Association Brain Food Weekly: 6.7.19

The weekly list of free educational events and resources for the association community…

When’s the last time you talked to your AMS vendor? When you wanted to bitch about something? No bueno. Wes Trochlil explains why you should meet with your association management system partner at least once a year.

Moonshots might seem unrealistic when first proposed, but that didn’t stop Henry Ford or the Wright brothers. WBT Systems shares tips for building a moonshot culture at your association and an educational moonshot of your own.

MemberSuite recommends a member-first approach to your association’s email strategy. Their post suggests five steps that will ensure the relevancy and frequency of your emails hits the sweet spot.

Should suppliers be members? Of course? Maybe? Absolutely not? Elizabeth Engel dives into this fascinating (to me, anyways) issue in this must-read post and provides some interesting angles to chew on.

Some quick hits before we get to next week’s free webinars:

• Eight female executives on the habits they gave up on their path to success. (Lindsay Tigar, Fast Company)

• Realistic personal finance hacks—share this with the young adults (and maybe older ones too) in your life. (Morgan Housel, Collaborative Fund)

I know, I know, this isn’t a food blog. I have a languishing food blog. But if you know me, you know I’m always thinking about my next meal, and I like to share good eats, so…

• On Sunday morning, after fishing a few hours in Jordan Lake (Jim got a good-sized bass, me, nothing), I made whole wheat blueberry buttermilk pancakes from The Bread Bible by Beth Hensperger (the ebook is only $1.99), along with creamy scrambled eggs with chives (from the deck!) and bacon, of course. I love brunch at home, especially during blueberry season.

• These Indian-spiced chickpeas and greens were absolutely delicious. We had them one night alongside mahi mahi topped with peanut chutney.

• We went Vietnamese (sort of) another night with almaco jack tacos topped with Vietnamese salsa, shredded pointy head cabbage, and Vietnamese pickled daikon and carrots.

• These sweet and spicy Szechuan green beans were pretty tasty too. As were the pan-fried summer squash I tossed with spring onions and a sweet-hot garlic sauce from Quick & Easy Thai by Nancy McDermott.

Here are the educational events scheduled for next week. If you have any free webinars or events coming up, please send me the link. I’ll be happy to feature it as long as it’s not product-centric.

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Tue 6/11 at 2 p.m.* – Ready Player One for Associations (Association Chat)

Hear what associations are doing with VR/AR today and what they could do in the near future. More info/register.

Host: KiKi L’Italien, founder, Amplified Growth

Guest: Tyler Gates, managing principal at Brightline Interactive and president of the DC Chapter of the VR/AR Association

*All times are Eastern Daylight Time unless otherwise noted.

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Tue 6/11 at 2 p.m. – The Road to Member Engagement Is Paved with Personalized Marketing

Learn how to gather your best member interactions and pivot from simply collecting data to modernizing your member outreach and engagement strategies. Find out how content personalization can drastically improve member outreach through analyzing interactions and thinking beyond just recipients, as well as leveraging the predictive nature of online activities to tailor the whole member experience. 1 CAE credit. More info/register.

Host: Blue Sky eLearn

Presenter: Vivian Swertinski, Sr. Manager of Strategic Services, Higher Logic

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Tue 6/11 at 2 p.m. – Ready Producer One: Propel Your Event to the Next Level

Find out how to overcome the barriers to entry and start offering successful digital events. Learn how to identify the main challenges and the main benefits of online events in your organization, analyze the five bulletproof reasons for your organization to offer online events, and develop an outline to share with leadership for an online event strategy. 1 CMP credit. More info/register.

Host: PCMA

Presenter: William Thomson, Events Consultant, Gallus Events

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Wed 6/12 at 12 p.m. – 3 Digital Trends Associations Should Start, Stop and Continue Doing

To develop the best possible user experiences, you must truly understand your audiences—and the way to do that is through data. Hear insights from more than 3,400 in-depth user interviews and usability studies on the motivations of association members. Learn how to apply the “Start, Stop, Continue” technique, a classic performance feedback approach as well as strategic planning tool, to your association. More info/register.

Host: Gravitate Solutions

Presenters:

• Rob Miller, CAE, SVP of Revenue, Gravitate Solutions
• Sandy Marisco, CEO, Sandstorm Design

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Wed 6/12 at 12:30 p.m. – From Start to Finish: An All-Inclusive Guide to Selecting an AMS

Learn what it takes to understand your needs and how to establish requirements, draft a clear, thoughtful request for proposals (RFP), and create an effective process for evaluating and selecting a vendor. More info/register.

Hosts: Personify and ReviewMyAMS

Presenters:

• Teri Carden, founder of ReviewMyAMS
• Megan Lopez, senior marketing manager at Personify

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Wed 6/12 at 2 p.m. – 10 Common Webinar Mistakes to Avoid in 2019

Learn tips and best practices to make sure that your webinars are always a success, including secrets for driving webinar registration, delivering a more engaging audience experience, speaker best practices, and more effectively converting webinar leads. More info/register.

Host: ON24

Presenter: Mark Bornstein, VP of Content Marketing, ON24

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Thu 6/13 at 12:30 p.m. – We Want You Back: Tools to Re-Engage Lapsed Members

Your association’s goal is to provide meaningful experiences so your members stay engaged. But what happens when they choose not to renew? More importantly, what can you do to bring these former members back into the fold? Get the strategies and tools you need to re-engage and win-back your lapsed members for life. 0.5 CAE credit. More info/register.

Host: .orgCommunity

Presenter: Scott Oser, president, Scott Oser Associates, Inc.

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Thu 6/13 at 2 p.m. – Negotiating International Meeting Contracts: Are You Prepared?

Learn how to recognize the three fundamental principles to follow when negotiating international meeting contracts, international contract basics and how different cultures handle the negotiation process, and important terms in international hotel contracts and how they should be written. 1 CMP credit. More info/register.

Host: MeetingsNet

Presenter: John S. Foster, Esq., CHME, attorney at Foster, Jensen & Gulley

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Thu 6/13 at 3 p.m. – Association Advocacy & Public Affairs: Strategy vs Tactics and Messaging (Reston-Loudoun VA Idea Swap)

Learn about making the most out of your communications strategy, knowing the difference between strategy vs tactics, and framing an effective advocacy message. 1 CAE credit. Location: Leesburg VA. More info/register.

Organizer: ASAE Greater Washington / National Capital Community

Presenter: Dan Rene, communications coach, LEVICK

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Wed 6/19 at 12 p.m. – Tracking Chapter Effectiveness: Tips for Creating Powerful Dashboards

When attempting to track chapter effectiveness, knowing what to measure is just one part of the equation. The other is knowing how to collect, store and share that data, in addition to recognizing and tracking the data trends. Get tools and tips for creating benchmarking dashboards that make your data meaningful to you, your chapters and your staff. More info/register.

Hosts: Billhighway and Mariner Management & Marketing

Presenter: Peggy Hoffman, FASAE, CAE, president and executive director, Mariner Management & Marketing

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That’s it for now. If you can’t attend a live webinar, go ahead and register if the topic interests you. Most webinar hosts send registrants a link to the recording.

Association Brain Food Weekly is published Friday mornings. If your organization offers free professional development for the association community, please send me the link via email or Twitter.

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Creative Commons image by Mike Lewinski via Unsplash

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