and OR. It means negating certain words. You might try searching in a specific site or user.  There are lots of little tricks to brush up on. To…

• 
  Idea Center - Mariner Management

• Association Engagement Defined

  Peggy Hoffman

  7 Feb 2010 | 7:41 pm

  I had the opportunity to speak with three different groups of volunteer leaders this week and in each case we talked about the challenge of increasing member engagement. What struck me was that the focus of engagement is on the “big ticket items” of event attendance or volunteer leadership (read serve on committee or board). It will be difficult if not impossible for us to increase engagement if we keep this focus so narrow.  And there is a lot at stake.read more

• I Paid My Dues, ASAE

  Peggy Hoffman

  1 Feb 2010 | 9:51 am

  I paid my dues on-line today to continue my membership in ASAE & The Center. No, it's not cause to alert the media or sound the trumpets. I've been doing this steadily since about 1981. Some years, it was paid by my association, a few out of my pocket and of course the last 8 through my association management company (read my own pocket). So what's the cause for the announcement? Well, I paid on-line as the result of an annual reminder set-up in the finance folder. The announcement is: I didn't need a 5-step dues billing invoice system to renew.read more

• Truths About Volunteering #15

  Peggy Hoffman

  31 Jan 2010 | 6:47 am

  People volunteer to be part of something larger without being larger than life in that project. Glenn Yonemitsu, chair of the Canadian Association of Management Consultants, a volunteer for the Olympics shares his journey and the excitement of seeing one of his members carrying the torch.  read more

• Forget Technology, It's Relationships

  Peggy Hoffman

  28 Jan 2010 | 6:06 pm

  Of all the responses I received to my request for help in setting an agenda for 2010, the one that gave me most pause was from Jeff De Cagna (like I was surprised?): In 2010, association leaders need to ask a fundamental question: how can we make everything we do more social?  This question is not primarily a technological consideration, but a strategic and human one.  The challenge is to look beyond the tools at the diverse relationships they enable and the deeper meaning they nurture.read more

• Is That All There Is?

  Peter Houstle

  26 Jan 2010 | 5:58 am

  Bruce Butterfield's question and Peggy's earlier post on the comparison of associations to newspapers begs a fundamental question ... is that all there is?” read more

• 
  Condo Association Management Blog

• Condo association board won't let us rent our unit, although they do

  8 Feb 2010 | 10:37 pm

  Our condo association board told us we couldnt rent out our condo unit, although the board members themselves have the top 5 renting units in the condo building.  Any suggestions how to handle this?

• Is condo association social fundraising a taxable event?

  7 Feb 2010 | 10:23 pm

  Our Florida condo association is seeking to raise finances for Social purposes (raffles, 50/50 etc). Are there restrictions on what or how these are operated? And, are we likely to attract tax (local or Federal) on such income? Finally, donations, whether cash or goods for social purposes (such as benches or special plantings). Are these considered "income" even if specified for use ONLY for social usage?

• Condo association forcing us out for smoking. What can we do?

  5 Feb 2010 | 10:27 pm

  My neighbor has complained to the condo association about my husband's cigarette smoke seeping into her condo. She was a smoker when she moved in about 6 yrs. ago. Now she says she has asthma and the smoke irritates it. My husband and myself are being threatened with a fine of $100.00 a day until we stop smoking or sell our condo. We have lived in these two towers for over 23 yrs and now we are very unhappy over this situation. What can we do to end this horrible nightmare? We feel she does not have to put us through this since she once smoked. We have been told the cigarette smoke is seeping…

• Can condo association president use assessment funds without approval

  4 Feb 2010 | 10:19 pm

  Can the condo association president use a special assessment for another purpose without any vote from the condo association owners?

• How much does a condo association or HOA reserve study cost?

  3 Feb 2010 | 10:14 pm

  We are an 18 unit condo association in SW Florida built in 1970. Any idea of approximately how much an initial Reserve Study might cost?

• 
  HOAleader.com

• Mandatory Club Memberships May Land Your HOA in Court

  This week's tip is a cautionary tale for homeowners associations considering making club memberships mandatory in an effort to generate additional funding.

• Can Your HOA Make Club Membership Mandatory?

  Cash-strapped homeowner associations in Florida, Oregon, and Washington have been testing a new plan to generate income for their communities--making membership in association clubs mandatory for all homeowners. If you've been considering generating revenue by amending your governing documents to make membership in your HOA's golf or other club mandatory, read on before you take any action.

• HOA Finances: Think Twice Before Throwing a Party with Unused Budget Funds

  This week's tip deals with condo and homeowners associations that take leftover money in a miscellaneous or contingency budget account and fritter them away with things like parties. Be careful before taking that step.

• HOA Governance: Challenges Remain When Working with Lenders on Delinquencies

  Too many homeowners associations are struggling to deal with absentee owners who've taken the "jingle mail" route--they've walked away from the home they now owe too much money on, and they've mailed the keys to the bank--before lenders have foreclosed. Even when banks have completed foreclosure and own association units, HOAs still have trouble collecting ongoing fees.

• Mechanic's Liens: What You Must Know, and How to Avoid Them

  our project to add parking to your homeowners association has been fraught with problems from day one. You've argued with the contractor over all the additional charges that seem to materialize out of thin air. Your board is sick and tired of dealing with the constant frustrations and decides it will simply nod and smile to the contractor until the project's done. Then it'll simply refuse to pay all the additional charges the contractor is trying to impose. This week's tip explains why that's like sending an engraved invitation to a contractor to file a mechanic's lien against your HOA, which…

• 
  Google Blog Search: Association Management

• APM News Press: Associated Property Management (APM) Welcomes 3200 ...

  Associated Property Management

  9 Feb 2010 | 3:31 am

  As one of the oldest management companies in Palm Beach County, APM has been specializing in community association management since 1988. APM represents more than 130 associations from Jupiter to Boca Raton and as far west as Wellington ...

• Minnesota Chapter of the American Marketing Association Blog ...

  Thusuong Hiel

  8 Feb 2010 | 7:02 pm

  Laura Kalies has served on the MN AMA Membership Committee, Coordinated Annual Conference Volunteers and served on the MN AMA SIG for Market Research and Healthcare. Her work experience includes medical association management and ...

• Congrats to Camron Rust - The Official Forum

  Smitty

  8 Feb 2010 | 9:53 am

  Developer of http://www.reftown.com/, an online officials association management solution. Contact us for a Free Trial. Last edited by Camron Rust; Yesterday at 03:27pm. Old Yesterday, 03:30pm. Camron Rust Camron Rust is online now ...

• Thanks For Playing: Career Spotlight: Association Management

  Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

  8 Feb 2010 | 8:03 am

  Student? Young professional? Experienced professional who's new to the field of association management? Know someone in one or more of these categories? Join me, ASAE chief staff executive John Graham, Don Dea of Fusion Productions, ...

• How much does a condo association or HOA reserve study cost?

  unknown

  3 Feb 2010 | 10:14 pm

  We are an 18 unit condo association in SW Florida built in 1970. Any idea of approximately how much an initial Reserve Study might cost?

• 
  Cynthia D'Amour on Leadership and Life

• Two Blocks From Heaven!

  Cynthia D'Amour

  8 Feb 2010 | 12:46 am

  Who knew? I spent an extra night in Westchester, NY thanks to the blizzard. In a nice area. Next to big shopping. An okay place to be stuck. Surrounded by chain restaurants. Morton’s Outback Cheesecake Factory and more! I could have been in any major city. Fine. But not as fun. As finding the local flavor. I asked the bellhop for help. At first he tried to send me to the nice chains. I held strong. He shared a secret. Two blocks away was a local Italian restaurant. When I walked in, I breathed garlic. A little Italian princess was wrapping up her birthday party. They were dressed to the…

• The Dance of Nerves

  Cynthia D'Amour

  5 Feb 2010 | 3:45 am

     Mine! I’m a little bit of an over-achiever. (Anyone surprised?) I like to do things well. And manage my variables. Today I have to fly to White Plains, NY. In a prop plane. With a layover in Philadelphia. Arriving in NY around 2:30 PM. Yesterday the impending East coast blizzard started stressing me out. Would I beat it to Philly? What if I can’t get out? Should I take a different flight? Adding to my stress - I’m not flying Delta. I’m an elite flyer with them. They make sure I get places. To save my client money, I’m flying as a nobody today. Last night I…

• Let Me Count The Ways to Get You…

  Cynthia D'Amour

  3 Feb 2010 | 7:50 am

     To the game. This weekend James and I attended the Michigan Women’s Basketball game. We catch the games when we can. To support women’s sports. And take in the experience - and what an experience it was! I’m not sure which I enjoyed more… The game. (Won with less than a minute to go!) Or the other stuff in between. Michigan was very creative in giving people a reason to attend the game. Catered birthday parties with special basketball cupcakes. Elementary kids sang the national anthem. American Heart passed out cookbooks and Go Red Pins. Biggest Loser contestants…

• You Should Have Already Responded

  Cynthia D'Amour

  1 Feb 2010 | 12:05 pm

     We need to know - NOW. I got a lovely Monday morning email… Can I help the chapter event or not? It’s critical they know now. They sent an e-mail request Friday afternoon… Huh? I’m not sure why she wrote me. I know she’s a member. No idea how she’s connected to the event. She doesn’t explain - or assumes I know. Plus she didn’t give me the details needed to take action. She shared when the first email was sent. But not the date of the event in question. Name of original sendor - but no email to RSVP too. I don’t have the first…

• The TV Commercial Hooked Me

  Cynthia D'Amour

  29 Jan 2010 | 7:09 am

     I was intrigued. They gave the URL. My computer was in my lap. I went to their website. And everything went downhill. I wanted to see if an event was scheduled in Michigan. Tried to use their calendar. And could not figure it out. I was shocked. I’ve been surfing for years. A simple calendar search should be a no-brainer. It wasn’t. I couldn’t make it give me what I wanted. What went wrong? Button confusion. Too much information. Written in insider code. After three attempts, I gave up. Too much effort. Didn’t have time to waste. The TV hook forgotten. Plus, if…

• 
  Drake & Company

• Way to go team!!

  Rick Dungey

  3 Feb 2010 | 9:17 am

  Short blog about a recent accomplishment one of our client teams just had. As you may know, we recently became the management firm for the International Fruit Tree Association. One of their main projects is publishing the Compact Fruit Tree magazine 3 times per year, in April, August and December.Now, we like to tell clients and associates of DrakeCo that our staff has a wide array of specialized skills and experiences. I think this really showed when the IFTA client team, led by Nancy Soucek on this project, got the December issue (our first for them) compiled, typeset, printed and mailed to…

• The Recession & the Business of Associations

  Steve Drake

  26 Jan 2010 | 5:12 am

  How is the continuing recession likely to impact your association? And, what are you going to do about it?As unemployment continues to hover around 10%, a couple of recent news items suggest associations and nonprofit organizations need to aggressively look at alternatives to business as usualFirst, according to last year's comprehensive research from ASAE and the Center (http://bit.ly/6NwCyM and http://bit.ly/FuTeA), the recession will impact both membership and meeting revenues for the majority of associations. Specifically:Two-thirds (66.2%) of associations projected a decline in member…

• Spring Planting

  Nancy Soucek

  25 Jan 2010 | 10:55 am

  It's late January and my natural inclination is to hibernate (or curl up with a good book and wait till spring). One of the tricks I use to get through the gray days is to look at all the gloriously colorful seed catalogs that arrive in my mailbox. They "plant the seeds" of possibility of amazing things ahead, of the bounty of the summer garden.Last week our team helped "plant the seeds" of a long-term relationship with one of our client association's new sponsors. Our client team had made contact with a new company (new to the association) and sold them on the opportunities the association…

• Innovation and Associations

  Brian Reuwee

  20 Jan 2010 | 12:57 pm

  Steve Drake, Jamie Notter, Jim Quick and I are getting ready to do a presentation on social media at the AMC Institute annual meeting in February. We came across some interesting information when we surveyed our counterparts at other AMCs. According to our informal survey of association management companies (AMC), social media technology has been underutilized or avoided by many AMC leaders and used sparsely by AMC clients.I, and my fellow presenters, would probably argue that social media is one of the greatest innovations for associations in recent history. Social media allows groups of…

• Power of Timing & Thanks

  Steve Drake

  14 Jan 2010 | 6:26 am

  As we were closing our fiscal year, I received a letter asking for a donation to an educational foundation within our profession.Great timing! I authorized a donation to the foundation.This week, I received a phone call from Sally at the foundation. She was calling to say thanks for the generous donation. She said a formal thank you letter would follow but she just wanted to thank me for the generous donation.The power of thanks.Next year, I'll put a donation to that foundation into the budget.So, as you look at your plans for 2010, have you thought about the timing of your annual giving…

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  Guilt by Association

• The “Splinternet” is Bad News, and I blame Apple

  Frank Fortin

  27 Jan 2010 | 6:45 am

  Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research has written a must-read post on the splintering of the Web, saying that the golden days of the standardized, open-source Web are over. He says we should prepare ourselves for a world in which platforms function well enough within their ecosystems, but are deaf to the rest of the universe around them. Mobile devices and online networks are the most obvious examples. iPhone apps don’t work on a Blackberry, and vice versa. Facebook apps only work on Facebook. LinkedIn exists by itself in a corner of the world. Their citizens seem quite happy with this state…

• Forrester Updates its Social Technographics Model

  Frank Fortin

  20 Jan 2010 | 6:09 am

  Forrester Research (of which I am a fan) has just updated its Social Technographics Ladder, its model for measuring an audience’s engagement with social media tools. Josh Bernoff and his team have added a group called “conversationalists,” people who update their social networking site or their Twitter status at least once a week. Here’s the cool thing – their initial number puts the figure at 33% of all online adults in the U.S.  As Phil Rizzuto would say, holy cow! When I get some time [ha!], I’ll dig into our raw data and try to get a sense of where our…

• Roger and Don – and Innovation

  Frank Fortin

  18 Jan 2010 | 3:00 am

  The blogger Dan Blank last week used a scene from this season’s great final episode of Mad Men to illustrate the tensions in media today – and he could have been talking about associations, too. To recap Mad Men … for those not yet smitten … it’s 1963, just weeks after JFK’s assassination. As we know from our vantage point, the world is poised to change. Roger Sterling and Don Draper are two of the lead managers in a New York ad agency. Roger inherited the agency from his late father, and he’s been coasting through life lately. Don is a scrapper,…

• Mobile, Social and Search – The Plan for 2010

  Frank Fortin

  28 Dec 2009 | 12:57 pm

  The two important things happened to marketing and communications in the last five years. Communications became a two-way street – the audience became the community We expected our community members to find us. Now, they expect us to find them, wherever they are. The social part of this has been beaten to death for the last five years; I don’t have to go into that. But as the recent owner of my first smartphone, I finally internalized the game-changing nature of our always-on, always-everywhere world. The ah-ha moment for me was a New York Times article last year, where a 20-something…

• The Humble E-Mail: An Appreciation

  Frank Fortin

  5 Oct 2009 | 3:00 am

  Behold the humble e-mail. With origins known mostly to Internet anthropologists, it became one of the first killer apps of the Internet era. Marketers coveted its unprecedented direct access to individual consumers. They lusted after its potential for personalization. They rhapsodized over its near-zero costs. They exulted, “Behold, we have seen the promised land!” Then they ruined it. Who would have suspected that an ROI of one in a million would be profitable? And who knew that “V!^8ra” could be spelled so many different ways, yet still be recognized by the human brain? Thus, e-mail…

• 
  Frank Kenny Speaks, Writes, Coaches

• Celebrate Failure

  admin

  7 Feb 2010 | 4:50 pm

  At the W.A.C.E. conference that I attended this past week, we heard from Barry Moltz, author of  Bounce!: Failure, Resiliency, and Confidence to Achieve Your Next Great Success. He talked about the necessity of working through your failures to find your successes. It was an excellent speech and I highly recommend retaining Barry for your [...]

• What’s behind the “Velvet Rope”?

  admin

  6 Feb 2010 | 10:34 am

  Our association has a members-only social networking site called “Myno”, short for MyNorthMasonChamber.com. It has been a boon for our Chamber of Commerce. Here are a few of the many reasons why. It is a “Velvet Rope” site. By definition, this means you can’t participate if you are not a member of our Chamber. We know that [...]

• Online Personal Branding

  admin

  31 Jan 2010 | 8:48 pm

  I am eager to share part of my Online Personal Branding presentation with you. I have given this presentation several times recently and, from the feedback I have been receiving, it seems to be timely and valuable to the audience. I hope you too find these points useful and helpful. What is your brand? I usually start off [...]

• Don’t be too self-promoting

  admin

  30 Jan 2010 | 7:41 am

  I keep seeing people on Facebook, Twitter, and such promoting themselves too forwardly. This is a mistake. Don’t be like that. If you are going to promote yourself or your business directly, make sure you promote or support somebody else online 10 times for every time you mention yourself. That is a good rule of thumb [...]

• Sold Out Gala – Video from January 23, 2010

  admin

  24 Jan 2010 | 11:04 pm

  We doubled membership of the Chamber in the past 2 years. Internet social networking has been a key factor in our growth. Way to go 2009 Trustees and award winners.

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  Acronym

• Quick clicks: Snowy day edition

  Lisa Junker

  8 Feb 2010 | 8:15 am

  This is a bit of a catch-up edition of Quick Clicks, so it's a little longer than usual. But if you're in the DC area (or elsewhere) and snowed in, what better time to catch up on your reading? First, I'd like to welcome to several new association blogs: - Aaron Wolowiec, a former Acronym blogger, has launched his own blog at AaronWolowiec.com. An early standout post: Exposing the silo effect. - Karen Tucker Thomas recently began the CEO Solutions blog. Early standout: Board orientation or board development. - Management Solutions Plus brings us The Common Thread blog, featuring a number of…

• Calling all association bloggers: Tech Conference coverage

  Scott Briscoe

  5 Feb 2010 | 8:27 am

  Just like at the annual meeting in Toronto, you can find all the action happening at ASAE & The Center's 2010 Technology Conference (next week! Feb. 10-12) on the conference Hub (that's http://tech10.org or http://tech10.org/m for your mobile device). It will pull through photo, video, Acronym posts, and, yes, lots of Twitter posts -- and it will be easy to tag Tweets to specific education sessions. Any people in the association blogging community who will be there and blogging about the conference, we'd love to pull your posts through to the Hub as well. We'll need you to set up an RSS feed…

• Free for a day

  Joe Rominiecki

  4 Feb 2010 | 12:02 pm

  Some of you may have seen that access to the Wall Street Journal online—which normally requires a paid subscription—was free yesterday. At right, see a screenshot I grabbed yesterday. The free day was subsidized by a sponsorship from Acura, which of course got a nice big banner ad on the front page and more ads elsewhere throughout the site. I thought this was worth pointing to on the heels of the recent discussion that's been going on here and elsewhere about micropricing and, more broadly, pricing models in general for associations. This "free for a day" sponsorship is an idea that I…

• Score Some Success with Super Bowl Creativity

  Kristin Clarke

  4 Feb 2010 | 11:50 am

  Mind if I change the subject a sec? I want to talk sports a minute—Super Bowl football, specifically. Some members do, too. In fact, the Super Bowl can be a fun way to huddle with members, score some free press, and tackle a few tough social problems simultaneously. Here’s what I’ve seen some of your colleagues doing pre-kick-off this weekend to creatively highlight their organizations. Maybe there’s still time to throw together a special play of your own…. Feel free to post at the bottom. Whoa, despite a $3.2-million price tag for 30 seconds of ad time and tons of buzz about the…

• Insiders vs. outsiders

  Joe Rominiecki

  2 Feb 2010 | 1:06 pm

  An age-old question: is it better to hire a new CEO from inside an organization or from outside? Today's Harvard Business Review Daily Stat points to a study that suggests that a CEO hired from within an organization is a less risky choice than one hired from the outside. The study, by Yan Zhang of Rice University and Nandini Rajagopalan of the University of Southern California, says "relative to outside CEOs, inside CEOs will tend to have a more 'even' performance across various levels of strategic change." The exact details of the study are more nuanced, of course, and they suggest that an…

• 
  Splash: A Blog from MemberClicks

• Videos: Crucial Conversations

  Shannon Otto

  8 Feb 2010 | 9:48 am

  I was catching up on some video posts last weekend and this morning, and thought I’d compile them in one post here for our readers. January was Governance Month at ASAE and The Center, as well as its Acronym blog, and they posted a few video interviews with association CEOs about having those “crucial conversations” with your board. Mike Grubb, CEO of the Southern Gas Association, talks about building a stronger relationship with his board. John Saunders, executive director of the National Forum for Black Public Administrators, chats with ASAE about confronting a board…

• Friday Top Five: Super Bowl edition

  Shannon Otto

  5 Feb 2010 | 8:13 am

  Happy Super Bowl weekend! Any football fans in the house? Anyone have any fun viewing plans? I’ll be hosting a small get-together at my new apartment, and still haven’t decided who to cheer for yet. (I’m leaning toward the Colts, though.) Or maybe you don’t care about football and only watch the commercials … or nothing at all. Regardless, I hope everyone has a great weekend! As always, there were some great posts around the association community this week with information small-staff professionals can truly benefit from. 1. Jeff De Cagna discussed the five words…

• In the News: Cloud Computing

  Shannon Otto

  4 Feb 2010 | 8:44 am

  Is your data in the cloud? “Cloud computing” refers to using Web-based technology to manage information, data and documents. There is no software to install or hardware to keep up with, and you can access your information from any computer. Although Web software can be daunting for associations, especially those with fewer than 10 people on staff, there are several benefits to cloud computing. Since your data is available “in the cloud,” you can authorize as many administrators as you like. To be sure, Microsoft Excel and Access are valuable pieces of software, but when…

• Beyond the Big Three PDF Download

  Shannon Otto

  3 Feb 2010 | 1:09 pm

  I wrapped up Beyond the Big Three, our series exploring social media outposts other than Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, last week, but we wanted to give everyone a tangible, printable resource to have on hand. Therefore, we’ve compiled all 12 installments into one handy PDF document available for download here! The 12-part series covered 13 awesome sites: 1. Flickr 2. Delicious 3. Tumblr 4. Posterous 5. YouTube 6. Ning 7. SlideShare 8. Digg 9. Blogs 10. Good Reads 11. UStream 12. FourSquare 13. FriendFeed In addition to summaries of each outpost, each installment includes some…

• Meet our ASAE Technology Expo Team: Duncan McCreery

  Shannon Otto

  3 Feb 2010 | 7:28 am

  Since the 2010 Technology Conference and Expo is next week, I wanted to introduce everyone to the MemberClicks team members who will be in Washington DC. Last week, I introduced you to Solution Adviser Hannae Berhanu. This week? Customer Maximization Lead Duncan McCreery. Duncan has worked at MemberClicks for two years now, and just recently moved into the Maximization Team Leader position. Prior to that, he was a solution adviser, and helped implement more than 50 small-staff associations during his time in that role. Last fall, we developed the Customer Maximization Program to ensure that…

• 
  Association Subculture

• Join Me in My Next Bold Move - Supreme Court Citizens United Ruling

  Shelly Alcorn, CAE

  1 Feb 2010 | 2:08 pm

  coming of age during the plague of reagan and bush watching capitalism gun down democracy it had this funny effect on me i guess....... The mighty multinationals have monopolized the oxygen so it's as easy as breathing for us all to participate yes they're buying and selling off shares of air and you know it's all around you but it's hard to point and say "there" so you just sit on your hands and quietly contemplate.......Ani DiFranco, Reckoning The Short of It Partisan politics aside, the recent Supreme Court ruling is mindblowing I was unable to blog last week because of it Sitting,…

• Authenticity in Association Governance - Building Empire

  Shelly Alcorn, CAE

  19 Jan 2010 | 12:56 pm

  Too bad, people say what's wrong with the kids today Tell you right now they've got nothing to lose They're building empire! Game point, nobody wins. Decline, right on time. What happened to the dream sublime? Tear it all down, we'll put it up again. Another empire?...................Queensryche, Empire The Short of It Association governance is challenging True leadership is steeped in authenticity Honestly embracing the members and the mission Representing those interests above all others But when your governance structure loses that authenticity Then you are in for a long run of playing…

• Association Subculture Word for 2010 - Authenticity

  Shelly Alcorn, CAE

  11 Jan 2010 | 6:08 pm

  Like the echoes of your childhood laughter, ever after Like the first time love urged you to take it's guidance, in silence Like your heartbeat when you realize you're dying, but you're trying Like the way you cry for a happy ending, ending... I know the feeling It is the real thing....Faith No More, The Real Thing The Short of It I may not dig new years resolutions But I am intrigued by the idea of a "word(s) for the year" So, I've picked a word to focus on And blog about in 2010 One I hope to see in more association discussions Authenticity The Long of It I've been inspired by the idea of…

• The End of the World as We Know It (in Associations)

  Shelly Alcorn, CAE

  3 Jan 2010 | 4:16 pm

  Six o'clock - TV hour. Don't get caught in foreign tower. Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn. Lock him in uniform and book burning, blood letting. Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate. Light a candle, light a motive. Step down, step down. Watch a heel crush, crush. Uh oh, this means no fear - cavalier. Renegade and steer clear! A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline. It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel…

• The Politics of Dancing (and What If Ideas in Associations)

  Shelly Alcorn, CAE

  22 Dec 2009 | 2:09 pm

  We got the message I heard it on the airwaves The politicians Are now DJ's The broadcast was spreading Station to station Like an infection Across the nation Well you know you can't stop it When they start to play You gotta get out the way The politics of dancing The politics of ooo feeling good The politics of moving Is this message understood - Re-flex, The Politics of Dancing The Short of It I have been inspired by Acronym's Big Ideas month I've read a lot of great blog posts And marveled at the good thinking going into them But I find myself focusing on one thread In the eventual…

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  Vanguard Technology

• Guest Post: Building Relationships is a Process, Not an Event

  Chris Bonney

  1 Feb 2010 | 3:40 am

  Hari Shetty, Jiffle Whenever I ask people what their #1 reason for attending an event is, the answer is always “networking”. Millions of people attend business events every year – more than 80 million people attended business events in 2007 in the US alone. Does this mean that every attendee actually realizes the benefits of networking and is successful in building lasting relationships? Do we always get a true return on the time, money and energy we spend on these events? Unfortunately, the answer is usually no. Why? The simple answer is that networking is a process, not…

• Site of the Week: MobileCrunch

  Chris Bonney

  29 Jan 2010 | 10:18 am

  In case you haven’t heard, mobile is the future. Especially for associations. So, why not get current on why this is so? This week’s site of the week is MobileCrunch. MobileCrunch is the kissing cousin of TechCrunch, the uber-popular technology blog. MobileCrunch describes itself as: “… a blog covering the hardware, software, and services of the mobile industry. We’ve got an outright obsession with all things mobile.”

• Site of the Week: Foursquare

  Chris Bonney

  22 Jan 2010 | 4:05 am

  Foursquare is the next big thing in social networking. We know mobile is growing as a platform of choice for many association members, so foursquare is a logical progression. This week I’m going to do this a little differently. Instead of personally detailing how this application is relevant to your association, I’m going to link you over to the MemberClicks blog to read their post about it. They’ve done it more justice than I ever could have. Read about foursquare here. It’s definitely worth a click.

• 7 Secrets To Launching A Successful Social Network

  Chris Bonney

  18 Jan 2010 | 6:53 am

  I’ll be part of a webinar put on by Higher Logic Thursday, January 21 at 1pm Central called “7 Secrets to a Successful Social Networking Launch.” Learn when the right time to launch a social network really is. It might not be what you think. Find out who THE most important person to include in your social network is. And much more! If you’re considering a new social network or have one and want to get it to the next level, this webinar is for you. Update: View the recorded webinar.

• 5 Questions Series: Lisa Claydon from CK Marketing – Why Email Marketing Matters More Than Ever For Associations

  Chris Bonney

  13 Jan 2010 | 4:22 am

  Welcome to the Vanguard Technology 5 Questions Series where we ask an association professional who is doing unique and innovative things with technology to share with us what it’s like to be them. The purpose of this series is to help association professionals learn  how to better use technology to streamline operations or attract more members. The format for the 5 Questions Series is that one question is answered in writing right here on our blog and the other four are answered in a recorded interview that you can listen to now or download to listen to later. Our guest for this edition is…

• 
  a blog & resource centre for NFP organizations

• Even Dilbert Thinks the Generation Shift is Important...2 More Days to Participate in This Month's NFP Pulse!

  Carol-Anne Moutinho

  21 Jan 2010 | 6:05 am

• Ready or Not, Here it Comes: How Will The Generation Shift Affect Your NFP?

  Carol-Anne Moutinho

  19 Jan 2010 | 12:33 pm

• And the Winner Is....

  Carol-Anne Moutinho

  18 Jan 2010 | 8:59 am

• Just Who Do You Think you’re Talking To?

  Carol-Anne Moutinho

  12 Jan 2010 | 1:50 pm

• Three Things To Help Your NFP Go From Good to Great in 2010

  Carol-Anne Moutinho

  31 Dec 2009 | 2:38 pm