Dec
06
Who’s In Charge Presentation
Posted by Jamie Notter under Uncategorized
Dec
06
Flip the Switch…
Posted by Cynthia D'Amour under Uncategorized
And check out the view from the other side.
It seems like there’s been a surge of conversations lately about how hard it is to work with young adults - Gen Yers.
“I hate young people” website was featured on the evening news.
Recent research finds Gen Ys self-centered.
Gen Ys want to rewrite all the rules!
Makes Gen Yers […]
Dec
06
Now More Than Ever
Posted by Jeffrey Cufaude under Uncategorized
Dec
06
Good luck to all on the CAE exam tomorrow!
Posted by Maddie Grant under Uncategorized
I’m sending you CAE-ers my good vibes. Hope you rock it!
I’m almost packed (which is more complicated than it sounds, as I am bringing the husband and two kids under five with me to Orlando…) and will be off to the airport in a few hours on my way to the Great Ideas conference. Assuming I make it there in one piece (hate flying!!!), I will be posting on Acronym, rather than here, throughout the weekend. I was thinking about that, the guest blogging for Acronym, and I think it would be cool if I try and really give a sense of what it’s like to be at the conference for those Acronym readers who might not be able to go. So - maybe - I’ll do a bunch of short and sweet posts rather than less, but longer, ones. We shall see! I’ll link.
See you on the other side of the weekend!
Dec
06
Blogs in Plain English
Posted by rjohnston@ironworks.com (Ironworks Consulting) under Uncategorized
Thanks to Ben Martin for calling my attention to the 3-minute Blogs in Plain English video on the Common Craft Show blog. I have already found it to be a useful tool in helping associations educate their stakeholders and constituents…
Read & discuss at rjohnston@ironworks.com (Ironworks Consulting)'s blog.
Dec
06
Don’t let IT drive your business decisions
Posted by Wes Trochlil under Uncategorized
Let me start by saying I love the guys (and women) in IT. I really do. They are important to our success, and I can tell you many, many stories about how, as my father would put it, they “pulled my bacon out of the fire.” (Here’s just one of those stories.)
But too often, I […]
Dec
06
Winter meeting tips
Posted by Sue Pelletier under Uncategorized
Here are 22 winter meeting tips from Cindy at AE on the Verge. My favorite is:
3. Hire service or facility to remove snow from attendee cars, if heavy snow during meeting (they’ll love you for it)
I would go nutty with joy if this happened at a meeting I had to drive to. Can you even […]
Dec
06
Canada?s passport data leak
Posted by Sue Pelletier under Uncategorized
This is scary:
A security flaw in Passport Canada’s website has allowed easy access to the personal information - including social insurance numbers, dates of birth and driver’s licence numbers - of people applying for new passports.
The breach was discovered last week by an Ontario man completing his own passport application. He found he could […]
Dec
05
Political, religious and sexually suggestive taglines in Association email
Posted by CindyAE under Uncategorized
Ben Martin’s post relays discussion of association policy about whether or not employees should be able to add personal political or religious comments in a tagline with their association email. Says provides self-expression by staff and members get to know them as real people. Gives example of association allowing favorite quotes in a tagline along with association info.
I’d have to vote no on complete freedom of expression in association email taglines … not just for employees but any representative of an association - including volunteer leaders. Reasons:
1. Associations often take political positions. Those authorized political positions would be fine to include, but not personal political opinions. Would give members and the public the impression the association has a position on a political issue they may not have. Employees should not be able to contradict or appear to create political positions using the association’s name.
2. Assuming religious self-expression via tagline would mean every religious position and doctrine may freely be expressed and shared via employee email to the membership and public (so as to not be discriminatory), also believe having religious quotes or positions directly next to the association’s name is going to relay “this is the association position too”. Certain religious positions can be political positions.
Post didn’t mention sexually suggestive taglines. Employees may not realize what appears to be “innocent fun” (e.g., suggestive messages on clothing or tagline quotes) can quickly turn into a huge legal problem for the association; in addition to being demeaning to many who view it.
Allowing favorite quotes with taglines easily accommodates a large volume of potential topics …. while providing reasonable concern about including religion, sex and politics among the choices. Even “Yankees Suck” can’t be the tag-line (even if favorite quote of an employee), where “Go Sox” could ….
What do you think?
–
Like this post? Subscribe by RSS or email.
Dec
05
E-mail taglines & employee self-expression
Posted by bkmcae@gmail.com (Ben Martin) under Uncategorized
Interesting post on ASAE & The Center’s Marketing Section Listserv yesterday:
We have told our staff that they cannot add religious or political messages to their e-mail signatures. Some staff members want to add the following tag line to their e-mails: Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail (it has a little world symbol that doesn’t [sic] show up too) I don’t want to be a kill joy, as after all, who’s not in favor of the environment, but I don’t want to have to start adjudicating what’s okay and what isn’t and have different staff members with different messages. Any thoughts?
Predictably, and almost universally, the branding consultants came out against it. They say allowing staff to append quotes to the end of emails dilutes the brand, harms the brand, or has no effect on the brand. Instead, they say, standardize the signature block and use it to promote association services. I don’t disagree with this advice, but here’s where I deviate from the conventional wisdom espoused so far.
At VAR, we’ve taken a different approach. We recognize that those tag lines are an opportunity for staff self-expression. Over the years, I’ve found that allowing, even encouraging, staff self-expression is a simple yet very empowering thing to do. So we allow staff to add a favorite quote to their emails in addition to the standard tag line. This also helps show members that our staff are real people with real personalities, and reduces the nameless, faceless stigma attached to associations. Finally, it sends a message to your staff that you trust them inherently: that you manage to the exception, not impose rules on the majority who have common sense.
I personally like this both/and approach a lot, as opposed to the either/or approach. I guess you could say that’s just how I roll as a manager. I’m attaching a sample tag line below.
By the way, if for some reason you really want to hard-cade your email tag lines, you should look at a service like Lettermark that appends some feature-rich content to the bottom of email.
Tagged: Association Management; Associations; CAE; Certified Association Executive