Jeff De Cagna has chimed in on the proposed merger as well.

View from a Corner Office has a nice recap on today’s town hall meeting about the proposed merger between GWSAE and ASAE. Worth a read if you are a member of either organization. I plan to attend the town hall meeting that is part of the ASAE Management and Technology Conference.

I’m a member of both organizations and am a bit ambivalent about the merger. My main concern is that the programs and quality of service from both organizations will go down for a quite a period of time due to the inevitable merger turbulence.

Re-Entry Blog was added to my association weblogs wiki page today. I pared down the description for that page to be a bit more brief but will post the entirety of it here:

Regularly updated blog on transition from prison issues supported by the National Institute of Corrections. Meant to share knowledge, recent events, and other re-entry isses between and among states undergoing re-entry reforms (nearly all.) Currently there are three bloggers, soon we will begin to see posts from about 20 additional re-entry experts. The blog currently recieves hits on a daily basis from most state governments, non-governmental organizations, and international governments.

Looks like this is a joint effort by a government institute and a private research firm. While NIC is not an association, I’ll leave them on the list since they offer a lot of association-like services and it provides an interesting example of how to use a weblog for NPO/NGO activities.

Came across this link on Kmentor:

The Directory of Open Access Journals.

Welcome to the Directory of Open Access Journals. This service covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. We aim to cover all subjects and languages. There are now journals in the directory.

ASAE conducted an online seminar yesterday about changes in the FCC regulations governing the sending of faxes. These changes come with the same batch of rules that established the Do Not Call Registry.

In a nutshell, associations will no longer be able to fax dues renewal, conference information or other marketing information to someone with whom they have an established business relationship (i.e. a member) unless they have express written permission to do so. This could be pretty disastrous for associations that rely on fax marketing to their members (a very common practice). ASAE has posted some resources about this, including the handouts from the session. Below is an excerpt from the handout:

The new rules, which will become effective 30 days after they are published in the Federal Register (which has not yet occurred, but is expected shortly), will require signed written consent in order to send faxes that contain unsolicited advertisements ? even to association members. The consent must include the fax number to which the faxes will be sent. The FCC noted that electronic and digital signatures will suffice (thus allowing online and possibly email consent), but noted that once the new rules take effect, sending faxes to seek consent will be forbidden (although the consent can be returned via fax under the new rules). Thus, the FCC not only eliminated the EBR exemption, it eliminated the ability to obtain consent without a signed written document as well. It also noted that an opt-out mechanism (e.g., ?call if you do not wish to receive more faxes?) is not permitted; a person must provide consent before being faxed. Finally, once a consent is provided, it can later be revoked. As under the prior rules, the fax ban applies not only to stand-alone fax machines, but also to computer fax boards or modems that can send a fax from a personal computer.

John Graham Named ASAE President and CEO. My best wishes to everyone at ASAE on turning around the organization. As a member I really hope they can get out of their current financial hole quickly and begin improving services.

Sometimes projects cannot succeed in their current incarnation. I have been involved in a couple of projects that were initially disasters and had to be stopped, completely re-thought and then begun again. While it won’t happen often (hopefully!) being able to correctly identify a terminal project and deal with it can save time, money and finally generate a successful outcome. I’ve outlined a few factors to look for as well as some tips on how to kill a bad project.

When to Kill a Project

• Over budget.
• Over time.
• Nowhere near completion.
• Thinking about the project keeps you up at night and makes you nauseous at work.

The above are a deadly combination. Budget, time and completion milestones should all roughly keep pace with each other. Being over budget, over time and under completed is about the worst possible configuration and represents catastrophic failure for that project. Feeling sick to your stomach is your subconcious project manager telling you that you are doomed unless something is done. Listen to your body. The secret to excellent project management is recognizing tendencies toward the above early in the project rather than when you run out of money and/or time.

How to Kill a Project

• Build a case including alternate options to meet original needs.
• Gain support of stakeholders and a champion.
• Present recommendations to leadership.
• Do not play the blame game.
• Learn!

Don’t just go to your supervisor and say this project needs to be killed. You have to address how the need that generated the project in the first place will still be met or debunk the necessity of meeting it at all. You won’t get anywhere unless you can confidently answer that one. You also need to sell all the stakeholders on the idea as well. Stopping a project is incredibly hard to do once momentum is established and you will need all the help you can get. Finally, don’t get into assigning blame for who screwed up what. That will just take energy away from killing the project. Fix the problems and learn what went wrong and why and how to do it better next time.

This is not to say that all poorly run projects must be killed. Usually you can make some adjustments to an existing project that will bring it back into shape. Killing should be reserved for those few that cannot be salvaged in their current form.

An article I wrote for ASAE‘s Technoscope newsletter just came out: The Association Web Job Description

Starting with a blank page, drafting an association Web job description can be a challenging exercise; few resources exist specifically for this purpose. This article will provide a starting point for association executives designing positions to support an association Web site.