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Innovate Like DARPA
DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is known for innovation. Aside from being the people who invented the Internet (thanks, in part, to legislation sponsored and funding secured by Al Gore when he was…
Read More →Resolution Time!
It’s that time of year – the time when we look back and look forward and decide what we want to change. Most of the time, people think about bad habits they want to stop…
Read More →The Steve Jobs Problem
At the inaugural ACE Symposium two weeks ago, one of the topics we discussed was the future of new value creation in associations. One of our speakers, Jami Lucas, Executive Director/CEO at the American Academy…
Read More →Why Is Membership the Only Relationship?
Way back in March at ASAE’s Great Ideas Conference, I had the opportunity to participate in an early morning conversation facilitated by Jeff de Cagna. Rob Barnes (at the time of Fitness Australia and now…
Read More →Getting the Most Out of Your Consulting Partnerships
So you’re thinking about hiring a consultant. How can you make sure the resources you’re investing in the relationship are well-spent? First question to ask yourself: should you be hiring a consultant at all? If…
Read More →The Single Biggest Opportunity for Associations Today?
When I was speaking with the nice folks at Naylor for Association Adviser TV, they also asked me to address: What do you think is the single biggest opportunity for associations today? My response? Addressing…
Read More →Five Tips to Write Better
I write a lot. Obviously, reading this, you know about the Spark blog (which started in 2008, long before Spark was even a twinkle in my eye, as the independent association blog Thanks for Playing)….
Read More →Next-Gen Membership
I recently had the opportunity to be interviewed by the nice folks at Naylor for Association Adviser TV. One of the questions they asked me to address was: What are the top three things that…
Read More →Mission Driven Volunteering: Where Do We Go From Here?
From the new Spark whitepaper, The Mission Driven Volunteer, written with Peggy Hoffman: We know that switching to a mission driven model of volunteering isn’t easy. However, the era in which members had ample time…
Read More →Who’s Doing Mission Driven Volunteering?
From the new Spark whitepaper, The Mission Driven Volunteer, written with Peggy Hoffman: The Maryland Association of CPAs realigned all their volunteer roles along a grid where the X-axis represented high value to members and…
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