Lindy and I were recently shooting the breeze about the ASAE section councils with some folks at ASAE. We thought it would be cool if everyone on a council brought to the table a “passion project” (something that ties right in to the idea of design thinking and creative teams). When asked what my personal passion project would hypothetically be for the Technology Section Council, I made something up about doing some sort of live event for tech people – but that wasn’t quite right.
The question bothered me for a few days and I finally realized that what I really wanted to do was create a community blog. I’ve had many a conversation over the past couple of years about the benefits of having a blog for association technology folks (and I know this came up a lot for others too), and I got to thinking, what’s stopping us? What exactly are we waiting for? So last week, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and throw out the idea to the ASAE technology listserve.
I presented my ideas on the listserve as to what the goals for this blog would be:
- Enable creativity and experimentation among association technology people: By creating an ASAE-related yet unofficial outpost that would be managed by interested volunteers, and by providing a space where association technology people (and anyone else) could discuss whatever tech-related issues they want (NOT social media specific, just to be clear).
- Build community around ASAE and associations: By linking to some of our great association tech bloggers, by finding new voices from the ASAE technology section, by showcasing individual association people doing awesome things.
- Build thought leadership from an association industry perspective: By connecting the association tech community with the nonprofit tech community (nptechies, NTEN et al) and giving the association tech community a voice in the wider tech blogosphere.
I asked everyone, would you read/subscribe to a blog like this? Would you contribute as a blogger, maybe on a monthly basis? Do you agree with the goals as described?
The responses came pouring in and they were 100% positive. I had said that I would be willing to create the blog and manage an editorial calendar, so… being a “just get crackin’” kinda girl, I spent a couple of hours last week setting it up, adding an “about” page, a moderation policy, a resources page… and here it is.
Have a look! We have some great posts already and a whole bunch more percolating. The best part is, this is a true community blog and any association industry professional interested in technology is welcome to participate. Here’s how to contribute. And here’s the editorial calendar (Google doc) – you can check out who’s there (40 or so association peeps already!) and add yourself. The calendar is NOT a schedule – you post whenever you want, and use the “calendar” to list ideas or ask questions of the group. The only other thing to do is email me (maddie[at]socialfish.org) to get added to the Posterous site as a contributor (I need an email address for that). After that, it could not be easier to post by email or web.
I specifically chose Posterous for this because the main focus is on content and community and Posterous is insanely easy for anyone to use. If it all works out and continues to be awesome, we might eventually upgrade, but for right now, we’ll just see how it goes. And that’s down to you. Please check it out, let me know any feedback/suggestions at any time, and contribute! We want to hear from you. Let me know what you think!
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