For those with "building community" on their list of goals for 2010, check out SmartBlog on Social Media's posting by Merritt Colaissi - Spike Jones' 11 Lessons to ignite a fan community. It was lesson #9 that caught my eye:

Movements live online and offline. 90% of WOM happens offline. It’s important to get people together offline.

We are spending much time, energy and dollars on our IT and virtual communities that we fail to see the importance of being face-to-face. Some associations are even going so far as to replace traditional events and, yes even chapters, with online learning and virtual chapters. But it's not a either-or proposition. As Jones learned in building Fiskars successful crafters movement, its the combination that wins.

Words of wisdom to the boys of Troop 939 on the eve of their Senior Patrol Leader elections from an adult leader via email:

I expect that the candidates will have plans for activities for the upcoming months, cabin camp-out, ski trip, summer camp as well as merit badge madness [...]. But to the matter at hand. Our next senior patrol leader will need to be a "take charge" boy with big plans and ideas. Remember, Scouts soar with the eagles and that is where our next leader needs to take the troop. Do not be afraid to ask questions of the candidates! Remember, the only stupid question is one that is never asked.

Boy Scout Troops are in many ways like chapters. They are run by volunteers following (albeit not always to the letter) a policies & procedures manual sent from national and - very much to the point - are as good as their leaders. This piece of advice, which I really see as wisdom, cuts to the core of the leader criteria and the role of members in selecting the leaders. Do we ever make it this simple for our chapters?

It surely seems odd that a public relations professional chapter wouldn’t be an early adopter of the new media. But we weren’t. Our members were – and are – curious though. It’s that curiosity that gave us the platform for entering into social media sphere.

• We needed a new newsletter editor. The call was answered by an innovative, exciting member … who also happened to be a blogger. Our cumbersome e-letter morphed into a blog.
• A Facebook fan started up an ISES DC group.
• She was on Twitter but didn’t see the chapter so offered to be the ISES DC Twitter voice.
• Driven to organize the planning and execution of the chapter’s major expo, the chair opened a Google Group, loaded up the documents and ran the first meeting using those shared items.

KiKi L’Italien, Delcor Technologies and I had a great conversation at ASAE Social Media Workshop. KiKi shared her awesome story about the Optical Society of America student chapters and I shared the ISES DC blog and story. Here’s a quick recap of our key points and you can check out our shared bookmark smw09 for more resources.

About one year ago, the Maryland Recycling Network gingerly began its foray in social media. We followed the best advice we found and marched confidently forward … right into failure.

Actually the failure was on the engagement front. The initiative succeeded in that it provided a valuable lesson. From the lesson is emerging a second – and we trust a more successful – launch. As we move forward here’s the lesson we learned from part 1.

Public Relations Society of America Maryland Chapter has tried it all – FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogging. Success happened when they focused these on a specific event.

International Special Events Society DC Chapter found success when it followed its members – rather than leading.

Maryland Recycling Network is on Plan B. Plan A, a wiki, fizzled. That was probably good news because it led to a different path that wasn’t even in our minds.

We’re all asking for the secret to building engagement in our social media initiatives.  The path to success is littered (quite literally if you consider the many “ghost communities”) with failures.  I see the failures as being the secret to success. Our missteps have actually driven Mariner and our association management clients to learn lessons about members, grow closer to members in that process, discover new technologies, and improve with each attempt.

In a 155-word story, Cynthia D'Amour answers the question. What question you ask in return? The question of what's more important that our chapters follow our rules right down to the last detail or that they deliver great, meaningful results?

Three great posts for chapter administrators, chapter leaders and national staff:

• Leslie White's post on policies that sheds light on where we go wrong and how to go right - applicable whether we're talking about a policy for your education chair or an affiliation agreement - great Leslie!
• Beth Kanter's post on the last Blogpotomac that offers really two learnings: 1) a look at a great event format and why it works and 2) reflections on what it means to have great community.I joined Beth at Blogpotomac and she's right!
  
• Phoebe Owen's post on nonprofits in the cloud with great tools just waiting for all of us.
  

And a bonus ... here's a link to Lisa Junker's click links.

Enjoy and share your favs!

I haven’t been very active in this playground because I’ve been spending more time on a new playground More than PR Basics helping our PRSA Maryland chapter launch a blog (and plan and build a phenomenal 1-day event about the marriage of traditional and new media for pr professionals which takes place Tuesday Oct 6) and in Hootsuite land helping two nonprofits get involved in the Twitter conversation.

My focus on our chapters and their respective social media efforts has been fun and has reminded me that we do need to nurture and coach our leaders for success. To that end, here are some links that are definitely worth sharing with your chapter leaders (and really any and all volunteer leaders) to help them succeed: