I should have bought a lottery ticket!
Do you ever have one of those days when everything seems to go the right way?
I had one when I traveled to Chicago this weekend for a speaking engagement…
I checked in at the airport and was upgraded to the last seat in first class.
A shuttle driver seemed to be […]
Jane Hart recently asked me to contribute my top ten learning tools to her ever growing list of great resources at the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies. If you aren’t familiar with this site, I highly recommend it. (I particularly like 25 Must-have Free Tools.) If you are familiar with […]
Homeowners associations have long been known to concern themselves with minute details of property management. Many dictate the color that houses and garages must be painted, prohibit display of political candidate signs, and even bar the appearance of some religious symbols.
Now, the American Homeowners Resource Center reports that a Texas homeowner association is suing some of its members for posting messages on an online forum that are critical of the association and its officers.
Although disputes within homeowners associations, condo associations, block clubs, and other small, informal groups can get very personal, stifling speech is not the proper solution.
Web sites, message boards, chat rooms, blogs, and other interactive devices are meant to provide members with an opportunity to voice their concerns about the association and its activities. Praise, criticism, doubt, and musings should all be encouraged.
A savvy association will read these postings to find out what members are thinking. Many of these comments will not be revealed through surveys, focus groups, or face-to-face meetings.
Use these postings to find out how to improve the association, not to punish those who disagree with you.
Thanks to those who attended my session today at AEI! Please feel free to download the handouts and review the PowerPoint slides. If you have questions, leave a comment or drop me an e-mail.
Tagged: Association Management; Associations; CAE; Certified Association Executive
And the sooner the better. There are three things that drive me crazy when they come up in board meetings. Things that I have to stop myself from grabbing the person who suggested it and shaking them vigorously. However, I wanted to post it here to see if anybody has a differing opinion, and why.
First off is the whole silent auction thing. These make me want to scream. Somebody donates something that is worth $100 and it gets auctioned off for $15. Yay, the organization made $15!! Does anyone spot the problem with this plan? Do these ever make sense?
Second, the “let’s do a scholarship” phenomenon. Do people ever stop and think about the end users here? If they did, they would probably perceive that, for a strapped student, yes $300 is worth jumping through a hoop or two. However, if you’re a student, you also think that there are tons of other people applying for the same $300. Yes, the $300 is nice, but in the mind of an applicant, it’s kind of like a slot machine.
The third piece of the trifecta has gotta be mentoring programs. Now, do I think mentoring is awesome? Yes, I do. Do I think organizations should facilitate it? Yes I do. But does that ever happen when someone says “let’s do a mentoring program”? I have my doubts. In theory they should work but lots of factors have made them basically unimplementable for these groups.
So I don’t claim to be the fount of all wisdom, but in general, I wish these things would go away.
Another reason to use that do-not-disturb sign, brought to you by Cindy at AE on the Verge. You do not want this to happen to you!
An advantage to being at a conference with 1300 peers is there’s always some story that makes other association management situations seem not so bad.
We all know hotels from time to time accidentally assign a room when someone else already occupies it. And the room key can open the door.
At a recent conference a male association executive had taken a shower, and was shaving in the bathroom - nude. His room was accidentally assigned to someone else, who opened the door, walked in with her luggage - and had complete view of bathroom. Notable detail: it was his female president elect.
Today’s tip: It can be worthwhile to put out the “do not disturb” sign anytime you’re in the room.
It seems like everybody is going green this month?and maybe for good.
Forum and Chicago Athlete both published ?green? issues this month, outlining practices their readers can easily adopt to add green policies in their everyday lives. Whole Foods stopped packing groceries in plastic bags. CVS Pharmacy is now using recyclable paper bags. Google darkened its screen because black pixels use less energy than color pixels.
The World Wildlife Fund persuaded twenty-six American cities to participate in a voluntary hour of energy conservation by turning off lights for one hour tonight.
Most green marketing addresses the public benefits of environmentally responsible activities. Green campaigns stress the importance of saving our planet and all of the natural resources we rely upon. That message has a reasonably large audience but often strikes people as more political than practical. Even those with eco-friendly attitudes sometimes feel they are being lectured to and begin to ignore green appeals.
Many people do not believe that the earth will ever be depleted of oil, water, or other essential resources. They believe that just as technology has developed ways to make life more convenient it will also develop ways to preserve the availability of these resources.
The most effective marketing message for green advocacy will focus on the personal benefits of going green. People are more willing to save themselves than they are to save the planet:
Explaining how much money they?ll save in utility costs by turning off unnecessary lights and appliances; Demonstrating how much they can save by eliminating phantom energy use by unplugging computers and televisions when they aren?t in use; Clarifying the connection between respiratory ailments and carbon emissions; Showing how government expenses ? and individual taxes ? can be reduced by minimizing the need for more municipal landfills.
Connecting environmental hazards to personal finances and individuals? health will have a much greater impact on people than urging them to do what is best for everyone.
If you want people ? voters, members, donors, constituents, etc. ? to act in a particular way, place the issue in the context of their self-interest. It will be a lot more effective than if you merely preached about the public good.
A web site should be designed to meet the needs of its visitors. Colleges and universities are notorious for not doing that.
Visitors to the web sites of institutions of higher learning usually want to know admission requirements, graduation requirements, courses of study, tuition costs, and housing details. Many web sites, instead of providing a clear path to that information, force visitors to endure lengthy and unproductive searches that yield anger, frustration, and a distrust of these institutions.
Cindy Butts, at AE on the Verge, expressed her frustration with the ineptitude of many college communications, and warned associations not to portray themselves in the same way.
College web sites are often difficult to navigate, sometimes post conflicting information, frequently hide tuition costs, and lead visitors through the pages the college wants viewed, not the pages sought by users.
Colleges often use their own vocabulary instead of words and phrases understood by normal people (associations frequently do this, too) and cause visitors to waste a lot of time searching for information that seems to be inaccessible.
Association executives would be wise to review their own sites to ensure they are designed to meet the needs of members and other constituents.
Your web site is the public face of your organization. If people can?t find out what they want from you, they?ll just go someplace else to find it.
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