The Rise (and Fall) of Twitter

And other social media platforms, for organizational use. Thanks to the efforts of my web firm, the Spark blog has posts that go back to 2008, when I first started association blogging at Thanks For…

Read More →

Focus in a Distracted Era

I recently had the opportunity to attend my first Prometheus Retreat (more on that in a minute), and it got me thinking about the concepts of connection, distraction, unplugging, and focus, issues I’ve written about…

Read More →

Your Meetings Suck

But they don’t have to. I don’t mean your Annual Meeting, of course. If that sucks, you have MUCH bigger problems. I mean those 2 hour snooze-fests where 50% of your staff sits there on…

Read More →

Becoming a Leader

There’s plenty of advice on what it takes to be a good leader, but in my own experience, it doesn’t matter how curious or analytical or resilient you are if people don’t trust you enough…

Read More →

Of Crowdsourcing and Cassandras

Reupping this post I wrote back in 2009 about crowdsourcing, because my larger point is, I think, even more relevant in 2024. Jeff Howe, who is credited with coining the term “Crowdsourcing,” was the opening…

Read More →

Dump the Performance Review!

We all know that one of the top reasons people voluntarily leave their jobs is bad management. Bad management can express itself in a variety of ways: the infamous “one person screwed up/took advantage of…

Read More →

“It’s About Delight”

Seth Godin recently had a sort of silly story about a recent experience at Whole Foods. Which is all well and good. But one thing particularly struck me: “It’s not about charging less. It’s about…

Read More →

Content Curation: Your Association’s Secret Weapon Against Information Overload

This link refers to an outdated blog post that’s been removed. May I suggest instead….? Content Curation Revisited The Spark / Content Co. collaborative whitepaper, Cut Through the Clutter: Content Curation, Associations’ Secret Weapon Against…

Read More →

Associations and Climate Change: The Podcast

Many of the options for responding to climate change we’re offered are at the super-macro (UN COP meetings) or super-micro (get an electric car!) levels. What about all the stuff in the middle? You know,…

Read More →

Associations Creating Community to Address Climate Change

Shelly Alcorn and I recently sat down (virtually) to talk with Whiteford, Taylor & Preston’s Jefferson Glassie about The Time Is Now: Association Resilience and Adaptation and the Anthropocene Climate Disruption, our recently-released whitepaper that…

Read More →