Normally, at the end of every calendar year, I’m surprised at how quickly the time has gone by, but this year is different. It’s been a crazy year and we were fortunate enough to attend several awesome events and meet amazing association professionals that really make us passionate about what we do here at MemberClicks. So, since tomorrow is the traditional “Friday Top Five,” I thought I’d take a look at a few of my favorite posts from the past year here at Splash. Whether you’re a new reader or seasoned reader, I always think it’s fun to take a quick look back before starting a new year. There have been almost 400 posts here in just 17 months!

We kicked off 2010 by offering a nifty PDF download of our “Beyond the Big Three” series. It’s been updated since then, so be sure to check out the newest edition if you’re looking for information about social media beyond Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn!

We wrote about having a member-centric website and what that means and discussed how young professionals can shape an association’s future.

As soon as they hit the market, we gave away four iPads! Our winners chronicled their journeys for us, too, and it was amazing to see how they used them at the conferences and meetings.

We attended the Georgia Society of Association Executives’ Annual Meeting and not only did we take photos, we learned a lot too!

Mark Sedgley, our vice president of business development, attended a one-day Hackaction conference in Washington, D.C. and then chronicled the lessons in two posts.

I recapped all of the cool technologies that had been profiled in the past year. There’s some good (free!) stuff for small staff association professionals here!

After an exciting ASAE Annual Meeting, I discussed the importance of mobile technology for small staff associations. How has your association adopted mobile technology?

We pioneered the inaugural Small Staff Appreciation Month – check out the recap post here. We gave away tons of free stuff, including books, T-shirts, a MacBook and gift certificates.

Notable posts from the fall included one on efficiency and time management – important topics for small staff association professionals!

Finally, with the holidays upon us, we discussed how associations can have their own in-office traditions during December.

It’s been quite a year here at MemberClicks, and we’re excited about 2011. What are you most looking forward to in the upcoming new year?

Last year, I discussed a few trends that would generate even more interest in the association industry in 2010.  Some of them, such as crowdsourcing, virtual attendance and active young professionals, proved true. Of course, I don’t exactly think those were difficult predictions to make.

Looking back over the past year and reflecting on the other trends I predicted would become big, I wouldn’t say the association industry as a whole totally embraced mobile technology. There is still some apprehension about the barriers to entry and questions about how popular the technology really is among members. I will say, though, that association professionals shouldn’t let mobile fall of their radars – the smartphone industry is booming and it won’t be long before they’re the norm.

Another item discussed in last year’s post was associations will stop adopting social media just for the sake of it. I think there are still a lot of questions out there about online communities and legal ramifications and losing control of your message. But the beauty of the Internet is that you don’t necessarily have to send out formal surveys to your members to find out what they think. Have you had success with social media this year?

This past year has been an extremely interesting one for associations. Conferences and meetings were exciting, drew criticisms and praises and brought people together. We connected over webinars and blogs, phone calls and Facebook.

What has been the biggest change your association has seen during the past year? Did you implement a new association management software, start discussing social media policies and online communities, offer new or exciting programs to your members? What are you looking forward to most about 2011?

(Here at MemberClicks, we have some exciting news up our sleeves – be on the lookout for a fun announcement!)

Image source

Happy Friday! And congratulations to the Crimson Tide of Alabama for winning the BCS National Championship Thursday night! MemberClicks President Thomas Howard is a proud ‘Bama alum and since no one in the office is really a Texas fan (sorry to the Longhorns out there), a lot of us were pulling for the Tide in Thursday night’s game. (I do feel awful for poor Colt McCoy, though.)

I hope everyone had a good week, and if it was your first full workweek after a holiday vacation, I hope it didn’t go by too slowly. And there was some great stuff around the association blogging community this week!

1. Following his webinar, Jeff De Cagna wrote about the trends that will affect associations in 2010 and beyond. Organizations should not overlook the importance of Jeff’s “Mobile Everything” bullet. We’re rapidly becoming a mobile society and this can affect how your association communicates and gathers content.

2. Keeping with the “mobile” theme, check out the three iPhone apps every nonprofit needs to know about. There’s some good info here your nonprofit could use for its mobile strategy.

3. Over at Acronym, Joe Rominiecki took a trip down memory lane by digging through the Association Management archives from 2000. From outsourcing to collaboration to knowledge, Joe discussed how each concept was applied in 2000, and how associations have improved since then. Loved this post.

4. Cindy Butts wrote this week about fundraising and staffers missing opportunities. She used a great example of an fundraiser that told a story to relate to the audience, and accepted both credit card and PayPal payments. Takeaways: make (giving) personal and make it easy.

5. This post is technically from last week, but it’s so great that I can’t help but share. Jeffrey Cufaude’s The Many C’s of Community really grabbed my attention when I got back to work Monday morning. He writes, Community is a spirit that resides within every individual, but it is manifested in very personal choices. I’m not even going to try to say it better myself.

Enjoy your weekends, everyone (despite the painful lack of college football!)!

(Image source: Jae C. Hong, AP, via NYT)

Who can believe it’s 2010? Personally, I was excited to say goodbye to 2009 and am ready to see what 2010 has in store for me — and for associations, as well. So in honor of the new year, here are my top five association management blog posts from the past week.

1. Over at Acronym, Brian Birch wrote about innovations from the past decade and how they will help associations going forward into a new one. My favorite part? The link to check out your association’s Web site’s old design (web.archive.org). So hilarious and nostalgic.

2. Jeffrey Cufaude discussed how associations should approach their goals going forward into 2010. He says, What beliefs, mindsets, policies, procedures, or practices help perpetuate the same behaviors or outcomes, the ones you want to change? Good questions here.

3. David M. Patt wrapped up the year by sharing some leadership lessons he discussed throughout 2009. My favorite points are the last ones – spend your time on relevant activities and be sure to communicate properly.

4. Updating or reinventing your chapter program for 2010? Check out Peggy Hoffman’s post at the Idea Center for tons of ideas on goal-setting. Keep in mind that it’s important to set goals that are measurable so you can keep track of your progress.

5. So I thought I posted a link to Elizabeth Engel’s post, So what will YOU do TODAY?, on Twitter. And when I check my Twitter stream, I realized I had forgotten to include a URL. So sorry, Elizabeth! Regardless, everyone should check out this post. We don’t need to wait for the new year to set resolutions or goals. What will you do to help your association today?

Thanks for reading Splash in 2009, everyone! I hope everyone’s new year got off to a fun and safe start, and have a great weekend!

(Image via ahisgett on Flickr)