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Learning to Take Critcism
This is a tough one, right? Criticism happens to all of us, whether it’s in the form of evaluations after a presentation, the official annual review, unofficial feedback from a boss or colleagues, or editorial…
Read More →The Consultant and the Association Exec Should Be Friends
Eons ago (actual time: four years), I wrote two blog posts on the topic of consulting and RFPs. They’re still among my most popular posts ever. I got thinking about this topic again recently for…
Read More →Novelty for Novelty’s Sake
As associations, we have to be wary of “we have always done it that way.” And if you read this blog regularly, you know that I rail against unwillingness to change pretty frequently. I would…
Read More →Is It Time for a New Model of Membership?
I recently spoke on this topic as part of the April Alexandria Brown Bag focusing on Grassroots Membership Strategies, where I shared the story of my fab client the American Medical Student Association. About a…
Read More →AMS, CRM, and “So Now What?”
This is the final post of launch week for the new Spark whitepaper, Member Relations: An Association-Centric Approach to Customer Relationship Management: We’ve looked at CRM as an approach, CRM as software, how AMS and…
Read More →AMS v. CRM
From the new Spark whitepaper, Member Relations: An Association-Centric Approach to Customer Relationship Management: The once distinct line between AMS and CRM is blurring. CRM systems are increasingly able to integrate with third party solutions…
Read More →CRM: The Software
From the new Spark whitepaper, Member Relations: An Association-Centric Approach to Customer Relationship Management: Now that we’re on board with CRM the concept, what about CRM the software? One of the major differences between CRM…
Read More →CRM: The Philosophy
From the new Spark whitepaper, Member Relations: An Association-Centric Approach to Customer Relationship Management: CRM, properly understood, supported, and implemented, helps us manage customer (member and non-member) relationships in a coordinated way across our associations…
Read More →Announcing: Member Relations
I’m excited to launch the second Spark whitepaper – Member Relations: An Association-Centric Approach to Customer Relationship Management, which, with the assistance of George Breeden and Tom Lehman, I recently completed. This week, I’ll be…
Read More →What Makes Community?
Back in the mid-1990s (so, in Internet time, 500 years ago), I was a member of a thriving online community on the Runner’s World website. We shared training regimens, asked each other questions, told race…
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