Happy Friday! It’s finally starting to fee like spring here in Atlanta; now if only those annoying rainstorms would quit. I’m so ready for spring: more daylight, outdoor eating, baseball, the NFL Draft, flowers … it’s pretty perfect. Speaking of more daylight, don’t forget to spring your clocks forward this Saturday night before hitting the sack. Losing an hour is the only downside of the beginning of Daylight Savings Time — I’m really looking forward to longer days.

With many people attending the Great Ideas Conference, there was some great stuff in the association blogosphere this week, but not every post highlighted the conference.

1. Wes Trochlil shared some tips for organizations converting their data to a new database. There are some great reminders here, such as to stop keeping track of data you don’t need or use, keep your legacy database for future reference and only convert the data you need. Wes’ database tips always spot-on.

2. One of the newer-to-me blogs I’ve discovered recently is Ellen Behrens’. She writes the aLearning blog, and her post this week on exit interviews for members was fantastic. Members who don’t renew often have powerful information that would be beneficial to the organization, so definitely take a look at this post.

3. I read a ton of blogs, and they’re not all association-focused. This post, though, from the Six Pixels of Separation blog, discusses mobile technologies: “The Lines Continue to Blur (at Breakneck Speeds).” This one’s a great reminder about how much the use of mobile technology is increasing — and that it’s not just kids who are using it. Are you ready?

4. Lynn Morton wrote some awesome posts about Great Ideas this week, but here’s her takeaway post. From the more casual (use Emergen-C if you’re sick!) to the more serious (the spirit is there, the content is not), Lynn shared her thoughts from ASAE’s conference and encourages others to push the envelope a bit more.

5. Maddie Grant also had a great collection of takeaway and links post-Great Ideas. Her main takeaway was the concept of “autonomy,” which was discussed during Dan Pink’s closing general session. Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement.

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Don’t forget to set your clocks forward!

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The Membership Marketing Benchmark Survey results were released this past weekend at ASAE and The Center’s Annual Meeting. The white paper, which is available as a 40-page PDF here (registering to get access to the PDF is easy), is the result of a nearly month-long survey conducted this spring. My first post concerning the results deals with the best marketing tool for associations.

“What do you believe is the TOP REASON members join your organization?”

Page 17 of the white paper deals with this question, and I found the results intriguing. The top response was Access to Specialized Information (23%), which makes sense. Coming in at numbers two and three were Network with others in the field (22%) and Connect with others in the field (12%).

The fifth most popular response seemed significant to me. Learn best practices in their profession received 8% of the vote. I understand that an association’s main purpose should be to connect people (hence the popular responses given above), but shouldn’t an association provide valuable resources as well? It’s interesting that the top response was Access to specialized information — and maybe it’s so closely tied to Learn best practices in their profession that this doesn’t matter.

However, coming in with 10% of the vote was the response, Other. Other? What does this mean? The fact that Other received more votes than Learn best practices in their field completely mystifies me. There are many reasons to join an organization, but their foremost purpose should be to connect people with similar interests, goals and professions. Not just to network with others (anyone can do that on LinkedIn), but to create lasting relationships. Offering great professional resources will only get your association so far — if members aren’t engaged with each other, then what’s the point?

Update: Ignore this post.

Turns out I’ll be in Toronto for ASAE09 this weekend! At the last minute (aka last Friday), the executive decision was made that I’ll be going. I’m very excited to meet up “in real life” with the many people I’ve connected with via Twitter. I’ll be live-Tweeting from the expo and different sessions, and also blogging here nightly. Be on the lookout for tons of videos and photos! And after the Annual Meeting concludes, I’d like to be able to aggregate different people’s content into one huge post of links, as well.

Since I’ll be blogging from the annual meeting, we decided to launch this here Web site earlier than we had initially planned.

I’m especially psyched because it would have been kind of a drag to be following the #ASAE09 goodness and everyone’s blogs from afar. I don’t mind working on the weekend, of course, but actually being in Toronto where all the action is will make my job a lot easier.

We’ve put together a great list of recommendations of sessions for small-staff associations. I’m particular excited about these ones:

• Building and Maintaining Loyal Relationships: Sunday, Aug. 16, 3:15-4:30 p.m.
• 10 Steps For Using Social Media to Engage Volunteers: Sunday, Aug. 16, 3:15-4:30 p.m. (guess I’ll to choose between those first two!)
• Managing and Leading the Next Generation of Workers: Monday, Aug. 17, 3:15-4:30 p.m.
• Big Ideas for Small-Staff Association Executives: Tuesday, Aug. 18, 9-10:15 a.m.
• How to Overcome E-mail Overload: Tuesday, Aug. 18, 12:45-2 p.m.

And the word from ASAE & The Center is that everyone should wear white to the closing celebration, which is from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Tuesday. I’m not sure what they’re planning, but it looks like I’ll have to go shopping — my wardrobe is predominantly black!

In the meantime, before to keep up with our Twitter stream for all the latest information about the Annual Meeting. Don’t forget to check in with ASAE & The Center’s stellar mobile hub, too. I’m psyched to be going, and want to meet as many people as possible.