Sat.Aug 30, 2014 - Fri.Sep 05, 2014

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Five Ways NOT to Brainstorm

Spark Consulting

'Brainstorming has come under fire recently as being a crummy way of coming up with new ideas. Perhaps it’s because people are doing one or more of the following? Inviting as many people as possible – the more, the merrier! (Of course, that means most people won’t have a chance to speak, but too bad for them, right?). Only the Very Important People get to contribute ideas.

Course 260
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Fall Planning Resource Round-up

Wild Apricot

'Here''s a round-up of resources to help with fall membership planning. From member and volunteer recruitment, to refreshing your website or communications – we''ve got you covered with helpful guides, articles and blog posts.

Resources 232
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Association Hunger Games: Victory or Defeat?

Aaron Wolowiec

'I had the pleasure of presenting this year at the ASAE Annual Meeting and Exposition in Nashville. And, believe it or not, I didn’t talk about meetings or learning. Instead, the session was developed as a result of a conversation I overheard at last year’s conference describing the challenges associations often have implementing strategy they’ve either developed internally or in conjunction with a consultant.

Nashville 172
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Search Engines and Social Media. Your questions answered.

YourMembership

Last week we held our monthly Thought Leadership webinar, Search Engines and Social Media. Are you playing hard to get? We had many association professionals attend who are still working to come up with a winning strategy regarding search engine optimization (SEO) and social media. When implemented correctly they can enhance association marketing efforts and drive more engagement with both current members and prospective members.

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Ultimate Guide to Monetizing Association Member Education

Unlock More Profit and Smarter Packaging for Member Learning Every decision that goes into your learning monetization strategy matters for your association’s bottom line. Our research has shown a clear correlation between high program maturity (and ROI!) and choosing the right monetization strategy. This eBook contains clear, actionable ways to approach packaging and pricing models that will help your association grow revenue, improve profitability, and drive expansion into new markets.

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If You Want Real Change, Then Start With…

Jamie Notter

'If you want real change, then start with culture. Let me run some if/then suppositions by you: If you want to change your business model, then you need to change your culture. If you want to build an online community, then you need to change your culture. If you want to redesign your membership model, then you need to change your culture. If you want headquarters and the components to work in true partnership, then you need to change your culture.

Strategy 137

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Bonus content: Event Garde e-news – September edition

Aaron Wolowiec

'Aaron Wolowiec, president, Event Garde LLC. Q & A with Aaron Wolowiec, president of Event Garde, LLC. Q: If you could sit on a bench in a beautiful wooded area, next to whom would you likely be sitting on the bench, and why? A: My partner, Selma, particularly if there was no WiFi or cell service. With our busy schedules, I appreciate the opportunity from time to time to just disconnect and enjoy one another’s company.

Content 135
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Search Engines and Social Media. Your questions answered.

YourMembership

Last week we held our monthly Thought Leadership webinar, Search Engines and Social Media. Are you playing hard to get? We had many association professionals attend who are still working to come up with a winning strategy regarding search engine optimization (SEO) and social media. When implemented correctly they can enhance association marketing efforts and drive more engagement with both current members and prospective members.

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Teach People What the Values Mean

Eric Lanke

'image source This post is part of a series in which I''m analyzing the efforts of my organization to define and embrace core values through the six rules for doing so defined by Francois Nader, CEO of NPS Pharmaceuticals. For the series introduction, go here. For my comments on the first rule, go here. For my comments on the second rule, go here. + + + Here''s Nader''s third rule, along with what he says about it in his HBR blog post : Teach people what the values mean.

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1-On-1 With Greg Damron – Part 1: “If You Build It, They May Not Come”

Wild Apricot

'This is the first in a 3-part blog series offering highlights of our 1-On-1 interview with Greg Damron, President, of ATD St. Louis.

St. Louis 228
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2024 Association Survey Results Report

2024 Association Survey Results Report For the 10th year, association professionals across the U.S. and Canada provided a look at the inner workings of their organizations when they replied to GrowthZone’s annual survey. Read the 2024 survey results report to see how your association compares: Top Challenges Retention Rates Non-Renewal Reasons Automatic Renewals Reinstatement Strategies Member Engagement Changes & Strategies Why Members Join Non-Dues Revenue Sources Dues Increases, and more

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The Future is Faster

Jamie Notter

'Yesterday I talked about becoming flatter as an organization in order to increase learning and agility. Today’s lesson (also from Sloan Management Review) is about speed. The two are related, of course. One of the reasons we loathe bureaucracy is that it slows things down, so you’d think becoming more flat would help with that. But the truth is, speed is not solely determined by amount of hierarchy.

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The DoubleBot: Your Next Conference/Meeting Attendee or Virtual Volunteer or.?

Mariner

'World number 1 tennis doubles partners and real life twins, Bob and Mike Bryan teamed up to do a cool commercial for Esurance. featuring a mobile robot which allowed them to explore NYC without. leaving the locker room. The robot, currently available from Double Robotics. for an easy $2,499…not including the essential tablet (iPad or. similar), lets you cruise about on a virtual Segway, carrying on. conversations, snapping photos, consuming hot dogs…oh well, maybe not.

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Insurance Institute: Newer Cars Are Getting Safer

Associations Now

'According to new research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, more vehicle models than ever have never been involved in a deadly crash. But older cars still present serious risks, especially to younger drivers. It’s the flip side of a harrowing statistic. While deadly car crashes are still too common—taking the lives of more than 30,000 people per year, on average, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) —vehicles keep getting safer, and a futu

Price 87
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365-Day Conferences Are Unrealistic

Velvet Chainsaw

'We’ve been hearing it for years. Conference organizers have been on a quest to create a 365-day community around their big annual event. As a result, industry education sessions and event technology products have adopted the year-round concept and branding. But there’s a problem, attendees and exhibitors aren’t falling in line. They’ll give you their attention for a limited time and then move on with their pressing priorities.

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The Retention Ripple Effect: Nonprofit Staff and Donor Dynamics

Speaker: Andrew Olsen, CFRE - EVP, Fundraising Solutions at DickersonBakker | Kat Landa, CFRE, CSD - SVP, Talent Solutions at DickersonBakker

Across the nonprofit sector, organizations invest heavily in donor retention efforts, yet the struggle of cultivating lasting relationships remains. While attracting new donors is crucial, the lack of repeat donors poses significant financial risks. Through a comprehensive analysis of industry data, experts argue that there is a direct correlation between donor burnout, donor retention, and the talent retention crisis.

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The Future is Flatter

Jamie Notter

'I’m always happy to see research that supports what we wrote about in Humanize. The lastest comes from an article in MIT’s Sloan Management Review about success Nestle had with a social media campaign. Two researchers in the UK concluded that a big part of the success could be attributed to the social media team’s ability to actually work around the existing hierarchy: We believe that hierarchical structures can act as a barrier that prevents external knowledge of consumers fr

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Selling in Europe – interview with Murat Dogru at ASAE Nashville

GlowGlobally

' Video Interview of Growing a European Training Business. Following their excellent session delivered at ASAE’s Annual Meeting by Jackie Oppenheim and Murat Dogru, we caught up with Murat to explore some of the aspects of their presentation more deeply. As they presented in Nashville, ASME Europe training and development has grown by 30% CAGR over the last 5 years with 1800+ paid participants.

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Aboard the AudiobookMobile: Audio Publishers Push Reading With Your Ears

Associations Now

'The Audio Publishers Association kicked off its largest consumer awareness campaign over Labor Day weekend, aiming to build some buzz around a booming audiobook industry. Among the box trucks converted into mobile restaurants on hand at the National Book Festival in Washington, DC, last weekend, one truck dished out something a little different, though just right for the occasion: books.

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Attendee Experience The Next Frontier For Differentiation

Velvet Chainsaw

'Most conference experiences are very similar. They have similar schedules, receptions, general sessions, breakouts, exhibit halls, lecture-style education offerings, quality and price. They all look and feel alike. Too many conferences are on the verge of commoditization. One of the conference’s main offering—delivery of information disguised as education—is so widely available and mutually interchangeable with other types of information delivery—that potential customers cannot distinguish them

Price 80
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SME Relationships: Proven Solutions for Seamless Collaboration and Success

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

💢 Do you find yourself stuck in never-ending review cycles? Are you wondering if your Subject Matter Expert actually got that last review request? Are you having trouble trying to decipher impractical or conflicting feedback? 💢 If any of these scenarios sounds familiar, you may benefit from a crash course on managing SME relationships!

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Happy Labor Day: Last One with Boomer majority!

SCD Group

'As you enjoy the day, take time to celebrate the final year of “Boomer domination” of the workforce. That’s right. Starting next year (2015), millenials will be the majority of workers in the U.S. Are you ready for that? The challenge for associations is that Boomers still dominate as board members and executive staff. We are in the middle of the largest shift in talent in history.

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Facebook Click Bait Changes and How They Affect Your Advocacy Content

Beekeeper Group

'What Is Click bait? You’ll never believe what Facebook announced today! Read on to find out about the jaw-dropping news that was shared exclusively with us. Have your attention, do we? Teaser headlines have the tendency to draw people in, goading them to read on or click through. Instinctively, communicators do not want to oversell the content they are producing.

Content 52
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How Big Is Your Buildup of Past Members?

Associations Now

'Even if your association is growing, the churn of recruitment and lapsed members means you likely have more past members than active ones. What should your relationship be with them? Pop quiz: How many former members does your association have in its database? And how does that number compare to your current membership total? Not being a practicing association membership professional—rather, just a guy who writes about it—I’d never considered this question before.

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Confusion And Brain Strain Are Freakish Factors Required To Learn

Velvet Chainsaw

'Whenever possible the brain operates on autopilot. That’s why for example you can fold laundry while having a conversation. Your brain goes on autopilot to fold clothes so you can focus your thinking on the conversation. When you do something over and over again, your brain picks up the pattern and reverts to autopilot. This impacts the traditional conference lecture.

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Measuring the ROI of Enterprise Learning for Customers, Partners, and Professionals

Prove the ROI of Learning Struggling to measure the business impact of learning initiatives? Try our three-pillar approach to show the true value of learning, backed by stories from real businesses like yours. Make 2024 the year of ROI!

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Smaller Boards Get Bigger Returns

SCD Group

'When Harrison Coerver and Mary Byers suggested (in Race for Relevance ) that association boards shrink to five members, most in the association community exploded with a multitude of negative comments. Not possible was the common cry. The book reported that Harvard’s Richard Hackman (among others) said groups of six or seven are most effective at decision making.

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When It Comes to People.Are You a Bully or a Builder

Tom Morrison

'Over the course of the past several years, I''ve written many blog posts on my passions within the membership engagement context. I 100% believe that if you maximize membership engagement within your association, it solves everything. Today I want to side track on the subject of people and how we treat them. It doesn''t matter whether you are engaging members, managing your association staff, or trying to inspire your volunteers, how you treat people is 50% responsible for getting them to engag

Course 43
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Preparation, Communication Prevent Poli-Sci Conference From Going Up in Flames

Associations Now

'A series of early-morning fires at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park hotel threatened to burn the American Political Science Association as it held its annual meeting last weekend. Solid preparation and a communications plan helped keep the event going. If there’s one thing that keeps an association meeting planner up at night (and surely there are more than one) it may be the thought that an unexpected incident could put an entire event in jeopardy.

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Practicing Strategic Thinking To Strengthen Intellectual Capacity

Velvet Chainsaw

'It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that. ~ The Red Queen, Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass. Strengthening Strategic Thinking Muscles. Becoming a strategic thinker is not as difficult as it sounds. Although if we’re not careful, it may mean running-in-place, twice as hard.

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Here’s a Powerful Marketing Tool Designed for Associations

Show the Benefits of Membership to Your Toughest Prospects. Download this FREE infographic from GrowthZone AMS, Why Join an Association, and start using it as your go-to recruitment and retention marketing tool. Post it on your website. Use it in sales presentations. Or use it as inspiration to create your own version. Infographics have power. They're a quick read.