Happy Thursday! It’s almost the weekend (again!).

I was recently sent this great infographic on Millennials. Although they may not represent the largest demographic in your association right now, we’re thinking that’s going to change within the next 10-15 years. But if you want to get a head start on recruiting and understanding them now, it’s crucial to know what’s important to them. How do they share information? How do they want to receive information?

Have millennials started joining your small staff association yet? If so, have you had to adjust your marketing practices for them?

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Happy Friday! This week has completely gotten away from me! I’ve been busy catching up on all the great association-related blog posts from this past week, so I’m finally getting around to sharing my five faves with you all. Which ones resonated the most with you?

1. I’m glad Tom Morrison has been blogging more because he has so many great insights to share! His latest post discusses how it’s not as hard as you may think to interact with different generations. How has your small staff association engaged with younger professionals in recent years?

2. I shared this post this morning on Twitter, but it seemed to get a great response and I wanted to share it again: cell phone etiquette. David M. Patt shares a story about a colleague taking not one but TWO calls during a meeting and placing a third call on his own. Is this standard etiquette for meetings now?! I hope not.

3. Silos, as pretty much everyone knows, are frustrating. But Jamie Notter reminds us that silos are often in place for a reason. There are lots of stakeholders in associations, and silos can help keep things organized. I don’t think small staff associations necessarily have as many issues with silos as larger ones (for the obvious reason that there are fewer staff members), but this is still a great post for association professionals.

4. Shelly Alcorn used Occupy Wall Street as the inspiration for her latest – awesome – post: Associations are the 99%. Associations were designed to protect the 99%. They have a long history in the United States. Is the message of Occupy Wall Street resonating with your small staff association?

5. You may have heard about a little device called the iPhone 4S and its accompanying new operating system. Android, Blackberry and iPhone fans alike have been buzzing about it all week. Well, it turns out that mobile social web use is on the rise, according to a new Nielsen report Lindy Dreyer shared. Take a look and ask yourself how your association can improve its mobile presence.

Happy Friday and Happy New Year! It’s been quite a year and we’re excited to see what 2011 has in store for us and everyone in the association community. There are a few fun New Years-themed posts in today’s Friday Top Five, so let’s get to it!

1. Elizabeth Engel discussed resolutions and fresh starts, which is a common theme around this time of year.  How can we be sure we keep our resolutions? Either do something fun, as Elizabeth does, or make someone hold you accountable. Making a change become a permanent fixture in your life isn’t easy. Good luck!

2. In a short and sweet post to close out 2010, Shelly Alcorn reminds us all that life is “just a ride” and that we have nothing to fear. A great post (with a video clip!) to close out 2010.

3. Tony Rossell took a look at three membership marketing resolutions associations should consider for 2011. A great tip: “investing in membership pays dividends for years to come.” He also reminds association professionals to be sure to track their efforts so you know what works and what doesn’t.

4. A great reminder this week came from Rich Millington: when it comes to online communities, slow and steady growth is more important. Fast adoption usually leads to a lot of inactive members, so don’t be discouraged if things take awhile to get rolling.

5. As more and more people from Generation Y (hopefully) start joining your organizations, keep this post in mind, which shares three tips for working with different generations. Finding new opportunities to include the younger generations while still making Baby Boomers feel included can be difficult, but it’s going to be a necessary skill going forward.

Whatever your New Year’s Eve plans entail, we hope everyone has a very happy new year. Thanks for reading the Splash blog in 2010, and we’ll see you in 2011!

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Happy Friday! Another week has come and gone, and seriously, May is just flying by! Before we know it, it will be Memorial Day and with that, the “official” onset of summer. Crazy!

There were lots of awesome posts around the association community this week, with many of them centered on leadership as Leadership Inspiration month at the Acronym blog continues. Here are some of my favorites. As always, let me know if I missed something good in the comments!

1. Jeffrey Cufaude wrote a response to a “Member Get a Member” pitch he received in the mail the other day. Framing it as intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivations, Jeffrey said the letter purely offered competitive motivations rather than discussing the value the association offers and why members should share the information with others. How does your organization approach such campaigns?

2. I loved Elizabeth Weaver Engel’s post about next generation leadership in associations. Rather than a basic list of qualities, she discussed two in detail: nimbleness of mind and cross-generational fluency. Different generations communicate in different ways, and looking forward, it’s going to be important for meet people where they are, not where you expect them to be, Elizabeth writes.

3. Wes Trochlil posted a new article this week about simplifying your registration process. With every new variable added to a registration form, you make the process more complex and the number of registrants will likely decrease. The process has to be as simple as possible to guarantee the best possible outcome.

4. A guest post at the Acronym blog by Glenn Tecker discussed two contrasting examples of leadership between executives that he worked with simultaneously. Glenn writes, Distinguished leaders account for that dynamic in themselves and others–and make decisions about behavior accordingly.

5. Another guest post, this one at the Nonprofit Conversation blog, discussed trends in giving – times are changing, and fundraising tactics are changing, too. Jenai Morehead, the post’s author, studied private foundations and public nonprofits and found that grantor’s expectations are more stringent today. I think small-staffs in particular would find the tips she shares helpful.

From all of us at MemberClicks, have a fantastic weekend!

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Have the members of Generation X sold out? Have they gone mainstream? Are they still trying to change the world (without telling anyone)?

Kiki L’Italien tagged me in Maddie Grant‘s Gen-Xer meme, Have We Sold Out? However, I’m at the bottom of the generational ladder. I’m a Gen-Yer (feel free to guess my age, but suffice it to say I’m the baby of the office!) and I work with a lot of Gen-Xers here at MemberClicks.

I do find the research about generations pretty fascinating. We’ve all heard that Xers were slackers who try to change the system and Yers/Milliennials want more balance between their work and personal lives, etc, etc… Blah blah blah generalization generalization generalization…

Maddie’s original post was inspired by Jeff Hurt and a book by Xer Jeff Gordinier. I did a little research and according to an article in Time Magazine, Gordinier graduated college during a recession in 1988, just one year after the stock market crashed.

Ummmm wait a minute …. The exact same thing is happening right now.

Many of my close friends were hardcore journalism majors in college and some of them have “sold out” for public relations or a job outside the media industry. From my own (unscientific) observations, many members of different generations have experienced the same frustration over “selling out” that some Xers might feel now.

The Boomers were supposedly the flower children and hippies who become CEOs and now refuse to turn those corporate jobs over the Millennials. But very few people from that generation actually agreed with the “hippie” message.

Our interests evolve over time. GenXers have mortgages and kids now, and raging against the machine probably won’t pay the bills (unless you’re really amazingly lucky!). Us Millennials have learned from the mistakes of Boomers and Xers and don’t want work to become our lives. I know some people who feel they have sold out, but many of my friends are participating in Teach for America, a teachers corp that sends newly graduated individuals to teach in low-income areas around the country. According to some research and reports, my generation is the most service-oriented ever.

And from whom did we learn about community service? Honestly, I don’t think it was the Boomers. I’d be willing to bet it was those subversive Xers.

I’m sure in 10 or 15 years, though, the number of Milliennials in the Peace Corps will have greatly diminished.

This is not a “life stage” thing. We all have to pay the bills. Whatever.  This is a MENTAL thing, Maddie said.

I get that. But from what I’ve seen, GenXers have done some amazing things. They’re the ones who helped create and foster the technologically insane world we live in today.

If you, GenX Reader, feel like you have sold out, try to get some of that fire back while still paying the mortgage and buying groceries. But let me be one of the many to thank you for making it (mostly) OK for me to have a tattoo (it’s small and on my ankle and almost always hidden, but you get the point). Thanks for Google and YouTube and Starbucks and Nirvana.

Every generation has become more altruistic, more entrepreneurial and more individualistic. Where would us Millennials be without GenX? Probably stuck in cubicles and working for the man like our Boomer parents. Sigh.

A colleague of mine pointed out the GenXers are so entrepreneurial because they had to be — they’re the ones who will get passed over in favor of youth and enthusiasm when the Boomers retire and die. And “when you do it yourself, there’s no one to sell out to.”

And I’ve seen tons of great posts around the blogosphere, but I still want to hear from Deirdre Reid and Jeff Hurt!