CAE Weblog

#assnchat

Thanks to Jeff De Cagna (@pinnovation) for suggesting the Tweet-up for association topics and getting it started.  This is essentially an informal unconference on Twitter scheduled for each Tuesday (2-3 PM ET).  TweetChat works fairly well for following tweets with the #assnchat hashtag.

Example topics have included "generational differences among members," "success factors for effective social networking," "use of Twitter by meeting speakers," and "alternatives to the standard RFP process."  Yes, that last one was my suggestion as a follow-up to Speed Sourcing post below.  Notes from the May 19 Tweet-up can be found on Jeff Hurt's blog.

It can be a little awkward using Twitter for such a live chat, especially when Twitter and/or TweetChat are experiencing delays or there are simultaneous topics being discussed.  But it is worth giving this a try.  There are some smart people participating and offering thoughtful suggestions.  Jeff, how about a wiki as a standard place to place notes or a Tweet stream?

Tagged: #assnchat Tweet-up associations TweetChat Jeff De Cagna Jeff Hurt 

An Outstanding Association Executive To Retire

I need to share a few words in tribute to an outstanding association professional who has announced her retirement for the end of this year.  Joyce Waite has given of herself tirelessly for the past 15+ years at the American Diabetes Association.  As a matter of fact, Joyce and I joined the ADA staff in the same week and renewed our friendship, having also worked for the American Lung Association at the same time years before.  She is currently the senior executive for ADA's Western Region, having grown the Eastern Region into a very successful operation.

While there are lots of executives who have gone above and beyond in their devotion to causes, few have demonstrated the consistent ability to balance both inspiration and perspiration.  Effective leadership requires high expectations and accountability for your staff, balanced with sensitivity and support.  Joyce would be the first to see the potential for new technologies and step up to pilot them.  And she would jump right in to learn it herself and then demand that others to the same.  She understood the value of having all constituent data in one place and coined the phrase, "if it's not in ASP (our CRM database at the time), it doesn't exist."

Congratulations to Joyce on a long and successful reign.  She will always hold a top spot in my list of association leaders.  Enjoy your retirement and travels.

Tagged:  Joyce Waite American Diabetes Association ADA

the ungovernance model

Jeff DeCagna has another thoughtful article in the most recent issue of Associations Now on this topic.  Jeff maintains that the governance models that associations have used in the past do not hold up to the radical new challenges required today.  The new models need to be nimble enough to respond quickly to changing needs and opportunities.

I agree.  Those nonprofits (especially the larger ones) that depend on infrequent, in-person meetings to make decisions can easily lag behind smaller, up-starts (or start-ups) that jump in to meet the needs of the same constituency.

Jeff is doing a session at ASAE and the Center's Annual Meeting also if you want to learn more about ungovernance and plan to be in Chicago.

I attended Jeff's unconference on social media early this year.  It will be interesting to see what unproject he comes up with next.  My vote is for unbylaws.

Tagged: Jeff De Cagna ungovernance

Associapedia

ASAE and the Center has launched Associapedia, a new content platform for documenting association best practices and other documentation for reference.  Reggie Henry and I have discussed the need for such a wiki and both believe that our community needs a place for "living content."  Over time, it should provide a way a lot more association professionals to share their knowledge and contribute to a consensus around processes, issues, and practices common to our industry.

They really put some thought into this one and it offers some nice features such as:

• message boards for side bar discussions,
• personal dashboards to monitor one's own contributions
• in-depth version history.

Associapedia also has been primed with some rich sample content so that those new to wikis can see how entries should be formatted and a general style that should be followed.

One nice thing about a wiki is that you really can't screw them up.  It you make a mistake, it is very easy to fix it or start over.  So give it a try.  Edit an entry for one of your specialty areas or start a new topic.  Have fun and know that you are making a valuable contribution to the association community.

Tagged: Associapedia association wiki ASAE and the Center Reggie Henry 

CAE Study Group

I feel very fortunate to have teamed up with a great group of association professionals when I was studying for the CAE exam back in 2001.  At that time, GWSAE was offering a prep course and we met in small study groups in between bi-weekly classes.  I still consider our exchange of ideas and debate over answers to practice questions to be the critical success factor for my passing the test.

Even more amazing, the group has stayed in touch and meets 3-4 times a year, just to network and exchange ideas.  We met again just last night at Murphy's in Old Town.  It was 25 cent wing night.  It's harder to make the meetings now that I'm working out of Richmond but I try to plan my DC meetings to participate whenever possible.

Thanks again to Bert, Cheryl, Chris, Dave, Marilyn, and Pat for your help in studying and your lasting friendship.

Tagged: CAE Exam Study Group

The Monster Idea

I'm currently at a Thought Leader session with Jeff Taylor, who is the founder and former CEO for monster.com.  He has retired from Monster and moved on to his next big idea and already formed a $10 million company.

He maintains that "human capital management" is the key theme of the decade with a "100 year march toward employee control."  In the 1920s, blue collar employees were on the assemby lines of a few thousand companies governed by a company owner from old money.  By the latter part of 20th century, we had a few million companies based primarily on a skilled workforce.  But these companies were still employer controlled.  However, in the last few years, we are seeing more companies controlled by the employees.  Employees at companies such as Enron, CocaCola, and HP have essentially fired their chief executives.

Taylor believes that we are heading into the worst labor shortage in history. Employees are much more selective and demand much more.  40 million baby boomers will soon be retiring, sooner than ever before.  Tenure has dropped from more than 20 years to just a few years.  There are too many chief officers and not enough workers. 

"The Internet is the river that runs through everything."  While face-to-face meetings will always be important, we need to rethink how we deliver all of our programs and services.  Associations should strive to become "the employer of choice" by putting employees at the center.  All employees need to love their jobs.

So, his new company is called eons, a site for people like me who are over 50,  You can create your life goals with "want to do" lists," use their longevity calculator, network with others, and play games.

His final words of advice..."Don't let anyone tell you how long to take a shower."  It's a great place to generate great new ideas.

Tagged: Jeff Taylor monster.com labor shortage employee control eons eons.com

Budgets May Have Lost Their Usefulness

Scott Briscoe's post in the Acronym blog takes a bold stance with regard to association budgets.  I agree with Scott that they may well have outlived their usefulness.  And that goes for capital budgets, too.  The impact of a large capital purchase on an Association's annual operating budget in the last month of one fiscal year or the first month of the following fiscal year is often negligible (although it does impact the balance sheet for that year).

A budget is only the financial portion of an association's annual business plan.  As Scott points out, it is often out-of-date and meaningless just a few months into the year.  Association staff and volunteers spend far too much time struggling with budgets and too little time analyzing their financial statements and adjusting strategies to take advantage of changing opportunities and mitigate emerging threats. 

Financial goals are also meaningless if they are based on some committee's idea of appropriate growth rates.  Growth will come from the disciplined execution on new strategies and innovations (some of which may fail; no pain, no gain).  I know very few association professionals who are motivated to work harder or actually achieve greater success because someone else sets an ambitious goal.

We should work to develop digital dashboards that allow managers at all levels to access real-time financial indicators (preferably lead rather than lag measures) and empower these managers to take action as necessary to fix problems and employ new ideas before the fiscal year ends and its too late to impact the bottom line.

Tagged: budgets lead indicators capital budgets digital dashboard 

The 2006 Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation

I'm passing this along from a post on the ASAE consultants listserv:

The Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University is now accepting applications for the annual Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation. The award is in amounts of $25,000 for the winner, $5,000 and $2,500 for the two runner-ups and will be presented in November 2006. The application submission deadline is August 15, 2006. Information and the application may be obtained at the Drucker School website.

Tagged: innovation nonprofit awards Peter Drucker Drucker School

ASAE's "In Touch" Newsletter

ASAE released its new "In Touch" enewsletter this week.  Just like the new Web site, there is an attractive new design but it's still light on content and heavy on marketing.  My biggest pet peave with enewsletters is when they only present poorly defined headlines and not enough content for me decide whether or not I'm interested in reading further.  I like to scan quick-read articles that actually give me the bottom line.  If I want more, I don't mind clicking to load the full article.

Pushing out content is a critical tool in connecting with your members.  I was hoping "In Touch" would customize its content to my interests.  It does not.  I was hoping the new Web site would allow me to subscribe to content updates with RSS for only those areas that interest me.  It doesn't so far but I'm told more features are coming.

Don't rely on your members to come back to your Web site except when they need something you offer.  If you want to really engage your members, offer them opportunities to participate online and share their knowledge.  One good way to develop active communities of practice is to share excerpts of interesting posts in your eNewsletter with a link back to the blog or message board.

Tagged: In Touch enewsletters RSS ASAE

Cause Marketing

I'm out in Kansas this week doing a cause marketing workshop for one of our corporate clients.  They are interested in the association perspective and we'll be reviewing best practices.  This client has just completed its second year of a relationship with the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.  SGK has done a good job of attracting major corporate support through their cause marketing efforts.  One of the most successful (not our client) has been with Lee Jeans and their Wear Jeans to Work days.  It's now in its tenth year and raised over $8 million this year alone.

As I prepared for this workshop, I became aware of just how many cause marketing campaigns take liberties or completely disregard the Better Business Bureau's Standard 19 that requires companies clearly disclose exactly how the charity will benefit at the point of sale.  If your association or company is involved in cause marketing, it would be worth taking a close look to avoid public scrutiny on this one.  You can find the standards on their Wise Giving Alliance site at www.give.org.