The Association Innovation Blog by Jeff De Cagna

The CAE/masters degree debate

In a recent posting to his Certified Association Executive blog, my friend and fellow blogger Ben Martin offers his thoughts on my proposal for an executive master's degree in association leadership.  As TAIB readers know, I am passionate about the need for such a learning pathway in the association community, and so I am always eager to engage in conversation around it.  In this case, I need to correct some inaccurate information in Ben's original post, as well as challenge some of his arguments. 

A bit morbid but fun...

Thanks to my friend David Gammel over at High Context for connecting me to the Original Tombstone Generator site where you can, well, generate your own tombstone for whatever particular purpose you have in mind.  David sent me a "strategic planning is dead" version he created which I used in a presentation over the weekend. (Thanks David, it is really great!)  I decided to create another one myself, which I have posted above. 

I know it's a bit morbid, but we can still have a little fun with it, right?

Online article about podcasting for associations

This month's online edition of ASAE's Association Management magazine includes an article on podcasting in which I am extensively quoted.  As the association community's podcasting pioneer--a new completely immodest, self-referential superlative that I just created (whadda ya think?)--I'm very proud to have been included in the article.  I'm grateful to Jesse Alter, who was with AM at the time, for the fine job he did with this piece.  I hope you'll check it out!

A new blog...

In my continuing foray into the world of social media, I am pleased to announce that my friend and colleague, Jamie Notter, and I have launched The Association Renewal Blog.  Jamie and I have created a joint venture called Association Renewal LLC, a consultancy through which we will collaborate to deliver next generation leadership to associations today.  This blog is one mechanism we will use to engage our community in a fresh conversation about how we can do just that.

We hope you will read and subscribe to our new blog.  We promise it will be provocative and well worth your attention.  Check out today's posting on our recent article in Executive Update magazine. Thanks!

UPDATE:  Jamie has also launched his new blog, Get Me Jamie Notter at www.getmejamienotter.com.  Check it out!

An update on my adventures in podcasting

Just a few updates on my current podcasting activities in which you might be interested:

+I am now serving as a volunteer contributor to Corante's blog on podcasting.  Corante has various blogs covering technology, science and business, and I am very excited to have the opportunity to share my non-techie perspective on podcasting.  I have made a couple of posts in the last week and I will be posting more often going forward.  Please check it out to learn more about both podcasting practice and business.

+I am writing an article on podcasting for FORUM, the magazine of Association Forum of Chicagoland, that will appear in the publication's July issue.  I will explain what podcasting is, how simple and inexpensive it is to do and why it is a fantastic new tool for associations to use.

+Tomorrow, I am flying to California to attend the Google shareholders meeting, which is on Thursday.  I'm very excited about this opportunity to learn more about a company I've been studying for awhile now, and I will be doing an Associations Unorthodox podcast this weekend to share some of my impressions.  I hope you'll check it out!

BTW, if you're a subscriber to The Association Innovation Blog, I hope you will consider subscribing to updates for the podcast.  You will only receive an e-mail on the podcast once a week, since my show is weekly, typically on Saturday or Sunday.  You can subscribe right on the Associations Unorthodox website!

My adventures in podcasting are great fun for me and I hope you enjoy them as well!  Please share your feedback!

Nashville Blogger Confab

Fellow blogger, friend and all around good guy Ben Martin is organizing a blogger confab in Nashville at the ASAE Annual Meeting in Nashville.  David Gammel and I have already expressed interest and, if Ben doesn't mind my self-organizing, trouble-making nature, I'd like to extend the invitation to members of the association community who are seriously considering entering the blogosphere, either for themselves or for their organizations.  (So if you don't know what the blogosphere is, you shouldn't participate.)  Ben, if I have overstepped here, just smack me down!

Sounds like it will be fun.  There's lots to discuss.  I'll see y'all there!

Solving the case of the absentee blogger...

Well, I pretty much fell off the radar screen on TAIB during the month of April, didn't I?  I really don't know what to say except that it's my bad all the way.  I got totally consumed with work and with my podcast, Associations Unorthodox, and I put TAIB on the back burner.  I'm terribly sorry about that.  It would be wrong for me to promise that it won't happen again, however, because it might.  But at least for now, I'm going to try and pick up the slack a little bit.  Here are a couple of random items: