YourMembership

FEBRUARY 21, 2013

The following is a guest blog post by Jack McGrath, President and Creative Director for Digitec Interactive. Since 1991, Jack has worked in eLearning as an instructional designer, producer and developer for eLearning titles for The Walt Disney Company, YUM Brand Restaurants, FINRA, and Chase Manhattan, among others. Jack is the inventor of Knowledge Direct ® - a robust learning management system (LMS) used by dozens of trade associations and professional societies including the Emergency Nurses

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Certificate Florida Learning Management System Education 315

Wild Apricot

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

Technology and social media are changing events and creating a "new normal" in terms of how we "market, consume and measure events." Here are some thoughts and tips to help small organizations update their events.

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Event Planning Social Media Tips Technology 266

Reid All About it

FEBRUARY 8, 2013

Do you have a person in mind when you write marketing or social media copy? Geoff Drake, senior web writer for the Monterey Bay Aquarium (what a cool job!), writes for his imaginary friend Sue. “Get personal with your persona,” he says. “We have a kind of pact, Sue and I. She needs a vicarious experience, and I want to foster a connection with the Aquarium, and our oceans.

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Social Media Content Marketing America 231

Thanks For Playing

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

Volunteerism is changing. I know I'm not the first person to think - or write - about this. Hell, Peggy Hoffman and Cynthia D'Amour have built their businesses on working with new volunteer models. But recent events have conspired to bring it top of mind for me. The thing about standing committees is that they're standing. Think about that for a moment.

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Committee Innovation Report 207

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Principled Innovation

FEBRUARY 12, 2013

This post originally appeared last Wednesday on the ResultsDirect AssociationCentric Blog. Remarkable…simply remarkable. I find it remarkable that it is February 2013, and I am still reading magazine articles advising associations to create strategic plans every five or six years, and encouraging leaders to review those plans just once a year. Do association leaders still believe we live in that world?

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Technology Strategy Review Innovation 207

YourMembership

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

This week YourMembership.com launched gamification. The features are incorporated into our private online community and are free to all YM clients. Gamification is a topic that has interested me since I first started researching it about two years ago. Gamification benefits both you and your members. It allows you to give weight to the activities within your organization that you deem important.

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Discount Video Resources Organization 240

Wild Apricot

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

In this guest post, Kivi Leroux Miller reviews her 2013 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report findings to see how the results from the smallest nonprofits compare to the report’s findings overall.

Communications 262

Communications Review Report 262

Spark Consulting

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

Lots of chatter about strategy and strategic planning on the ASAE Collaborate groups recently, with lots of people throwing around lots of VERY IMPORTANT sounding terms. Me, I like simplicity. To quote the Eaglet from Alice in Wonderland : “I don’t know the meaning of half those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!

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Analysis Strategy Review Leadership 197

Thanks For Playing

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

Lots of chatter about strategy and strategic planning on the ASAE Collaborate groups recently, with lots of people throwing around lots of VERY IMPORTANT sounding terms. Me, I like simplicity. To quote the Eaglet from Alice in Wonderland : "I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and, what's more, I don't believe you do either!" What do we mean when we talk about strategy?

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Analysis Strategy Review Leadership 197

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Aaron Wolowiec

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

Kelly Van Dyke, CMP. This post is authored by guest blogger Kelly Van Dyke, CMP. Kelly is a convention service manager at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel. Email: kvandyke@amwaygrand.com. Your venue CSM should be your number one go-to person, your number one collaborator, your biggest fan, maybe even your best friend (even if only for a short period of time).

Communications 184

Communications Cost Conference Team 184

Association Subculture

FEBRUARY 28, 2013

So hey all you Association Subculture blog readers.in the immortal words of Jeff Spicoli - hey bud, let's party ! On Saturday, June 15th some friends and I are starting the Association Summer Jam and here is how it works (it's TOTALLY simple) -. We'd like to find ten party hosts to throw a bash at their house on June 15, 2013. Could be a pizza party, dinner party, Beer and BBQ, potluck, pool party, low key yoga party - whatever floats your boats.

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Sacramento DC Washington Maine 187

YourMembership

FEBRUARY 27, 2013

One of the savviest trends event planners are experimenting more with this year is crowdsourcing. Mashable defines crowdsourcing as distributed problem solving. By distributing tasks to a large group of people, you are able to mine collective intelligence, assess quality and process work in parallel. Daily Crowdsource event, Crowdopolis , describes crowdsourcing as getting a crowd of people to help you with a task that used to take one person.

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Social Media Conference Content Process 239

Wild Apricot

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

Here are the highlights of Capterra's recently released Top 20 Most Popular Membership Management Software Solutions, in which Wild Apricot ranked #1!

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Membership Management Software 265

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Reid All About it

FEBRUARY 21, 2013

Last night I went to Ignite Raleigh where the speakers, including a few of my friends, delivered a mix of inspiration, entertainment and education. Even better, the nonprofit partner for the evening was one of my favorite organizations: the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina. One of the original founders of the Triangle’s Ignite movement is Jeff Cohen.

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North Carolina Raleigh Social Media Content 180

Association Leaders

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

Common sense tells us that great leaders innately know how to make the best use of their employees. They recognize hidden talents others don’t see and harness those talents to the benefit of the team. Then again, common sense isn’t so common. So, here is an article I recently read that gives a few ideas for identifying and harnessing the hidden talents of your team.

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How To Team Tools Association Management 163

Spark Consulting

FEBRUARY 27, 2013

What you can – and can’t – learn from A/B testing. Another fantastic, challenging post from Joe Gerstandt on actor-observer bias and the myth of reverse discrimination. Fear = lunch. No really, stick with Jeff Haden here. The insights that define innovators. Hearing “we already tried that and it didn’t work” DRIVES ME CRAZY.

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Innovation Review Products 150

Thanks For Playing

FEBRUARY 27, 2013

What you can - and can't - learn from A/B testing. Another fantastic, challenging post from Joe Gerstandt on actor-observer bias and the myth of reverse discrimination. Fear = lunch. No really, stick with Jeff Haden here. The insights that define innovators. Hearing "we already tried that and it didn't work" DRIVES ME CRAZY. Eric Lanke asks: why are we so afraid to talk to our members ?

Innovation 150

Innovation Review Products 150

Speaker: Radhika Samant and Todd Wuestenberg

Employee recognition has often been deemed a "feel-good" initiative, tied closely to rewards. While we understand its importance, we tend to associate recognition with intangible outcomes like engagement and sentiment, rather than direct impacts on retention and high performance. In today’s workplace, the true ROI of recognition lies in its ability to regenerate tangible, business-driven results.

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YourMembership

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

We’re so happy to welcome you to our beautiful city. If this is your first time in St. Pete, we’d like to give you some advice. Below are 10 must knows about the Sunshine City: 1. We like nicknames. Hipsters call St. Pete “the ‘burg.” However, you’re not in the “‘burg” at the annual meeting. You’re at the beach. 2. We like food.

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Florida New York Tips 214

Wild Apricot

FEBRUARY 4, 2013

We've just released an article - BIG Insight Into Small Membership Organizations - Survey Highlights - that offers an overview of the key findings from our recent survey.

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Organization Survey 223

Reid All About it

FEBRUARY 1, 2013

Steven Rosenbaum says, “ Stop knocking curation.” I agree. There’s a big difference between aggregation and curation. I can do without the daily paper.li aggregations. I rarely read them, even if one of my tweets is featured as a “top story.” Too many of them don’t have the human (or curator’s) touch. However, as Rosenbaum says, “Information overload drives content consumers to look for human-filtered, journalist-vetted, intellectually-related material.

Social Media 174

Social Media Content Innovation Leadership 174

Eric Lanke

FEBRUARY 25, 2013

Lego Value Meal Another subject we tackled at the dinner I mentioned in a previous post was the much-reported sickness of the association value proposition. We had both association executives and consultants to the association community present at this dinner, and I couldn't help but notice that the battle line seemed to be drawn between those two camps and the perspectives they each brought to the table.

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Association Value Revenue Education Report 145

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Spark Consulting

FEBRUARY 25, 2013

Another roundup-style post on cool technology, this time of apps to help you be more creative (courtesy of Innovation Excellence , which you really should check out). The only one I’ve used personally is E vernote , and I live and die by it, so if the others are of that same quality, you really can’t miss.

Innovation 150

Innovation Technology 150

Thanks For Playing

FEBRUARY 25, 2013

Another roundup-style post on cool technology, this time of apps to help you be more creative (courtesy of Innovation Excellence , which you really should check out). The only one I've used personally is E vernote , and I live and die by it, so if the others are of that same quality, you really can't miss.

Innovation 150

Innovation Technology 150

YourMembership

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

Happy Friday and Welcome to the Weekly Wrap Up brought to you by the team at YourMembership.com! The weekly wrap-ups are a great resource to find industry provoking articles, blog posts, upcoming events, fun facts, and provide up-to-date news and tips found throughout the association and workforce space each week. Please feel free to leave a comment, ask a question or just enjoy the week’s top ten picks!

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Social Media Content Industry Tips 195

Wild Apricot

FEBRUARY 21, 2013

Do you have a process in place to manage transitions of staff or volunteers responsible for your social media?

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Social Media Process 264

Speaker: Joe Sharpe and James Carlson

Payroll optimization can be one of the most time-consuming and complex factors of small business management. Yet, organizations that crack the code on streamlining employee compensation often discover innovative avenues for growth. With the right strategies in place, outsourcing and streamlining payroll processes can result in substantial time and resource savings.

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Reid All About it

FEBRUARY 15, 2013

Everyone (well, most everyone) knows the benefits of content marketing. But you can’t just say to your staff, “Yeah, good idea, start doing social media.” Valeria Maltoni says, “There are three crucial challenges to overcome if you want to implement a successful content strategy ” – resource allocation, workflow planning and governance. Over at Copyblogger, Barry Feldman shares nine ways you might be losing your audience’s trust without even realizing you’re doing it.

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Social Media Revenue Content Marketing 165

Eric Lanke

FEBRUARY 18, 2013

image source I had an animated conversation with colleagues over dinner last night, during which we discussed why some association staff people consciously avoid contact with their own members. Perhaps you know some of these people. Call a member? Oh, I can't do that. They're busy. I shouldn't disturb them. Maybe I'll just send another email. Why do some people act this way?

Industry 136

Industry Organization Leadership 136

Spark Consulting

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

I was honored to be selected to judge ASAE’s Gold Circle awards this year in the website category. After having reviewed all 21 entries twice, I’m entering my actual scores today. And I’ve learned (or remembered) a few things from the process: Associations are making progress. Every single site has some sort of social technologies connection, and every association was at least on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

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Review Resources Process Technology 150