The Blogoclump

If your association forms a group for “young” professional members, should there be some effort in requesting or ensuring they actually are young? I have to admit I was entirely annoyed when I was in my twenties and invited to a young professionals event only to find most I didn’t consider young, even if they thought they were. I didn’t go back. And it changed my attitude about the organization as they lost my trust at hello. The hello name tags.

When you’re a young professional, there’s absolutely no problem finding colleagues one, two, three, or four decades older than you are. A real challenge is finding your own peer age group, with a shared experience. I love the experiences of working with many generations that association management provides - both from standpoint of members and employees - they’re all crucial to our effectiveness. But when any professional group is given a descriptive label for networking or gathering purposes, should it describe?

I’ve heard the cliches that we’re all “as young as we feel” or young is a “state of mind”. Um, okay. But it’s actually potentially a certain age group too. And if I’m a young member, and you tell me you’re a young group, and you really aren’t (by the standards of the young member) - then why. If you don’t really mean “young”, then why intentionally put that label on the group? Skip the word if it doesn’t apply.

As we look at building relationships with our younger members, associations are deciding if should provide specific networking groups (online, live or both). Let’s be honest. I want their trust.

Read & discuss at CindyAE's blog.

Photo by Dr. Pat

Heraclitus said that the only thing that is constant is change. With everything that has happened in my life over the course of the past 8 months, I would have to say that it’s a truism. Some change is good, other not so much. Regardless, change happens and ultimately your perspective on change has more to do with what you do with it as opposed to the actual change itself.

It’s not breaking news to share that I haven’t been posting at levels [read more]

Read & discuss at Dave's blog.

Lest you think I had gone all soft in my last post, here’s something that really irritated me today. Aaron Brazell (technosailor) wrote this post about contrived transparency and it made me realize I came across something similar today.

Brazell talks about it in his post in relation to social media:

“Contrived transparency indicates that this notion of being honest and open is not a culturally accepted thing in a company. It’s a strategic decision made to drive sales. It’s a devious, and by it’s very nature, non-transparent way of saying, “You’re stupid enough to believe that I’m a great person to do business with because I’m doing all the right things and sending all the right signals”.

Yep. Contrived transparency.

Guy: Maybe when we’re done here, we can go back to my place.
Girl: Sure, but you do know that I’m not going to sleep with you on the first date, right?
Guy: Oh, I wasn’t thinking that at all!

Yeah, right.”

This quote might not make the point succintly enough, so feel free to read his short post, but I thought it was funny.

Anyway, my experience of it was not to do with social media, but with generational issues. I was invited to attend a discussion group about the topic. The group is one that is normally CEO-only, and in their last meeting they talked about succession planning; generational issues came up, and they thought, what a good idea it would be if everyone here invited a Gen-X or Millenial colleague to the next meeting so we can get their perspective! So far so, good, so I am invited and show up with my boss. It was a small group, but we had a really pretty good conversation about how younger staffers need to be valued in a systematic, organizational way and allowed to grow professionally, like many corporate companies do/have for their interns or mentees, and in return they will be invested in the associations they work for and in the industry as a whole. I mentioned the Post article that I blogged about here, and there seemed to be general agreement that these issues are important and will only get more serious if they are not paid attention to NOW (BEFORE the boomers start to retire and there is no one left or willing to take their places).

But at the end of the meeting, I said, thanks for the opportunity to participate, and, this is a perfect example of a very easy way to engage younger staff that costs nothing! Invite them, on a regular basis, to participate in discussion groups like this, with top-level execs, where they can either share their experiences of whatever the topic might be, or they can sit back and listen and learn about things like governance, board relations, general legal issues, etc. And bam! all of a sudden I started to sense some pushback… like oh, but, maybe not the discussions about boards, what if the CEOs did not feel free to say things in front of their younger staff? Like we don’t hear everything about everything already, at least in small organizations…

CONTRIVED TRANSPARENCY. We want to look like we care about generational issues, but when it comes to actually doing something to address those issues, well, so long, nice to meet you, buh-bye!

OK then. Have fun sleeping in the bed you made.

Read & discuss at Maddie Grant's blog.

I have been a little bit off the radar lately; things are just getting a bit too much at work and I’m feeling like there will never be enough hours in the day - for work, for my family, for friends, for anything. I’m way behind in my blogging, too, although I need to learn that sometimes you just have to do your real work and pay the bills first.

Anyway, I have been trying to catch up on my blog reading, and have a bunch of things I “starred” in my Google reader over the last few days I’d like to share. (I also have different “Shared Items” which apparently you could subscribe to by feed, if you were so inclined. There’s a link in my sidebar for that. I “star” things I want to blog about at some point, but “share” items that I find interesting as standalone pieces but that might not find an appropriate place in the blog to write about them.)

The first is this lovely post by Darren Rowse of Problogger fame. Read it. It ties right in to the “revolution” discussion we’ve been having, in that it beautifully illustrates how we should recognize that we are all learning, like little kids, how to make sense of the world - in this case the new social media world. I have children, and I would like to think that I know (through some trial and error, and beta testing, natch) how to nurture them and encourage them to learn for themselves and to think differently and independently.

Here’s another lovely thing. It’s a Twitter novel (yes, 140 characters at a time) called Small Places, by NL Belardes. You have to start at the beginning, obviously, but Darryl Ohrt of brandflakesforbreakfast talked to the author and got some insight into it (check the comments) here.

Check out Desktoptopia. I am a visual person, and this has made me feel better when things just get too much. It’s a really wonderful collection of desktop images that you can set to randomly change every 20 minutes (or whatever time increment you want).

One more, courtesy via the ReadWriteWeb: Twistori is “a Twitter Zeitgeist social experiment” which pulls tweets from Twitter containing the words “i love”, “i hate”, “i think”, “i believe”, “i feel”, and “i wish”. RWW says it “presents a stream of consciousness view of the Twitter emotional landscape” - I just think it’s really really cool, when you need to escape the drudgery of your daily grind for a few minutes to watch the online wold go by. Makes me feel like I do on a long city bus ride, or on the metro, just gazing out the window, watching but not really seeing.

Just a few inspiring things on a day when I did not feel very inspired. I hope you enjoy them.

Read & discuss at Maddie Grant's blog.

   Guess the customer service folks at the Detroit Free Press didn’t get the memo.
When we arrived home from Orlando, we discovered our Detroit Free Press newpapers strewn all over our porch.

James had requested the delivery held.
Our delivery guy didn’t bother.

While frustrating, but not life threatening, I wondered why the Freep let this slide?

We really […]

Read & discuss at Cynthia D'Amour's blog.

Concentrate on people, not technologies.

Read & discuss at jeffpi1@gmail.com (Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation LLC, the association community's leading voice for innovation!)'s blog.

I opened the mail from a local funeral home just to see what was inside (that?s my marketing instinct). I expected to toss it immediately.

It began, ?First of all, I want to tell you how much I appreciate your reading this letter.?

The lead seemed amateurish, and something I would never write, but it was unusual, so I read the entire letter. It was concise and easy to read.

It didn?t cause me to buy anything, but it reminded me to recognize that most people don?t care what you write ? even members of your own association.

To grab readers? attention, the lead should be original and something not likely to be found in other correspondence. It also doesn?t hurt to be naively honest.

I?ll probably pay closer attention to future mailings from this funeral home now that it caught my eye. Besides, I?m certain to be a customer some day.

Read & discuss at AEM's blog.

Read & discuss at Jamie Notter's blog.

I’ve been receiving many phone calls and e-mails today from friends and colleagues checking in on me after hearing about the tornadoes that ripped through Richmond and southeast Virginia yesterday. Yes, I am in one piece.

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

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

This week, ASAE and the Center for Association Leadership convene a Global Summit on Social Responsibility, an appreciative inquiry facilitated by Dr. David Cooperrider on the possibilities of the collective power of associations for good. I am hoping it will…

Read & discuss at Ann's blog.