Eric Lanke

NOVEMBER 14, 2016

We've tried numerous times to develop new courses and curricula in our subject matter, and also watched numerous times as the developed programs were rejected or failed to perpetuate in the larger curriculum the way we intended.

Education 100

Education Class Technology Course 100

Eric Lanke

OCTOBER 10, 2016

Last week, I wrote a post titled Education Is Not Enough , in which I argued that associations interested in developing a better educated workforce for the industries or professions they represent have to do more than just create new education programs. Just pouring money into curriculum development doesn't actually solve your problem.

Education 100

Education Class Industry Resources 100

Eric Lanke

APRIL 1, 2019

Reflecting on that makes me realize how much college is a time for social as well as professional development. So much so that, by the end of the tour, I think my son was thinking that this university might be leading the others that we had visited.

Tools 113

Tools Resources 113

Eric Lanke

DECEMBER 7, 2015

When it comes to applying lean startup methodology to our product and program development processes, all the liabilities I just described are not liabilities at all. When developing a new product or program, we first conduct what I'm starting to refer to as a "call for interest." Here's my own contribution. Do you agree?

Innovation 100

Innovation Resources Recruiting Recruitment 100

Eric Lanke

MAY 21, 2018

Here's an example, using the indicators we have developed to predict a future in which our industry benefits from our technology integrating successfully with Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. IoT Platforms: Major fluid power players have developed full IoT platforms and are offering subscription sales to those platforms.

Technology 100

Technology Products Industry Marketing 100

Eric Lanke

AUGUST 5, 2019

As an avid podcast listener, I already had some ideas about how such a "show" could be packaged and delivered, but still what followed the initial idea was about six months of planning, developing, branding, rehearsing, recording, and packaging. I've kept most of them somewhat at arm's length as we developed and learned how to deliver it.

Technology 113

Technology Project Industry Content 113

Eric Lanke

JANUARY 26, 2015

In other words, the association takes on the experimental risk associated with the development of new products, using reources it is able to crowdsource across its wide membership base.

Industry 100

Industry Innovation Products Price 100

Eric Lanke

JULY 23, 2018

It risked turning forward-thinking strategy development into a make-work exercise. Someone once said that the hardest part of strategy development was not deciding what TO do, it was deciding what NOT to do. So what did we do? Because, that's exactly what we did. But I'm loathe, of course, to call it a defeat.

Strategy 100

Strategy Course Process Resources 100

Eric Lanke

FEBRUARY 8, 2016

The post, Solving your App-ocalypse: Strategic planning with your technology , provides some tips for how associations can better organize and connect a technology development strategy with the mission-centric goals and objectives of the organization. Thought-provoking, for me at least, likely in a way that the author didn't intend.

Innovation 100

Innovation Tools Technology Content 100

Eric Lanke

MARCH 30, 2015

Actions that demonstrate a commitment to growth and development. Actions that demonstrate a commitment to mutual growth and development. We''re always learning from each other and helping each other develop new skills. Actions that seek to engage others, simply and clearly, in the work of the association. If not, why not?

Project 100

Project Leadership Team Organization 100

Eric Lanke

APRIL 9, 2018

The fundamental premise of Step Four is that the association is now in a position to develop four separate contingency plans, one for each of the four future scenarios that the first three steps of the process has helped create. The goal will be to develop a short list of strategic actions that would need to be taken in each of the scenarios.

Recruiting 70

Recruiting Recruitment Process Education 70

Eric Lanke

SEPTEMBER 12, 2016

The Board determines the outcomes the association will seek to achieve, the staff determines how we will pursue those outcomes with the resources we have available, and then we engage our working committees in the process of program development and execution." In some ways, it was like I was speaking a foreign language.

Committee 100

Committee Resources Member Engagement Education 100

Eric Lanke

MARCH 13, 2017

Recently, we've started connecting several of these awareness and education programs into discrete workforce development pathways.

Analysis 100

Analysis Education Industry Examples 100

Eric Lanke

JANUARY 25, 2016

That, and very nature of being a generalist, leads to a great deal of cross-training and well-roundedness in the employee's development and stretch assignments. When opportunities to promote or reassign staff present themselves, the employer enjoys the ability to pull from a much stronger bench of developing staff.

Member Engagement 100

Member Engagement Organization Leadership 100

Eric Lanke

SEPTEMBER 19, 2016

It is more difficult to access the needed skills of someone who doesn't embody our values than it is to develop the needed skills in someone who does. I've come to believe that alignment with our values is more important than skill or knowledge sets when it comes to hiring new staff.

Process 100

Process Team Organization 100

Eric Lanke

JUNE 1, 2015

We call one of those ends statements "Knowledge Development," and we define it as a state in which "Government agencies and universities engage with NFPA to develop fundamental knowledge of fluid power and educate the next generation of scientific and engineering leaders in the field."

Examples 100

Examples Strategy Education Industry 100

Eric Lanke

NOVEMBER 7, 2016

I've written before about two essential relationships that an association typically develops with its members. Advocating for friendly legislation, perhaps, or developing a training program for future practitioners, or conducting consumer-based marketing for the profession. But this model has its limitations.

Revenue 113

Revenue Marketing Industry Organization 113

Eric Lanke

MARCH 9, 2015

Actions that demonstrate a commitment to growth and development. And the process that is determining what work to do and doing it provides them with the ideal setting for that growth and development. There may be no simpler way to say it. Enthusiastic people are always looking for ways to improve their knowledge and skills.

Leadership 100

Leadership Course Team Resources 100

Eric Lanke

MAY 30, 2016

In my experience, associations tend to develop two separate cultures--one defined by the members and the industry or profession they belong to, and another defined by the staff hired to manage the association, who most often are not members of the industry or profession the association represents.

Newsletter 100

Newsletter Conference Education Content 100

Eric Lanke

APRIL 15, 2019

I was attending one of my association's major workforce development programs in and around Denver, Colorado, but where I was and what I was doing is not really relevant for the purposes of this post. I was on the road for much of this past week.

Denver 113

Denver Colorado Course Leadership 113

Eric Lanke

SEPTEMBER 5, 2016

A few years back, we hired a fundraising consultant--not to raise money for us, but to help develop an overall fundraising strategy for the organization and to teach key members of our staff (me, primarily) how to do the fundraising. I learned a lot from that experience.

Member Engagement 100

Member Engagement Committee Recruiting Recruitment 100

Eric Lanke

DECEMBER 3, 2012

Some people in his comments section take exception to one of his fundamental assumptions, but there are some things I like about his four steps, especially the second one: Step 2: Develop a theory of cause and effect to assess presumed drivers of the objective. Develop a theory of cause and effect to assess presumed drivers of the objective.

Analysis 100

Analysis Process Strategy Organization 100

Eric Lanke

JULY 1, 2013

And in the middle are our Developing programs, successful experiments from the past that are beginning to migrate towards to core. Most of our core and developing programs were highly successful, with a few weak spots related to our ability to reach out and connect beyond our traditional membership.

Innovation 100

Innovation Resources Tools Education 100

Eric Lanke

SEPTEMBER 9, 2019

That has helped create a library of more than 400 posts, most of which I have indexed into one of the "Blog Topics" shown on my home page: Core Values , Generations , Innovation , Leadership , Member Engagement , Strategy and Execution , and Workforce Development. But there are two other Blog Topics on that list.

Library 100

Library Innovation Leadership Member Engagement 100

Eric Lanke

JULY 8, 2013

If the exercise of developing our values statement was going to be successful, and if the document which resulted was going to get productive use in shaping our culture, everyone would have to contribute and be on the same page with regard to what we were trying to achieve and how we planned to get there. But I couldn''t impose them.

Leadership 100

Leadership Products Process Organization 100

Eric Lanke

DECEMBER 12, 2011

The brightest future leaders won’t develop from dysfunctional committee structures like the ones the authors describe. But isn’t the opportunity to develop these skills leading an association committee part of the value proposition an association can offer its members? I can’t argue with any of this. at 7:00 AM.

Committee 100

Committee Leadership Innovation Project 100

Eric Lanke

AUGUST 29, 2016

An association that avoids turning over applecarts in the Board room or in the corner office can still find itself charging headlong into the marketplace with the intent of accomplishing big things but without the developed capacity to do so. It is simply an expectation we place on ourselves and our under-resourced and over-burdened staff.

Resources 100

Resources Tips System Organization 100

Eric Lanke

FEBRUARY 9, 2015

The first, and most important, is to develop an association professional mind and skill set. That''s a journey of a completely different stripe, and becoming excited and enthusiastic about developing skills that will help grow that career--not just help you do your job--will pay dividends both to you and to the organization.

Leadership 100

Leadership Organization Association Management 100

Eric Lanke

JULY 22, 2019

Development of future leaders is not something I can afford to ignore in my association, because there is almost always a Board vacancy that needs filling. Keeping up with this waterfall has become a central function of my position.

Industry 113

Industry Examples Communications Member Engagement 113

Eric Lanke

JANUARY 5, 2015

Technology is the realm of IT departments, social media community managers, web architects and other specialists; a means for process enhancements and delivery; or a nod to the “younger generation” of members--all this without affecting the organization’s way of doing business, thinking, developing products, learning or designing business models.

Member Engagement 100

Member Engagement Social Media Maine Products 100

Eric Lanke

DECEMBER 17, 2018

We want more members to volunteer their support for our workforce development programs. In my organization there are program goals. We want to recruit new members. We want to increase the number of members attending our conferences. In order to help achieve those goals, we engage in a variety of different marketing activities.

Marketing 113

Marketing Newsletter Conference Recruiting 113

Eric Lanke

MAY 1, 2017

Instead, she says, we should be developing goals that are achievable while also being helpful to our members and our association. Increasing membership when the pool of professionals is decreasing. Or improving member engagement with no strategy for innovation or change.

Revenue 100

Revenue Strategy Member Engagement Innovation 100

Eric Lanke

APRIL 2, 2018

Statements of value like the example I provided above get written, revised, and become most effective when they are tested and developed in discussion with real members and membership prospects. Here's the point. Crafting all your marketing copy in the office and launching it untested on the world is one of the best ways to get it wrong.

Recruiting 113

Recruiting Recruitment Examples Conference 113

Eric Lanke

JULY 20, 2015

That's what co-development with association members has to look and feel like or it won't work. We need this, and we'll help you get it, and it'll help all of us succeed.

Member Engagement 100

Member Engagement Case Study Tools Resources 100

Eric Lanke

DECEMBER 18, 2017

Five years ago, our Board has described four different possible futures and developed strategic positioning plans for each of them. And that was the piece of the 2013 exercise that we realized we hadn't carried through on.

Industry 100

Industry Report Leadership 100

Eric Lanke

DECEMBER 2, 2013

You talk about engaging your members in the development process of a new program or service, but you don''t do it. What kind of system develops from a leader that plays things safe, that doesn''t take risks, and that avoids the pain of difficult and confusing interactions with his customers and clients? That makes sense, doesn''t it?

Innovation 100

Innovation System Conference Cost 100

Eric Lanke

JUNE 4, 2018

We will not, as described earlier, develop different strategic action plans for each of the four scenarios, and then wait for the evidence of our indicators to tell us which of those scenarios is coming true and which of our action plans should be activated.

Industry 113

Industry Review Organization Strategy 113