I want to direct our readers’ attentions to a great post at Associations Live called Managing Your Time. Time management is always important — especially for small staff association professionals, who have to juggle multiple priorities and departments — but I think the holiday season is a time to be especially cognizant of how our time is being spent. Between holiday shopping, parties and finishing up the new year at work, the holiday season seems to be even busier than the rest of the year.

The post linked above points out the usefulness of cleaning off your workspace at the end of each day and taking a few minutes to put together a to-do list for the next day. Personally, I like to write up my day’s to-do list each morning, and I get a huge amount of satisfaction from crossing each item off with my pink highlighter. (Nerd alert!)

One important point that I think may be difficult for small staff association professionals is don’t schedule more than two hours of your time each day. I realize the importance of this, but I think small staff professionals automatically get sequestered into many meetings and member engagement. Rather, what’s important is realizing what’s worth a meeting and what can be resolved via e-mail. If it’s a serious conflict or matter, try to meet face-to-face. But don’t think you need to have meetings for every little detail. Some small staffs work in such close quarters that this may not even apply to them!

I really want to hear from you, though. What is your best time management or productivity tip?

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Splash is taking part in the virtual book tour Maddie Grant and Lindy Dreyer are doing to explore concepts from Open Community: a little book of big ideas for associations navigating the social web. In this post, Maddie provides an excerpt from the book which might be particularly relevant for small staff organizations.

Thank you for having us on your blog!

We wrote Open Community partly because we know many, many association executives who have voiced their frustrations about the social web — they are frustrated by the overabundance of tools, the sometimes disorderly experimentation of staff or members, the unwieldy processes for monitoring and managing social media, and the simple truth – for small staff associations especially – that they just can’t see how to find the time to add this to their “many hats” and their too-full plate.  And there’s no quick fix – no consultant or agency can nurture your community for you, though they can help you build your infrastructure and they can help you with specific campaigns.

Your Open Community, which we define as your people who are bonded by what your organization represents and care enough to talk to each other (hopefully about you!) online, is happening all around you whether you are present in it or not.

But if you are not, it’s very easy nowadays for those stakeholders to find the connections and the information they need elsewhere. One of the most important first steps toward building community online is accepting that your Open Community is out there, not just on your web site. Sometimes, rather than hosting every conversation and leading every initiative, your organization can (and should) be simply present as a supportive participant.  But how do you do that when you are a small staff organization (or a volunteer-led chapter, or any kind of component without a bunch of departments and multiple people who can share the tasks)?

First, be reassured – in an earlier post here on Splash, I talked about how small staff organizations actually are ahead of the game.  In case you missed it, here’s what association exec Joe Flowers commented about that post:

“As a small staff employee (seven of us) – I will say that becoming more active in the social space has been easier than what I’ve heard others go through. When we decided it was time to get on Twitter, we just started an account. If things went poorly, we could keep it under wraps, but when it took off and our follower count hit 500 in a couple days and active conversations started, we had a tangible benefit ready to show the powers that be. Same for our LinkedIn discussion group.

It’s also been a huge advantage in our e-Community. Our members know who all of us are and what all of us do. There’s no doubt who is moderating conversations about communications, research, government relations, etc. It’s allowed us to reach our members on a more personal level and for our members to get more involved. With the release of our brand new website and ecommunity in early November, I can only hope that we only rocket skyward from here.

Hooray for the little guy!”

Second, as you probably know all too well, work can get done most efficiently if you get the right people doing what they are best at.  Here’s a little excerpt for your readers from Chapter 2: Open Community Means Developing into a Social Organization.
Who should take part?

In the early stages of building community online, anyone who feels comfortable engaging members online should be empowered to do so. It doesn’t matter what department they are from. It doesn’t matter how junior or senior they are. All the work you do to provide clarity—clear objectives and strategy, your policies, staff training, collaboration across the organization—should enable anyone with the desire to take part.

Ideally your association will progress to the point where, if a staff member interacts with members face to face, he or she also interacts with members online. The social web is just an additional way to talk to members. Having said that, interacting online requires some newer skills that take time to build. You’ll need to provide some training.

You may well have staff who have zero offline interaction with members but are very comfortable online and have an interest in interacting with your community. You’ll need to provide some training for them as well. You might try the buddy system—pairing a digital newbie who has member communications skills with a member-facing newbie who has digital social skills.

Remember what Joe said?  “Our members know who all of us are and what all of us do.”  Remember that successful engagement with your Open Community is between people.  It’s not about tools or technology.  You already know how to talk to members; you just need to figure out where they are, what they need from you, and how to talk to them online as well as on the phone or face to face.   There are absolutely tons of resources out there for specific training, and you can easily use staff or volunteers who are very comfortable online to help show others who are not how to do it.  You need to decide in which particular online spaces to focus your attention, because you can’t be everywhere, and you need to figure out how to share the workload.  But the kind of internal collaboration needed to make this happen is a capacity that you should already have.

We hope you will share how things are going with your Open Community at http://www.opencommunitybook.com.  We’ll be collecting all kinds of case studies and examples and we’d love you to share your experiences with us.

Happy Black Friday to our American readers! If you got up at all hours of the night to start shopping, more power to you. (I prefer to complete my holiday shopping online.) Anyway, there were a few great Thanksgiving-related posts out there this week so I wanted to give a quick shout-out to them.

1. Jeff Hurt gave thanks for his community — both online and offline. A great blog post to remind us all to reflect on our communities.

2. At the Acronym blog, Carolyn Hook wrote about a few associations she’s thankful for, including The Deanna Durbin Society, the American Automobile Association and the American Fertility Association. I think it’s great to recognize the associations — big and small — that help us every day.

3. Bruce Hammond discussed a few great ways to give thanks for the people in your work and personal life. He reminds us that it’s a good idea to not wait for the holidays to show some gratitude, though.

4. I really enjoyed Jeffrey Cufaude’s post, titled An Attitude of Gratitude. He asks, would any credible, successful HR professional manage paid staff the way volunteers are managed in your organization?

5. Finally, David M. Patt wrote about the necessity of being thankful for something important. He discusses being thankful for the First Amendment, which is something I’m extremely thankful for as well!

We hope everyone enjoys their weekends full of leftovers and holiday sales!

Image source: Kevin Patrick

Happy Thanksgiving to all our U.S. readers! We celebrated with an in-office potluck on Wednesday. Here are some of the highlights.

We hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving with their family and loved ones!

U.S. readers are likely gearing up right now for a long weekend filled with food, family, football and giving thanks. But how is your small staff association observing Thanksgiving?

Sure, it’s the time of year when we all reflect on our own blessings, whatever they may be. But does your association thank the many volunteers who help keep the organization going?

Although thanking your volunteers shouldn’t be a once-a-year occurrence, it’s especially important to remember to thank them around the holidays. This is often a busy time of year as people prepare for out-of-town guests (or to travel), buy presents for loved ones and finish up the school semester.

I think the most important thing to remember when thanking volunteer (and coworkers, too!) is to make it personal. If you’re just going to give a generic “thank you” card with little or nothing written inside, you probably shouldn’t waste the effort. Take the time to think about how each staffer or volunteer has helped make your association better, and include that in your thank you card. Everyone has that unique “something” that makes them important to their associations.

Whether it’s a thank you card, a kind word or a huge gesture or gift, don’t forget to thank the lifeblood of your association: your volunteers.

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