Friday, May 6, 2016
Our latest round up of all the best and latest association management resources including how nonprofits can better use LinkedIn, how to find your "super" members, and the difference between thought leaders and thought followers and the important role both play in an organization.
- 4 Ways to Impress Your Organization’s Members (Member Clicks)Callie Walker suggests reaching out to members personally, responding to feedback, accommodating busing schedules when feasible, and remembering to accommodate member’s work-life balance to help boost your member engagement in a small-staffed association.
- 5 Ways Meetings Get Off Track, and How to Prevent Each One (Harvard Business Review)Roger Schwarz addresses dreaded off-track, unproductive staff meetings. He names the five common ways this happens, and how to address each one to ensure meetings are productive and timely.
- 7 Ways to Use LinkedIn for Nonprofits (Classy Blog)Juliana Kelm provides insider tips for using LinkedIn in addition to your organization’s other social media sites. These quick tips are great for clarifying the do’s and don’t’s and special features unique to this platform.
- Are You a Thought Leader or a Thought Follower? (Grants Managers Network)There are thought leaders and thought followers, both of which are important to an organization. Find out which one you are, and how to make the move to a thought leader.
- The Cs of Change (SmartBlog on Leadership)Synthesis CEO Bobbie Goheen gives 9 C’s of change- clarity, communications, culture, catalysts, course corrections, customer-centric, constancy, celebrate, and cultivate, which leaders should undertake in their organizations to “achieve uncommon success.”
- Discovering Super Members: 4 Steps to Measure Member Engagement (Forward Together)Kim Sorin helps to guide and clarify the data your organization should use to measure member engagement in four simple steps. Identifying key “super members” can help your organization know who to engage in terms of board membership and committees so the relationship becomes two-way.
- Need Better Decisions? Ask Better Questions. (Associations Now)Consultant Robin Wedewer offers insight from her many years working with organizations collecting data on their members. Before calling on members for feedback organizations should focus on what exactly they need answered, then base their data collection methods and questions on their selected questions.
- There are Important Things We May Not Know About the Association (Smooth the Path)Matters like registration ease and website browsing are not always common knowledge inside the association and staff work behind the scenes. Asking open-ended questions to members about their experiences is important to keeping them satisfied and engaged.
- Alyse Kalish looks into the word “interesting,” often used in conversations as a filler or scapegoat which halts important conversations. She challenges organizations to take risks in their everyday conversations, breaking down what they really mean by “interesting” to create deeper, more honest dialogue.
- Vu Le names mission and strategy the older and youngest siblings, always vying for our attention, while values are stuck in the middle-child role, important but rarely given attention. He argues for centering values in everyday operations.