Jamie Notter Blog
A School of SocialFish
I am a huge fans of both Lindy Dryer and Maddie Grant. They are both relative newcomers to the Association Blogging world, but they are already running circles around veterans like me these days. One thing I like about both of them is that they are doers. There's a...
Listening and Leadership
Thanks to Joe Gerstandt for pointing me to an article by Otto Scharmer on the "Blind Spot" of leadership. Honestly, I get mixed feelings when I read articles like this. At one level I am very excited by the depth and power of what Scharmer has written. I...
How Do You Know It Worked?
Blogging and Twitter superstar Maddie Grant actually posted all the comments she got on her evaluation form when she and Jeff De Cagna did a pecha kucha session at the ASAE annual meeting in San Diego. I thought their session was excellent. Convening a group at the...
With All Due Respect…
With all due respect, I think we should eliminate the phrase "with all due respect" from use! I hear it all the time, and it ostensibly is trying to reassure someone that even though I disagree with you, that doesn't mean I don't respect you as a person or...
Ride Allegheny
I am taking a break from work (and blogging) to do my annual bike ride from Pittsburgh, PA to Gaithersburg, MD. It's about 300 miles over four days with a bunch of friends who have been doing this trip now for eight years. There's nothing quite like being driven to...
Dealing with Complexity
Hugh MacLeod wrote an interesting post about complexity, citing complexity as the difference between success and failure. It's simple to fail, but you must manage complexity to succeed. He applies this theory to organizations:So when I see a small but...
Be Honest: Do You Say Yes Anyway?
I was having an interesting conversation yesterday with an association executive about the phenomenon of trying to say yes to everyone. It seems to be a common occurrence in the association world. We say yes to everyone, and then figure out later how to make it...
Evolution with Intention
Organizational cultures evolve. They quite rarely transform or get reinvented, despite the best efforts of change management experts. But they do evolve, and they evolve constantly. They evolve whether you want them to or not. But you absolutely can affect the...
Why You Do What You Do
David Patt over on the Association Executive Management blog recently attended a session for CEOs about employee engagement, and one of the CEOs asked the following question:Why it is OK to leave the office early for a family dinner but not for an acting class?...