Good afternoon and happy Thursday! In anticipation of the weekend, we’d like to share a few new presentations and slideshows courtesy of Slideshare. Let us know what you think!

As a small staff association professional, I’m sure it can be pretty annoying to have people constantly telling you you need to be tweeting, Facebooking and blogging on top of everything else you’re responsible for. It’s probably extremely frustrating when there are barely enough hours in the day for you to juggle your everyday tasks, let alone add social networking to the mix.

Yet, it’s important for your association to be viewed as an expert in the field. For one thing, members will appreciate it. And those members can create positive word-of-mouth marketing for the organization.

So, how can you create meaningful content when you’re totally pressed for time?

1. Enlist a few members to create content.

2. Curate content from other blogs in the industry.

3. Interview a few members and create a “day in the life” story.

4. Write a review. Review products, software or anything your membership would find useful.

5. Link to old favorites within your own blog. Just because someone is reading your blog today doesn’t mean they were reading it a year ago.

6. Create an analogy. For instance, I’ve written about how football is like association management. Twice.

7. Incorporate a newsworthy story or pop culture event to your association. How does it affect your members?

And when all else fails, get inspired. Go for a walk. See a movie. Sometimes getting your mind off the task at hand helps clear your head.

How does your small staff association create content when it’s short on time?

Happy Monday! Every once in awhile, I like to share interesting presentations, videos or images with readers. There’s so much great information about there for small staff association professionals, and we praise the importance of “content curation,” so I like to practice what I preach! Here are a few slideshows that I’ve been digging lately:

Any useful pieces of information you’ve come across lately that other small staff association professionals would benefit from? Feel free to share them in the comments!

Happy Friday! I can’t speak for anyone else, but it has been one crazy-busy week for me. I’m more than ready for the weekend with friends, football and tons of fun!

1. When an organization begins its social media efforts, many questions can arise — including how much time does it take? who will be responsible for it? Beth Kanter had a great post this week that helped outline social media workflow and time commitment for nonprofits. I definitely recommend this one for small staffs who are concerned about how much time social media can take up.

2. Laura Sienaski at the Drake & Company blog discussed her attitude toward social media and how it had changed since she began working at the AMC and why sharing content is beneficial. Content curation can be extremely valuable for associations who want to establish themselves as thought leaders in their particular industries.

3. Leslie White had a great post this week about innovation and risk. The association community talks often about the importance of innovation and trying new things, but all innovation inherently involves risk — risk that can be dangerous for smaller organizations who don’t have the resources to recover as quickly. It’s crucial to identify which risks to take and how much risk your senior management and/or board will tolerate. Great post.

4. I really enjoyed David M. Patt’s post, titled “Untechnology.” He points out that, while not everyone has to embrace every new technology, there can be a danger in not staying current enough. Do you embrace new technologies or are you staunchly set in your ways?

5. It’s no secret, but there are more channels than ever before for membership marketing, as Tony Rossell wrote about this week. Especially for small staff associations, it’s important to know which ones are the most important based on your membership, and then devote resources to each appropriately.

From everyone at MemberClicks, have a great weekend!

Photo source

Happy Friday! How’s everyone adjusting to the time difference? I know I love that it’s still so light outside when I head home for the evening. As usual, there was lots of great content around the association community this week, so let’s get right to it!

1. Does your organization have a morning ritual? Jeffrey Cufaude wrote about one at an association he used to work for and how it positively affected the staff members. Even a seemingly simple meeting or few words of encouragement from the president or CEO can get a day started off right.

2. Jeff De Cagna has been participating in a Webcast discussing “Beyond Relevance,” and his blog post this week captured the spirit of the conversations. He argues that reinvention, rather than relevance, is necessary for associations to move forward and continue to succeed. Definitely a must-read.

3. Over at Midcourse Corrections, Jeff Hurt has been writing a series about how to write better conference session titles and descriptions. Be sure to check out the first installment: How to Write Killer Conference Session Titles That Attract Attendees. There’s ton of useful information and plenty of examples, as well.

Now for a blog post not written by someone named Jeff…

4. Joe Rominiecki sparked a great discussion in the Acronym comments with his post, Isn’t “content curator” just another term for “reporter?”. On the heels of the recent discussion about content curation, Joe pointed out that reporters have been “curating” content for years and years. The journalist in me loved the discussion … check out the comments and see what you think.

5. A few months ago, KiKi L’Italien declared today, March 19, “Love a Lurker Day.” Lindy Dreyer of SocialFish wrote a great letter to all “lurkers” (people who visit blogs and rarely — if ever — comment, join social networks but don’t participate, etc…). If you always read but never comment, I invite you speak up today! Everyone is an important part of the community whether they actively participate or not. Thanks for visiting.

Wherever you are, I hope you have a great sunny weekend!