Jamie's session focused on developing a leadership orientation program for volunteer leaders and paid staffers.  She reviewed her association's approach to developing this meeting, with an emphasis on the live program they present annually.

Her meeting combines volunteer and executive leaders and the goal is creating a partnership between the national organization and it's components.  Her organization also focuses on the "nitty-gritty" details because they notice that when they don't the components tend to get in legal trouble (this sounds ALL to familiar to me).

Her organization also provides an executive director meeting 1-2 times a year and finds that this has increased communication with the components.  They also offer an "new executive director" orientation as well.

I found it interesting that Jamie's organizations funds almost everything as it relates to travel, accomodations, etc. for these meetings.  My organization pays for travel/etc. for the leadership training for our own leaders (national board, committees, etc.), but not for our component leaders.  But, attendance never seems to be a problem at it relates to our component leadership training/orientation.

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My next event was the General Session which I found entertaining.  The theme centered around "musicals" (keep in mind we were in Chicago!) and the actors focused on what ASAE can do for association execs and our social responsiblity as non-profit leaders.

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One of my highlights was the session I attended that was presented by Dr. Joseph Michelli.  Dr. Michelli has worked with many companies, assisting them with the concept of creating a valuable experience for the customer.  I thought it was interesting that he mentioned that seven out of ten customers say that emotions count for most of their purchasing experience and half say that the majority of the experiences they have are bland and uneventful.

Michelli asked the audience to consider the concept of offering something different and put yourself in the place of the end user.  The you may have to sacrifice a bit of efficiency to avoid alientating the end-user.  Consider being proactive and add sensory/emotional approaches to the experience for the customer (or in our field, the member).

Other things to consider?  Making it your own to create "buy-in" -- he used the example that Starbucks offers benefits for part-time employees as well as bean stock.  Create an idea and claim it.  Follow through with those unique ideas and tap into the needs, wants and desires of your customers.

And consider the Five Ways of Being -- Be Welcoming, Be Genuine, Be Considerate, Be Knowledgeable and Be Involved.  Also, surprise and delight, when used intermittently, can have a big payoff with customers and remember, "All business is personal."

For more info about Dr. Michelli, visit his Web site at www.drjoseph.podbean.com.

Like many of the sessions, some of this info I'd heard before, but never really crafted in this way.  Well done, Dr. Michelli.

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Another session I attended was part of track for small associations.  In my many responsiblities, I also manage what I can only define as an "in-house" association management company.  We provide project and administrative services to almost 1/3 of the components that fall under our umbrella and we provide these services for a fee.

Many of these organizations have less than 400 members so I thought it would be beneficial to attend one of these sessions.  The one I chose focused on avoid legal troubles and the presenter was pretty reknown.  Jerry Jacobs actually wrote the book (literally) on association law.  (I am actually using this book as a reference as I prep for the CAE; it comes highly suggested).

I think many of the attendees were very familiar with the subject matter -- Mr. Jabobs started off covering issues like bylaws, incorporating, etc., but when he came to the portion of the presentation that focused on anti-trust several questions were asked.  What conversations violate anti-trust -- meetings, listservs, e-mails?  What about anti-trust as it relates to your components and their activities?

Many of the answers can be found in Jacobs book, Association Law Handbook...trust me, you don't want me to cover the details here, but his book is a good resource.

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Another session worth mentioning was the panel session "Over the Top Expectations...for volunteers."  The panelists revealed pearls on how we can attract long-standing members, how we can get members to commit to numerous hours of training and working and how to make fundraising easy -- all of which go against the normal grain of what is expected of volunteers.

Michelle Kerr represented the Junior Leaque of Chicago and she is actually a volunteer who commits 20 hours (or more) to the league.  Junior Leaques across the country focus on assisting at-risk children and women so training is of the outmost importance.  Because of that they have created a culture of committment even going so far as to consider a Certified Leadership Program for volunteers to take (a potential resume builder).

Jennifer Boese spoke briefly on creating different levels of volunteering.  She comes from a hospital association which has employees and volunteers as members -- understanding your base is important to the approach you have.

Ron Schnorbus focused on fundraising and how you need to tap into inventive approaches.  (This made me think of Dr. Michelli's presentation the day before.)  Schnorbus reminded the attendees that just because a volunteer has to back down -- either temporarily or indefinitely -- it's important to remember to keep them in the pipeline/information flow (in the event they return or can assist in another capacity) and make the transition easy for them.  Celebrate volunteers before they transition from leadership.  Find ways to capture unique information about your volunteers to tap into their talents and GET PERSONAL.  Tune into what they tell you.

Use your current volunteers as a means of recruitment and make sure the volunteers understand their true value and why they should care.  Remember, the time they spend volunteering is taking time away from their family and friends...make sure it was for a good cause.

Again, I have heard most of this before, but it was definitely beneficial to hear it again.

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I attended some other sessions and walked away with more pearls...all-in-all I'd say the meeting was "good" -- not as great as my last conference (in Nashville), but fairly useful.  Nothing outweighed the networking that I did, though.  I met several component relations directors and folks who hadn't thought about how much component relations played into the grand scheme within their organization until they spoke to me.

I met a government affairs director whose organization had just restructured itself and now component relations fell under his department.  He admitted that through prior research he's seen instances where this works well, than other times where it failed miserably.  I told him that as long as he carved out opportunities to advise his components on good business practices and operations and allowed for leadership development and orientation, he should be fine.  That's the case for any national organization, no matter how it's structured.

Good job, ASAE!  Thanks for letting us get together!