Tag - I'm it

Elizabeth tagged me with the Unsession Meme to share my five short term-term volunteer gigs.

I agree with Elizabeth, not as easy as it sounds but here goes:

1. Facilitating the marketing idea swap in the middle of DC in the crazy snow (those who braved the elements - I truly appreciate it). This was awesome because I learned way more than I provided - if you get the chance, definitely attend one of these.
2. Speaking in general. While I always regret it right before the session, it always turns out to be a great experience (even if I can't get to the event I'm suppose to speak at).
3. Working with Lisa Junker on the Associations Now case study of Mike in Shot Down. Lisa's a blast and I have to admit - it was pretty cool seeing my name in Associations Now.
4. Teaching Sunday school at my local church. Not only was it cool to make paper masks with local kids, but my co-instructor was my lovely wife (I'd like to say I'm earning brownie points - but she rarely reads this :).
5. When I tutored back in school. I had some that were forced to go, but it was always fulfilling to help those students that went because they wanted to grasp the concepts and succeed.

Now there's a lot of tags going around - and I'm not sure who's available, or do I?

Tag! You're it!

If you read this post, comment your top short term volunteer memory (I'll go easy on you)

Thanks for reading,
bob
P.S. A change may be coming - I'm seriously evaluating a revamp of my blog. And if I do nothing else, as someone once told me "You need to change that weird baby headed picture, it's just freaky." I'll leave it for now - because I'm not sure you want to see the grown up me.

Re-evaluating Twitter

I'm not really a big fan of twitter - but there could be hope. I've tried it and while I know there is a ton of opportunity and even larger fan base, I couldn't quite wrap my mind around the value.

But it's a new year. We have a whole lot of things going on in SWANA, so maybe now is as good a time as any to give twitter another try. So I did.

Right now we're using twitter as an RSS of sorts. Basically our twitter feed captures all the conversations our association has on the social media realm. This provides a couple of benefits:

• The groups themselves are organic, the marketing is controlled
• Members can see the conversations first and then join the appropriate group (value before technology)
• Those members on twitter can find us (2 so far)

We then set up a feed on feedburner pulling the twitter updates to our website automatically. And members who have RSS can then subscribe to one concise feed and listen to conversations across platforms.

It's a start and it's working well for what we're using it for. I'm not sure we're quite ready to unveil a twitter feed at one of our conferences but that's fine with me.

Thanks for reading,

bob
P.S. Two back to back - this blogging in bed is doing wonders (the joy of delayed posting).

Standing Out from the Crowd

Aaron Wolowiec recently posted to Acronym about standing out from the crowd (which I somehow seemed to post the exact same thing twice - I wish it was a bit more insightful).

However when I read the post, I thought to over a year ago when I first started this blog. It was all about stepping out from the crowd. The first time I spoke at Great Ideas a couple years ago I wanted to step out from the crowd. So I gave it a shot - and was and still am nervous everytime I do. But now I'm a wee blip on the radar of the association world and have had some great opportunities and met some great people because of it. But none of that would have happened if I didn't break down my preconceived barriers (I'm too young to present to executives/nobody will read my blog) and go for it.

The worst thing that happens is nobody reads it - or it doesn't go very well. Failure is great in that it provides learning opportunities.

Thanks for reading,
bob

P.S. - I like Aaron's notion of "emerging" as opposed to "young" - maybe a rename is in order? I mean it is kinda ironic that I don't want people to focus on my age (and the lack of experience that comes with it) and yet my blog is called young association professional.