Advice for the Emerging Association Professional (Guest Post by @kikilitalien)

After spending 12 years working in the association world, I am no longer considered an “emerging association professional”.  I could throw in a joke about this just meaning I’m getting old, but instead I wear it as a badge of honor! People from all walks of association life offer lunch or coffee, looking  to me for advice on how to successfully maneuver the mysterious and well-acronymed ocean that is the association industry!  Naturally, I look forward to any excuse for good conversation with a new acquaintance and these requests are both flattering and equally informative for me.

What follows serves as my general advice on how to best engage as an emerging association professional … coffee not included….

Rule #1: Take Charge of Your Own Professional Development

To advance in any profession, you must remain the perpetual student. Your education doesn’t end after university. Many organizations offer some kind of professional development stipend to help foster personal and professional growth. Know what kind of professional development support you have, but don’t stop there! Many conferences offer scholarships for people who might otherwise be unable to attend. You may also offer to volunteer or blog about the event in exchange for registration.

Whatever you do, please join your industry’s association. It should come as no surprise that the association world has its very own Association (CSAE, ASAE). The experience you gain from meeting a large number of people serving memberships similar to yours is immensely valuable. Helpful tips on membership retention, member value, price of engagement, and so much more from across the spectrum of the association world are waiting for you to reap from others in your field.

Participating in your industry’s association may also provide you the opportunity to speak at future events and conferences. Becoming an adept public speaker can help you professionally in countless ways as well as making you infinitely more employable in the future.

Through continued learning you may even wish to pursue becoming a Certified Association Executive (CAE).   You’ll need to spend some time in the industry first. However, if you think you might go that direction, it’s never too soon to start learning about CAE requirements and areas of study you will want to research ahead of time.

Rule #2: Don’t Undervalue Your Role Because of Your Paycheck

Being an “emerging” anything usually means your paycheck isn’t what you’d like it to be. As an emerging association professional, this can be disheartening to say the least. As you are learning about your membership, caring for it, and bemoaning the antiquated ways your association operates (“You mean you still receive dues via fax?”), it can be frustrating to see the reflection of your labor in your humble paycheck.

Remember: everyone “starts” somewhere, and it’s not where you start, but where you finish that counts!
I remember spending long hours in the office in the beginning; always one of the last to leave. True, there was much I needed to learn, but I also felt a charged sense of urgency. Surely no one saw things the way I did – otherwise there would be more change!  Frustration was an everyday event that sometimes felt would never end.  But still that energy grew, much like I’m sure it’s growing within you today.

Use that energy. Learn as much as possible.  Be aggressive!

Ask more questions than you feel comfortable. There are oftentimes internal politics at play that make seemingly obvious answers impossible to play out. Find another way. Do not, under any circumstances, believe that the size of your paycheck determines your worth to the office. Your paycheck will grow as you garner more experience. But always be prepared to show why you are ready for more responsibility, learning opportunities, and (eventually) money.

Rule #3: Participate In Associations as a Volunteer

There is no better teacher than experience. Volunteering as a council member or in any role, really, is one of the best ways you can begin to understand your members.  Initially serving on ASAE’s Component Relations Section Council was an extremely “meta” experience for me . I was used to putting together the schedule for my association’s councils, not serving as a council member. However, once I served as a council member, I began to better understand what a council member looks for from the association.

In the meantime, you will still learn what it is to be a member of an association. How much marketing impacts you, how well your milestones are tracked, what it’s like to deal with customer service; all of this will become research fodder for you in your work as an emerging association professional.

Rule #4: Expand Your Network

Proactively work at building relationships and expanding your circle professionally, so that you are constantly learning from those people around you. In addition to all of the networking benefits you will receive in the form of job offers, brainstorming, and reputation building; you will also cultivate your conversation skills and improve on your experiential knowledge.

You should start working to build your reputation early on by meeting as many people as possible and sharing with them your projects and stories….the types of things that will help leave a lasting impression of you. As time goes on, you will find that your reputation will carry more weight than your resume.  Don’t expect this to happen over-night,  but it will happen.

Your association is not the only place to connect. I am particularly fond of other ways to network, like Association Chat, for example. Association Chat, originally created by industry leader Jeff De Cagna and hosted by yours truly, KiKi L’Italien (@kikilitalien), is a weekly chat on Twitter that hosts discussions about the topics of the day for associations. The chat uses the hashtag #AssnChat and happens every Tuesday at 2 pm EST.

The final tip I’ll leave you with today:  Find a mentor!  Find two…find twenty! Mentors are worth their weight in gold because they can provide perspective in tough situations, as often they have been through similar struggles. Mentors can also help guide you to new opportunities you might have never otherwise known existed.  They’ve walked the walk, and talked the talk.  Lean on them whenever possible.
In the comments, please share your own advice, or ask questions if you like. I will answer as quickly as I read them and I am sure readers will appreciate the thought.

KiKi L'Italien. She's the Senior Social Media Consultant for Aptify and the weekly coordinator of #Assnchat, the weekly Tuesday afternoon Twitter conversation about association news and matters. If you'd like to join us on Twitter for #Assnchat, it's Tuesdays at 2pm. Check out her blog here.  

Your non-members - friends or foes?

Working for an association that does not have a certification or compliance function means being challenged daily to demonstrate a tangible return on investment to renewing, non-renewing and new professionals who do not feel the need to belong.

I believe that associations ignore opportunities to engage with non- members at their peril.  In 2011 my association (The Canadian Library Association) took a brave decision to directly engage with non-members through a new concept that now stands at  twenty four (24) groups and growing.  These discrete units mix members and non-members who share ideas and best practices, develop programs both for our annual conference and for a series of webinars throughout the year and lastly they take advocacy positions on issues of particular interest to them.  

Unofficial surveys of these non-members indicate that there is an awareness of the CLA and the role it plays within the library community in Canada.  Our newest network will look after the needs of new professionals just beginning their careers. The expectation is that at least 10% (approximately 60) of the non-members in these networks will eventually engage as members.  Plans are in train to reach out to these non-members to invite them to join.

I should  perhaps define what I mean by a ‘non-member’.  In my opinion, there are at least four categories of non-member:

1. The former member (non-member in the sense that they have deliberately let their membership lapse).   We have contacted them on four or more occasions and they have indicated they will not renew.  Their reasons range from budget constraints, no longer in the industry, they have moved and lastly attempts to reconnect with them have not been successful
2. The episodic non-member.  This is the member who has let their membership lapse only to reactivate it when the annual conference or some other association event is of interest to them.
3. The peripheral member.  I call these ‘members’ in the loosest sense of the word.  They may or may not be former members who have found ways, perhaps through social media to engage with our association.
4. The potential member.  The non-member in the industry who has not considered joining to date.

Where the first three categories above are concerned, a critical key to success is the maintenance of an up-to-date database.  I would argue that this is as important as the member database itself as it provides valuable data that can be used to contact individuals who have demonstrated varying degrees of openness to belonging.  Of course messaging would be different depending on which group is being targeted.

I keep a close eye on these membership campaigns, noting feed-back and also paying attention to results particularly renewals from lapsed members.  There are two main reasons why former members will decide to renew.  As stated above, a) our annual conference is taking place in their province and it is worthwhile to re-join for this reason alone or b) one of our advocacy initiatives has raised their perception of our association and they decide to give us another chance.

I would respectfully argue that the fourth and last group is the one that will require the most resources, both in terms of financial and human.  This last group of potential members will be the hardest to recruit.  Studies have shown that targeting lapsed, episodic or peripheral members will yield more immediate results than trying to break new ground with potential members.  In today’s tough budgetary climate where association dollars are closely monitored, potential members will need to ‘kick the tyres’ so to speak before making a commitment and this is where a ‘try us for a month/or three’ might bring some tangible results.  We will investigate and research this option and would be very happy to share results with readers. Conversely, if you have had some success with this approach targeting new members, we would love to hear from you.

In conclusion, I submit that our non-members are very definitely our friends and a careful, measured and thoughtful approach to engaging with them will bring tangible results, perhaps not today or tomorrow, but in the future.  If nothing else it will demonstrate that we care.

This post was provided by Geraldine Hyland, CAE, Member Services Manager with the Canadian Library Association.  She has worked for over fifteen years in the charities and not-for-profit sector in Canada and received her CAE in 2004.

Latest CSAE Ottawa-Gatineau Executive now available

In this issue....

• A Canadian First!  Congrats to George Weber, CAE for recently being awarded the Henry Davison Award for humanitarianism.  
• In a recent MarCom session, social media advisor Sue Murphy (@suzemuse) shared blogging best practices.  Click here to learn more. 
• What are you going to be forced to deal with and what will change?  The answer is simple: EVERYTHING!  Check out this article about Managing Change.  
• If you are a (or, have a) Young Professional, you may want to get involved with the recently launched Young Professionals Group within the chapter.  They recently held their first event, and it has been re-capped here. 
• Unable to attend our chapter's Christmas Social?  Click here to see what you missed!  
• Have you identified any workplace challenges?  There was a workshop discussing how association's can the best value from Human Resources - check out the tips and best practices here.  

Embrace Hybrid Meetings

Join us on January 22nd at the Centurion Conference and Event Centre for what is shaping up to be a fantastic panel discussion on Hybrid Meetings.

One of our panelists, Mahoganey Jones, suggests that planners don't need to be technology experts; rather planners need to embrace it and learn which models work best for the event.  See her video below:

Panelists are:

Samuel J. Smith, Managing Director, Interactive Meeting Technology (via video conference)

Mitchell Beer, President, Smarter Shift

Mahoganey Jones, Manager, Continuing Professional Development, Canadian Opthalmological Society

Session moderator:

Doreen Ashton Wagner, Chief Strategist, Greenfield Services Inc.

Read more about them through their bios here.

For more information on the session, or to register, please click here.  If you cannot attend in person, we highly recommend attending virually - the session will be live at 12:45pm.  Please follow this link to attend online. We hope to see you there!

Hybrid Meetings - Have You Registered?

Join us on January 22nd at the Centurion Conference and Event Centre for what is shaping up to be a fantastic panel discussion on Hybrid Meetings.

One of our panelists, Mitchell Beer, has shared some views on Hybrid Meetings and their affect on the meetings industry.  See his video below:

Panelists are:

Samuel J. Smith, Managing Director, Interactive Meeting Technology (via video conference)

Mitchell Beer, President, Smarter Shift

Mahoganey Jones, Manager, Continuing Professional Development, Canadian Opthalmological Society

Session moderator:

Doreen Ashton Wagner, Chief Strategist, Greenfield Services Inc.

Read more about them through their bios here.

For more information on the session, or to register, please click here.  We hope to see you there!

Hybrid Meetings - Myths, Opportunities and Lessons Learned

Join us on January 22nd at the Centurion Conference and Event Centre for what is shaping up to be a fantastic panel discussion on Hybrid Meetings.

The panel's moderator, Doreen Ashton Wagner, has shared some thoughts leading up to this session.  See her video below:

Panelists are:

Samuel J. Smith, Managing Director, Interactive Meeting Technology (via video conference)

Mitchell Beer, President, Smarter Shift

Mahoganey Jones, Manager, Continuing Professional Development, Canadian Opthalmological Society

Read more about them through their bios here.

For more information on the session, or to register, please click here.  We hope to see you there!

Top Ten Reasons to Book Within The Block

Managing hotel room inventory has often been compared to managing airline seats.  There are so many ways for delegates to secure a room for our conference while it is our responsibility to ensure they understand why it makes a difference to book within the block that we have secured on their behalf.

Group rate has been negotiated. 

The principles of ‘economy of scale’ are applied here as a group is consuming in volume.  Hotel rates are based on availability vs. occupancy.  As a delegate within the block you have priority to extending your stay prior/post the event at the conference rate.

You get what you pay for.

Booking with a discount website (Expedia; Hotels.com) may offer a low rate but do not expect to have the waterfront view or to have flexibility to make any changes to the booking.  The quality of the room you get is often based on the reservation method.

Staying outside of the block also costs more money in taxis getting to and from the conference – not to mention the inconvenience.

It is an easy purchase ~ online from your organization website or direct by phone

In advance there has been tremendous effort invested to ensure the group rate has been negotiated to be the ‘best available or lower’ over the dates of the program.  Your organizations’ needs and requirements have been communicated to the hotel and they are ready to accept reservations.  Often there are special benefits extended to delegates at the time of reservation which you would forfeit by not identifying that you are with ‘the group’.  

Convenient customer service with the hotel. 

When you book into the group block, you are identified as a special guest.  By booking at another hotel, it limits you to the level of service you will receive if your reservation is not within the host hotel.  This would include the concierge services and special relationships that the hotels have with cultural events including festivals and being able to get you preferred tickets or dinner reservations.

No questions asked when you make changes to your reservation(s).

As you are identified with the group, you receive the benefit of the collective value.  Your organization has ensured that you are included in the pre-negotiated understanding that you may need to make changes to your reservation.

Delegates within group are extended priority by the hotel.  

Like guests in your home, special attention is focused on their needs.  If there are only so many reservations taken for a popular onsite restaurant/event, the hotel guests are considered to be on the ‘A List’.

Convenient shuttle bus service (arranged transportation)

When you are within the identified host hotels, you have the benefit to having door-to-door service.

Accessible onsite information for delegates about the offsite events.

The itinerary and schedule printout is never close at hand when you really need it!  Hotel staff is well aware of your itinerary and can tell you exactly where your onsite or offsite events are being held.  If required, they can also hail you a taxi to get there.

Support your organization

Your stay counts!  Staying within the block increases the overall spend to the hotel which helps your organization meet their commitments to the hotel.  There are a number of costs that your organization has taken responsibility for to ensure the success of the conference.  Your support to stay in the block is appreciated.  

Increased networking opportunities with your colleagues.

Staying at the host hotel ensures that you have access to your fellow delegates.  Those serendipitous connections are often the best takeaways and staying at the hotel increases the chances of you making those connections.  

This post by submitted by Brenda Howes, Founder & CEO of The Howes Group, a global site selection company that advocates for clients to secure the best value for hotel room block contracts for conferences and meetings.