It's 2010, what are your plans for your chapters and other components? What - just updating last year's? Well, in the words of Oliver Blanchard "Soft goals create soft strategies. Soft strategies turn into weak tactics. Weak tactics turn into bogus metrics."

That tells you why your chapter program is getting your association nowhere. So do you still want to just update last year's goals?

I haven’t been very active in this playground because I’ve been spending more time on a new playground More than PR Basics helping our PRSA Maryland chapter launch a blog (and plan and build a phenomenal 1-day event about the marriage of traditional and new media for pr professionals which takes place Tuesday Oct 6) and in Hootsuite land helping two nonprofits get involved in the Twitter conversation.

My focus on our chapters and their respective social media efforts has been fun and has reminded me that we do need to nurture and coach our leaders for success. To that end, here are some links that are definitely worth sharing with your chapter leaders (and really any and all volunteer leaders) to help them succeed:

Associations Now is offering an opportunity and a case study with its latest crowdsourcing option. By logging in you can submit content ideas, vote on others, add comments and throw your name in as a contributor. At least check it out as a sample of how you can engage members even if you don't allow yourself to be drawn in and engage.

It began with a simple question asked by a chapter: how can we - with limited dollars and limited resources - get into social media? Generally the response back is its simple start a Facebook group.

KiKi L’Italien and I decided that its not that simple – but then it's not all that complicated either. Our conversation led to a session at ASAE 09 Annual Meeting “Adding Power to Member Communities with Social Media” where we shared our simple formula for getting chapters - and any component - engaged in using social media.

Maybe it was the title, maybe it was the enthusiasm of Brian Contanzo when I first met him by phone several months ago, but I will go to Developing a Rock Star Chapter at ASAE & The Center’s upcoming Annual Meeting, Tuesday, August 18, at 9:00am (even though this is right before my own session with at 12:45 Adding Power to Member Communities with Social Media).

@Marc_Meyer maybe social media is dating and community is living together...

This quip caught my eye in Rachel Happe’s recap of #socialmedia chat over on her post Fast & Furious—Twitter Chat. The topic was "The Difference between social media and community". She notes that this conversation is happening all around. She’s right. I was on a conference call whose topic was very much related. The call brought together a lively group of volunteers who are in the process of developing a more flexible, intuitive road map for communities in their association. We were grappling with the questions: when is a robust listserv group a community? When is a community an organization? When do we need structure?

Cynthia D’Amour posted a challenge to put the essence of our chapters in just 6 words. The challenge started over in Facebook to put the essence of your speech in six words, but I like how Cynthia issued the challenge to us in the chapter world.

We know that we have a nano-second (okay maybe 60-sec minutes) to capture a person’s attention and draw them in to take a look at the chapter. Whether it’s a member who you are trying to engage as a volunteer or a nonmember to consider membership – you have the same 60 seconds to share your elevator speech.

Cynthia’s challenge is to take that to six words – think “Your Headline.” As you’re working on that, Cynthia suggests that you test the headline with members … do they agree and do they recognize your chapter in the headline?

So, here’s my six-word headline ...

A familiar refrain in the song about embracing social media goes like this “it’s about listening.” David Alston of Radian6 gives us another verse in his presentation on "I Love Stories" captured over at the Conversation Agent blog.  It’s 45 slides but skip to #30 to learn the ten conversations you need to listen for in social media. The one to focus in on is #1: The point of need. How can we as associations remain relevant if we don’t know the changing needs of our customer base? And, how can we grow if we don’t anticipate future needs?

David is obviously talking about social media conversations. I would suggest that these conversations are happening in many places around our associations in addition to the social media sphere. Take your components (you know chapters, communities of practice, councils, sections, SIGs) for example. These are natural places for your customers to gather and they do talk about their needs and about you. Are you listening?

What events are your members attending in 2009? Or maybe the more enlightening question is where are your members attending?

The Healthcare Association of Michigan noticed in 2007 that 521 individuals attended about 22 regional events. That number jumped to 965 individuals attending a slightly increased number of regional events. That’s an 85% increase.

Here are snippets from dozen of conversations I’ve been having with chapter leaders and members scattered across the country. They represent four different associations, but see the common threads?