The Blogoclump

Blog Post: Stream of Consciousness (2008-11-29) http://s3nt.com/asjb #

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Read & discuss at desabol's blog.

I recently stopped in at CEOnly, a discussion group for Executive Directors hosted by Association Forum of Chicagoland, for one of its periodic (free) dinner meetings at a posh, local restaurant.

About one week prior to the meeting, I had received a confirmation, which was very nice (and unexpected) plus a list of colleagues who had registered for the event (which was very unexpected).

Any thoughts I had of skipping the meeting were dashed by the appearance of the registration list. It was SO public! Not showing up would have been very embarrassing (only two of the seventeen CEOs didn’t show).

Letting everyone know who had promised to attend was more effective at guaranteeing turnout than a mailed or e-mailed reminder or a personal telephone call from a peer would have been.

I’ll try that at my next meeting and see how many people dare to stay away.

Read & discuss at AEM's blog.

   With five things about us.
Maddie Grant over at Socialfish tagged me for a round of the “Five things you don’t know about me” game.

It’s something bloggers do.
To help build relationships.
And spread a little link love.

Since she tagged me as Raindrop’s mom, I’m going share three things about me and two about Raindrop.
Here we go…
1. […]

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

On Tuesday the next edition of the Free Learning Monitor goes out. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to subscribe and give it a try. Given that these are the most time sensitive items in the Monitor, here are the Webinar & Webcast links that will be included this month:
The Future of Marketing: Being […]

Read & discuss at jtcobb's blog.

Participate in the next P.I. Briefing!

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

Read & discuss at Matt Baehr's blog.

Blog Post: Stream of Consciousness (2008-11-28) http://s3nt.com/ar0q #

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Read & discuss at desabol's blog.

I know the day before Thanksgiving is supposed to be the heaviest of the year, but for my family and I, traveling to visit the in-laws this past week was a snap.
First, we hit zero traffic driving into Boston Logan. We left several hours to spare for our 9:30 am flight, just because, but […]

Read & discuss at Sue Pelletier's blog.

My worst volunteer experience was when I was assigned to work painting faces at a holiday fair at the school my kids attended. We had “mandatory volunteer hours” and I signed up for an event and was assigned face painting. No one checked to see if that’s what I wanted to do or if it was something I had a particular talent for. Now as an association exec, there were likely a dozen things I could have done really well. I never would have selected face painting.

Rather than complain or try to change I figured it wouldn’t be too hard and it was “only” two hours. Totally, totally stressful. It felt like 2 years. Kids apparently don’t just want polka dots on their face or whiskers - but were requesting really complicated things like a Patriots football helmet (with logo) or vines intertwined with flowers and ladybugs. The other mother painting faces excelled in all these artistic requests. I quickly noticed the only ones in my line were the kids with impatient parents (the other line considerably longer than mine) or ones with toddlers too young to notice the difference. One kid even told me that he really wanted “the good mother”.

What I learned from this:

1. It makes sense to ask volunteers what they want to do. List the tasks within the scope of a committee instead of just the entirety of it.
2. Ask what their talents are. Sometimes associations hear “I’ll do anything” without checking to see where that volunteer may genuinely excel. Testing in a random role may or may not give positive results.
3. Give an option to stop. If it’s fairly clear someone isn’t enjoying their role - why not ask if they want to stop rather than assume everyone wants to ride out the length of time they originally committed to?
4. I never volunteered for that event again - in any capacity. Want to turn a volunteer off - give a bad experience.

Read & discuss at CindyAE's blog.

So I have now read a whole bunch of posts about Cerado Ventana.

Here, and here, and here, for example. Jeff “The Godfather” De Cagna even mentioned it in a planning/brainstorming meeting for ASAE I participated in recently.

But I am starting to feel really stupid, because even after reading more than a handful of blog posts about it, and watching the video (twice), I still have no idea what it is! And I feel bad about that, particularly since I am a huge fan of Chris Carfi, one of the creators of the app.

I mean I get, sort of, that it’s a widget… right? So why not call it a widget? Is it just a mobile version of a website? Or something more? Do people download it? Why would they want to (as opposed to going to an organization’s website only when they are looking for something?) What does the name mean? Ventana - window? breeze? open? Is it Spanish? I’m sure there’s a cool meaning behind it all, but I couldn’t find anything online in a ten minute search that told me.

Chris - can you forgive my stupidity, and give me the “marketing-jargon-free” 140-character Twitter version of what it is? (We should call that something - your Twitter-essence - something that does not include the hateful words “value proposition” or “elevator pitch”…) Thanks in advance, hon! : )

Read & discuss at Maddie Grant's blog.