"Digital Edition" Magazine Strategy
The Association Forum of Chicagoland’s Forum magazine is now available in a “digital edition” format—akin to a PDF but enhanced, allowing readers…
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'Bicycle Mechanics Don't Build Airplanes Anymore'
You need specialized staff to do the specialized work of a truly effective website. This overview of Web skills and disciplines will help you rethink…
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10 Lessons for Successful AMS Implementation
Accomplishing an AMS implementation on time and on budget may seem a lofty goal, but it's possible with thorough advance planning and research. Staff…
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10 Technology Tips for Membership Recruitment & Retention
Take advantage of new technologies to better serve your members—and even increase your membership base.
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10 Tips for Less Dysfunction in Email Relationships
Email is a pain, but it doesn't have to be so bad. Make your electronic relationships more meaningful by following simple rules of digital etiquette.…
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10 Tips to Pick Your Best Social Networking Platform
Not sure which social media platform is right for your association? These 10 tips will help.
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10 Warning Signs of a Failing Technology Project
Vague specifications, insufficient lead time, and failure to plan for post-implementation are just a few of the factors that can cause an IT project…
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11 Success Factors for Creating an Online Community
Discussion groups, professional networks, messaging, blogs, and member matching are just a few of the features that can be of great value to associations…
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11 Tips for Successful Web Content Migration
Clever content migration ensures that your newly revamped association website is successful. Follow these 11 steps, including identifying what old…
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3 Digital Publishing Pitfalls
Going digital has hidden hazards. Here's how to avoid creating content that some members can't read, search engines can't find, or hackers might
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3 Keys to a Successful Virtual Workforce
More and more people are working virtually, but the the old-school leadership models that once worked no longer cut it in an environment where coworkers…
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3 Steps to Stay Connected During a Disaster
When disaster strikes, associations can minimize business interruptions by focusing on the three C's of practical business continuity: communication,…
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3 Steps to a Dynamic Website Redesign
Devotion to your project is the key to a website redesign that truly meets members' constantly changing needs. To ensure your new website is a dynamic…
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3 Things You Should Know About Mobile
Some 43 million Americans have smartphones. To get them engaged in your association, remember the importance of relationships, build in interactivity,…
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3 Ways Twitter Can Work for Component Relations
Engaging members in 140 characters or less: that is the goal of CRPs who are embracing Twitter. Jumping on the Twitter bandwagon can help CR professionals…
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34 Online Tools to Simplify Your Communications
Whether you want to share documents, offer live feedback on graphics, or just save money, check out this list of links to applications that cost
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4 Common Problems With Association Websites
Have you taken a really good look at your website lately? Take off those rose-colored glasses and take a look at what outsiders and prospective members…
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4 Vital Questions Web Analytics Can Answer for You
Now it's easier than ever to figure out what your audience wants. This beginner's guide to analytics explains what you can learn and how it may improve…
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4 Ways Video Analysis Can Improve Conferences and Tradeshows
Associations are increasingly turning to video analysis of their trade shows to determine how to improve the return on investment for everyone. Find…
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5 Keys to Engaging Volunteer Leaders in Web Projects
Working with your board to develop your association's online strategy can be either a boon or a boondoggle. Here are five tips for the right way
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5 Legal Pitfalls of the Internet
Here's an important overview—and reminder—of the legal concerns that should be top of mind as your association maintains or expands its presence
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5 Reasons Not to Use PDFs
Although they're easy for you to post, PDFs can give your website's visitors a major pain. One usability expert calls PDFs "the monster from the
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5 Steps to Healthier Ad Sales
If you want a vigorous advertising program, conduct a thorough check-up on everything from your competitive position to your cross-selling opportunities.…
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5 Truths About Self-Forming Groups
Does your association have pockets of members who have formed their own formal or informal groups? Web 2.0 has made these groups ever easier to create,…
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50 Ways to Win Web Traffic
You've built a content-rich Web presence for your association. Now how do you get your members to visit again and again? Get 50 tips on increasing…
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6 Golden Rules for Social Media Conversations
Social media is here to stay. Here are six tips to keep in mind as you get the conversation started.
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6 Ways to Improve Your Email Marketing Response Rates
So many emails, so little excitement. How do you get bigger open rates? Here's an excerpt from 199 Ideas: Powerful Marketing Tactics That Sell,…
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7 Core Principles of Data Management
Hopefully, you're following the guiding principles of effective and successful data management, but it never hurts to double-check.
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7 Digital Ideas to "Socialize" Your Next Tradeshow
With tradeshow attendance down and traditional marketing approaches increasingly less effective, it's more important than ever to use every marketing…
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7 Hidden Hazards of Your Website
Whether you know it or not, legal pitfalls may lurk in your third-party content, your plans to redesign, and even your terms-of-use statement.
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7 Tips to Patch Holes in Your IT Security Blanket
Your association's IT department should provide a strong and whole "security blanket" for everything on your network, your hosted sites, your traveling…
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8 Common Mistakes in Managing Global Virtual Teams
Leading a team of globally dispersed colleagues is no easy task. Find out what common mistakes to avoid and how to remedy them.
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A Checklist for Social Media Legal Notices and Policies
Be prepared for legal concerns related to social media with this checklist.
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A Closer Look at Three Association Super-trends
An environmental scan from ASAE & The Center
identified the supertrends shaping non-profits today
and in the future. How is the field reacting?…
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A Day in the Life (of No IS Staff): Seven Years and Four Stops
Take a trip with a seasoned pro who offers a peek inside the information technology departments of four organizations--or rather, three plus one
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A Question of Relevance
How well associations will be able to sustain themselves in the decades ahead is a matter of considerable debate in the association community. With…
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A Rule of Thumb for Your Web-Redesign Budget
There is a seemingly endless number of variables that must be considered when planning a new association website. Budgeting for your organization's…
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A Web Site to Serve Global Members, Part I
Read how the American Management Association created a Web site to serve its worldwide network of managers, supervisors, and senior executives.
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A Web Site to Serve Global Members, Part II
This final installment in the two-part series provides a framework that will help you create a site to serve your members around the world.
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A Year of Failure Ends in Success
Making a major change in your organizations AMS system can be difficult, especially during a down economy. One small staff association tried it and…
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ACCSCT - Request for Approval
This comprehensive request for approval, submitted by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology, outlines how the author…
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AMS Data Can Drive Marketing and Product Development
Discover how one association improved its marketing through savvy use of AMS data--and how it plans to use collected data in the future.
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ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership - Guest Blogger Policy
Are you looking for a set of guest blogger guidelines for your blog? Then, this sample, submitted by ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership,…
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Accelerating Engagement Online and Beyond
Member engagement is the fuel associations use to reach toward their mission, but many organizations are unsure how to tap into that vital resource.…
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Advertising 2.0
In the new and changing arena of interactive advertising, it's easy to get caught up in the hype around the tools and forget about your goals. Learn…
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Amending Your Bylaws for Electronic Voting
As we are now firmly planted in the internet age, association election processes must adapt. However, these processes are often tied to an association's…
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American Nurses Association Conducts Virtual Board Meeting
When ANA planned its first virtual board meeting, it learned that its current meeting processes needed to be adjusted for the online environment.…
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Analyzing Your Organization's Data Life Cycle
Before selecting a new association management system, determine how your association collects, stores, processes, and disseminates data.
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Annual Meeting Shows How the Social Net Can Work
ASAE & The Center's Annual Meeting & Expo in San Diego demonstrated that adoption of social networking technologies among association professionals…
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Are You PCI Compliant?
Does your association accept credit- or debit-card payments? Are you trying to determine if your organization is compliant with standards set by
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Are You Ready for Your Close-Up?
Use video to add new life to your grassroots communications efforts.
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Are You Safe in the Cloud?
Cloud computing can be a great way to reduce costs and gain access to robust infrastructure. However, there are several questions to answer before…
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Are You at Risk? What Every Association Should Know About Consumer Card Data Security
Chances are, your association allows members to pay for products and services by credit card. Why not, right? It's convenient for members—and…
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Association Idea Experiments
When it comes to great ideas, anyone can have them. When it comes to taking action, only some ideas stand out from the crowd. Four organizations
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Association Internet Ventures: Minimizing Your Legal Risks
A partnership with a dot-com may promise a healthy nondues revenue stream and a great new member service, but the deal must be structured carefully.…
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Association Law & Policy Highlights: July 2010
A monthly summary of recent developments relating to association law.
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Association Law & Policy Highlights—December 2008
A monthly summary of recent developments relating to association legal issues.
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Association Law & Policy Highlights—March 2009
A monthly summary of recent developments relating to association legal issues.
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Association Success as an Iterative Process
Capitalizing on Your Organization's Learning Potential - An introduction by Barbara Byrd Keenan
In their seminal work, Leaders: The…
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Association Web Management: Avoid a Domain Name-Buying Frenzy
How to decide which domain names are mission-critical and which are just a waste of resources.
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Association Web Management: Creating a Web Site Operations Manual
This new column offers useful insights for managing Web-site operations. This month, get a handle on the dreaded task of documenting your job; it's…
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Association Web Management: Learning From Our Experiences
The author shares his top 10 lessons for running a successful association Web operation.
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Association Web Management: Planning for a Non-English Web Site
Here are the steps to take if your association wants to reach an international audience on the Web.
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Association Web Management: Re-Education Review
Do you find yourself giving guided tours to your association's Web site whenever someone can't find what they need? Let staff and members know what's…
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Association Web Management: Reporting Web Site Traffic
Regular traffic reports will help you to analyze and evaluate the performance of your Web site.
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Associations Increase B2B and B2C E-Business Efforts
While associations generally lag behind the corporate world in Internet-based business, today an average 4 percent of new members are recruited via…
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Attraction
In the battle to find and keep the best staff, it’s necessary to develop an employment branding strategy. Here’s how to adopt one in your association,…
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Backups: Not the Same Old Article
Be sure your backup system is saving all of your association data—regardless of how or when your colleagues are working.
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Balancing Website Security and Usability
Is cumbersome website security limiting your site's success and hurting your relationship with site users? Here are some tips for making your website…
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Be Agile and User-Centered for Success in a Down Economy
The last thing your executive leadership wants to hear is that they need to make another investment in technology. But online commerce, communication,…
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Before Getting SaaS-y: Things to Consider
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is a hosted software application that is provided to your organization over the internet by a vendor. Your organization…
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Before Your ISP Goes Bankrupt
Avoid an Internet service provider disaster by developing a contingency plan to keep your association online.
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Behind the Firewall
Does members-only content create real value or only an illusion of it? Both, according to a recent survey.
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Being Open is the New Way to Lead
With social technologies that spread knowledge and collaboration with ease, today's new leaders are embracing a strategy of openness. But letting…
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Best of the Blogs
As an early adapter to the world of Web logs, or blogs, the Air Conditioning Contractors of America has many lessons to reveal to associations looking…
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Blog Brushfire
In this month’s Associations Now case study, an association faces a groundswell of negative opinion. What’s the right way to respond?
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Breaking Up Is Hard to Do
The right outside partner can be a dream come true for your association. When that dream butts up against ugly reality, is it too late to repair
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Build Conference Buzz With Social Media
A meeting or conference is a perfect opportunity to use social media in a way that both develops community engagement and builds excitement for the…
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Build a Mission-Friendly IT Department
If your association's vision of IT is a staff in the basement working on a host of dull-but-necessary tasks, you're selling your employees short
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Building Virtual Components
Is your organization considering creating one or more "virtual components"? Judging from the explosive growth of virtual communities all over the…
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Building Your Personal Brand in Bits and Bytes
When was the last time you googled a colleague or vice versa? It's becoming commonplace for people to research one another online before they ever…
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Building a Social Network of Online Supporters
The Lift One program benefiting poor families and children around the globe realized the potential of grassroots campaigning and other internet tools…
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Building the Future on Member Value: Codevelopment as a Key to Customer Relationships in the 21st Century
Associations need a fundamental shift in their orientation
from programs, services, or advocacy positions
to delivering value to their members.…
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CEO to CEO: Tech Strategy and Job Wish Lists
How do you integrate technology into your association’s strategy? What’s one thing your job doesn’t allow you to do that you wish you could do?
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CUES in Web Wonderland
Exploring online applications much as Alice explored Wonderland, one organization found that calculated risks yielded a bonanza of benefits, including…
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Can You Truly Be Microsoft-Free?
Choosing Linux or the Mac OS X operating system can help meet your organization's IT needs without relying on Microsoft. But just because you can…
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Card Sorting: Stacking the Deck for Better Navigation
Card sorting during a website redesign can save users' time in the long run.
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Cashing in on Internet Job Banks
It attracts visitors to the Web site and creates interest in the profession and association. It's easy to manage, almost problem-free, and has little,…
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Chasing a Moving Target: Vertical Online Communities and VerticalNet Revisited
When VerticalNet emerged, association executives wondered how these online business-to-business communities would impact their organizations.
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China: The Next Frontier for Associations?
For all its promise, China is not an easy market to
penetrate. Language and cultural barriers, government
control and corruption, financial and…
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Click Here to Start
As online bulletin boards, blogs, and social networking sites have come online, many associations have built web-based communities—only to see them…
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Cloud Computing: A Passing Storm or the New Direction?
Cloudcomputing allows users to access supercomputer-level power while only paying for the amount of services consumed. Using a thin client or other…
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Cloud Computing: What You Need to Know
Cloud computing has nothing to do with the weather, but it does offer a realm of new and often more affordable options for IT products and services.…
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Communicating and Marketing Online
This is your one-stop resource for meeting your members' needs via online tools. This compendium of carefully selected article reprints will help…
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Communicating with Emergency Room Pace and Precision
When it's a matter of life and death, you better believe you learn how to communicate fast. Here are lessons all associations can learn from health-related…
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