Happy Friday, everyone! We hope everyone has had a good, productive and fulfilling week. In keeping with our Friday tradition, below are five our of favorite blog posts from the last week in the association community.

1. Jeffrey Cufaude shares 10 tips for engaging a volunteer community. Small staff associations likely have to rely on volunteers for many things due to limited resources, so this list is definitely a must-read!

2. How do big brands manage social media? Maddie Grant shared a great – long! – video about how large brands manage their social media efforts. There’s also a conversation about social media management systems. Of course, most nonprofits and small staff associations likely do not have those types of resources, but there are always lessons to be learned and idea for how to scale your own efforts.

3. Could your association implement social dining? Deirdre Reid examines the concept and gives some great background info. (I kept comparing it to the speed dating concept in my head as I read.) Although your organization might have to rely on volunteers, social dining could be a fun member meet-up.

4. Pinterest really is everywhere right now – even on association blog! KiKi L’Italien shares how nonprofits and associations can utilize the popular pinning social network. You may already be familiar with the social network for personal use, but KiKi shares great tips for how your association can get involved. The best tip? Make your content pin-friendly.

5. Aaron Wolowiec shared feedback from one of his quotes from LSAE: There is no such thing as constructive criticism. Does “real” constructive criticism exist, or is it simply criticism cloaked in good intentions? There are great lessons here for all leaders and managers – the first being, to give positive feedback first, then follow it up with things that could use improvement.

From everyone at MemberClicks, have a great weekend!

Happy Friday! Here at MemberClicks, we’re enjoying a delicious barbecue lunch in honor of Alabama’s 2011 college football national championship. (Our founder, Thomas Howard, is a proud Bama alum.)

All college sports talk aside, it was a great week in the association community! Here are a few of our favorite posts from around the blogosphere.

1. Wes Trochlil always shares great, practical advice – particularly about databases, which we’re definitely interested in. This week, he shared a wonderful example of collecting data you don’t use  (such as fax numbers!). Stop collecting that stuff and simplify your databases!

2. Shelly Alcorn relates an unfortunate customer service incident at a popular bookseller. This is a reminder that your customer service processes should be as simple as possible. Don’t over-complicate things for your members.

3. Does your association make it clear to its volunteers that they are representatives of the organization? David M. Patt reminds us why that’s so important, and why they should exhibit the same levels of professionalism and sense of responsibility as your staff members.

4. It’s always hard to decide when to let someone else fail, Jeffrey Cufaude writes. However, do we even have the right to make those decisions? Jeffrey explores this question in a wonderful blog post this week.

5. You may be familiar with one of the latest social media platforms – Pinterest – but do you know why it could be important for nonprofits and associations? Those of you who are visual learners especially will find Pinterest – a virtual pinboard and scrapbooking tool – interesting.

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How many times have you sat yawning in a two-hour meeting, only to go back to your office or cube and think, What just happened?

In any office environment, meetings are a fundamental necessity to keep different departments and people up-to-date on various goings-on. But without proper planning, a meeting can take a turn for the worse as participants struggle to stay awake or leave feeling as if they accomplished nothing.

First, decide if you even need to have a meeting. Some issues can be solved through a few simple e-mails. Meetings aren’t the only way to convey information to multiple people.

To ensure your association’s meetings are effective and purposeful, begin with the end in mind. Set a measurable objective and goal, and make sure all attendees are aware of it.

During your meetings, stay focused. Assign actionable duties and responsibilities to people so follow-up will be easy. (This will also make it easy to determine how successful your meeting was.)

Everyone should leave a meeting with new tasks on their to-do list, or at least a sense that they’re headed in the right direction concerning tasks they’re working on.

Meetings don’t have to last hours and hours to be effective. I’m sure many small-staff organizations could have quick 30-minute catch-up sessions and be good to go.

Whatever you do, don’t just meet for the sake of meeting. Everyone should have something new to contribute and leave with new takeaways. If you ever leave a meeting and think, “Well that was useless,” definitely take some time to consider if it was worth it. Meetings take up employees’ valuable time — staffers at smaller associations in particular have no time to waste as they juggle their varied day-to-day tasks.

How often do your association’s staffers touch base? Do you have formal meetings with agendas, or does a more casual style work for your organization?

You’re a staffer at a small staff association. You’re in charge of more departments than you know what to do with. And just when you think your plate is full, the whole world is telling you to start innovating, changing your membership model and blogging if you want to thrive in the 21st century. Something’s gotta give!

Every organization has one thing in common: They all have to deal with the recovering economy and figure out what’s next. But the answer is different for every association. And every association needs to buckle down and themselves crucial questions.

How you engage members and drive volunteer involvement? Why do members join your association, and what value do they get from membership? How is Gen-X going to lead your association? How can you target Millennials?

Sure, those all sound like good, important questions. But are they the right questions for your association?

When you’re asking yourself and your staff what changes need to be made to keep providing value going forward, ask why. Why is something important to your organization’s board or membership? Why should you consider adding (or slashing) certain programs? Why, why, why?

The right questions may be tough. You may not have all the answers right away. Asking yourself the right questions is half the battle. No one knows how organizations are going to fare in the coming years. But by continuing to provide value to your members and not allowing fear of failure to get in the way, associations will have to adapt in order to survive in the 21st century.

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!