Happy Friday and Happy (almost) Halloween! I’ll be back on Monday with a full recap of our own office Halloween celebration, including the top three costumes! (The photo to the left is from Halloween 2008.)

But until Monday, here’s some reading material for the weekend!

1. I don’t think this post is actually from this past week, but it is from October! It’s a great forward-thinking view from Jeffrey Cufaude asking what your annual meeting will look like in 2014. Remember to reinforce the core of the meeting, maximize systems and templates, enable more eyes and more initiative and use feedback to experiment and refine.

2. I loved Leslie White’s guest post on the SocialFish blog this week about policies in associations. Leslie gives some great tips and suggestions for crafting your association’s social media policy. My favorites? Avoid absolutes, make it enforceable, be friendly and be consistent.

3. Check out this great post on SmartBlog Insights by Mark Buzan about recruiting members in the Facebook age. There’s more information than ever before at our fingertips, but how to use it? It’s also easier to network these days with LinkedIn, Facebook and other social networks, and this post gives great suggestions for making sure associations remain valuable to members.

4. Brian Birch at ASAE and The Center’s Acronym blog admits his control freak tendencies and asks others if they share similar qualities. I can definitely relate to a few of them — in school, I was always the leader (and primary worker) in group projects. But it’s so crucial to remember that delegating isn’t a bad thing, and neither is change. And I’ve learned the best ideas usually come while brainstorming with more than just one or two people.

5. Steve Drake reminds us that Twitter is more than 140 characters and gives some great examples of how his association has used Facebook and Twitter. It’s important to note that he says he learned by “trial and error” and that he’s not a “Twitter expert” (who is?). But he keeps TweetDeck open all day to get real-time updates from his followers and other keywords for his organization. Kudos!

Don’t forget — there’s still time to enter our contest to win a free copy of Seth Godin’s “Tribes.” See this post for more information, but it ends at 6 p.m. ET today, Oct. 30.

We at MemberClicks hope everyone has a happy Halloween! And don’t forget to “fall back” on Sunday — set your clocks back one hour for Daylight Saving Time.

Organizations change over time. So does technology. With these realities in mind, MemberClicks, a leading provider of association management software for small-staff associations, is proud to launch the MemberClicks Maximization program. The program is designed to ensure that the expanding product capabilities are customized to meet customers’ evolving needs.

The initiative begins with a one-on-one consultation to understand the real needs of the organization, followed by tailored application and training to best meet those needs. By working with more than 1,400 organizations, MemberClicks will leverage best practices of associations in the areas of database structure, membership management, event registration and web design.

The Maximization initiative is designed to increase the level of engagement through extensive needs analysis, custom training programs, solution tune-ups, web site overhauls and more. The goal is for organizations to leverage the software’s appropriate functionality relative to their unique and changing needs.

One component of the program, the MemberClicks University group webinar series, covers a new training topic monthly.  It allows for highly interactive opportunities to learn best practices and exciting new capabilities of the solution with other MemberClicks customers.

“We’re excited to connect with our customers on a more personal level,” Maximization Lead Duncan McCreery said.  “We understand how much time and money organizations devote to updating the Web site and keeping the member database current, and we understand how difficult it is to accomplish this in an evolving and dynamic environment.”

“We never want to be satisfied with simply gaining a customer,” President Thomas Howard said.  “What really matters is that our solution truly meets their needs, and not just initially, but over the course of time as the landscape changes.”

For more information about the MemberClicks Maximization initiative, click here or e-mail max@memberclicks.com.

Have you heard of Google Voice? It’s a great free service that allows you to redirect as many phone numbers as you’d like to a single voicemail inbox. Essentially, all your calls can be directed to just one phone number (one that’s not tied to any phone company, just Google). There’s even an online inbox (that looks like an e-mail inbox) that will transcribe all your voicemails into text. The best part? Google just announced Monday that you can keep your primary phone number instead of switching to a Google number.

This video is a great summary of the service:

The benefits of Google Voice are numerous. If your association is spending thousands of dollars a year on your phone service from a local provider, consider switching. Google Voice will allow you to run your voice communications at lower costs and with more freedom.

Features include:

• An online voicemail
• Free automated voicemail transcription
• Custom voicemail greetings for different callers
• E-mail and text message notifications
• One number that reaches you on all your phones
• Call screening
• Listen in
• Call recording
• Conference calling
• Call blocking
• Reduced rates for international calls

Did I mention all of this is free?!

Calls to your staff’s phone numbers can be redirected to one number (each original phone number can have a customized voicemail greeting message). The forwarding service is flexible, so during non-office hours, you can set incoming calls to be immediately directed toward voicemail — the “do not disturb” feature.

If staffers can’t get to the office (for inclement weather, taking care of a sick child or any other reason), they will still be able to communicate using their office lines. Check out this video for even more information.

One note: if you live outside the U.S., you won’t be able to use your existing phone number with Google Voice yet. You’ll still have to get a new phone number, which can be a bit of a hassle. Hopefully will Google will open this feature internationally soon.

To sign up for an invitation, click here. Current Google Voice users also have invites, so ask around — maybe someone you know will have an invite to spare.

Don’t forget about our ongoing contest this week — you could win a free copy of Seth Godin’s “Tribes.” See this post for more details.

Our customers interact with a lot of MemberClicks team members — a solution adviser, implementation manager, implementation specialist and Web designer — but there are many more people behind the scenes driving the product and developing new solutions.

Aaron Gunn, our director of product development, has been with MemberClicks for more than six years. When he started here as the Application Development Lead, his role included software design and development for one of our older products.

Currently, Aaron is responsible for managing the development of all MemberClicks products, as well as the infrastructure that runs the products. He might not interact with customers as often as other MemberClicks team members, but Aaron’s one of the key players behind the scenes of our membership management software and solutions!

Aaron says his favorite part about working for MemberClicks is the office culture. “We’ve put together a fantastic staff that really cares about delivering a great customer experience while having fun doing it. Our environment is relaxed and enjoyable without being slack. Additionally, I get to work with a lot of cool software technologies and occasionally get to tinker around with some hardware.”

The Georgia Tech graduate is a “rampant optimist” and is always cracking jokes in meetings to keep the mood light — “even if they’re not very funny,” he added. As a software developer, he’s good at seeing solutions to problems that aren’t always apparent — which he partly attributes to “being his father’s son.”

Aaron is father to two little girls and enjoys spending time with his family when he’s not coming up with ways to make the MemberClicks solution even better. He’s also a huge Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football fan and an avid hiker. The Monticello, Ga. native is just a few hikes away from reaching the tops of all the mountains in Georgia that are over 4,000 feet, which has been “significantly more difficult than I imagined.”

(Don’t forget about our contest — you could win a free copy of Seth Godin’s “Tribes.” See this post for more details.)

Seth Godin‘s book “Tribes” is written exactly like his blog — that is, it’s not difficult to read at all. In fact, “Tribes” reads like dozens of Godin’s blog posts put together. There are no traditional chapters, and I got through all 147 pages in a single afternoon.

I’m a pretty speedy reader, but perhaps I should have taken my time with this one. I think “Tribes” would have been better if it had been delivered as a speech, and while it didn’t inspire any huge revelations, I did like the overall theme: people should lead rather than manage.

Peppered with real-life examples of true leaders, from Steve Jobs to a librarian in Seattle, Godin’s book explains that tribes are everywhere. And true leaders have to learn how to help their tribes’ members communicate more effectively.

Godin’s parameters for a tribe, a shared interest and a way to communicate, pretty much fit associations to a tee. The book is intended for anyone, whether you’re already a leader in your organization or not, and I think association execs and staffers would find the book extremely beneficial.

Godin writes that, The people who like their jobs the most are the ones who are doing the best work, making the greatest impact, and changing the most. As an association exec or staffer, are you doing all you can to inspire your employees and members, allowing them to grow and evolve?

Godin says he’s not interested in tribes that are stuck. He says they’re boring and that by embracing the status quo, they don’t create anything valuable.

I disagree with Godin — I’m interested in tribes that are slower to change. These are going to be the interesting ones down the road. Just because they’re slower to alter the status quo doesn’t mean they won’t. It’s true that many associations are stuck in the “that’s the way we’ve always done it” mindset, but I think that attitude is slowly changing.

All tribes (including associations) have different motivations and leaders and rates of change. There’s no need to change quickly to keep up with others if your members aren’t ready yet.

Conversely, it’s up to leaders to realize when change is necessary — even if members resist at first.

Inspiring your members to become excited about new things can be difficult. Changing things — pushing the envelope and creating a future that doesn’t exist yet (at the same time you’re criticized by everyone else) — requires bravery, Godin writes.

One phrase really struck me during my reading:

Tribes are increasingly voluntary. No one is forced to work for your firm or attend your services. … So great leaders don’t try to please everybody. … Instead, they realize that a motivated, connected tribe in the midst of a movement is far more powerful than a larger group could ever be.

There’s been a bit of concern lately about how to keep members and what to provide for them in order to keep them renewing. However, I think we sometimes forget that all membership is voluntary. Would you rather have 10,000 apathetic members or 500 excited, motivated and connected members?

Godin’s writing style might have bothered me during my reading, but the message was a winner: If you, as a leader, do what you believe in and continue to inspire, people will follow. Leadership is a choice, and the choice to contribute is yours.

Interested in reading “Tribes” in its entirety? Share this on Twitter or leave a comment with an example of a challenge your organization is facing. At the end of the week, we’ll pick three random winners!