“I’m Pleased to Introduce Our New Chairman, Who Like Any Other Human Being Has a Compelling Life Story That Has Led Her to This Point and Informed Her Worldview … But She’s Not Going to Talk About Any of That”

August 19, 2009

We are associations, and we have chairmen. Usually a new one each year. Usually that means that at some point at our annual meeting — maybe at a general session, maybe at a banquet — this new chairman is going to be introduced, and is going to deliver a speech.
Assuming that you have more than [...]

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When “A-ha!” Meets “Well, Duh”

August 18, 2009

Wow, great closing party for ASAE tonight. Spectacular venue, beautiful weather (finally!), good food, and while I can’t get all that jazzed about a concert featuring Bachman sans Turner sans Overdrive, hey, the music was pretty good too. Met a few great people, had a very enjoyable time.
But I came back to my room to [...]

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A Few Initial Post-ASAE Impressions (Yes, Technically the Conference Is Over So I Can Blog Again)

August 18, 2009

Well, I said I wouldn’t blog during the ASAE conference, and I haven’t. While I’m still in Toronto, cooling my heels for a little bit before the closing party, technically the conference itself is over (I know, because I already got the first email survey from ASAE saying “we hope you enjoyed the conference!”). And [...]

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Going “Off the Grid”

August 10, 2009

This weekend I’m off to Toronto for the ASAE annual meeting. Looking forward to it, though there will be one thing different about it for me. For the past several years, when I’ve attended ASAE, I’ve blogged from there — either “officially” for ASAE, or here, or some combination of the two. (I didn’t attend [...]

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Why The Sky Is Not Falling for Associations

August 6, 2009

Our association recently ended its fiscal year, and we are closing the books on another year of growth — more members, more revenues, more customers, more participants, more attendees,  more of every metric than we had last year. All I can really say about that is that I stand by this post I wrote last year.
This [...]

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God Bless Our Competition

July 20, 2009

On the anniversary of the first moon landing, Jeff De Cagna wonders if associations (and the rest of society) have lost our ability to imagine the impossible. It’s a good question. But I would like to delve a little deeper into it.
Q: Why did America go to the moon?
A: To beat the Soviets there.
(See Wikipedia’s [...]

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Oh The Kids These Days! (Wherein I Seem to Be Talking About Generations But Am Actually Talking About a Lot of Different Things)

July 17, 2009

Jamie Notter has made his e-book, Generational Diversity in the Workplace, available for free, and you should download it and read it. It is a compelling and engaging read, worth its weight in gold for the first part alone, where he summarizes a lot of research into generational generalizations.
What makes Jamie’s work most interesting to [...]

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In Praise of Retro

July 17, 2009

As a committed technophile and gadget-freak — and a fairly committed multitasker — I’m surprised to have noticed over the last year that I’ve gravitated mostly towards some tools that could only be considered “retro.” I think what they have in common is “simplicity.” We all have so many things going on all the time [...]

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A Basic Post About Logos

June 30, 2009

Because we can’t think deep thoughts all the time ….
Like a lot of associations, we have to deal with the logos of a lot of different companies. This is because we have events and things that have sponsors, and so we have to put sponsor logos in a lot of very different and creative places. [...]

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4th of July

June 26, 2009

With our nation’s birthday just about a week away, and so many challenges facing our culture, I feel like I want to write something about it, but am averse to the usual sort of cliches, and well aware of my own limitations. So instead I’ll share these lyrics from singer/songwriter Ben Shive. Whatever your personal [...]

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