Best. Christmas. Present. Ever!!!

I was in a horrible mood this weekend, totally stressed out from all the forced holiday cheer, too many things to wrap and no wrapping paper left, having to mingle with the other last minute grocery shopping losers at Trader Joe's fighting over the leftovers, with two screaming children in tow (one screaming because she did not want to sit in the cart, the other one screaming because he thought it was hilarious, which it really wasn’t, not in the slightest...), fighting with all the other bah humbugs in traffic, and just generally angst-ridden.

But this morning, I woke up after a really nice dream, the sun was shining and the sky was blue, I turned on my computer and saw this!

Ben Martin posted his year-end association blog awards – and I was so psyched to see that he named jnott the “best association blogger of 2007” – a truly deserved award, and for the second year running, too. I thought, that is so awesome, well done Jamie. I find his blogs really inspiring.

Then I keep reading, and cor blimey, he’s gone and named me the “best new association blogger”! Dude!! I almost fell out of my chair. I had to tell Bo immediately, as she happened to be standing next to me hugging my leg, which is her (extremely annoying) thing right now. She’s only 22 months old but she looked up at me with a huge grin, as if to say, “I knew you could do it!!” It felt so great. Especially seeing who I was up against – all amazing bloggers, with so much great stuff to say. I am really proud to be part of such an illustrious crew.

I am on such a roll, I just want everyone right there with me. I can't believe how much I have found my feet this year, and I feel like I have lots of great things in my future. And a huge reason for that is this community that I have found where I can have a voice and where I can help make things happen. So I just wanted to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to Ben, and also to all association bloggers – I think it’s an amazing conversation we’re having, and we all need each other to really innovate and make a difference in the association world – and I think we’re all doing it, every day.

Have a great holiday!

Wiki wiki whoo!

I attended an Idea Swap at ASAE this morning. Facilitated by members of the Membership Section Council, it was all about getting a bunch of us membership people in a room to start writing the basis for membership-related entries in the ASAE's Associapedia, which as you can probably figure out, is the ASAE's wiki for all association-related knowledge.

There's been a lot of talk in association circles about wikis; the best way to implement them, what programs to use, from freebies to fully integrated systems, etc etc. But I find that setting up the wiki is the easy part. It's getting people to start putting the content in that's hard. So I was interested to see how ASAE would do it, given its position as "industry shaper extraordinaire". And, I noticed the same problems we all face, which is that the content does not magically appear by itself.

Bmart posted a podcast review of Associapedia which neatly summarizes the situation. I also wanted to link to it again because I think Ben has a lot of valuable criticisms here which I personally agree with, and which could be taken on board very quickly; and I don't know if anyone on the Associapedia side heard this a month ago when he posted it, even though I know some of those people are aware of our blogs. As I listened to it again now, and looked at the site at the same time, all of the issues he mentions are still there.

Aside from Ben's comments about the structure of the Associapedia, he brings up the point that there aren't very many people listed as authoring the entries yet. Which, as I started to say earlier, is a problem for any association wanting to start a wiki like this. I can set one up for my organization in a heartbeat - but I am not in the field and cannot populate it for my members. Jeff De Cagna, in his Great Ideas session on wikis, suggested getting someone (or several someones) to champion the wiki, spread the word, and get people involved, which I think is actually the only way to really make it happen. But combined with that, having the kind of session that we had at ASAE this morning might do wonders too, and might even, in the long term, allow the wiki to become part of the culture and lifeblood of an organization.

We basically had 14 people, separated into two groups, discussing membership issues. One group talked about the member value proposition, what is it, how do you calculate the lifetime value of a member, how do you create metrics for measuring return on engagement (thank you Steggles, I am spreading the word for you!), how do you conduct surveys, what about recruitment, retention strategies, what about generational issues, how do you communicate the value of membership when you are talking about benefits to the field (advocacy, government relations) where people benefit regardless of whether they are members or not, how do you deal with chapter relations? The other group discussed dues, classes of membership, discounts, services versus benefits, affinity programs, and communications strategies, new technologies, etc. We touched on a whole bunch of topics, and the point was not to get into great details but to braindump all our ideas into a Word document. We had recorders who typed as fast as we talked.

We still need to find out what the end result will be, whether any useful stubs can be extracted from this for the Associapedia, which we can then go back and expand upon properly, but I thought, what a great way to get started. What an easy thing it would be to have someone record information from any relevant meeting, which could then be condensed into an entry or two (or twenty) in your wiki. Because it is MUCH easier to edit and expand on a topic than it is to start from scratch with a blank piece of paper - we all know that!

And, as it turns out, today's session was the first of its kind, a test run to try this method of brainstorming ideas. I thought, cool!! We all love being part of betas. Beta test everything!!! As a direct result of being part of this test run, I plan to go to lots more Idea Swaps, and I also plan to start writing some entries for the wiki. I had never been to an Idea Swap before, and apparently nothing is usually written down apart from individuals taking their own notes. I thought it would be really great to expand this model (i.e. of braindumping topics onto paper for inclusion into the association wiki later) to not only other Section Idea Swaps specifically on writing Associapedia entries for other Sections, but ANY Idea Swap or Brown Bag session, of which there seem to be a whole lot going on all the time.

I will report back once we get the word that some of the information has been dropped in to the Associapedia. It will be fascinating to see if this works, but at the very least, I think ASAE has now got themselves a few new wiki authors, and that has to be a Good Thing.

MBTI session at ASAE

I went to a really interesting session on the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator at ASAE today, run by the career coach Marshall Brown.

I really love all this personality testing stuff; I like to think about why I do what I do and act how I act, what my unconscious, or subconscious, (or, heck, conscious) motivations might be. I like to think about the big picture (in case you hadn't noticed!) You'll probably not be surprised to learn that I am an ENTP. Here's the description:

"Quick, ingenious, stimulating, alert, and outspoken. Resourceful in solving new and challenging problems. Adept at generating conceptual possibilities and then analyzing them strategically. Good at reading other people. Bored by routine, will seldom do the same thing the same way, apt to turn to one new interest after another".

Check out my favored careers (this is from this website):

dictator, computer consultant, international spy, tv producer, philosopher, comedian, music performer, it consultant, figher pilot, politician, diplomat, entertainer, game designer, bar owner, freelance writer, creative director, strategist, news anchor, professional skateboarder, airline pilot, comic book artist, college professor, private detective, mechanical engineer, lecturer, ambassador, astronomer, research scientist, judge, web developer, scholar, fbi agent, cia agent, electrical engineer, assassin

La Femme Nikita, that's me. Ha!

In the session, we discussed the differences between the eight types - Extroverted v. Introverted, Sensing v. Intuiting, Thinking v. Feeling, Judging v. Perceiving. We participated in some exercises which illustrated in an amazingly clear way the differences between the types.

For each type, we self-identified as one of the other, and separated into groups:

For E/I, we were asked to describe the ideal weekend. Us extroverts were all about the partying, beer, socializing, shopping, being outside, eating, more drinking... the introverts described reading, resting, chilling with a significant other.

For S/N, we were asked to describe an apple. The result was unbelievable - the Sensing people described the strict characteristics of the apple, down to the "PLU" number and the specific type (Red Delicious). Us intuitives got into apple symbolism - Newton, and Fall, and still life, and apple pie, and bobbing for apples, and pig roast, and candied apples... it was hilarious.

For T/F, we imagined having to downsize our department. The Thinking group stuck to the policies, but tried to figure out a million ways not to fire someone - by looking at other cost-cutting measures, revisiting the dues policy, looking at non-dues revenue, going back to the strategic plan... the Feeling group stayed in touch with the individual circumstances of the person who would be cut from the team, as well as the reaction of the team members who would be staying.

Finally, for the Judging/Perceiving groups, we listed what drove us crazy about the other group, and what we appreciated about the other group - and found they were one and the same. J's keep us P's focused, keep the end goal in mind - P's are more spontaneous and more aware of external factors involved in bringing a project to fruition. We all thought it was necessary to have both types of people in a team, in a symbiotic relationship, in order to achieve our goals.

In spite of the fact that we were only able to look at the personality types at a surface level, I found all of this extremely useful in terms of thinking about workplace dynamics. I want to be able to assign tasks according to people's innate strengths - for example, use sensors when I need facts, numbers and straight results; intuitives when I need to work out a problem, extract further meaning or brainstorm.

Couple of other takeaways:

- "Feelers" need to be able to say what they are feeling, before they can switch to the thinking side for practicalities (which they are perfectly capable of doing). So for example in the "having to downsize" exercise, they would be able to do what needed to be done, as long as they were allowed the space in which to express their discomfort at having to fire someone.

- When facilitating a meeting, ask "has anyone not spoken up who would like to?" By doing that, you create a space for Introverts to participate. They have just as good ideas as anyone else, but will not easily speak up in a group situation.

I have asked my team to take one of the free online tests, so we can have a conversation about this at our next staff meeting. My goal is to find out how I can best encourage their strengths.

Great Ideas Conference liveblogging roundup

Here are my Acronym posts for this past weekend, if you are interested, including the one Sabol posted on my behalf on Sunday.

one - arrival in Orlando

two - first day sessions

three - Bam! Kicked out of a session. Sucks to be me.

four - Sunday sessions

So I had a really amazing time, and as always, it had little to do with the content of the conference. It had everything to do with meeting new people, seeing old friends, spending time with amazing people I can only talk to normally via email, getting to know people I really admire, eating great food, bopping to 80's music, discussing future plans to take over the world... Roll on the next one!

Good luck to all on the CAE exam tomorrow!

I'm sending you CAE-ers my good vibes. Hope you rock it!

I'm almost packed (which is more complicated than it sounds, as I am bringing the husband and two kids under five with me to Orlando...) and will be off to the airport in a few hours on my way to the Great Ideas conference. Assuming I make it there in one piece (hate flying!!!), I will be posting on Acronym, rather than here, throughout the weekend. I was thinking about that, the guest blogging for Acronym, and I think it would be cool if I try and really give a sense of what it's like to be at the conference for those Acronym readers who might not be able to go. So - maybe - I'll do a bunch of short and sweet posts rather than less, but longer, ones. We shall see! I'll link.

See you on the other side of the weekend!

more babeliciousness!

Check out our very own bmart on the cover of Associations Now!! Whoo hoo! You rock the body that rocks the body (as David would say...)!!

ASAE Great Ideas Conference

Just a quick post to let everyone know that I have been asked to guest-blog for the ASAE blog, Acronym, while at the Great Ideas Conference in Orlando this coming weekend. Which will be BIG FUN, if totally nerve-wracking at the same time. So I may be on a slight hiatus from blogging here for the next few days, while I try and get my head together for the conference and then while I am in Florida.

I will, though, try and post links to my Acronym posts here too.

Hope to see some of you at Great Ideas! If you are going, don't forget to join the backchannel!

And, especially, come find me and say hello! I plan to wear my "blog naked" shirt on at least one occasion. : )