Running an association like a business, not a nonprofit, requires a good understanding of the financial viability of all your partners. That means asking some smart questions about how your members are faring in the current climate.

As the economic uncertainty caused by COVID-19 has unfolded in recent months, most associations have hunkered down and gone into preservation mode, assessed what they had in reserves, and then decided how to best move forward. Gary Oster, founder and strategic growth strategist at Topline Growth Partners, recommends one more key item: a comprehensive scan to assess the fiscal health of an association’s top members, sponsors, and strategic partners.

Business Intelligence

Association CEOs and senior leaders, Oster said, need to recognize they are nonprofits, but they are still running a business. He said a lot of leaders forget that they need enough money coming in to cover expenses so they can do the work their members want them to do.

Oster estimates that because of the current economic downturn, 90 percent of associations have eliminated a portion of their value proposition for their members. And they probably lost 20 to 30 percent of their revenue at the same time—largely, Oster speculates, because they didn’t understand their members’ fiscal health.

An astute organization needs to evaluate every member, strategic partner, and sponsor that makes a significant investment in the organization, because it’s imperative to know about member and partner revenue, profits, and details about whether they are looking to merge or acquire. “It’s business intelligence, and it doesn’t take a long time to do,” Oster said.

To delve deeper and find out what you know about your key members and top sponsors, he said, ask good questions: What do you know about your sponsors or your financial strategic partners? Do you really know what’s motivating them to be connected to your members and your organization? Do you know how fiscally healthy they are? Will members be fully engaged or limited in their participation? Will their staff attend conferences? Or, because they are on the edge of bankruptcy, will they cancel all forms of engagement?

Hope Is Not a Strategy

Some executives, Oster said, have the worst strategy of all: hope. “Hope is not a strategy,” he said. “Hope is a wish.” He cautioned that it is not enough to hope that membership dues will come in, or hope that people will come to tradeshows, or hope that foundation supporters will continue to donate.

“Actively manage your business at the top line so you can assure your future success and create a workplace where your organization thrives and your members become incredibly happy with the value that’s being created,” he said.

Association leaders who want their organizations to succeed must conduct thorough due diligence so they have a clear view of the financial landscape of all of their members and partners. “These insights could open the door to unseen opportunities—or unknown risks,” Oster said, “potentially inoculating the association from an unhealthy situation as they reframe and redirect their future success.”

This article was sourced directly from Associations Now here and is written by Lisa Boylan, 

The distractions of home can make it easy to ignore a virtual event. Give your annual meeting added punch by supporting it with innovative content.

There’s a certain level of commitment to attending a live event.

When someone pays money to register for an annual meeting or tradeshow, they’ve already committed to showing up and taking part in your event. And they’re generally looking forward to discovering a new or familiar place as they interact with their colleagues and peers.

But these are different times, thanks largely to the complexities of COVID-19. What was once live is now virtual. This changes the equation, not only for event organizers and sponsors, but also attendees.

In a webinar study that has some important takeaways for digital events, GoToWebinar finds that virtual marketing events have an attendance rate of just 44 percent. With everything virtual there is to choose from, and everyone working at or near a comfortable couch, how do you make your virtual event stand out as one that must be attended?

DRIVE VIRTUAL ATTENDANCE WITH CONTENT

Here are a few ways it could help your next event:

It can provide an additional funnel. Content can help get people in the door at a time when traditional buzz may be harder to build, which is why it needs to take on a more significant role now. For example, rather than simply sharing ramp-up content on social media a week ahead of the event, consider planning for a more robust build-out months in advance—maybe driven by a vlog, a series of behind-the-scenes newsletters to members, or perhaps even interactive quizzes.

It’s a good way to add context. Often at annual meetings, attendees tend to stumble into breakout sessions based on the title or just to see if they might find a gem—perhaps with the help of a printed conference guide or app. In a virtual context, this sort of self-discovery is a lot tougher to do. Fortunately, content can save the day. A well-considered pre-event strategy can build excitement around your speakers (keynoters and breakout speakers alike) and illustrate your event’s breadth. That can help differentiate your offering from just another glossy webinar.

It can add fresh value to your event. Virtual events pose a clear challenge, since attendees may not give them the same weight as your in-person events. But that’s only the half of it: Sponsors and exhibitors may feel shortchanged without a convention hall to highlight their wares. This is where content can save the day, not only by supplementing the digital event itself—by curating hours of coverage into thoughtful articles and video coverage—but by giving those sponsors and exhibitors effective alternatives to the convention hall. If designed right, a strong content program can offer both attendees and sponsors something very impactful: a leave-behind component (maybe an in-depth curated resource or a piece of swag), that lives on well past the event itself.

MAKE ROOM FOR PRINT, TOO

Considering everything else about most events is already digital, it’s important to think about nondigital content strategies, too. While print content has been less popular than digital content in recent years, ironically, it may be just what the doctor ordered in the current climate—adding much-needed texture to your virtual meeting. There are many directions printed content for a virtual meeting can go.

For example, researchers have found that, in a learning environment, people tend to remember more when they write things down with a paper and pen. This is a clear opportunity to create dedicated notebooks for attendees that you can send to their homes, complete with additional educational resources.

But even before the meeting begins, there are plenty of ways to reach your attendees through print, which offers the personal touch we so desperately crave right now. You can send printed letters or handwritten postcards (perhaps penned by the keynote speaker); create a conference magazine or newsletter; or even offer a “special gift” to attendees pre-event—something political fundraisers are doing a lot these days. It’s a small way to close the gap between a live event and a virtual one.

Physical events give your association the important opportunity to showcase its weight and scale. Virtual events can do the same. They will just require a bit more planning and ingenuity, beyond simply livestreaming presentations, to make it happen. With a carefully crafted content strategy melding both the digital and tangible worlds, you could see success rivalling the good old days of destination meetings.

This article is written by Eric Goodstadt, and was sourced directly from Associations Now here. 

Taking a hard line on reopening your office and setting ambitious productivity goals doesn’t project strength right now. Patience, and small wins, can be a balm for stressed staffers.

Good leadership is supposed to be decisive, but we’re in a moment that makes decisiveness a particular challenge. Associations are eager to get their meetings and events back on track and bring staffers back to the office. But COVID-19’s persistence—I’m in Arizona, where documented cases and hospitalizations are still on the rise—makes it hard to identify a start date. And protests around racial justice in America ought to be prompting leaders to think about how they best serve all their employees and members.

It’s an uncomfortable time, but the best thing a leader can do right now is own that discomfort.

Last week, neuropsychologist Dr. Julia DiGangi wrote in the Harvard Business Review about a firm that made the mistake of taking a hard line with remote workers: Anxious to make sure that productivity still kept pace, it asked workers to sign contracts saying their homes would be free of distractions. As they say, good luck with that.

“Not only is this request absurd for the millions of people who continue to have ‘coworkers’ in school and in diapers, but it disrupts team cohesion by implicitly communicating that employees cannot be trusted to manage the complexities of their own jobs and lives,” she writes.

That’s an extreme case, of course. The executives I’ve spoken with since late March for this blog series on COVID-19 have committed to supporting their staffs without laying down the law in such a needlessly rigid way. But the moment might still demand more vulnerability out of leaders than they’ve been used to. “Vulnerability” isn’t the opposite of decisiveness right now. It’s a way of signaling support for those you lead—even, DiGangi writes, “the pragmatic thing to do.”

Good remote leadership is rooted in this kind of openness and flexibility. In 2016, I wrote about the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States, an association with an entirely remote staff, back when such a concept was quirky enough in itself to write about. After cluing me in to matters of managing Zoom meetings around different time zones and such like, then-executive director Robert Rich, CAE, explained that leading remote staff requires a different temperament from leaders.

“One of the big things I’ve had to change is to think more about where people are at, and to make sure I find out,” he said. “Where are they in terms of how much of a workload they feel they have? How do they feel about their deadlines? How do they feel about the projects they’re working on?”

Call it “management by Zooming around”—whatever capacity you’ve developed for emotional intelligence, you’ll likely need more of it, and need to develop the skills to better express it. My colleague Rasheeda Childress wrote last week about some of the ways leaders can encourage and support their newly remote employees, sustaining productivity without being high pressure about it.

But beyond making sure you’re there for your employees on a day-to-day basis, leaders might also think about what expectations they need to set for their organizations. This is definitely a time to experiment and test out new ideas when you can, but don’t get caught up in the notion that you need to accomplish a moonshot. Fast Company cofounder Bill Taylor recently wrote in HBR about the virtue of setting smaller goals right now, not just because it eases stress on staff but because it clears a path for bigger things, building confidence in the process. “Amidst this big crisis, leaders should give themselves permission to focus on the power of small wins.”

This is an uncertain time. Last month, one tracking survey from McKinley Advisors suggested that a plurality of associations were ready to open their offices in June. Last week, an ASAE Research Foundation survey showed that July is looking more likely, and many are holding off till the fall.

Don’t take the data as a guide for when to open your doors; take it as a reminder that you can’t know everything. In the meantime, you can know your people a little better, and set goals for them that are meaningful and doable until more things become certain.

This article is written by Mark Athitakis, and was sourced directly from Associations Now here. 

As associations make plans to reopen their offices, many staff members will feel anxious about returning to work. An expert offers tips for employers and employees to help mitigate fears and concerns.

As organizations make plans to reopen their offices, many employees are feeling anxious about going back. A recent survey from Best Practice Institute found that only 13 percent of employees want to return to the office full-time, with many expressing concerns about safety.

Michelle Paul, psychologist and director of The PRACTICE Mental Health Clinic at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said it’s natural to be anxious about returning to work. However, employers can help anxious staffers by being proactive.

“One of the first things employers can do is validate that this is a difficult time, and it makes sense that their employees feel nervous, anxious, afraid, trepidation,” Paul said. “That can go a long way in creating goodwill and trust.”

Trust will be essential if back-to-work plans are going to succeed. “Without the foundation of trust and a working alliance between employer and employee, the tasks required to get back to work are not going to be as effective,” Paul said.

Employers should follow guidelines for going back to work safely, using resources from the government and associations. Then, they need to communicate what they are doing to employees.

“Always check in,” Paul said. “Don’t assume people know what you’re doing, even though you’re living and breathing it as an employer. You have to repeat yourself many times.”

She said that employers should remind employees that this a path they’re traversing together. “Navigating the pandemic is like driving in a snowstorm with limited visibility,” Paul said. “I need my passengers to be looking with me. I’ll look out this window. You look out that window. We don’t know what the future is going to look like, so we have to be vigilant together. We have to support each other.”

While employers can calm anxieties by following best practices and communicating them, for staff, the key to anxiety reduction is figuring out what things are making them feel that way.

“The anxieties are going to be different depending on the setting and the circumstances,” Paul said. “Once you can put some words to it, and get out, ‘What am I afraid of?’ you can make a plan. Does what I’m feeling make a whole lot of sense, and I can do something about it? Or is it a general anxiety?”

Unfortunately, pandemics come with general anxiety. “The fear is not going to be resolved until we have a vaccine, so we have to live our lives with a certain level of fear,” Paul said. “Recognize that and make room for self-care and compassion for yourself and others.”

However, if anxiety becomes so overwhelming it interferes with daily functioning, Paul recommends seeking out professional help. The good news is that COVID-19 has brought telehealth to the forefront, so those anxious about going out during a pandemic don’t have to leave home.

“Now might be the best time to get services in your home without having to travel,” Paul said. 

This article is written by Rasheeda Childress, and was sourced directly from Associations Now here. 

In-house conference and event (Association) professionals can now highlight their skills and expertise with a tailored industry accreditation.

The Certified Association Conference Organiser (CACO) and Certified Association Event Organiser (CAEO) accreditations have been established by the Australasian (NZ) Society of Association Executives (AuSAE) in recognition of the crucial role played by in-house organisers.

Brett Jeffery, New Zealand General Manager of AuSAE, says a recent working group on conference management highlighted a lack of formal recognition for in-house managers in comparison with Professional Conference Organisers.

“In-house professionals are the unsung heroes of events and conferences. The best ones are so good at their jobs that things run seamlessly and they make it look easy, but we know that’s not the case!”

Mr Jeffery says the new accreditations will be valuable for raising the profile of in-house professionals.

“Around 70% of conferences and events are organised in-house - that’s a lot of work. These accreditations will highlight the depth and breadth of knowledge and experience these people contribute to successful conferences and events.”

In order to attain the accreditations, applicants need to uphold a code of conduct which includes high standards of personal ethical behaviour and integrity, as well as complying with health and safety and environmental standards.

Applicants also need to demonstrate evidence of their management of conferences or events, including relevant documentation of plans, budgets, run sheets, supplier management etc.

People who gain the endorsements will be expected to attend at least two AuSAE group meetings each year. Mr Jeffery says the meetings will provide excellent opportunities to learn and network.

“We see these certifications as a significant competitive advantage for the in-house professionals who attain them. They showcase experience, expertise and consistent high levels of performance.”

For more information on CAEO and CACO certification, go to https://ausae.org.au/Certification1

Brett Jeffery | General Manager NZ | AuSAE

d  04 889 2292    m  027 249 8677    e  brett@ausae.org.au    w  ausae.org.au

This week has been a very exciting one at AuSAE, hosting our first ever All Stars Panel Event yesterday (Wednesday 10 June). We were delighted to welcome our U.S. Membership All Stars to the AuSAE screen – Mary Byers, Sarah Sladek and Sheri Jacobs! It was a fantastic morning speaking with these ladies, hearing their perspective, insights and reflections on membership and association management generally. I would like to summarise my key take aways and what I will look to implement moving forward in our own organisation:

Trends Around the World:

Collectively our panel of thought leaders agreed with what they were seeing from associations around the world at this current time.

• Growth in membership, non-member interest and event attendance online
• Collaboration is the new currency – this is something we have seen for many years but has accelerated in the wake of the crisis
• Associations have been given permission to experiment and innovate like we haven’t before
• From the panel, direct research and a quick temperature check from attendees online yesterday, we can observe that the majority of associations have taken a hit financially but are managing. Financial concern lies across the next three years 2020, 2021 and 2022. We can see that the impact of this crisis is still yet to be truly felt.

Membership Models:

The panel discussed what membership models might look like in a post COVID-19 world, if they would change significantly or if it really is about going back to basics.

• At the core, associations need to go back to basics – what is your major value proposition and are you delivering on that. What is the job to be done? This would be the time to conduct a full portfolio assessment, and the opportunity to drop services or offerings that don’t contribute to your core value proposition. Ensure you are defining your markets both core and adjacent and define what makes you different.
• The panel delved into a number of changes and adaptations to membership models in our new world such as; Buy one give one, Tiered membership models – choose your own adventure, the concept of annual membership needing to be assessed and revamped – looking at shorter volunteer engagement and shorter membership packages with more flexibility, subscription membership models and the offer of trial memberships.
• Associations generally will see changes and shifts in the way they operate. They have already started but will continue to become flatter, with leadership that represents our entire community. A greater emphasis will be placed on thought leadership particularly with younger consumers. Members want to see the leaders of associations leading in all areas including societal issues. They want to hear an authentic voice whether or not they agree with your view point on the issue.

From Models to Engagement:

How do we maintain the level of engagement we are seeing from our members currently and moving forward into the future.

• An important point that was raised by all panellists and something we all need to consider- what does engagement mean for your association? Is it a member reading your e-newsletter, attendance at an event, only attending your annual conference every year, responding to emails or all of the above. It’s important to define what successful member engagement looks like in your association.
• People will always be more engaged with you if the options are flexible, it’s easy to do so and the cost is considered.
• Engagement extends past the tangible benefits and into the emotional ties and sense of belonging that individuals have towards an organisation.

Quick Decisions with Imperfect Information:

This crisis has highlighted the ability of associations and boards to make quick decisions with imperfect information. Do we think shorter decision making processes will stay past this crisis?

• If we want this to stay we need to build, articulate and document our innovation process and ensure this is a process employees and management practice.
• To move your association forward you should always be experimenting with something – a way to operationalise this is with 90 Day Sprints. Pick a project and put a team against this project, give your team 90 days and see how far they get. Try and do this four times a year, this will ensure you are constantly moving forward.
• Plan for mistakes and mishaps – when you are innovating and making quick decisions you need to empower yourself and your employees to plan for mistakes, there will always be hits and misses.

Parting Advice – The Greatest Opportunity for Associations Now:

This question was answered by all three panellists, each giving a unique take on what we can do moving forward as associations of the future:

• Sheri: Pandemics are the mother of invention and innovation. You have a blank slate – try and test your market.
• Sarah: Amazon use a day one mentality – treat every day like it’s the first day of your association. It’s a great way to stay relevant and on your toes, you begin each day providing a solution to a problem or need for your members.
• Mary:
• • The new normal is what happened to us, the next normal is what we create – seize the opportunity.
  • North Star: Have one north star that guides you through this, one guiding principle that you have in each element of your business that helps your decision making and thought process.
  • What does this make possible?

A big thank you to our panellists and AuSAE friends – Mary Byers, Sarah Sladek and Sheri Jacobs. The recording for this webinar event is available, if you missed out on attending and would like to access the recording please email info@ausae.org.au.

The past few months have been frightening, heartbreaking, disruptive. It’s ironic this is the year 2020 – the same numbers used to describe perfect vision.

Someone told me recently he thought our society’s definition of ‘perfect’ was off, and we were all being called to adjust our focus and reconsider what's most important.

We’ve all experienced moments like this before -- moments when we’re pushed into the unknown and chaotic. Early in my career, I was hired into a leadership role at a company which, unbeknownst to me at the time of my hire, was experiencing an internal crisis. Shortly thereafter the dot com bubble burst, 9/11 took place, and the Great Recession hit.

These continual punches in their various forms of crisis and change influenced my career trajectory. I’ve since actively researched how to navigate crisis and successfully manage change, authoring books on the topics and guiding organizations through decline, disengagement, disruption, and conflict.

Based on what I’ve experienced and learned over the course of the past two decades, there are three practices leaders need to rely on in a crisis – practices which offer leaders and organizations a clear way forward, no matter what the situation.

Create community.

It’s scientifically proven; our brains are wired to resist change. Collaboration is the antidote and it’s most successful when it incorporates cognitive diversity -- actively engaging the participation of people representing different career stages, backgrounds, and experiences. Be it in the form of mentors, think tanks, advisory boards, or teams, collaboration eases our fears and spurs innovation. Collaboration helps manage change and create something valuable out of chaos.

• Immediate next steps: Bring a group of stakeholders together – people who are passionate about the organization and positively influence your community of members or employees. Collectively, determine the best course of action to best serve and engage the community. Collectively, implement the plan.

Narrow your focus.

Being hyper-focused on serving a niche, fulfilling a mission, inspiring a vision, and delivering exceptional performance is the only way to compete in a disrupted market. Pull in the best experts, build the best curriculum, develop the best tools, deliver the best experiences – all the while practicing collaboration and community-building by staying in conversation with your team and audience and being more responsive to their needs.

In the end, your members, clients, and employees are engaged, and your organization will be driven by something considerably more impactful than profits or traditions.

• Immediate next steps: Clearly identify your competitive advantage and commit to doing fewer things exceptionally well. With your team of stakeholders, identify what your community needs to succeed and what the organization does – or needs to do -- to effectively forge an emotional tie to your community of employees, members, and volunteers.

Communicate continuously.

During crisis, leaders feel vulnerable and many opt to keep quiet. And yet, in moments like this we look to our leaders for support and guidance. For my book, Talent Generation, I researched organizations with extremely high profitability and high employee engagement. In every instance, the leader was visible and communicative – not just in times of disruption, but all the time. Many of these organizations also empowered their communities to be part of the story-telling effort. As a result, widespread changes and grassroots momentum occurred, all which positively contributed to the organization’s culture, visibility, and branding.

• Immediate next steps: Authentically communicate with your community. Go to the people. Be visible. Engage your stakeholders, inviting them to communicate with your audience as well. Eventually their efforts will expand to a larger group of people, and your audience will begin to actively engage.

Now is the time to adjust your focus. Engage your community. Get clarity on purpose and communicate vision with the help of your community. Lead from a place of collaboration and your organization won't just survive this disruption -- it will emerge even stronger and more relevant than before.

This article was written by Sarah Sladek, for more information on Sarah Sladek click here. 

Many workers feel isolated or neglected when working remote, in part because it’s easy for leaders to overlook accomplishments when the team isn’t together. Here are some ways to make sure that doesn’t happen at your association.

Employee recognition often occurs in public—during all-hands meetings, in office celebrations, even via email messages from organizational leaders. But when the team isn’t together in the workplace, employees need to be recognized in different ways. Here’s why:

“Out of sight, out of mind” is a huge risk right now. In more typical times, when most employees are at the office, it’s easy for leaders to overlook the important work contributed by a small number of remote employees. This oversight is even more of a danger when everyone is working remote, notes Melissa Meunier of Engage 2 Excel. “The most important thing to remember is that what we’ve been used to, when we worked in our offices, the manufacturing plants, etc., is the opportunity to see one another,” Meunier writes. “Everyone was visible; their work was visible. Now people are sequestered away in their homes, and we don’t have the same visibility or connection opportunities.” And that can lead to gaps in appreciation.

Remote employees need affirmation and empathy. Employer empathy is a huge factor in employee satisfaction, and it’s increasingly important for organizations to show their staff that they care, says Kevin Yip of the employee reward platform Blueboard, in comments to Built In. “We hear our companies shifting focus to, ‘How do we engage, motivate, and retain our people now?’” he says. “We always talk about this idea of organizational empathy. Right now, it’s incredibly important to meet your people where they are.”

Recognition can help build team camaraderie. When everyone is working apart, team events—for example, happy hours—that highlight good work and achievements help ensure that staffers know they’re all in this together, writes Andrew Martins of Business.com. “For instance, you may not be able to have a catered lunch together, but you can hold a daily lunch meeting over the internet,” he says. “Perhaps you could host an employee appreciation event like trivia night, play a Jackbox game together over the internet, or open a special room in Slack to share the best memes your staff can find on social media. You could also consider scheduling an online meeting to chat over drinks at the end of each week.”

Employees already feel underappreciated. It’s one thing to recognize your own team—but another entirely when the whole C-suite shows appreciation, notes Kellie Wong on Business 2 Community. “Recognition from leadership boosts employee morale and encourages positive behavior by setting an example,” she writes. Wong cites research from the firm Achievers that finds that 30 percent of employees think that leaders don’t value recognition, and 58 percent think the worker/employee relationship would improve if there were more recognition. “Recognition from leadership is especially crucial in times of difficulty,” Wong adds. “Words of positivity, support, and appreciation for team efforts help employees focus on moving forward.”

This article was sourced directly from Associations Now here and is written by Ernie Smith. 

There’s no way to make an association crisis-proof, but good governance is key to resilience. One expert shares how to help boards maintain their focus.

Successful boards look for alignments with the needs of members and customers. But what are those needs during a time when economies and social norms have transformed? Successful boards consider environmental scans to establish broad strategic goals. But what if the environmental scan you conducted before your most recent five-year strategic plan no longer resembles the world you’re in?

In short, is it time to give your strategic plan another look?

The answer may be yes, but it’s important to tread carefully when it comes to such conversations, says governance consultant and former association CEO Robert Nelson, CAE. The urge to respond to a crisis can be so strong that many might overstep their boundaries—and forget that the strategic plan is designed to provide stability in moments like these.

“During a crisis there can be a tendency for boards or individual board members to want to jump in and fix things or make decisions that are in management’s realm,” Nelson wrote recently. And such leaps can make an association’s work needlessly complex.

In an interview last week, Nelson shared a few thoughts to consider before convening your board for an emergency strategy session.

Are you really talking about strategy, or panicking over tactics? A strategic plan that enumerates specific efforts for things like meeting formats and membership growth wasn’t truly a strategic plan to start with. “I believe we’ll find that there are organizations that really didn’t have strategies, they actually had tactical plans, and I think they will find that their quote-unquote plan will need to change significantly,” Nelson says. “That’s why it’s so important to have a strategy truly be a strategy, because then you can change the tactics from a staff level. You’ll see two sets of associations, those that had bad strategic plans having to make significant alterations, and those that have great strategies, and maybe having to tweak one out of four initiatives.”

Use the moment to reestablish your governance processes. Rogue board members making pronouncements about the one thing the association needs to do right now may be a sign that the board and CEO roles are not in alignment. A crisis is no excuse to disrupt proper relationships. “When we ask, ‘Do we really have a system that can withstand a crisis?’ That just means we’ve got a sound strategy,” he says. “But more than that, it means that we have a board that understands this is the board’s role, and this is the CEO’s role, and we have a board that’s constantly looking forward. A lot of people say, what does my board have to do differently? I think your board just needs to govern well.”

Cultivate one-on-one communication ahead of any big group meeting. The most successful associations, Nelson says, establish close conversations between the CEO and board that are casual but effective. “The CEO should be able to easily call up board members and say, ‘Look, I recognize that it’s my responsibility to make this decision on Topic A, and I’m not shirking my responsibility, but I’d love to get your insight to see what you think,’ and the board member will really give that,” he says. “But the board member realizes that in the end the CEO is going to make the decision on Topic A, B or C, because it’s their job. That’s the kind of communication we need and want.”

Don’t get waylaid by term-length conversations. Nelson says this can be a good time for association boards to take a look at their bylaws to make sure that they’re not outdated or overly restrictive. But if you’re going to make tweaks to term lengths for board members, make sure you’re doing it for the sake of what’s best for an association—not for the interests of a board chair who might be disappointed because COVID-19 means they can’t take the stage at an in-person meeting this year. “Being a chair is supposed to be about what’s best for the organization, not what’s best for Mike or Joe,” Nelson says. “I’ve heard conversations about these shifts, and most of the time it’s because the chair won’t be able to do the fun things they’d normally do because they’re tied to this crisis. But is that really sticking with your organization’s values?”

This article was sourced directly from Associations Now here and is written by Mark Athitakis. 

Melbourne, VIC Australia (4 June 2020) — Advanced Solutions International (ASI), a leading global provider of software and services for associations and non-profits, announced today it held the first iNNOVATIONS LIVE Asia-Pacific virtual conference for partners and clients on 27-28

May 2020. This regional event follows the incredibly successful 25-26 March global iNNOVATIONS conference that shifted from an in-person conference in Florida, USA to online amid the COVID-19 crisis. Learn more at www.advsol.com/PRinnov.

Hosted by Paul Ramsbottom, Managing Director of ASI Asia-Pacific, and Colin Bryant, ASI Asia- Pacific Country Manager, the two-day conference offered nine educational presentations on the latest advances in the iMIS Cloud Engagement Management System with live Q & A. It also included an inspiring opening session, award presentations, and a virtual networking happy hour

at the end of the first day. Attendees were able to take advantage of the ASI Connect mobile app to access the agenda, conference materials, forums, and engage with other participants.

“Each year, ASI holds the iNNOVATIONS conference in the United States, which has meant very few clients from our region have attended the event before,” said Mr. Ramsbottom. “With iNNOVATIONS LIVE Asia-Pacific, the iMIS community in our region got to experience the magic of the event for the first time. Attendees came from across Australia, New Zealand and Singapore and they were thrilled to be able to ask their questions of international experts and get answers in real time,” he added. “This live access to knowledge and resources — and the chance to really feel a part of the event — was huge and we’re already being asked about next year!”

ASI’s in-person iNNOVATIONS conference was originally planned with three educational tracks but was reduced to one for the virtual event; all planned presentations, however, were recorded and made available via the on-demand video library. Hosted by ASI partner Webcastcloud, an Australian webcast streaming and hosting service, this library allows attendees unlimited access to all 36 conference sessions, ASI was pleased to welcome members of NiUG Asia Pacific, the local independent user group dedicated to ensuring organisations that use iMIS to maximise their investment in both the technology and staff they employ to administer and utilise it.

2020 Client and Partner Awards

ASI’s mission is to “Help People Achieve Great Things Through Innovative Solutions,” and each year the company recognises winners of its Great Things Awards. The 2020 Asia-Pacific honors went to the Australian Medical Association – Federal Secretariat and the AMA’s Chief Information Officer Phil Barton accepted the award. The AMA promotes and protects the professional interests of doctors and the healthcare needs of patients and communities, representing nearly 31,000 members and more than 15,000 students at the federal, state and territory level.

ASI also announced the following awards to Asia-Pacific based partners:

Authorised iMIS Consultant (AiC) of the Year:

 Asia-Pacific: KISS Consulting LLC

Chairman's Circle:

 Causeis

 Integr8tiv

 KISS Consulting LLC

iNNOVATIONS LIVE Sponsors

iNNOVATIONS LIVE Asia-Pacific was sponsored by C Systems Global, Computer System Innovations, Inc. (CSI), Gather Voices, Global Payments Integrated, Higher Logic, iFINITY plc, MemberPrime, OpenWater, Personify A2Z Events, Top Class LMS by WBT Systems, Web Scribble and Webcastcloud Pty Ltd.

About ASI

Advanced Solutions International (ASI) is a leading global provider of cloud-based software to associations and non-profits. We're the company behind iMIS Cloud, the Engagement Management System (EMS)™ that empowers you to engage your members anytime, anywhere, from any device. Since 1991 we've helped thousands of clients grow revenue, reduce expenses, and improve performance by providing best practices, pragmatic client advice, and proven solutions. Learn more at www.advsol.com.