Happy Friday! I hope everyone has had a successful week. Enjoy your weekend!

To finish out the week, here are my recent favorite association-related blog posts. There’s been some good stuff floating around this week, especially after Seth Godin’s “The Problem with Non” post. I love a healthy debate!

1. Elizabeth Weaver Engel shared her thoughts on why associations should have Chief Community Officers. Her description of what the position should entail makes total sense.  After all, associations are all about about community. She concludes by asking if she’s “lost her mind.” Definitely not!

2. Weighing in on the debate about whether nonprofits approach social media the right way, Maggie McGary agreed that many associations are afraid of change. People who are trying to create changes are getting frustrated. “That’s the way we’ve always done it” just isn’t cutting it anymore.

3. This wasn’t written explicitly about associations, but it definitely applies to them. We’ve heard all about being innovative, but are you awesome? To be awesome, you have to love what you do because that’s when true, meaningful value really appears.

4. The ongoing debate about the membership model continues. David M. Patt wrote at Association Executive Management that membership is not dead — it’s just being defined differently. People have to feel engaged before they become members, and we will always continue to interact with like-minded people.

5. Cynthia D’Amour compared associations to newspapers (love the metaphor!) since many of the dailies in Ann Arbor, MI are shutting down. Is there still a demand there? Would there still be a demand if your association disappeared? Would substitutes pop up?

Happy Friday! It’s pretty dreary and drizzly here in Atlanta — I hope everyone else’s Friday is sunnier. To round out the week, I thought I’d share some of my favorite association management-related blog posts from the week. I’m sharing links all day, every day at our Twitter stream, but here are a few of my recent favorites.

1. Wes Trochlil shared a theory on why many associations don’t invest in technology. I think he hit the nail on the head — association leaders should start thinking about long-term goals and how technology will benefit the organization down the road, rather than in just the next few years.

2. In the aftermath of Tuesday’s #assnchat about chapters and social media, Peggy Hoffman elaborated on a key point: social media shouldn’t be explored for social media’s own sake. Explore your options (there’s more out there than just Facebook!) and have a clear goal in mind.

3-4. An Acronym post created quite a stir this week, discussing whether or not the association membership model was dying or evolving. Tony Rossell responded at the Membership Marketing Blog with a well thought-out piece. He’s “not ready just yet to put association membership in the grave,” and gave several reasons, citing the Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report.

5. I really loved the latest post at the Association Executive Management blog, reminding us of a simple lesson: your time is not free. Too often we forget our time is worth money! It’s a valuable resource — there are only 24 hours in a day, so use them wisely.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

It’s that time of week — I’ve been scouring the leading social media, association and nonprofit blogs and now I’m sharing the goods with you. If you subscribe to or read any of these great blogs, you may have read them already, but I’m picking out the key points and takeaways from each post. Read on!

Getting Your Colleagues in the Game by Amber Naslund at Altitude Branding. Amber implores people to sit down with their colleagues to discuss how to use social media. It should be in the short- and long-term plans for basically all companies or organizations, so members should be educated. Also, everyone will have different ideas to how to best portray the organization. Take everyone’s thoughts into account — and don’t ever expect a social media plan to be perfect.

The 4C’s Social Media Framework, a guest post on Beth’s Blog. Content, Collaboration, Community and Collective Intelligence — all aspects of a nonprofit’s presence online. Guarav Mishra outlined four great underlying themes to social media and how nonprofits can use each one.

Are online communities a threat to associations? by Deirdre Reid. “We get news, education and access to experts online. We develop and deepen relationships with peers via online communities. Some question the value of their association membership as they now receive more of these critical benefits freely online than from associations. Are our members experiencing the same?”

God Bless Our Competition by Kevin Holland. If you think your association doesn’t have any competition, you’re probably wrong. You have to know what the competition is doing — and your association has to want to do it better itself. Your competition might not be obvious or traditional, but it’s there.

Buzz Collaboration Format by Robert Stanwick. During this week’s #assnchat on Twitter (a tweet chat for association leaders), the topic of meeting formats came up. Robert mentioned the buzz format, which several people found intriguing. Here, he outlines the buzz meeting format and how it allows for being social, networking and receiving information.

Hyper-connected or disconnected? by Sonny Gill on Danny Brown‘s blog. Analyzes the evolution of media and if we’re too connected to our smartphones and laptops. Do we spend enough time offline engaging in real life? Some industries require hyperconnectivity, but is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Forrester says advertising is changing forever. What are associations doing to keep up? by Maggie McGary. Maggie’s the social media and community specialist at an association and writes candidly about how associations have to adapt to the changing face of advertising. Job boards and print ads just aren’t enough anymore.

Any more cool links from this week? Let me know!