Monetize Mobile

Many associations are stepping into the mobile space with smartphone and tablet apps that members can use at conferences and to access useful content. But with the price tag to create an app starting at a few thousand dollars, associations are finding savings in new places and learning how to get a solid return on their investment.
By: Beth Ziesenis

10 Tips to Pick Your Best Social Networking Platform

Not sure which social media platform is right for your association? These 10 tips will help.
By: Andy Steggles

Market Your Meeting Through Video

One association recruited conference speakers to shoot their own video promotions and saw an increase in the event's attendance.

Let Your Freak Flag Fly

Our buttoned-up office cultures are stifling the diversity, creativity, and passion that are necessary for an association to innovate and excel. It's time for you to stop holding back and to start bringing your whole self to your work, and it's a leader's job to make sure everyone else can, too. It's time to let your freak flag fly.
By: Joe Gerstandt

Live Like a Member

Jackie Kerin at the Assisted Living Federation of America spent a week living in an assisted-living facility to immerse herself in the work of ALFA's members.
By: Summer Mandell

The No-Excuses Guide to Greatness
A decade after his game-changing book Good to Great, Jim Collins has wrapped up one of the most influential leadership research projects in the world. The final book in his series, Great by Choice, examines why some organizations thrive in an environment of "uncertainty, chaos, and luck." Good news: Leaders have more control than they think.
By: Kristin Clarke

Live Like a Member
Jackie Kerin at the Assisted Living Federation of America spent a week living in an assisted-living facility to immerse herself in the work of ALFA's members.
By: Summer Mandell

How a CEO Can Leave Gracefully
More longtime association leaders are leaving their posts or thinking about doing so. One former CEO shares her insights about how to make sure a top executive's departure is as stress-free and respectful as possible. (Titled "Secrets of a Graceful Exit" in the print edition.)
By: Leigh Wintz, FASAE, CAE

When Your Meeting Gets Political
Even your best-laid plans can be thrown off course by unexpected currents of political or social controversy. When the waves start to rise, don't panic: You won't go under if you gather the facts, communicate clearly with members, and stay true to your organization's mission. (Titled "Riding a Wave of Controversy" in the print edition.)
By: Jeff Waddle

A Fine-Tuned Innovation Culture
Innovation is too often treated as a luxury or a topic for a one-day seminar. In truth it ought to be an essential part of everything an association does. Innovation expert (and jazz pianist) John Kao explains how to move away from your "sheet music" and start experimenting.
By: Mark Athitakis

Associations Now Video

Using Appreciative Inquiry

Shelly Alcorn, CAE, principal for Alcorn Associates Management Consulting, shares how your association can utilize Appreciative Inquiry research to get powerful results. For more on using Appreciative Inquiry and how Alcorn used it to conduct her own research, read "What I Learned From Talking With 200 Association Executives" by Shelly Alcorn, CAE, in the November 2011 issue of Associations Now magazine.

CEO to CEO: Work-Life Balance

Steve Turckiewicz, CAE, president and CEO of the Montana Bankers Association, shares his tips on balancing work and your personal life. Read this month's CEO to CEO print edition here.

Features

• Cover Story:

  Opportunities for Associations Following the Arab Spring
  By: Samantha Whitehorne
  A year after the Arab Spring, emerging democracies in the Middle East and North Africa are reshaping their governments and building new economies. Associations have a historic opportunity to export their model of self-regulation to support freedom and economic growth in the region—while benefitting association communities both here and abroad. (Titled "A Moment for Action" in the print edition.)
• Let Your Freak Flag Fly
  By: Joe Gerstandt
  Our buttoned-up office cultures are stifling the diversity, creativity, and passion that are necessary for an association to innovate and excel. It's time for you to stop holding back and to start bringing your whole self to your work, and it's a leader's job to make sure everyone else can, too. It's time to let your freak flag fly.
• What's Next for Strategic Planning
  By: Facilitated by Andrew S. Lang, FASAE
  Is strategic planning dead, or is it just evolving? Associations Now gathered five experts to discuss what smart, future-focused plans look like and how to get boards to support them. (Titled "The Future of Planning for the Future" in the print edition.)
• Making Tradeshow Connections
  By: Jacqui Cook
  When your exhibitors and attendees make productive business connections at your event, you keep them coming back. Here's how one association used high-tech tools to make those connections happen. (Titled "Tradeshow Speed Dating" in the print edition.
• 6 Key Steps to Better Advocacy
  By: Bryan Ochalla
  On Capitol Hill and in statehouses around the country, lawmakers are bombarded with messages from individuals and groups trying to influence their legislative decisions. Will they hear yours? They will if you take a smart approach that cuts through all the noise.
• Open to Interpretation
  By: Mark Athitakis
  Translation is an essential part of the work of a global association. But who does the translating? How do you check translations for accuracy? And how do you decide what to translate in the first place? Three associations show how they get their international members speaking the same language.

Departments

• The Mistake of Not Admitting Mistakes
  By: Wm. Patrick Nichols
  Leaders must be models of trust and humility, and a leader who can admit his or her own mistakes will set an example for colleagues to follow.
  

• Dinner and Community Building, All in One
  By: Joe Rominiecki
  At their three-day annual meeting, Net Impact organizes "no-host" group dinners, where each group is assigned a discussion topic so the attendees can choose a table according to their interests.
  

• Cautious Optimism in a Recovery
  Association CEOs and members make predictions for 2012 in two recent ASAE Foundation economy surveys.
  


• Global Evolution Produces Association's First Non-U.S. President
  By: Jeff Waddle
  How ASIS International's efforts to nurture leaders from abroad put a Dutch president at the helm.
  


• Why You Need an Investment Policy Statement
  By: Gregory S. Jacobs and Russell J. Boehner
  Draft an IPS to demonstrate that your 401(k) plan sponsor is making prudent investment decisions.
  


• Upgrade Your Volunteer Board Experience
  By: Kristin Clarke
  Three ways to get the most from your board service.
  


• The Favorites Game: Leadership Development 2.0
  By: Kristin Clarke
  Women's Foodservice Forum CEO Fritzi Woods on her favorite professional risk, business icon, and more.
  


• Quiz: How Well Do You Know Your Insurance Coverage?
  By: Lou Novick
  Six questions to check your knowledge—and correct misconceptions—about your insurance policies.
  


• Hard Numbers: Governance
  A look at key data on governance.
  

• Get Strategic With Your Technology
  By: Samantha Whitehorne
  The Snow and Ice Management Association aligned its tech strategy with its overall mission to better serve members.
  

• CEO to CEO: Low-Cost Operation Tips and Best Constructive Criticism
  Low-cost approaches to address association needs and great constructive criticism from staff.
  


• As Economy Revives, Nonprofits Need Better Workforce Planning
  By: Patty Hampton
  A new survey looks at the recruiting challenges nonprofits face.
  


• ASAE Foundation Study Delves Into the Future of Tradeshows
  By: Rohit Verma
  The latest on the research partnership between the ASAE Foundation and the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research.
  

• Ad Index
  A list of Associations Now's advertisers.
  

Now Online

April/May 2012

From the Acronym Blog

"Associations and nonprofits haven't yet matured in their adaptation of online learning, yet we're somehow comparing e-learning reactions and outcomes to those of classroom training, which we have much more experience with."

—Ellen Behrens, in a comment to an Acronym blog post, "Shaking Up Online Education," on March 11, 2012.

Related Resources

In "6 Key Steps to Better Advocacy," several association advocacy veterans share their tips on how to make sure lawmakers hear your message. Here are some additional resources on advocacy:

• "Lobbying in Proportion," Associations Now, March 2012
• "Give Advocacy a Boost With Social Media," by Dave Phillips, CAE, Associations Now, February 2012
• "Do's and Don'ts for Your Advocacy Work," by Bryan Ochalla, Associations Now, December 2011
• "7 Strategies for Grassroots Success," by Leslie Nolen, Jeff Mascott, and Jennifer Karr, Government Relations, September 2011

Recommended by Readers

"Riding a Wave of Controversy," by Jeff Waddle, Associations Now, March 2012

An excerpt: "Following the April 2010 passage of Arizona's controversial immigration law … NASPA's board began analyzing the considerable implications of cancelling its 2012 annual conference in Phoenix, which had been booked about five years earlier. The choices were stark. They could relocate the 4,500-delegate event and face an $850,000 cancellation fee …. Or they could stay in Phoenix and subject the association to potential backlash from its highly diverse membership as well as organizations such as the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights advocacy organization …"

Rated "five stars" by online readers. Add your ratings and comments to articles and resources throughout www.asaecenter.org.

Links Highlighted in This Month's Issue

Did you just visit this web page after you saw the URL www.asaecenter.org/associationsnow in an article in the magazine? Here are the related resources mentioned throughout this month's issue:

Page 31: Extra: See extra Q&A "On Getting Buy-In for a Strategic Plan" in "What's Next for Strategic Planning."

Page 55: Extra: See extra responses to questions in "CEO to CEO: Low-Cost Operation Tips and Best Constructive Criticism."

"Now Online" in previous issues:

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