“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”

I read this Samuel Beckett quote last weekend, and it really struck a chord with me. Back in the day, I was that kid who didn’t always speak up in class for fear of being wrong. I wouldn’t take a stab at answering “Jeopardy!” clues (nerd alert!) while watching the show with my dad, just in case I was wrong.

What a strange attitude to have. (Although not, I’m sure, an uncommon one.)

Now, some of the biggest lessons I’ve learned resulted from royally messing up. If we don’t make a mistake now and then, how in the world can we improve? (And I honestly think there is always room for improvement, somewhere).

Think back over your own career as a small staff association professional — however long its been. There have probably been some mistakes, both big and small. There have probably also been a lot of lessons learned. And hopefully, you didn’t make the (exact) same mistake twice.

Maybe a particular event you were in charge of didn’t quite go as planned. Maybe you left some important documents at home the day of a meeting. Maybe none of the audio-visual equipment worked the day of a big presentation. Maybe you forgot to triple-check with a venue to be sure your association could be reimbursed in the event of cancellation.

No matter the situation, view every mistake or failure as a learning opportunity. Grow. Get better. Improve. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Happy Friday! I hope everyone’s had a fantastic week and is looking forward to a fun or productive weekend (or perhaps both?)

As usual, there was some awesome content around the association world this week, and it’s all making me more and more excited for ASAE’s Annual Meeting and Expo in Los Angeles! If you’re going to be there, be sure to stop by Booth 332 to say hi to the team!

Now, without further ado, five of my favorite posts from this week…

1. Joe Flowers has been writing  a great series about his association’s Web redesign. With part three this week, he discussed how the organization went about narrowing the choice down between two vendors. It’s definitely worth taking a look at this series to see one example of how a small staff organization goes about redesigning one of the most important aspects of its presence: its website.

2. I loved Lisa Junker’s post at the Acronym blog about lessons to be learned from Pixar. Encourage unplanned collaboration, have reminders of the central purpose and see challenges as inspiration are all lessons Lisa gleaned from a documentary about the animation company. Rather than cutting corners, Lisa wrote, the Pixar team always saw challenges as inspirations to be better.

3. Jeff Hurt had a great post this week about organizational transparency, with a handy checklist for associations to learn from. For example, does your organization offer open board meetings? annual audits? financial disclosure statements? disclosed partnerships? Members — and those who donate to the organization — may want to have this information readily available. Transparency will never stop being important to associations.

4. We can do better, wrote Jamie Notter this week. Taking an example from Apple, who has to deal with many of its devices (which contain toxic components) end up in landfills, Jamie wrote about changing the culture of improvement to promote more value among everyone. Rather than just looking at benchmarks that improve the organization, how can your organization promote good in the culture at large?

5. One of my favorite posts at the new AssociationTECH blog this week was about the tip-a-day alerts program by association members from the American Evaluation Association. The benefits of the program — such as sharing ideas and expertise, engaging a variety of members and collaborating with other groups — are great, and so are the lessons learned. Definitely a great post for those looking to engage members.

From everyone at MemberClicks, have a fantastic weekend!

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