Happy Friday! One more weekend until (American) Thanksgiving … what are everyone’s plans besides being full of turkey and gratitude? Does your family have a special tradition?

Before you head out for the weekend, be sure to check out our favorite blog posts from the association community!

1. Jeff Hurt shares six important connections to be aware of when planning your association’s conference. The most important one (to me, at least)? Connecting participants to outcomes. Your conferences should always arm people to succeed once they get back to the office – and not every new idea has to be big and flashy.

2. Do your staff members sit on the association’s board? David M. Patt discusses why this isn’t a good idea. Staff members and board members have different goals and roles, and they could sometimes conflict.

3. Do you know what your strengths and weaknesses are? (I know my weakness – I tend to work too quickly and make little stupid mistakes.) Aaron Wolowiec shares why it’s important to know your personality, how you work and what you need to work on with regards to your style.

4. Tony Rossell shares five steps to creating a marketing recruitment program: the who, what, where, how and why. I think this is a great article for small staffers to read since duties can overlap and no matter what your title, there’s a chance you’ll be doing some marketing. There are some great comments on this post, so be sure to check it out!

5. Elizabeth Engel shared some great takeaways from a PRSA meeting, including info on Google+ (still made up mostly of early adopters) and LinkedIn (likely the future of business social networking).

Have a great weekend!

Happy Friday! I’m headed to the beach bright and early Saturday morning, so I’m extra-psyched and ready for today to fly by. Do you have any fun weekend plans?

Before I load up on sunscreen and escape to the beach for a long weekend, though, I wanted to share five blog posts that really stood out to me this week. Please share your own in the comments!

1. At the Engage365 blog, Elizabeth Henderson shared part 2 of What Sustainability Can Learn From Quality. One notable point? Break down interdepartmental barriers and work as a team. I think small staff associations have an advantage here, as their (duh!) small size inherently lends itself to working as a team rather than funneling everything through silos.

2. Jeffrey Cufaude advocates getting back to good old-fashioned brainstorms with white boards, etc. Encouraging people to interact with one another while brainstorming can really help the ideas flow – more so than sharing a document over email. How does your small staff foster brainstorms?

3. Who does your organization belong to? David M. Patt reminds association professionals everywhere that the association belongs to the members, not the founder. Without the members, there wouldn’t even be an association.

4. How are conferences going to evolve over the next few years? Jeff Hurt share four things that will help shape meetings and conferences, including curation, social objects and game dynamics. He advocates that association professionals should start accepting them and adapting sooner rather than later.

5. Eric Lanke shares why it’s crucial to have both courage and clarity to solve problems: if you want clarity, the clarity that comes from the intersection, you’re better served by turning your headlights off and looking at the problem from different perspectives.

From everyone at MemberClicks, have a great weekend!

I was fortunate enough to attend a social media conference on Wednesday, but I have to say – I was a little disappointed. It seemed like the majority of the speakers were only present to promote their own websites or companies. There were a few good speakers, but, for the part, I was disappointed and don’t really feel like I learned much.

How could this conference be improved, and what lessons can small staff associations learn from this?

For one thing, all speakers (except panel discussions) were limited to just 10 minutes. Ten minutes may be sufficient time for one speaker, but not for another. I think the schedule and line-up could have been more carefully thought out to reflect each individual’s strengths.

Please, provide good coffee. This may sound like a minor thing, but I heard more than one complaint about the quality of the java at Wednesday’s event. For better or for worse, a lot of people (myself included) rely on a daily dose of caffeine.

Encourage speakers to focus not on the background of their business, but on their future plans. It was interesting to hear some of the stories, but I would have preferred a more forward-thinking approach from these speakers. I wanted to know their future plans and how they thought social media would affect their businesses in the coming months and years.

Plan to have a strong wifi signal and make sure your venue has adequate 3G service. My iPhone had sketchy service at best throughout the day, and even my MacBook had trouble connecting to the Internet. I was almost unable to do the little work I needed to get done at the conference, and tweeting and taking notes on my phone was extremely difficult. Even if you don’t think your audience will be tech-savvy, be sure they can connect to the Internet. And try to have your event in a venue with outlets!

What practical advice for conference planning can you share?

Happy Friday! What a stressful week it’s been – but it’s the good kind of stress, which I far prefer over the bad kind of stress. (Who doesn’t?) I’m ready for a relaxing weekend (well, not that relaxing … I have a 5K on Sunday). Who’s got fun weekend plans with their families and friends?

And just in case you haven’t had quite enough association management reading material this week, let’s kick off the weekend with a few of the posts from the blogosphere that really stuck with me this week.

1. Tony Rossell had a great post about innovation through collaboration and why collaboration is so important for associations. He cites two great articles that support that point, and I think it’s something every association should be cognizant of. Of course, at small staff associations it may be easier to have the whole staff collaborate, but don’t forget how important it is!

2. Midcourse Corrections’ Dave Lutz shared a few great ways to make your conference irresistible. My favorite? “Solutions are the new location.” Conference attendees participate because they’re looking for something, whether they know what that something is or not. Often, they find a whole host of solutions that will help them streamline their business practices.

3. Have you seen the Young Association Professionals’ takeover of ASAE’s Acronym blog? If not, it’s definitely worth checking out those posts. Want to achieve something great? Fail! is my personal favorite. I fully believe that if you really want to be awesome and get stuff done, you’ve gotta try a few ways that don’t work first.

4. At the Hourglass Blog, Eric Lanke shared an insightful post about the sad paradox of board governance. The kicker: When the shareholders need the directors least, they get them most. And when they need them most, they get them least. Does this ring true for your small staff association? Why or why not?

5. They’re a necessary aspect of association management, and this week, the Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology had a great post about the good, the bad and the ugly of RFPs. The section on what makes a great RFP is my personal favorite. Tips include “do your homework” and “understand that implementation differs across software platforms.” So true!

From everyone at MemberCilcks, have a fantastic weekend!

Happy Friday! My favorite posts this week all had to do with technology in some way or another. It’s what we’re consumed by here at MemberClicks, and we love the idea of technology making someone’s life easier. So let’s get right to it!

1. I tweeted this post earlier this morning, but I want to draw everyone’s attention to Mobile Millennials Leading the Way. For many young people, their entire lives are on their cell phones. It’s a “24/7 lifestyle.” Regardless of your organization’s size, being cognizant of mobile is crucial — even if you don’t have a “mobile strategy.”

2. I’ve really been enjoying Joe Flowers’ series about his small staff association’s web redesign. Part 4 chronicles telling a vendor that their relationship is ending and the concerns of migrating their information. Any association can probably relate — we realize that dealing with vendors can be stressful! But hopefully your vendors are understanding and professional.

3. A recent post by Wes Trochlil got me thinking: people, process and technology. For any web project to be successful, you have to have a delicate balance of the three. But no matter how awesome your technology is, if your people (i.e. your staffers) aren’t on board, it won’t succeed.

4. OK, this one is technically neither a blog post nor about technology, but it is about small staffs, which automatically makes it awesome. In the latest issue of Associations Now, Teresa Evans-Hunter discusses how a small staff organization staffs its conference. It can be tricky to host hundreds (or even thousands!) of members with a limited staff, so this is a good read.

5. Last but not least, the crew at Association Tech shared a post about a website revamp. There are many challenges involved in such a huge undertaking, so it’s crucial to know your objective and work with the right people. What are some of the challenges your organization has faced during a website revamp?

From everyone at MemberClicks, have a great weekend!

Photo source