The Blogoclump

Read & discuss at Matt Baehr's blog.

Read & discuss at Margaret Core's blog.

The blogs are all a twitter (Twitter’s twittering, too) with the release of Digital Snippets, a new web service designed to take the work out of creating the ultimate Social Media Release (SMR). Digital Snippets comes from the group that did this SMR for Ford. The tool itself is among a new generation of PR […]

Read & discuss at Lindy Dreyer's blog.

Today a gas station cashier relayed, “Have an interesting day.” Found I spent time thinking about it, so likely contributed to me wanting (and having) an interesting day.

Read & discuss at CindyAE's blog.

Today I got a copy of my real estate tax assessment. On the assessment, the county shows the current assessment as it compares to the last one so I can see how much of an increase there was from year to year. Contrast this with the advice from the Membership Marketing blog advocating for no explanation to members about a dues increase.

My gut instinct was to agree with Tony, and I actually commented to that effect. But on second thought, it’s not that simple. This is a classic dilemma in association leadership. Sweep a dues increase under the rug and make more money, or be transparent about a dues increase and — according to the research — lose out on revenue?

Which way do you lean? How would you feel if the tax man intentionally obscured an increase? Ordinarily I’m not inclined to emulate the government in my business practices, but in this case, it seems like an idea worth considering.

Tagged: Association Management; Associations; CAE; Certified Association Executive

Read & discuss at bkmcae@gmail.com (Ben Martin)'s blog.

If you cover live events often in your blog (and most of us do), you need to know about a new, free service, CoverItLive. With CoverItLive, your commentary streams live to your Web page or blog (so you could also…

Read & discuss at Shawn Lea's blog.

Ann Oliveri now has posted twice about creating a distinctive soundtrack for your meeting as a way to engage people in a multisensory way. I like the idea of creating your own song and using it as people filter into general sessions, etc., rather than a playlist of popular songs (that you’d have to pay […]

Read & discuss at Sue Pelletier's blog.

You all know I travel a lot, and one of the things that comes in handy about that is I can catch up with my reading pile. I just got through the last issue(s) of Associations Now (1/08, along with the Leadership Issue), and the publication just seems to keep getting better and better. People who know me well know that sometimes I get the “grass is greener” thing and I sometimes think it might be nice to be involved in an industry where things move a little faster. But I’m glad to see that there are people leading the charge to bring associations into the 21st (if not late 20th) century. I felt a lot more enthusiasm for what I’m doing after reading cathing up with my AN.

Things to note:

I’ll talk about the Leadership Issue later.

Read & discuss at Nick's blog.

Just received my copy of the book Membership Essentials from ASAE. The book is a collection of writings by association executives on such topics as understanding your value proposition, membership categories and dues structures, and financial metrics for the membership professional.
And why do I think this book is so good? Because one of the chapters, […]

Read & discuss at Wes Trochlil's blog.

Read & discuss at Matt Baehr's blog.