DISQUS

Pouring your heart and soul into an event only to have people not love it is teh suck and a fact of life. Still, Elizabeth is entitled to her opinions (especially with that fiery red hair!) and I'm inclined to trust them, knowing her like I do. We association people attend and produce a lot of meetings, so we often have strong (and reasonably well-informed) opinions. For example, I agree that 30 minutes of Q&A preceded by 10 minutes of presentation seems out of balance. So I'm a bit confused by the snarky and provocative reactions to her thoughtful, fair and constructive criticism.

(BTW, I drive a Toyota, but I feel I must point out that while GM and Chrysler have accepted bailout money and filed for bankruptcy protection, Ford has not. Thanks for saving us taxpayers a few bones!)

WOW! Not only does uncle Ben run his Prius on rainbows and smiles, he has plenty of rice to go around. Congrats Kari & Zebra!

Definitely worthy of a special announcement! Sounds cool.

You nailed it, Jeff, when you said "'edge' of the experiences." This is how insanely cool conferences are made: With experiences that take you to the edge, and beyond, of what you expected or anticipated. The closest I came to an insanely cool conference experience was ASAE's Nashville Convention. Here's what made it cool for me:

* Virtually everyone was under one roof.
* Surprises everywhere: Acrobats, Harleys, contributing to a conference blog, the first Assn BloggerCon, free ASAE T-shirts, using Members Online to meet attendees even before the conference began.

I heard some good speakers, but nothing earth-shattering. Insanely cool conferences aren't as much about the speakers as they are about the experiences.

Seems to me that the real key to keeping the ships afloat is open ears, but I agree that getting customers to talk with you means loosening the lips.

Very interesting riff, Chris. Thanks for the link!

I just contact the publisher and ask if I may use their photo. When you get their explicit approval you have nothing to fear, and they're always flattered that you thought enough of their work to ask.

It's interesting to see how quickly Google picks up the blog posts. Todd Kaufman will be living with those search results for a long time.

Daniel, so sorry you couldn't make it to Williamsburg for the Convention & Expo. You were missed. I think you can count on another VAR blogger meetup before the next convention in Baltimore.

I've also been in search of a remarkable online community platform.
http://caeexam.blogspot.com/2006/06/may-i-work-...

Please publish your findings!

To the list of multiple access points, I'd add an interactive desktop alert widget similar to Southwest Airlines' DING application. Users could customize if they want to know when an admin posts something, one of their favorite users posts something, a new document is posted, etc. When the alert is activated, users could have the option to interact through the widget, or jump off to the community web site, or post a reply by email.

Thanks for the link. I'm honored.

At times I'm surprised at how formal and well-enforced Wikipedia's community culture is. At other times, it seems very appropriate. Wikipedians serve a spectacularly valuable role, making Wikipedia one of the best resources and most popular sites on the web. I know the grand-poobah Wikipedians are trying to encourage the rest to be accepting of newbies, but it's very hard to influence the behavior of volunteers, especially when you may never actually see them face to face. This is the fatal flaw of a volunteer workforce. In my line of work we say, "You get what you pay for."

Excellent roundup of wikipedia editing tips. I think you've convinced me to be not afraid, even in light of my nine reasons to think twice about playing around in wikipedia: http://caeexam.blogspot.com/2007/06/six-reasons...

I agree. I haven't been affected by any advertising like I have for the promotions for the Simpsons Movie. Granted, I'm a long-time Simpsons fan, but they got me hook line and sinker. As a result, I've visited 7-11 more times in the past 2 months than I have in the past 6, I Simpsonized myself (click thru) and I saw the opening night premiere of the movie. I think what I find most interesting about the 7-11 campaign is that they associated themselves with a setting that isn't portrayed in the most positive light. In the TV show, the store is disgusting. It took a bold person at 7-11 to approve this partnership.

Jake, thanks for following up on this story. Unfortunately, I think you'd find that a lot of associations operate this way. What advice do you have for people who work for membership organizations to make new members like you feel welcome?

Try www.IMified.com for a back door to Twitter. Even if Twitter's IM service goes down, IMified still gets through.

Yes, yes! I like to know what my friends are thinking too! Call me an intellectual voyeur.

Chris, nice digs. Can't wait to start stalking you -- er -- following your tweets. You can follow me at /bkmcae

Blogging about it only makes it stronger!

I have read that it is about to die. See http://www.brandtobedetermined.com/brandtobedet...

I'll definitely do this when Caroline gets a little older, but I can't wait for her to ask the question, "Daddy, when did you decide to become an association executive?"

How about drag n drop?

Thank you for switching to full text RSS feeds!!!

Happy b-day to the ASW!

I like how you've reversed the concept: REWARD the ideal members and SERVICE the other ones in a business-as-usual fashion. Everyone gets what they deserve.