Association Professionals Learn – The Easy Way

We ended another annual meeting of ASAE & The Center members with a bang! The outdoor block party gave San Diego a chance to shine. But the first “shine” was exiting the final general session to a greeting party of ASAE staff clapping and thanking us all. Wow! I was stuck by how they all seemed to be having a great time celebrating the members (yes, it could have been a huge sigh of relief as well). When is the last time I’ve taken the time to celebrate my members? Hmmm.

Well it feels great to celebrate so maybe the most important experience I had this week was the celebration! I also learned a couple of things, in no particular order, not the hard way, but the easy way by listening and absorbing:

 

  • A cool option for chapter registration: signup123
  •   A great quote … tomorrow’s leaders don’t want to sit next to a policy manual. So how do we create volunteer positions that are about results not process?
  • Crowdsourcing – its a sexy term that has great possibilities for associations in terms of new model for engagement. Check out this video that session speakers shared…
  • For a remix on associations, check out opensource.association blog
  • Proctor-Gamble reports that 50% of product ideas outside company … what are associations missing when they have closed spaces?
  • Jott offers voice-powered, hands-free messaging and to-do lists all of which boosts your productivity.
  • You can build a referrral program that activates chapters for the acquistion process … American College of Emergency Physicians offers chapters a $175 referal fee to open the door to group membership with an additional $175 when they join … great way to build chapter efforts in membership acquistion.
  • To build involvement in social media platforms, consider using incentives like cool tee-shirts to members who build their connections on LinkedIn. ACEP drove involvement with incentives.
  • The Bloggercon led to a couple of cool ideas which were posted thanks to Maddie Grant including these:
  • “Another value of an association blog is that it can make stronger connections between your members, who get to know each other through blogs or online before they meet in real life – many, many examples of this at this ASAE conference” and “cross pollinate! Let members build a conference program via the blog by asking for their input.”

Thanks ASAE, all the content leaders, all the members and exhibitors who shared!