Happy New Year - 2012

The Holidays fell on the weekend this year, so it seemed to stretch the season for an eternity. We are back at it now - ready to gear up for a new year of imagining, planning, visioning, adapting, serving. Working in an association requires skills in many areas. MSAE will be working to help association professionals learn about these many attributes and will provide numerous opportunities to connect with peers and colleagues. As you head into the new year remember, life's possibilities are endless.

TED, Trends and Non-Members

Top takeaways from the Feb. 23 Senior Staff Networking Group meeting:

• TED.com - Ideas Worth Spreading - Share your association's videos and best practices on Ted, it's great for you and your members!
• 11 Trends for 2011 - Video and social media are a must, if you aren't doing it - someone else is. Check out the other trends to watch this year (from the MSAE Speakers Showcase on 2.17.11).
• Send a blank newsletter to non-members (or past members) who should be members - will show them what they're missing.

Health Care Reform

Takeaways from the Financial Networking Group Meeting - 2/3/11

1. Be vigilant and stay informed
   
2. Find good resources, RJF Agencies offers free health care compliance updates
   
3. Right now, there are a lot of questions - there is much more to come!

Resources:

• Small Business Health Care Tax Credit for Employers with fewer than 25 employees
• Form 8941: Credit for Small Employer Health Insurance Premiums
  
• IRS Webinar on Small Business Health Care Tax Credit on 2/16/11
  

Cyber Wars

Who could have imagined the likes of this WikiLeaks fiasco? I guess it's true - we don't know what we don't know. Scary business. For what it's worth - try to make sure your firewalls, virus protections, and various security measures are up to date and as good as they can be. 

Making the most of change

The MSAE Board of Directors, in preparation for the planning retreat, read "Managing Transitions" by William Bridges, PhD. Since change is inevitable, it's good to take time to remember that the psychological transitions that accompany change are stressful. Organizational transitions affect people, it is the people who have to embrace a new situation that will eventually lead to the change.  This book is an excellent managerial tool for navigating through these tumultuous, uncertain times. 

"Our moral responsibility is not to stop the future, but to shape it...to channel our destiny in humane directions and to ease the trauma of transition" (Alvin Toffler, Futurist)

Andrew Zolli Made Me Think

What a great first day of DigitalNow. The educational sessions were exactly as I had hoped - thought provoking and interesting.

Much of what is being discussed is how you can measure return on investment (ROI) for different social media strategies. When you couple social media with your other engagement strategies, how do you know when you're doing the correct thing and creating value? It seems to be the silver bullet of social media - and I'm still waiting to see a definitive system for ranking. Aptify and a couple other groups have some basic solutions, and they were impressive when I saw them in action.

In my opinion, the best speaker today was Andrew Zolli (pictured). He is the Curator and Executive Director of Pop!Tech and a Fellow with the National Geographic Society. He spoke to the group about looking at the future, and how it isn't always the fast, shiny things that change the future, but instead they are the slow moving things that everyone knows are there, but don't acknowledge. To drive this point home, he presented statistics showing that the odds of having your life changed by a terrorist attack are close to winning the lottery. The odds of having your life changed by global climate change - one in six. However, what do you hear more about in the news?*

*Authors Note - I'm just using the examples, so please don't flame me about global climate change.

So, what do you think the largest transformation this country is going to see in the next 20 years? It isn't flashy, and it isn't reported frequently in the news - it's demographics.

As the Boomer generation ages, they are redefining consumption, work, and work life balance.

Boomers are not all retiring (for a variety of reasons) so there is now a glass ceiling of older managers who are not retiring, keeping their kids from ascending to management positions.

Those Boomers who are retiring are leaving a gap in the amount needed to fund social services and education. So, look for an increase in taxes for those people who are working (Gen X'ers and Millennials) and an increase in legal immigration to get people to help pay taxes.

More people over the age of 80 are leaving Florida than ever before...because they are running out of money. One of the fastest growing demographics in American society is married with your parents living with you.

Here's a happy statistic - if you are a woman, and you were born in 1970 or later, odds are you'll take care of your mother (or mother-in-law) for longer that they took care of you when you were a child.

I don't have a happy quip or wrap up to make this information any better. However, it is a snapshot of where we are headed. Is your association ready to deal with both senior members and kids right out of school? Are you going to be able to provide and update the technology necessary to cater to one of the most diverse work forces in years?

I can't wait to see what we talk about tomorrow.

Time Slips Away

When I was a meeting planner back in 1985, someone gave me a 25 year planner. I recall... I thought..."ya right - 25 years, like I will ever use this". Well I have used it, every year for 25 years. What's really amazing is that I have kept track of it for all of this time. Numerous times, I have checked on holiday dates, used it to look the year ahead when setting the calendar for next year. And now, it's time to throw it away. Where oh where did those 25 years go? Thank goodness that someone has provided me with a new (although it's only a 20 year planner) one. So out with old and in with new. I suppose that the I-Phone has an app that will do the same thing. Who knows maybe soon the I-Phone will have an app that slows down time. Hope so.