Blog
Associations, Chapters, and Climate Change
My co-author Shelly Cumbie Alcorn and I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Mariner Management’s Peggy Hoffman to discuss The Time Is Now: Association Resilience and Adaptation and the Anthropocene Climate Disruption, our…
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What Do You Believe In?
I’m pretty much just re-upping this post, because it’s a good one. Back in 2011, Bisnow published an article that included this quote: When you ask most people about their jobs, they tell you what…
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Filling Your Well of Ideas
With a significant portion of the association community (although not me) in Cleveland this week for ASAE24, I’ve been thinking about ideas and how we all go about getting them. One of the challenges of…
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Who’s Allowed to Have an Idea?
I’ve been thinking about innovation a lot recently, in part because of a big client project that just wrapped up and in part because the tenth anniversary of Innovate the Lean Way: Applying Lean Startup Methodology…
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Pay It Forward
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my 27 years in association management is: When somebody hits you up with a request for a favor in a professional context, ALWAYS try to help…
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Who’s Allowed to Make the Call?
Another observation that has fascinated me since my earliest years in associations is: Who’s allowed to make the call? What do I mean by that? Well, if you search for “stories of outstanding customer service,”…
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Who’s Allowed to Be Honest?
One of the observations that has fascinated me the most over my years of consulting is this question: Who’s allowed to be honest? What do I mean by that? Well, let’s flip it around. Have…
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What Are Your Loss Leaders?
A few years ago (pre-pandemic), I had the chance to attend an invite-only business book launch event with a room full of (other than me) pretty high-level people. Puzzlingly, the author, rather than giving their…
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Have It Your Way
Almost 14 years ago, I addressed a question first raised by Jeff Dc Canga: How will we manage the change from a pre-set package of options (membership) to an individually negotiated exchange of value? In…
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Don’t Stop Thinkin’ About Tomorrow
Fourteen years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a futurist session held in honor of the 50th anniversary of the CAE program. After a dense presentation by facilitator Marsha Rhea, we broke into 10-year,…
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