Friday Top 5

I'll be taking another few days off for my association's spring conference next week, so I thought I'd leave you with some good reading material - Top 5 Best Books I've Read Recently:

1. Humanize - check out my full review
2. Cold Comfort Farm - written in 1932, it's a hilariously funny satirical take on "English country" novels of the overwrought DH Lawrence type
3. Blindsight - recommended to me by the fab Lisa Junker, this book won a Hugo award and raises the fascinating metaphysical question: is it possible to be sentient without consciousness of a self?
4. Batavia's Graveyard - a historical account of "history's bloodiest mutiny," this book also examines the socioeconomic and religious realities of the early 17th century that led the various players into their parts in this sad but enthralling story.
5. A Visit from the Goon Squad - this multiple-award-winning novel uses the same cast of characters, jumping around in time, and variously filling starring and supporting roles in each others' lives, to examine how we get from A to B, often via Q, pink, dog, spoon, and a variety of other randomness, in our lives.

Happy reading!

 

ISO Your MarComm Disasters

Have a MarComm mess on your hands? Want a little free consulting to fix it?

Layla Masri, Chris Durso and I are going to be presenting at ASAE's upcoming Membership, Marketing and Communications conference. Our session is going to focus on marketing and communications makeovers, so we need some makeover candidates.

Is your magazine frumpy? Is your blog out-of-date? Are your social-media efforts mismatched? Three fashion-forward association professionals, a web and content management provider, a marketing and membership expert, and a hardcore publications editor, will separate the mediocre from the marvelous. From a few simple nips and tucks to a wholesale makeover, learn what your style emergency needs are as the makeover team critiques your collateral from every angle and tailors you a whole new look.

Send your publications disasters, your web messes, and your membership campaign nightmares to info@beancreative.com, we'll review them, make FREE suggestions for improvement, and feature them in our session, Thursday, May 23.

 

What I'm Reading

• Face time is irrelevant - what matters is productivity (you'd think we'd have this by now).
• Are people at your meeting to learn or to connect? How might the answer to that question change your program design?
• Tips to tame the email beast (I do a lot of these myself, and they work!),
• You do remember that Jeffrey Cufaude is doing a weekly series on facilitation, right? Turns out, I'm not the only one enjoying it.
• Speaking of Jeffrey, he also has a great article on diversity and inclusion in February issue of Associations Now.
• A five year career plan is a waste of time.
• Want to be a great boss?
• More good advice for bosses: what your staff needs most from you.
• Through the Maze: Careers in Association Management is out. It's a great monograph out of the ASAE Young Association Executives Committee. (I was very fortunate to be able to provide some assistance to the smart YP authors.)
• There's a great point/counterpoint article from two members of the ASAE Membership Section Council (KiKi L'Italien and Celena NuQuay) on the future of the membership model (you will have to log in).
• I finished Swamplandia! and, although a few of the plot turns were pretty predictable, I did really enjoy it. I also finally read Cold Comfort Farm, which was, as promised, hilarious.

 

Get Your Ideas Here!

What are you doing tomorrow? The answer better be "coming to the Super Swap at ASAE!"

What are Super Swaps? They're an opportunity to learn from other association professionals and share your knowledge. The program mixes professional development, networking with peers, and great conversation in the association community.

This month's Super Swap is going to be a little different format. ASAE-GW is calling it: Super Swap Conversations. What that means is that some association professionals (like yours truly) will be giving SHORT presentations to kick off conversations around the following topics:

• Mastering the Creative Process: Channel the Crazy & Start Building with Kylee Coffman, Retail Industry Leaders Association 
• What’s Your Association’s “O” Strategy? with Adele Cehrs, Epic PR Group 
• So long, and thanks for all the fish (that's with me!) 
• Free & Cheap Tech Tools – What Will You Be Using in 2012? with Rhea Steele, Council of Chief State School Officers 
• Making it Rain: How to Drive Non-Dues Revenue with Michele Klecha, Club Managers Association of America and Scott Oser, Scott Oser Associates 
• Evolving Membership Models, with Barbara Armentrout, Marketing General Inc.

Find out more and register at the ASAE website.

 

Always the Last to Know: Archive Team

What happens to the content of websites that die? What if those sites contained people's personal photos or journaling or poetry? Archive Team to the rescue.

To quote from their website:

Formed in 2009, the Archive Team (not to be confused with the archive.org Archive-It Team) is a rogue archivist collective dedicated to saving copies of rapidly dying or deleted websites for the sake of history and digital heritage. Consisting of volunteers and interested parties, Archive Team has been involved in just-in-time backing up of major and minor sites on the brink or process of being shut down.

To find out more about what they do - and why it's so important - check out this recent piece in MIT's Technology Review.

Friday Top 5

Posting is likely to be a little erratic over the next few weeks, as I have two multi-day business trips and several all-day meetings coming up. So this Friday's Top 5 is a "greatest hits" edition. My Top 5 most read posts of 2011:

1. Money, Money, Money, MO-NEY (on non-dues revenue)
2. Sharing the Love (about why the Blogger platform is GREAT, with a video)
3. Tips for First-Timers (or, how to survive the ASAE annual meeting)
4. Idea Swappin' (a recap of the ASAE-GW October Super Swap)
5. Innovation: Small Staff v. Large Staff (looking at how organizational size affects ability to innovate)

 

Examining One's Habits

Although I celebrate Mardi Gras every year with gusto, I've never taken the next step: making a Lenten resolution. No doubt, the fact that I'm not Catholic has something to do with that.

But I do like the idea of a defined annual period of time in which to consciously examine and focus on one's habits.

So this year, I am giving up swearing for Lent. Those of you who know me personally will realize this is not a simple challenge I've set for myself. But the point isn't perfection - or at least, again, not being Catholic the point *for me* is not achieving perfection. So, no, I don't plan to keep a "swear jar" or anything like that.

My goal in doing this is to become more conscious of how I use words and express myself and the impact that, in turn, has on the people around me.

Is there a habit in your personal or work life you'd like to examine more closely? Is there something you do out of habit that no longer serves you? Or something you'd like to become more conscious of? Is there something you'd benefit from adding? Can you take the next 40 (OK, technically 39 at this point) days to focus on it?

Although it's traditional, I don't think that a Lenten resolution would necessarily have to be about giving something up. It could just as easily be about adding something positive.

Maybe at the end of 40 days, I'll resume my regular speech patterns. But maybe I won't. Either way, I'll have thought about it, which is saying something.