Best of Chamber Management - Carnival 3

This month, the Best of Chamber Management Carnival asks some pretty tough questions:

• Are you REALLY solving member problems?
• Is your Chamber still relevant?
• What can you do about sacred zombie cows?
  

Your reactions to this edition welcome in the comments, as always! Here we go!


Chamber Management
Joe Abraham (@josephabraham), who's by the way getting ready to introduce a new turn-key education-focused program for Chambers, asks, "What happened to the original social network?" It's a core question deeply tied to the future of Chambers as we know them.

David Gammel (@davidgammel) of High Context Consulting suggests that "the economy" is a great excuse to give non-performing programs you wouldn't otherwise dare touch (those "sacred zombie cows" we mentioned above) the old heave-ho. Or, as we say in Iowa, "Tip 'Em!"

And, for another shake-you-to-the-core question, here's Jack Deal laying the cards on the table - this from a Chamber customer rather than a Chamber blogger! Is Your Local Chamber of Commerce Obsolete? Ouch.


Leadership
Jamie Notter (@jamienotter) inadvertantly started a "meme" with the simple query, "What are the top 3 most important leadership qualities?" He's still working on a summary of the results, but shares them here in raw form. Great reading!


Member Value
Speaking of old-school networking, here's how to ease into it even if you're uncomfortable with the concept. Some great tips by Beth Bridges (@BethBridges) of the Clovis, CA Chamber of Commerce. Share this one with your members, with a link to Beth's article from your own Chamber blog! (You are chamber-blogging, right?)

Joe Grant asks another of those look-in-the-mirror/tell-me-the-truth questions: Are you solving member problems? Great ideas here for ascertaining real problems that affect real members.


Member Communication
The rise of Twitter begs the question: is it rude to Tweet during someone's live presentation? Olivia Mitchell (@OliviaMitchell), guest-posting at Pistachio Consulting, gives you some key reasons to encourage people to tweet during your speech, and then goes one step further with tips on "How to Present While People are Twittering."

And, Curt Moss offers a thorough look at how and why you should create a YouTube channel for your Chamber. (Are you following him on Twitter yet? Seriously. Just do it. @curtmoss)


And finally...
We all know employees talk about their employers to family, friends, and colleagues. I'm including this last (self-written) article not because it's the "best" of chamber management writing, but because its core question intrigued me to the point where I had to write up a summary of the idea just to get my brain around it. I thought it interesting enough to share: Should you choose your next hire with their social network in mind? Great question for Chambers and members!




*Whew!* I think that's it for this edition! Next issue's deadline is June 5 and will publish on June 12. Submission link coming soon, or better yet TWEET ME your best Chamber-focused blogging at @edmchamber on Twitter. (You can also send me a link via email.)





Thanks for reading!

Third edition coming May 15

Submsisions are now closed for the May 15 edition of the Best of Chamber Management blog carnival. Look for the third Carnival to be posted here on May 15! While you're waiting, why not take a look at past editions:

April 24
March 10 (inaugural)

And, if you find helpful articles or other resources of interest to Chamber professionals in your own reading, be sure to send me an email with the link. I'll see that they get considered for future editions of the blog carnival!

Thanks!

Next edition May 15

Scroll down to the next post to see the Best of Chamber Management Carnival 2nd Edition!

The third edition of the Best of Chamber Management Blog Carnival is now seeking submissions from Chamber and association bloggers! Please look over your past months' posts and select the very best of interest to Chamber of Commerce management professionals. Topics can cover leadership/management, communications, member service/value, fund-raising, community involvement, recession management, or anything else you think will be of interest.

To submit your articles, visit the Blog Carnival Submission Page. Submission deadline is Noon on May 8; the Carnival will come out May 15.

Please note these submission guidelines:

• You must be the author of the article you submit to the Carnival.
• The article you submit must be available on a publicly accessible blog - we cannot accept submissions which require a subscription to view.
• You do not have to be in the Chamber industry to submit an article, nor does your article have to have been written specifically for Chamber professionals. However, the content of your article must be of interest to Chamber professionals and applicable to Chamber work.
• Authors should select a specific category for their article on the Submission Page. If you are unsure of which category to select, just select "Other" and we'll either leave it there or re-assign it to a more appropriate category for you.

Best of Chamber Management - Carnival 2

WOW - can you say "behind schedule"? So sorry for the delay, all I can say is I'm glad membership sales are so brisk!

Welcome to this edition of "Best of Chamber Management." It is a shorter edition than the inaugural, but it's my intention to always focus on quality over quantity with this carnival. Plus, this little carnival is still getting it's legs so I'm still contacting authors individually and seeking permission to use their articles - a little time-consuming, but always worth it given the quality of the information they share. I hope this process will become a little more efficient as we grow!

On to the carnival! The authors here are among my favorites in the chamber/association management industry - always relevant, always insightful, and super-friendly to work with too! My thanks to each of them for agreeing to be included here!

Member Value
Stuart Meyer offers 4 Strategies for Recession-Proofing your Membership Base posted at Association 2020, with particular emphasis on the "emotional value proposition" and leveraging volunteerism.

Cindy Butts presents Ask for too much and you get ... Nothing posted at AE on the Verge, saying, "If you find you aren't getting what you need from your members and volunteers, consider that you might be over-whelming them. Here are four 'asks' you can instantly make more manageable - these'll get you thinking about even more!"


Chamber Communication
Curt Moss is my ace-in-the-hole when it comes to Chambers and the world of blogging and social media. For this edition he presents Worried you're not a social media expert? Don't be! on his superbly useful blog, WebLink International.

Chamber Management
Looking for ways to "go green" within your Chamber? Rebecca Leaman presents Nonprofit Budgets Benefit from Greener Events posted at Wild Apricot Blog, where she includes a lengthy list of resources that will help you plan events that leave a smaller footprint!

Again, my thanks to each of these authors for allowing me to compile and distribute their articles in this way. I'm going to try again to set (and meet!) a deadline for the next issue. I'm shooting for a May 15 publication date, so the submission deadline will be Noon on Friday, May 8. Visit the Carnival Submission Page to submit your latest, best blogpost for Chamber professionals!

Next edition: April 7, 2009

The next edition of the Best of Chamber Management Blog Carnival is now seeking submissions from Chamber and association bloggers! Please look over your past months' posts and select the very best of interest to Chamber of Commerce management professionals. Topics can cover leadership/management, communications, member service/value, fund-raising, community involvement, recession management, or anything else you think will be of interest.

To submit your articles, visit the Blog Carnival Submission Page. Submission deadline is Noon on April 3; the Carnival will come out April 7.

Please note these submission guidelines:

• You must be the author of the article you submit to the Carnival.
• The article you submit must be available on a publicly accessible blog - we cannot accept submissions which require a subscription to view.
• You do not have to be in the Chamber industry to submit an article, nor does your article have to have been written specifically for Chamber professionals. However, the content of your article must be of interest to Chamber professionals and applicable to Chamber work.
• Authors should select a specific category for their article on the Submission Page. If you are unsure of which category to select, just select "Other" and we'll either leave it there or re-assign it to a more appropriate category for you.

Best of Chamber Management - Carnival 1

Here's the inaugural edition of Best of Chamber Management, a round-up of articles from top-notch Chamber and Association bloggers. This first issue features articles from seven chamber/association professionals on topics ranging from the use of social media to rethinking the importance of perfection. Enjoy - and, be sure to subscribe to each of these excellent blogs to read more from the authors.


Board Management
Jamie Notter reminds chambers and associations that everyone within an organization has the capacity to lead, and that leadership must be system-wide. In his post, Great Ideas: Leadership Lessons, he notes: "Leadership is simply about being able to shape the future. Making things happen."


Membership Development
Tony Rossell postulates that an organization's membership value proposition doesn't have to be perfect to be marketable, noting, "Sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good." Keep the Membership Recruitment and Retention Engine Running offers advice for getting out there even if your member program is still a work in progress.

Communications
Integrating social media into Chamber communications is quickly becoming a must. Curt Moss of Weblink International presents Social Media Marketing for Chambers, offering examples of Chambers doing it well and compelling stats on why it's a necessity now.

Now that you're planning how to use social media in your communications mix, don't forget: it takes a certain kind of person to represent the organization's brand online. David Gammel offers thoughts on this with Customer Service as Performance Art.


Member Value
Technology can automate routine tasks, freeing your time. But, are you using the additional time to connect with members? Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE offers the video, Jeffrey Cufaude on High Touch v. High Tech, along with thought-provoking commentary, posted at Thanks For Playing.

Jeff De Cagna offers food for thought with Social technologies and The Benjamin Button Paradox posted at Principled Innovation Blog, saying, "We’ll never give (members) a reason to see things differently until we give them something worth seeing...."


Member Interest
Bill Sheridan looks at one state that's working collaboratively to solve problems that defy solutions, with his post Businesses battle 'wicked problems' with 'we' solutions posted at CPA Success.


That concludes this edition of Best of Chamber Management. The next edition comes out March 31, with a submission deadline of Noon on Friday, March 27. Visit the Carnival Submission Page to submit your latest, best blogpost for Chamber professionals!

Submissions are in - look for the Carnival March 10!

Thanks to all who submitted articles for this inaugural edition of Best of Chamber Management! Submissions are now closed for this issue. It looks like an amazing group of blog posts, and I'm looking forward to sharing them with you!

All authors will automatically receive a link to the carnival when it' s published on Tuesday, March 10. If you didn't submit an article but are a Chamber or Association management professional and want to receive a link, subscribe to this blog's RSS feed (link at right) or just drop me an email at info@edmchamber.org.

More soon - thanks!

Submissions open for first edition!

We're now accepting submissions for the inaugural edition of the Best of Chamber Management Blog Carnival! If you blog about topics of interest to Chamber of Commerce professionals, pick your best writing and submit it to us via our Blog Carnival Submission page.

Please note these submission guidelines:

• You must be the author of the article you submit to the Carnival.
• The article you submit must be available on a publicly accessible blog - we cannot accept submissions which require a subscription to view.
• You do not have to be in the Chamber industry to submit an article, nor does your article have to have been written specifically for Chamber professionals. However, the content of your article must be of interest to Chamber professionals and applicable to Chamber work.
• Authors should select a specific category for their article on the Submission Page. If you are unsure of which category to select, just select "Other" and we'll either leave it there or re-assign it to a more appropriate category for you.

If you need to contact us for any reason after submitting your article, just send an email to info@edmchamber.org.

What is the Best of Chamber Management Carnival?

Welcome to the homepage of the Best of Chamber Management (BOCM) Blog Carnival! A blog carnival is a recurring compilation of the best and latest blog postings about a particular topic. The BOCM Carnival is for Chamber of Commerce professionals to share their best practices in all aspects of chamber management, including member service, economic development, community involvement and fund-raising.

BOCM is hosted by the East Des Moines Chamber of Commerce in Des Moines, Iowa. Information about our first edition will be forthcoming soon.

Also - the East Des Moines Chamber can be found on various social networking sites around the web. Look us up on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn as EDMchamber!

If you have any questions meanwhile, send us an email at info@edmchamber.org!