Editor’s note: The following is a Q&A with Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE, an association veteran and CEO of Spark Consulting, as well as a regular volunteer at the Capital Area Food Bank (CAFB), the beneficiary of our 11th Annual .org Community Food Drive, which runs through May 21, 2013. Many thanks to Elizabeth for sharing her story on our blog! If you have a food bank story to share, please let us know in the comments, or contact us.

When and why did you start volunteering at the Capital Area Food Bank?

I’ve supported CAFB for probably 15 years, but until recently, it was in one of three ways: donating money, participating in office food drives, or going to volunteer with HandsOn Greater DC Cares at one of their three big annual community service days usually with a team from my office.

You’ll notice two of those three involve colleagues and co-workers. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is something that’s always been important to me. When I launched Spark Consulting last summer, I figured that was the end of my CSR projects, since it’s just me.

Then, around the holidays, I had an epiphany: at my last association job, one of the things I advocated for was to allow employees to engage in volunteer work during business hours on a regular basis (the team working on this had proposed up to one day per quarter). We weren’t successful, but the thing is, I’m my own boss now. If I want to do regular volunteer work during business hours, I can! 

CAFB was immediately on the top of my list for investing my CSR volunteer time. I believe strongly in the work that they do; they need volunteers year round; and, while they usually have no trouble filling their volunteer slots on weekends, they often need volunteers during the week. Perfect match!

You’re a regular volunteer. How often do you go and what do you do? Do you volunteer alone or with a spouse/friend/group?

I volunteer at CAFB one morning a month, usually the first Friday. I do whatever they need me to do, which is usually something to do with sorting and/or packing food. If your office has ever run a food drive, you’re familiar with the tall CAFB cardboard collection boxes. After the boxes are dropped off at the warehouse, volunteers like me sort those donations by type/category, so that the various agencies CAFB serves can more easily get the items they need to, in turn, serve their constituents who are facing food insecurity. We also pack sorted donations into boxes for distribution. One of my favorite tasks is when we get to pack the Weekend Bags for kids. 

I go alone, but I’m always in a team with other volunteers, and have met some really terrific, generous, community minded people while I work.

What have you learned that might have surprised you or had a real impact on you?

I’ve learned that people in the DMV are incredibly generous with their time and resources. Even though I go during the week, there are always large groups of volunteers of all ages, genders, races/ethnicities, backgrounds, careers, locations, etc., at the CAFB warehouse. Although there are plenty of parent/teenager combos, and church groups, and school groups, there are also plenty of people from all walks of life there by themselves investing a morning in giving back to their community.

The other thing that’s always shocking is to realize exactly how many people in our region deal with food insecurity. The Washington Post recently ran articles on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, colloquially known as “food stamps”) in Florida and Rhode Island, which makes it seem like it’s somebody else’s problem in some other location. The DC area is one of the country’s most affluent, and yet even here, hundreds of thousands of our neighbors don’t know where their next meal is coming from. CAFB and the agencies they support aim to fix that.

Do you recommend the food bank as a volunteer opportunity for others? How would they get started?

Absolutely! As a matter of fact, CAFB is a great place to start being a regular volunteer, for all the reasons I listed above, plus two more: Mr. Washington and David, the two men who manage all the warehouse volunteers, make it incredibly easy to understand what you’re supposed to do and how you’re supposed to do it; and two, CAFB makes it incredibly easy to volunteer, with an online calendar system where you can see what kind of help they need where and when, and sign up immediately.

My next scheduled volunteer date is Friday morning, June 7. If, like me, you can’t make the DelCor volunteer night Friday, May 30, maybe I’ll see you there?

Have you ever watched a younger kid go up to the self-service soda fountain in a restaurant – like the ones you find at Five Guys? There is a skill to knowing when to say “when” so that the soda doesn’t overflow the cup – and that skill comes into play with projects, too. When undertaking a project, it can be easy to let the scope expand as new ideas arise or an overlooked need is identified. However, it is critical to ensure that your project is appropriately scoped according to the time and budget allocated to the project. Otherwise, you’re likely to end up with a sticky mess.

For more tips on avoiding sticky messes, sign up to attend Progress U. on June 20, 2013, and rev up your project management engine!

Photo by whitaker

Our 11th Annual .org Community Food Drive for the Capital Area Food Bank is under way, now through May 21. Our goal is to raise $15,000 to help the food bank continue to serve nearly half a million of our neighbors throughout Metropolitan Washington who are at risk of hunger. Thank you to the more than 2 dozen organizations who have signed on to support this community-based, community-wide effort! Please visit www.delcor.com/fooddrive to learn how you can make a positive impact in our community.

On the blog last month, we covered two topics at the intersection of human resources and information technology.

• HR and IT – what do they have in common? (a checklist for employee termination) (Mike Higgins: April 15, 2013)
• The hiring project: using project management to select the right candidate (Gretchen Steenstra: April 30, 2013)

In early April, we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the first cell phone call. Things sure have changed since the days of the “brick”! Kylee Coffman explores the land of the confusion that many of us inhabit today, thanks to vast changes in technology.

• Technology: bridging the generational gap (April 8, 2013)

Finally, we invite you to Rev up your PM engine! In our latest Progress U. installment, coming June 20, we’ll explore project management tips for everyone, to help you get in the fast lane and drive your projects into the winner’s circle. Gas up, buckle your seat belt, and speed on over to www.nowthatsprogress.com to get ready for this road trip!

Although I’m not attending ASAE’s Finance, Human Resources, and Business Operations Conference this week, my colleagues are, and I have some insight to share on the intersection of HR and project management.

This may not be the best way to score candidates.

Recently I had to dust off my interview hat and refresh myself on the skills needed to interview a person, which is different than interviewing staff as part of a project. In preparation, I gathered information from peers who had recently hired a similar position; I reviewed position descriptions of similar organization; I met with the HR team. Finally, I was ready to develop my scorecard.

After reviewing all of my interview materials, I decided to organize them using a project charter template. Did it work? Yes!

The Position Charter included all of the key areas that are included in a Project Charter.

1. Project Purpose and Objectives: state the high-level summary of the position.
2. Goals: outline the goals and competencies of the position.
3. Alignment with Organizational Goals: outline how the position will support organizational goals.
4. Measurement/Acceptance Criteria: create a scorecard with questions for each candidate and a scoring system.
5. Final Deliverables: hire a new employee.
6. Risks/Constraints: define risks associated with the hiring process, including the possibilities that the top candidate does not accept the offer, no candidates fulfill the position requirements, or the top candidate’s salary requirements are over budget. 
7. Stakeholders: determine which staff members need to be included in the hiring process.
8. Timeline: develop a timeline for recruitment, initial screening, initial interviews, second interviews, offers, contract, and orientation.
9. Budget: develop initial salary and benefits package with HR.

After I developed my Position Charter, I compiled a variety of interview questions that would support my overview document. One of my favorite references for this project was Who: The A Method for Hiring by Geoff Smart and Randy Street. This book has several key points about the stages of the interview process that were of particular interest to me. 

Learn about the candidate.

It is important to ask questions about what the candidate has accomplished and learned during his or her career, rather than what they would like to do. Everyone has great ideas about what they would like to do, but life is usually not that simple. What a person has actually accomplished is much more important. It is also important to try to learn a potential employee’s decision-making and thought process. 

• What are your career goals?
• What are you really good at professionally?
• What are you not good at or not interested in doing professionally?
• What are you passionate about?

Job History

• Who are your last 5 bosses and how will they each rate your performance on a 1-10 scale when we call them?
  • This is an interesting twist outlined in the book. A friend used this method to interview a candidate who looked perfect on paper and during the initial interview. During the longer interview, as the candidate described their work history, a behavior pattern emerged that would not have been identified asking typical interview questions. During this process, my friend’s candidate actually said, ‘“I don’t mean to yell at people.” Yikes.
   
• It is helpful to ask about job history in sequential order for the past 2-4 positions. Ask lots of probing questions: how, what, and tell me more:
  • What were you hired to do?
  • What accomplishments are you most proud of?
  • What were some low points during the job?
  • How would you rate the team you inherited on a grading scale? What changes did you make? Did you hire anybody? Fire anybody? How would you rate the team when you left?
  • Why did you leave that job?
  • Have you created a team and fostered cooperation?
  • How have you oriented a new senior staff member on a technical project? How have your oriented a new team member during the middle of a project?
  • How do you gather requirements?
   

Questions from the candidate

After asking the candidate many questions about their career history and goals, it was the candidate’s turn to ask me about the position. I layered this section of the discussion with the initial overview of the organization and position with the candidate’s experience and comments. I also talked about the culture of the organization and made intangible observations that would help determine candidate fit.

Close the meeting

At this point in each interview, I had a fairly good idea of the probability of a second interview. If the candidate was strong, I tried to close by selling the position and organization. If the candidate was not as strong, I closed the meeting by reviewing the general recruitment process.

Evaluation

After each interview I updated my scorecard with answers to key questions and added basic weights to each question. For this position, culture and fit were as important as technical ability. I discovered that the selection of a staff position was very similar to selecting a new software application. The familiar project management tools were very helpful when I applied them to my non-technical project.

How have you applied project management techniques unconventionally? Tell me in the comments!

photo: Malingering

What does IT have to do with HR? Typically IT and HR have onboarding checklists and separation procedures for employees, but it is rare that the effort is coordinated.

When HR and IT join forces, important steps are not overlooked and miscommunication is avoided. This becomes critical when HR has to move quickly to add a new staff member or an employee is terminated.

In a perfect world, the association would have policies and procedures in place to monitor the organization’s intellectual (and physical) property. In this perfect world, we would have a crystal ball to know when employees will leave the organization and have a map of all of their contacts, relationships, and data important to the association.

In most cases, this does not exist or is not enforced.

So, we created a sample checklist to abide by when staff changes occur quickly or unexpectedly. Consider amending it to account for your special circumstances, and incorporate it into the standard staff exit plan shared by your HR and IT departments. (If you do not already have a clear onboarding process, modify this exit checklist to create one – and make sure your entry/exit checklists are in sync, with no gaps between the two.)

Sample Employee Termination Checklist for IT

Initiation

• Once HR determines the need, timing, and terms of separation, HR notifies IT to conduct the following tasks

Phone

• Change telephone voicemail password
• Change outgoing voicemail message in accordance with association’s communication guidelines
• Assign someone to monitor voicemail

Email & Network Access

• Change password in Active Directory or in email system if different than Active Directory
• If a personal cell phone or tablet was set up to access association email, wipe or remove the email account
• Create out-of-office message on email box in accordance with association’s communication guidelines
• Remove terminated employee from generic email distribution lists, such as “all staff”
• Remove terminated employee from specialized email distribution lists or aliases
  • Make sure someone else is a member, so messages are not overlooked
   
• Provide access to terminated employee’s email and files (local and network)
  • Ensure that any association files that may have been stored in the cloud (i.e., Dropbox) are stored on the network
  • Determine who will need access to the terminated employee’s network files
  • Assign someone to monitor email
  • Determine length of time email box will be available
   

Property

• Recover association’s physical property in possession of the terminated employee (i.e., laptop, cell phone, security key, home printer, software)
• Require terminated employee to sign a document confirming that all property has been returned to the association

Personnel

• Require related staff to change their passwords if there is any risk of shared passwords
• Contact vendors that the terminated employee managed or worked with, including, but not limited to:
  • Enterprise system support (finance, AMS, HRIS, Intranet, etc.)
  • Office access
  • Payroll
  • Banking
   
• Remove terminated employee from authorized list of contacts
• Remove or change credentials (usernames/passwords)
• Add a replacement staff person if necessary

What would you add to your termination checklist to keep your IT and network secure?

photo by Scott Beale

A while ago, I went to a wedding in Luckenbach, Texas. The tiny town with a population of 2 isn’t a hotbed for hotels, so the bride had a wedding block at a little inn in Fredericksburg, Texas. While standing in line at the counter, waiting to check-in and receive the keys to our room, I listened to the innkeeper explain how a keycard works to the elderly patron at the desk. Still waiting (the innkeeper was experiencing an issue with her computer), I saw the elderly man take his suitcase to his room and battle with the keycard. Another guest walked past and stopped to show him how it worked. Hours later as we were leaving to head to the wedding, I saw him again, alone, frustrated and fumbling with the keycard.

It was hard to watch.

Later, in my room that night, I toyed with the remote and fumbled among the blackened screen, searching for the right button that might lead me to a guide or menu or channel. Then, I thought of the old man again and his keycard. If this TV is challenging for me right now, what was he going through in his room? Imagine the difference between our TV options of today and the box with three channels I grew up with in the not-so-long-ago 1980s. I thought of all the technologies that my husband and I used to book our travel, reserve our rental car, map our way to the hotel and the little town of Fredericksburg using GPS, and how difficult some of these new technologies must be for those elderly folks out there that didn’t spend the majority of their lives online.

When consulting with clients, many times I hear about the tug of war with technology and generational shifts happening among staff and members. Some of them are annoyed that their staff can’t learn to Tweet. Others are annoyed by a staff person’s need to overshare online. One client shared a story about a meeting comprised of their senior leadership who were thrilled when one member showed the rest of them how to take and text photos.

This is the world we live in. (This is the land of confusion.)

All of this is to stress why mentoring, teaching, and training our members and staff is vital.  With 5 generations now in the workplace, associations can’t afford to backtrack to print-only options and faxed registration forms, but they also can’t forget the challenges the non-tech-savvy face trying to perform simple tasks.

How different my hotel experience in Fredericksburg must have been compared to the elderly gentleman’s that day.

What mentoring programs does your organization have in place to help your staff master new technologies? How are you communicating your online offerings to your diverse audience(s) and helping to bridge the gap?

It may be April Fools’ Day, but we aren’t joking with you. Instead, we’re taking a look back at our March blog posts.

Gamification has been a hot topic among conference planners and online marketers in the last few years. But real gamers have been behind the pinball levers, joysticks, and keyboards for decades. (In fact, some of them may have never left that position.) Andrew Leggett explores this basement-dwelling crowd as a possible source of cause-related donations.

• Gaming for charity: tips for associations & nonprofits to get in the game (March 6, 2013)

Sadly, some serious crime events have been in the news recently. Sarah Manwell does her best Veronica Mars impersonation, and takes a look at a lighter crime you might be familiar with: IT muggings.

• How to avoid a technology mugging (March 14, 2013)

The Avectra Users & Developers Conference was held in early March in sunny Orlando, and we were there to learn and play, as usual. In return, we offer reflections on the event from a newcomer and a veteran.

• #AUDC13 – the road to relevance, social media spirit animals, & leis (Kylee Coffman: March 18, 2013)
• A veteran’s view – the how and why of technology at #AUDC13 (Gretchen Steenstra: March 19, 2013)

Finally, Joseph Frey offers some tips for preventing webinar disasters. (Think zombie apocalypse, only virtual.) What can go wrong 5 minutes before your webinar? Find out what happened at one association, and how they recovered.

• Murphy’s law of webinar presentations (March 26, 2013)

Connect with DelCor: April Happenings

Ever-attracted to sunny climes, Diane Stoner and Gretchen Steenstra travel to #TAUG13 – the TMA Resources Annual Users Group Conference – in Phoenix next week. Look for them, and say hi!

To wrap up the month, Loretta M. DeLuca, Brian Sheehan, and Bill Walker will attend ASAE’s Finance, HR & Business Operations Conference (affectionately called FHRBOC, or fur-bock, which we’ve recently learned is also a beer). Look for our “dry” exhibit table!

If you can’t believe it’s already April, revisit a few moments from last month, when Loretta M. DeLuca and Dave Coriale delighted audiences at Great Ideas with their Ignite presentations. These short video clips are just 5 minutes each!

• 10 of the Many Ways to Screw up Technology (Loretta)
• The Headlines You Missed (Dave)

Special Announcements

• Our 11th Annual .org Community Food Drive kicks off May 1. In the past 10 years, with the help of associations and partners throughout the DC region, we’ve delivered more than 170,000 meals to the Capital Area Food Bank and the 475,000+ clients they serve. Last year’s collection alone topped 50,000 meals! Will you help us meet the need this year?

DETAILS: This year’s food drive will be virtual – participants can go “shopping” online (or simply make a fixed donation) at our special website to be launched May 1. It’s easy, and doesn’t require lugging bags of food on the Metro. We will also accept cash and check donations, but we will not be collecting food donations this year. The benefit of your donations is multiplied by the food bank’s buying power – every dollar donated equals 3 meals!

DAY OF SERVICE: DelCor has a tradition of giving back to our community, whether through our food drive, volunteer nights, or supporting association research. Without the physical aspect of collecting food, we want to be sure everyone still has an opportunity to contribute in a way that is meaningful to them. If money’s not your thing (or even if it is), participating organizations will have an opportunity to sign up to volunteer at the food bank during our day of service. We’ll help sort and pack food in the food bank’s new facility in northeast DC. Details to come – sign up below to make sure you receive updates.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE: Each participating organization will appoint one internal coordinator to work with our marketing manager, Bill Walker, prior to and during the drive. Bill will help you with ideas, incentives, and support for your efforts. Email Bill before April 24 to express your interest or get your questions answered.

• Clean up on aisle 9! Wait – there are no aisles in our store. Store?! That’s right – now you can get your very own DelCor merch. Family, friends, and fans are all welcome to show your spirit by donning some DelCor gear and gadgets, available 24/7 at shop.delcor.com. Now through April 30, receive 25% off your order, plus a free tote bag, when you use Coupon Code APRIL13. Some items are very popular, so shop early!
  
  
• Are you entertained? Get to know DelCor (or just share a laugh with us) in our new company video. It stars several DelCorians – Loretta M. DeLuca, Dave Coriale, Brian Sheehan, Chris Ecker, Kathleen McQuilkin, Tobin Conley, and Peter Just. We think it’s groovy. Do you?

What can go wrong 5 minutes before you’re supposed to present a webinar? More than you’d ever want to know.

A while ago, I was at a client’s office when I got a panicked cry for help from one of their staff. In 5 minutes, she was supposed to present a webinar from the quiet of her boss’s office. One of her colleagues was trying to help her set up the presentation on the webinar platform. But, one by one, things started going wrong.

• The microphone wasn’t working.
• There was mysterious and annoying feedback.
• The slideshow presentation wasn’t loading.

Luckily, this all occurred on a day when they had scheduled on-site IT support; what could have been an embarrassing disaster was fixed within 5 minutes – just in time for the webinar to go live. How’d I do it?

• I adjusted the computer settings so the microphone would work.
• The webcam was causing feedback. Since she wasn’t planning to use it, I disconnected it.
• She had to start the webinar without slides while her colleague and I worked the bugs out of her presentation. Until it was loaded, she had to refer to a hard copy while presenting the program. Not the best scenario, but better than not going live at all.

I don’t think they’ll have these troubles ever again because they learned a few valuable lessons about technology and webinars. 

• Schedule time in advance to test everything. And I do mean everything! What if you need IT help? Or help from the webinar platform company? Don’t wait until the last minute to ask.
• Upload your presentation ahead of time and do a run-through to make sure it works.
• Whether you’re using your own computer or someone else’s, schedule time to do a dry run a day or so before the webinar. Do another dry run again prior to going live. (Besides testing all the technology, it’ll also help you relax. Why do you think actors have so many rehearsals? It’s not just about memorization of lines.)
• Make a checklist and follow it. (You might find some helpful guidance in Adobe’s Best Practices for Webinars whitepaper.) You don’t want to discover 5 minutes before the webinar that your computer settings have been changed, a cord has come unplugged, or your login isn’t working. Make sure the audio, video, and presentation will work as planned. Review your webinar settings, like whether participants are muted.

Even if you’ve prepared for the webinar ahead of time and tested everything on your end, there’s always the chance of technical issues on the other end – out there in cyberspace (where plenty of webinars have gone before, and many have been hit by asteroids).

• Have a hard copy of your presentation ready, just in case video or slidesharing aren’t working. You might even want to have an electronic copy ready to email to participants, if that’s a possibility.
• Keep the phone number for the webinar platform’s technical support team handy, as well as your account information.
• If you’re using your computer’s built-in audio, keep the presenter call-in number handy, in case something goes wrong and you have to present over the phone instead.
• Some platforms have a chat room where those involved in the webinar can have private back-channel conversations. Find out how to access it and play around in there so you’ll know how it works in case you have to discreetly reach out for help during the webinar.
• If things don’t go exactly as planned, take some deep breaths and keep smiling; otherwise you’ll sound flustered and make your audience uneasy. When things are going downhill fast, levity and confidence can be your rescue ring! Ultimately, the webinar isn’t about the technology, but the information you’re sharing – and that expertise was in you all along (with a gracious nod to Glinda the Good Witch from the “The Wizard of Oz”).

If you test everything, follow your checklist, and have a Plan B, you’ll avoid the havoc wreaked by Murphy’s Law of Webinar Presentations. Good luck and good broadcasting!

Editor’s note: If you’re looking to experiment with a presentation tool other than PowerPoint, review this list of 10 PowerPoint alternatives that make meetings fun (Brian Morris, 3/26/2013, Ragan.com) – just make sure to test, test, test before you implement something new!

Photo credits: top photo by rutty via photopin cc; bottom photo by joeyanne via photopin cc

AMS Nerd Reunion. That’s what #AUDC13 was for me. I was in my element. While scurrying from session to keynote to social event, I noticed a few strong themes at the Avectra Users and Developers Conference that echoed other recent gatherings, such as ASAE’s Technology Conference.

I know what technology is available to me – but how are people using it?

There has been a lot of discussion about associations keeping up with the latest IT trends and anticipating what their members and customers need before they are forced to play another round of catch-up. In recent years, the technology options for all businesses have exploded. This year, more sessions focused on how associations were using technology instead of demonstrating new options. I think we all need a little break from the SNO (shiny new object) to get to know a few key pieces of existing technology and how to use them well.

• Instead of “what is new with social media?” attendees were treated to practical ways to develop a genuine social message or campaign. Kylee Coffman lead the session “Social Media Truth or Dare” in which she challenged the audience to recite their associations’ social media policies and discussed the pros and cons of robo Tweets.
• Debbie King of DSK Solutions hosted a panel discussion of the use of sophisticated business intelligence tools. Several organizations use the baseline tools in the AMS, while others use tools such as Tableau. There’s no perfect solution; how you approach BI depends on the data your association needs to make decisions, and how complex that data is. If you do not have a lot of data to analyze, you can start with a more basic tool.

Sometimes, you just need to know how to program the VCR, right? (Please tell me, even in this era of streaming and Blu-ray, that you get this reference!)

If you build it, they may not come.

In additional to the technology know-how, attendees were interested in how to help people adopt and adapt to technology. Several sessions were offered on how to engage and educate staff and members. Avectra introduced a fishbowl-style session in which audience members were encouraged to participate. The speakers introduced a topic and attendees would join the discussion and offer insights while the speakers stepped away from the microphone. This was a refreshing change from classroom-style learning.

And, of course, what is AUDC without a rousing game of PM Poker! Sorry I don’t have any snapshots to share this year. Let’s just say, you had to be there. (Well, duh.)

Why are associations using technology?

In addition to learning practical applications for extending or enhancing association technology offerings, attendees sought reasons behind the necessity of technology, business practices, and data. For example, I can install a new BI tool and aggregate and analyze lots of data – even big data – but why? What questions are we answering? What does the data support? Is the data accurate and relevant? As the fire hose of information continues to blast us, it is becoming more and more important to build thoughtful projects that bring true value to the association. Less can be more in terms of fewer initiatives of higher quality.

Sometimes working on a lean budget or with inexperienced staff can lead to great innovation or insight. Start with a small group of dedicated staff and members – you might achieve great results. National League of Cities wanted to try a mobile app for their annual conference. Instead of writing the app from scratch, they collaborated with a netFORUM partner, Avodigy, to prototype a conference app. Both companies agreed to work on the pilot together. While it wasn’t perfect, they created a solid, affordable solution for the association. In addition, the partnership won an Avectra Innovation Award.

Many of the attendees were looking for ways to configure baseline features in netFORUM to extend or enhance the business instead of building new functionality from scratch. While the AMS features may not be as glamorous and cool as other options, they offer a good proving ground to test ideas.

Teach them to fish.

If new or existing functionality is not being embraced by staff or membership – what is the cause? Is it lack of understanding? Training? Communication? Education is one element of a project plan that is often dismissed or forgotten. People have an innate need to learn new things and contribute to projects. However, they frequently need a little push.

Many associations have learned that if you build a new community or Twitter feed, members may NOT come. Initiatives must answer a demand and have a solid plan to nurture the content so it has the opportunity to grow into useful information.

Disconnect to reconnect.

Finally, in this world of Google Hangouts, Skype, email abundance, and text mania, it’s nice to sit and talk to the person behind the screen. We enjoy talking with each other, sharing stories, celebrating successes and reflecting on failures. Participating in events like this allows me to recharge my creative batteries, strengthen relationships with colleagues, and meet new people. What’s not fabulous about that? If you have the opportunity to attend a specialized conference in your field, I strongly urge you to do so! You’ll end up like me – coming back for more year after year, contributing, and building strong networks that inspire lifelong learning. You might even turn into an AMS nerd yourself.

As a first-time attendee and speaker at the Avectra Users & Developers Conference (#AUDC13) a few short weeks ago, I was looking forward to escaping the drab DC weather for some real palm trees, solid 60-degree sunshine, learning opportunities, and good conversation with my fellow association professionals.

Many helpful sessions dedicated to netFORUM were on the agenda. Inspiring sessions like Mary Byer’s Road to Relevance opening keynote – which appeared again at ASAE’s Great Ideas a week later – provided Tweetable moments as Mary addressed challenges facing associations and outlined aggressive strategies and questions senior leaders should take home.

A few of my other favorite sessions from the conference:

• Gretchen Steenstra and David DeLorenzo’s Project Management: Parenting Style
• Ray Van Hilst’s 5 Online Trends Reinventing Association Websites
• Truth or Dare, my session on social media, invited participants to play Spin the Bottle with me and choose from the deck. Participants (split into 4 groups) tackled questions from the Truth deck like “Does your organization have a social media policy?” while the ever-mysterious Dare offerings instructed participants to, for example, “Draw a picture of your social media spirit animal.” I was receiving some fun participants via Instagram before my session even took place.

As with many F2F events, it was a pleasure to see new and familiar faces from NAA, OSA, RILA, and IIAT among the crowd – all donning leis at the luau-themed opening night reception.

Until next year (and another escape from winter in DC)!