Acronym

CMSWatch has published twelve drummers drumming. Sorry, I mean twelve predictions for 2008. One of these has to do with Sharepoint, which has experienced frenzied adoption by organizations since it came on the scene a few years ago.

Unfortunately, the field is still short on Sharepoint-smart consultants, and implementation can be expensive, due to the need for heavy customization. Since Sharepoint is a kind of Swiss army knife for collaborative tools, it can be more a razor edge than a honed tool, at least out of the box. Here's CMSWatch's prediction:

MOSS enters the valley of disappointment
SharePoint will continue to grow at viral rates as a low cost, low touch, document collaboration system. But in 2008 we will see the start of a noticeable backlash, particularly among larger enterprises.
The backlash will be two-fold. First larger enterprises will exhibit major compliance and litigation discovery issues across numerous unmanaged and unaccountable SharePoint locations. You will also see a backlash against sizable development costs and times to build maintainable applications in the MOSS environment. With the more complex SharePoint projects struggling to launch, customers are realizing a disconnect between Redmond's heavy promotion and the realities of a product that is significantly less out-of-the-box than most expect.

Thank you for tuning into Acronym this year. This is the last day ASAE & The Center will be open this year, so Lisa and I are going to take it easy and stay away from the blog for a week or so. Our guest bloggers were told that we'd be unofficially shutting the blog down until next year, but I suppose if something really strikes their fancy nothing is stopping them from posting anyway.

So, again, thanks for reading, commenting, and making Acronym a successful place for dialog on associating today. Check back on the second of January... until then, Happy Holidays!

Ripped directly from web/usability guru Jakob Nielson's weekly newsletter:

Summary: AJAX, rich Internet UIs, mashups, communities, and user-generated content often add more complexity than they're worth. They also divert design resources and prove (once again) that what's hyped is rarely what's most profitable.

The article is a goldmine of info related to Web 2.0 missteps and perils. Even as a social media junkies, we still need to be cognizant of where/what can go wrong, etc.

The link out to his previous article on "participation inequality" is of particular value in thinking about our members' level of engagement in all this stuff.

In a great post on the Beyond Certification blog, Mickie Rops mentions asking someone, "If you had NOT developed a certification program, would your field look any different than it does today?" She's talking specifically about certification, but I love the question on other levels, too.

- Look at your association's programs and services. If they didn't exist, would your profession or industry be affected? Would remembers notice? (There are few things more lowering to an association professional than hearing, "I just realized I hadn't heard from the association in six months, and I wanted to check and see if you had my address wrong ..." If they can go six months without missing you, are you really helping them at all?)

- Look at yourself. If you took off for Tahiti tomorrow (assuming you didn't do so via illicit use of association funds), would your organization be any different in a year? Three years? What would you have to do differently to make that kind of impact?

Meatspace responsibilities got the better of me during November (eg, 10-day trip to Australia), and I wasn't able to get this post up during the chock-full-of-Web2.0-goodness spree last month... To add some practical examples, I'll quickly cover the IGDA's own foray into the use of social networking sites.

Given our techy nature, our first inclination was to simply expand upon our existing basic/custom member directory tech to include social network style features (ie, buddy list, post wall, intros, etc). But, we never got around to it... There was certainly the notion that we wanted to own/control the network for our members.

Around the same time, some members got vocal in our online discussion forum, convincing me to set up a private group in LinkedIn. Looking over the thread you can actually see me defending the idea of an IGDA specific internal social network, and then eventually watch me crumble under the pressure...

So, earlier this year, we set up a private group within LinkedIn - a fairly painless (and free) process. Once the group was set up, we mentioned it in our monthly email newsletter a couple of times. After a few months, we had over 1300 members within the group (of approx 14k total membership).

One of the benefits of LinkedIn is that it allows you to upload a list of members for pre-approved access to the private group (of course, there are other tools to add members on the fly, approve ad hoc requests for access, etc). Meaning, the association has control over who can gain access to the group, hence group members. Given the more serious business-like nature of LinkedIn, controlling access and the signal-to-noise ratio has been important and appreciated.

Also, this control over access has allowed the IGDA to leverage our LinkedIn private group as a benefit of membership. And, we've gotten several dozen new members (along with heaps of praise from existing members) simply so they can access the private group.

As the final wikinomic coup-de-grace, I recruited the most vocal member (ie, from the forum thread above) to serve as our volunteer "group manager". This person now handles any of the ad hoc requests along with any other admin/moderation tasks.

Now, in parallel to all this, a handful of other IGDA members were early Facebook adopters and set up an IGDA Facebook group without anyone on staff/leadership knowing about it. Really, I had no clue, until I got an invite to join the group (after the group already had about 1000 members)! This was not because they were trying to hide the group, but more so because they just didn't need us to do it.

Unlike the private LinkedIn group, the IGDA's Facebook group is an "open" group. With nearly 4000 people in that group, I have no clue how many are actual legit members of the IGDA. And, I don't care. Given the more relaxed/personal nature of Facebook, it is less important to maintain that some level of privacy as on LinkedIn.

Though, as an experiment, we did set up a private Facebook group just for the attendees of fall Leadership Forum conference...

And, all that said, we are still pursuing a social networking option that will reside at igda.org. More on that later...

Early this year, I wrote a post on the notion that there absolutely are dumb ideas. The gist of the post was: get over it. If you don't have a bunch of bad ideas to sift through, then you haven't given yourself permission to actually try to think creatively about how you or your organization can innovate. I was saying bad ideas or ok, as long as you find some good ones to work on.

Now Shankar Vedatam from the Washington Post hits again on an insightful idea in his "Department of Human Behavior" column. He explores how bad ideas get rolling and develop lives of their own. His quote from Robert Shiller, an economist at Yale University and the author of the book Irrational Exuberance, really made me think (sorry, don't know if the quote is from an interview or from the book):

"I am talking of views that seem intuitively right," Shiller said. "One hears other people saying things and confirming ideas you have. When things are commonly accepted, you file it in your brain as something that is true."

So here's the can of worms I'm opening today... I read this and I think about 7 Measures.

Now, assuming I still have a job after others in the organization read that, let me explain.

At one of the Great Ideas sessions I was at, the presenter made a point from Jim Collins’ Good to Great. I have no problem quoting from the lessons in that book. But the presenter praised the meticulous research of Collins for the purpose of underscoring how unapproachable and irrefutable the lesson is.

I encourage anybody who has ever read Built to Last, Good to Great, In Search of Excellence, 7 Measures of Success, or any of those books that study what really successful companies do right to read Phil Rosenzweig’s The Halo Effect... and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers.

Rosenzweig’s argument in a nutshell—the research, while time-consuming, isn’t objective. Yes, it uses objective data to determine if an organization is successful, but when it comes to picking out the qualities of why they are successful, the research is much more subjective, relying in large part on interviews and press accounts. This may come as a huge shock, but people tend to talk favorably about successful companies, workers tend to be happier, and executives win awards and give well-thought-of speeches.

As Rosenzweig says, this doesn’t disprove the points that Collins makes or the measures uncovered in 7 Measures. It does, however, take them off the “indisputable” shelf. As a general rule, whenever anything is indisputable, I’d say be skeptical. It could very well be that following the tenants in Good to Great or 7 Measures or whatever management consultant/guru of the week espouses would be disastrous for your organization. Remember, Taylor’s scientific management was once common sense, too. I think a lot of good can be derived from Collins and 7 Measures, but success will always be more art than science. No step-by-step prescription or program will get you where you want to go. Try, feel, react, try, feel, react… that’s how to move forward.

Dave Sabol of the Associated Knowledge blog has a great post up about advice for start-up companies and how it can apply to the association world. There's tons of food for thought--head over there to check it out!

David Gammel added a page to ASAE & The Center's Associapedia that other CAEs--and other organizations with certifications--might be interestedin . To help others with the age-old question of "How many hours can I put down on my recertification application for that conference?", he's started a wiki page for CAEs to keep track of how many CAE hours different events and activities are worth.

I haven't had a chance yet, but I'd like to go in and add specific dates for the events as well; I remember when I recertified (and when I applied to take the CAE exam) I spent a chunk of time searching online to find the dates of past meetings and conferences. Having that information easily accessible--and sharing it with other CAEs, to save them time--is a great use of a wiki.

For other associations with certifications, could a wiki be an easy place to maintain administrative information like this?

Wells Jones, CEO of the much-lauded Guide Dog Foundation, is a great storyteller. That's not a label many nonprofit leaders work hard for, but Wells has found that stories can get you places that appeals letters and political allies cannot: into people's wallet, mind and heart.

I was interviewing him recently after our Key Philanthropic Organizations Committee (KPOC) meeting, having already talked to him once before about his foundation's successful revision of its governance practices. We had spent a good chunk of the KPOC meeting talking about leadership, organizational excellence and the differences and synergies between our Seven Measures of Success book and a new publication, Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits, by Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant.

We were all intrigued by the differences in data about leadership between these two books and even Good to Great's Jim Collins, who had been involved with both publications. One thing none of these books did, though, was explore in any real depth the types of communication techniques that great organizatonal leaders routinely find most effective: compelling storytelling.

So I asked Wells how he created the storytelling culture that is so apparent on his Web site and how his staff and volunteers collect and use those powerful anecdotes to show the real impact of the organization. You can read his responses in the profile department of ASAE & The Center's new philanthropic Web section, but in the meantime I wanted to share what he said was his favorite program-related story.

"This story relates to a Marine who lost both of his arms in Iraq above the elbow, so he wears two prosthetic arms," Wells said. "And he also has some balance issues. We trained one of our dogs to work with him to help provide balance, fetch items and do various tasks that the Marine needs to get done.

"So he’s outdoors with his dog one day, and they are having down time--he’s playing Frisbee with his dog--and when he throws the Frisbee, the dog brings it back, like all of our dogs do. But then one time when he throws the Frisbee, one of his arms goes with it. The dog goes over and looks at the Frisbee and then looks at the arm, looks at the Frisbee and looks at the arm. Finally, he makes up his mind and grabs the arm, which he takes back to the Marine. And the Marine is laughing really hard about this, thinking, 'What fun!' but then he realizes what the dog just did: The dog made a decision that his owner had to have the arm first before he could bring the Frisbee back. It’s a wonderful, wonderful story."

Now ask him to tell you the one about the two old-time war vets who have raised half a million bucks in just a few months....

No great ideas here, just a good read.

In fact, there's one colleague of mine (and confirmed reader of this blog) who I know needs to read this article. Actually, I suspect all of us do. The article explores the question of why it is so hard for adults to say no, even when we want to or should. And now I have to put William Ury's The Power of a Positive No on my Christmas list.

And then I read the sidebar to this article and I realized something. When you do say "yes" just about all the time, it is noticed and respected. You may get teased about it behind your back (to my colleague -- don't worry, nobody teases you as far you know), but it's with admiration. And when I look at the sidebar, saying yes to those things is how you get ahead. And if you start off with a no, you don't get asked again, missing future opportunities. So anybody who thinks they're not getting the job/title/salary they are entitled to, start by asking yourself how often you get asked to do more than is expected--and how often you say "yes."

(And for the people who just can't say "no" -- read the article and bow out every now and then. As long as you have a "yes" track record, you'll still get asked in the future.)

I still have some posts from Great Ideas that I need to write, but I thought I'd get this post up first: Lee Aase, who kindly wrote an article for the Associations Now social media supplement to help readers better understand social media, has posted some material on how association executives can use Facebook. (He presented at the Chicago Forum's Holiday Showcase on the topic.)

If your association has ever wondered, "Should we be doing this Facebook thing?" Lee's two posts should be interesting reading.

Dave Sabol here filling in for Maddie Grant who is en route back home.

Just a few points from two afternoon sessions that I think everyone can benefit from. In Andy Steggles session on the Social Web he went into detail on how RIMS and a number of other associations are pushing the envelope with their deployment of social media technology. I found his approach to technology and innovation, more than any specific message that he shared, particularly salient.

Instead of constantly going in search of the "next big thing" Andy has a really pragmatic approach that we can all learn from. Take a look at what bothers you and your members most about the technology you are using and try to improve on it from that perspective. Additionally, instead of trying to create new solutions in a vacuum take a look at what other industry leaders are doing and adapt their approach to fit your needs. For example, if you industry is looking into social networking instead of trying to "whitesheet" your solution take a look at what companies like MySpace and FaceBook are doing right (and wrong) and learn from their experiences. Instead of building from the ground-up consider what you can do to adapt/modify/change existing systems to work in a more effective way.

Most importantly, in today's attention economy consider your Return on Engagement (ROE) and what you can do to maximize your return on your users attention once you have obtained it. Make it easy for them to take action.

Later in the afternoon, Jamie Notter presented on "Who's In Charge" an offshoot of an article he wrote that was published in November's Assocations Now. My key take away (I'll leave the details to his article) was that we spend too much time communicating at either the high level - useless generalizations - and at the low level - the important discussion points get buried in the detail - and have a very difficult time communicating in between. Jamie had the attendees positing the question: "Where is the middle". The primary reason we avoid these conversations and subsequently being unable to answer the question: who is in charge is because the conversations are difficult and we avoid them. The bottom line: constantly challenge your assumptions and judgments, strive to have the difficult conversations and most importantly remember that real communication, and ultimately change, results over time not as the result of one conversation.

For the second year in a row, Rhea Blanken is running a creativity room – full of toys and games and activities for adults to reach inside to their inner creativity.

One of the stations was a toy grill labeled the “Sacred Cow BBQ,” where attendees were invited to write down the cows they’d love to slay, skewer them, and throw them on the barbie. Here are a few things that were on the grill:

Too many meetings
No diversity on the board
Closed-down management
HR policies
Membership directory
Chapters
Committees

Rob Parker’s 2-minute take on Jim Collins’ Level 5 Leadership:

It’s a mix of humility and professional will, not charisma and dazzling personality. Level 5 leaders accept responsibility when things go wrong and give others credit for success. And level 5 leaders set up their successors for even greater success.

And Parker orginal insight: unfortunately one of our biggest challenges is that boards of directors and executive search firms do not look for level 5 leaders; they look for charismatic, dazzling leaders… “And it’s unfortunate.”

Two other questions that were raised at the session on "Building a Leadership Stream":

- Is courage a leadership characteristic? The best data and best discussion at the board level won't get you anywhere if your board won't make tough choices--choices that could alienate some of their closest colleagues or a vocal group within the membership. How do you find potential board leaders with the courage to make those hard decisions?

- How do you balance the need to find competent, strategic board leaders with the need to be inclusive? Some associations hate to turn away enthusiastic volunteers--even if they really don't have the skills or mindset to contribute positively to the organization. Some just place a high value on being as inclusive as possible. What do you do when your interest in being inclusive conflicts with your need to put the right people on the bus (to use the Good to Great terminology)?

Live blogging from Kiwanis International CEO Rob Parker's "High-Impact Leadership"...

Here's his ice breaker to start the session:

Everyone was given this scenario: you're at an evening function for work and you're the most important person there, and you need to meet other important people. Then he had has introduce ourselves to others in the room.

He stopped us and switched the scenario: you're at a family reunion, but it's not the cumbersome type, these are great, great people that you love to see. One of them give a kidney so your sister kid live--those kinds of people. Now go greet people.

The point of the ice breaker, other than being an ice breaker: you do better and you feel better in a room when your frame of mind is that the other people there are more important to you.

There was some great discussion in the "Building a Strong Leadership Stream" session this morning--enough for a couple of blog posts!

One of the case studies presented was interesting to me because of the formal, planned development path this particular association has created for their volunteers with an interest in leadership and potentially board service. One of the elements of the leadership path that were mentioned was "robust committees." I found this to be interesting--to see service on a robust, active committee as a preparation for board service. In associations where I've worked, committees are typically very tactical--right down in the weeds, doing detail-oriented work. Then volunteers who excelled in committee work move directly into board service--where they are asked to be strategic, high level, and stay out of the weeds.

Can we really find great strategic leaders by looking at our best tactical volunteers? Or do associations need to offer strategic work for other groups of volunteers, to let potential leaders learn by doing before they actually take on responsibility for the direction of the entire organization?

Skip down to the previous post for a more general idea of Wilny Audain's general session presentation. But I wanted to point out the one place he lost me.

One of the more dynamic parts of his presentation was in talking about differences in some groups of people. Gender differences for example: men speak in bullets, women speak in paragraphs; men work with singular focus; women multitask. He did the same thing with generations.

These are some of things that drive me crazy. I think that it can be helpful to understand these broad generalizations, but on individual levels, the broad notions completely break down, to the point of being almost worthless.

Now he won me back with his statement that you can't put people in boxes, that we are each individuals. But I didn't have a chance after the presentation to reconcile the two. Maybe I'll try to get him to comment on it, because the two parts of his presentation seem in direct contrast to me.

Wilny Audain gave an energetic and warming general session at Great Ideas on understanding diversity. Seriously, based on nothing more than his presentation, he’s the kind of guy you just want to fold neatly and put in your hip pocket to take out when you need a moment to change your outlook from glum to happy, from challenge to opportunity. He seemed happy and genuine, and it was infectious.

I don’t how much I got out of his presentation—more a reinforcement, I suppose than anything else – though I was left with one big uneasy question I’ll put in my next post. But in this one, I’ll list a few of the reinforcements, by way of his acrostic description of failure and success in communication.

We experience a failure in communication when we:

F – fear: most people have communication problems because of fear: fear of how they will be perceived, fear of not understanding, fear of not looking like they want to look.

A – assumptions: don’t make assumptions about people. Ask them instead.

I – insensitivity: it’s easy to be insensitive about what you don’t know. Resist the urge to tease or make fun, whether or not the subject of your insensitivity is there or not.

L – labeling: it’s a natural human tendency to put people in boxes. People will never fit in the box you’re trying to put them in. We, each of us, is an individual.

U – uncertainty: meaning being uncertain about yourself, not understanding your own heritage and why you are the way you are.

R – resentment: it’s too common to be resentful of people who are not like you just because they are not like you. You put someone in a box and then decide you don’t like the whole box.

E – ego: you might think your culture is the best culture—or is superior to other cultures for this reason or that. The fact is, all cultures are best and none are superior to others.

To achieve success in communication, you need:

S – self-awareness: be aware of who you are and be aware of how you come across to other people.

U – understanding: if you want another culture to understand you, your first step is to understand them.

C – care: people don’t care how much you know until you show how much you care.

C – control of self: when people are pushing your buttons, you must have self-control. There are some cultures you may not like, and that’s ok. But respect the differences and know the difference between disagreeing and attacking.

E – esteem for self: you have to be able to love yourself before you can love someone else. We reflect (and see) who we are.

S – self-confidence: it makes a difference when you walk into a room. Be confident about who you are—not superior—but be yourself and like what you are.

S – sharing: be willing to share yourself with others.

Susan Sarfati, CEO of the Center for Association Leadership, is discussing ASAE & The Center's social responsibility initiative over breakfast this morning at Great Ideas. One the first things she told the group is that this initiative isn't ASAE & The Center setting down what we believe social responsibility to be and what we think associations should be doing about it; instead, she says, the initiative is intended to facilitate ways for the association community to co-create an agenda for social responsibility in our work.

For instance, the Global Summit on Social Responsibility, April 30-May 2, won't be just a series of speakers telling attendees about social responsibility. The Summit is intended to be a place where discussion will take place among attendees--and ASAE & The Center is hoping to bring together a truly inclusive group of attendees for that discussion, including representatives from trade, professional, and philanthropic associations, industry partners, association board members, experienced association professionals and those new to the community, older people and younger, academics, media representatives, representatives from corporations that have successfully implemented social responsibility in their own organizations, and more.

The Summit will take connect multiple sites around the United States and the world--Robin Lokerman, CEO of the Institutional Division of MCI, said just now that his company alone will host sites in 10 countries. One site will even go live a month in advance to include individuals who can't necessarily participate on the dates of the Summit.

The discussion will follow the techniques of appreciative inquiry, starting with strengths and building on those strengths to innovate and develop strategies for social responsibility.

Goals of the Summit include:

- Share strengths and celebrate successes
- Make the case for social responsibility
- Identify the unique competency and capacity that associations bring to social responsibility and how they can be effectively leveraged
- Identifying opportunities that the association world can uniquely respond to
- Generate and articulate guiding principles for associations in social responsibility

The Summit would create the world's largest social responsibility agenda, when you take into account the 280 million members of our members and the trades, professions, and industries associations represent.

For more information on the Global Summit, visit ASAE & The Center's website.

The dynamic Tangie Newborn, CEO of the Alliance for Nonprofit Management, led the song dance of “Wanna Be CEOs”. Literally, she had her session attendees singing and dancing, well, kind of… as well as a hodge podge of association senior staffers will do in the last session of the afternoon.

As she answered questions and led participants through the maze of how to get themselves CEO-ready, here were a few of the more memorable/useful moments:

How do you get these experiences if you can’t get them in the job you have now?

“Volunteer.” (Don’t worry, those who know Tangie know there’s not many one-word answers, so take it while you can get it.)

But something like media training—how do you get that experience?

“Take training and education on it. Do research. Look for models.

“Your company is sending you here, but they don’t have to know each and every session you go to. Get in a session on media and communications. If you’re a marketing manager, don’t go to the marketing sessions. You know how to do your job. Go to the CEO sessions or the finance sessions. If you’re weak in an area, go to those sessions. Your CEO doesn’t have to know.”

Other advice and sayings:

“Go to board meetings. As much as you can be a staff liaison to a board committee go with it. Run with it. Interact with the board as much as you can. And you need to go in there with a different mindset. Go in and see the hard time they’re giving the CEO or the chair. See how the board challenges the CEO. Have some fun.”

“Sometimes I still go to sleep” – said to someone who said that she gets sleepy at board meetings when the directors talk about investment strategies.

“Can all that you can can – that’s what my grandmother always said. Find out what you don’t know, and go learn it.”

“I don’t know a thing about lobbying, but I know how to hire a lobbyist.”

“When I go in front of that selection committee, I’m selling Tangie. I’m going out with a Tangie case -- you know one of those oldtime traveling salesman suitcases -- and I’m selling that case. And I’m doing it with authority.”

In Larry Johnson's session on "Absolute Honesty," we're wrestling with issues surrounding honesty--why it's important in an organization and how to express the truth effectively and with tact. One thing Larry is emphasizing is the importance of being proactive--tackling problems rather than just avoiding them.

Larry just told us, "If all you do is tell me why [an idea] won't work, that's not proactivity, that's whining." Then he asked, "What should you bring me with that whine?"

From the back of the room, someone shouted: "Cheese!"

Humor aside, Larry suggests that we have three choices when faced with something unpleasant: Proactivity, acceptance of the situation, or leaving. But grumbling or complaining isn't a healthy alternative.

Is there anything you're grumbling about in your work that you should be trying to change?

Here's the no-brainer idea that has to also be the most under-utilized technique in an executive's arsenal: be a customer.

The idea comes courtesy of Ellipsis Partners' Rebecca Breeden in her "Extending Your Meeting: Before, During and After" session.

She advised attendees to go to other conferences as an attendee so you know what it's like for your members. You can try to think like an attendee or put yourself in your members' shoes, but you can't quite replace an actual experience. Find out the things that surprise and delight you -- then think about how you can emulate it. Find out what annoys you, and think about how your members may get annoyed at your meeting.

(And just as an aside -- a few minutes ago, Breeden asked those who did blogs at their conferences to raise their hands. Kind of a surreal experience, I didn't raise my hand because I was typing this post.)

Below is a slide from the Great Ideas lab "Membership Models of Associating from Outside Organizations" by Diane James and Paul Pomerantz. I'm presenting it because I'm not sure how I feel about it. One attendee made an excellent point. James and Pomerantz used the context of their 2005 Journal of Association Leadership article "New Models of Associating" (may be members only) to point out the rapid and massive growth of the Willow Creek Community Church and the communities centered around the magazine Fast Company. The attendee's point: that's two case studies that are successful, there are probably hundreds of thousands of case studies of things that didn't work.

But on to the slide...

It depicts characteristics of traditional associations on one side and characteristics of new, developing communities on the other. I think in the past, I would have accepted this slide without question, but now I wonder if traditional associations have in fact moved closer to some of the developing models. And I'm pretty sure that I think the new models are little more like traditional associations than this slide presents--these communities take leaders to drive it. So, here's the slide... what do you think?

"Don't make Play-doh a big deal."
Cufaude talked about creative props used in brainstorming sessions. As he described it, you can't just say, "OK, take out the Play-doh and sculpt your vision for the organization." Instead, use things like Play-doh and crayons to help people mix up their mental space to be prepared think in new ways.

"Get on the 'Brandwagon.'"
Cufaude offered some facilitator tools for broadening discussions and advancing an idea. One of those tools was to ask "How would Starbucks do it?" or "How would Disney do it?" or How would [insert any brand here] do it?

A bunch of interesting suggestions from Jeffrey Cufaude's "Beyond Brainstorming" session:

- Don't put meeting attendees under pressure to have fun. Not everyone has fun in the same way.

- Make sure there is time for introverts to share their ideas too--having time where everyone writes their ideas on index cards instead of saying them aloud is one way to do this.

- Have a symbolic "coat check" where everyone can check their negative attitudes or their traditional thinking.

- Think about how you personally can contribute your strengths to the meeting in ways that don't end the conversation. For instance, if you tend to have a lot of ideas and dominate the conversation, turn some of your ideas into questions that could lead to others contributing their thoughts.

- Idea generation should be ongoing, not just something we do on Tuesday from 3-4 pm.

- When holding an idea generating meeting with all members of the staff and the full board, one association tried to defuse the hierarchy by creating "nametags" for everyone with photos of him or her as a baby. It emphasized that everyone was equal--they were all babies once--and symbolically put them in the mindset of a brand-new learner.

- "If we only talk about what's desireable, nothing cool is ever going to happen."--Jeffrey Cufaude

- If you try to gather ideas online, it helps to give everyone a requirement--for instance, everyone must log in for 15 minutes each week and contribute ideas. If you leave it open-ended, you may find that no one makes the time to log in.

- Behavior is a function of people interacting with their environment--look at the people you have and build an environment that will help them to be creative and generate ideas.

- Watch the rhythm of your session--balance all-out, high-energy idea generation with time for the group to catch its breath. A whole day of all-out brainstorming can be as boring as running on a treadmill.

Jeffrey Cufaude just opened his session with a fun idea: He asked all of us to ball up a piece of paper into "snowball" and, when we experience an "a-ha!" or takeaway moment, to throw it at him. What a fun way for a facilitator to get feedback on how a presentation is going, and to get attendees engaged and laughing right from the start.

In the session on ideas gleaned from associations' market research experiences, the presenters talked about how an association gathered market data from nonmembers while they waited in line at a professional event.

It's a great reminder of the importance of constantly gathering feedback from constituents and people you want to be your constituents.

Whether it's staff soliciting informal feedback on a trade show floor or a formal market research project, associations have be sponges, soaking up both qualitative and quantitative data to make informed decisions.

If someone asked you about your members' most pressing on-the-job challenges, what would you say? Would your members agree with you?

I was invited to attend a breakfast discussion this morning on The Association of The Future. Led by Rohit Talwar, CEO of Fast Future Ventures, we were asked,

1) how do you currently consider the way in which future trends (e.g. demographic, economic, and competitive) might impact your organization?
2) How can we [ASAE] make our futures trend information intellectually and practically accessible to you and your organization?
3) How can we balance online delivery with other possible delivery methods?

Among other things, we discussed “ROE” – return on engagement – namely, how do you measure, or develop metrics for, or just pay attention to how your members are engaged, beyond just the traditional ROI? Could ASAE provide more benchmarking tools so we could measure our own associations against similar others?

I think everyone should be thinking about these questions and telling ASAE what you think, so they can deliver the best data, training, networking opportunities, etc. for us. I am glad they are asking.

We also discussed how to enable strategic thinking and strategic discussion throughout all levels of an organization. The reason I want to mention this, in particular, is that I experienced an example of how this is NOT happening right now.

After breakfast, Jamie Notter, Dave Sabol and I headed over to the session on The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything. In the schedule, this was highlighted, and I was very interested in hearing about Stephen Covey’s concept of ‘trust theory” as laid out in his book The Speed of Trust. But, five minutes into it, the three of us got kicked out because we are not CEO’s. So annoyed. Isn’t the speed of trust about trust between CEO’s and staff???

Let me tell you something. Having CEO-only sessions is fine. I have no problem with that, and once I am one (!) I am sure I will enjoy hanging out with other CEO's and sharing issues. They should be appropriately marked as such, in the schedule, duh. However – here's the clincher - this stuff does NOT trickle down to those of us actually doing the work of the association. Staff at all levels of the organization should be enabled and supported to be the strategic thinkers that we already are. Great ideas generally do NOT come from the Board or CEO – they approve, ratify, approve budgets for great ideas to happen, but I can pretty much guarantee that most great ideas come from mid-level staff. Enable strategic thinking! Don’t shut us out.

More live blogging...

Another point Richard Finstein made that really hit home is the difference between being a content leader on a webinar and being a content leader in front of a face-to-face audience. It hit home because I was wholly unprepared for it the first time I was a content leader on a webinar.

The way Finstein put it is that you are utterly isolated. The presenter is speaking into a phone, probably from a quiet office. There is no feedback, no smiles or droopy eyelids, no seat-shifting, no chatter. It is a surreal experience.

I can tell you from my first-hand experience, it was unsettling. Finstein's tip -- even if you have a presentation pro as your content leader, if they haven't done a webinar a rehearsal is more than essential.

Ok, Finstein's getting ready to wrap up, so I better go pay attention.

I'm in the middle of the session right now, but here's one takeaway from this session:

According to CommPartners’ Richard Finstein, the leader of this morning’s Great Ideas session on web seminars, the way most organization’s screw up webinars: not planning an experience.

“They don’t plan their success. They don’t script their program,” he says. “How am I going to plan interaction? How am I going to seed my audience so there’s participation? How do I build energy into the program? If you don’t build energy into the program, then just don’t do it.”

In the opening general session, Bruce Turkel asked everyone who was an artist to raise their hand. Ten hands out of more than 500 people went up. He then said that if you ask the question in front of a class of first-graders just about every hand shoots up. In third grade it’s about half. By fourth or fifth grade it’s a few—these are the children who have been told by others that they are artists.

As Turkel says, we’re all artists. We all create. And that’s exactly what Finstein is talking about. You have to choreograph a webinar or it will fall flat. You have to imagine the experience your users are going to have—and then reimagine, adding “energy” as Finstein puts it.

In the "Leadership for the Future" session, Jody Shelton is describing the skills and attributes of great leaders, and she mentioned a book I hadn't heard of that sounds quite interesting: The Fred Factor. "Fred" was a postal worker who would introduce himself to people who moved into homes on his route, welcome them, and offer to collect their extra mail and save it for them if they traveled for an extended time. He made a great impression on the author of The Fred Factor.

Jody shared some questions you could ask during an interview to find out if potential employees are "Freds":

- Who are your heroes and why?
- Tell me three things that would delight most customers.
- What's the coolest thing that's ever happened to you as a customer?

I've never asked these questions in an interview, but I might try it the next time I'm hiring.

In the CEO session on trust in governance, Lois Schoenbrun from the American Academy of Optometry related the experience of her organization wrestling with the decision of whether or not to combine annual meetings with their larger competing association. Financially, it looked like it would make sense. She said her membership was split right down the middle—with plenty of people on both sides willing to tell you their position loud and clear.

Ultimately she and her board decided against the idea. They decided that their show was perhaps the most important part of their brand, and it was something they needed to keep.

I’ll admit my first reaction was negative because it sounded like a decision to keep the status quo. But then I thought about it more and that’s too harsh of an assessment. Deciding not to do something can be very important, and does not mean you are turning your back on ideas or innovation. The key, and I’m sure the academy is doing this, is to not rest. Just because they decided not to take that step doesn’t mean that they’re not trying to take other steps that will improve their meeting and their organization.