Of all the responses I received to my request for help in setting an agenda for 2010, the one that gave me most pause was from Jeff De Cagna (like I was surprised?):

In 2010, association leaders need to ask a fundamental question: how can we make everything we do more social?  This question is not primarily a technological consideration, but a strategic and human one.  The challenge is to look beyond the tools at the diverse relationships they enable and the deeper meaning they nurture.

I crowdsourced my 2010 action list and received a great reply from colleagues. The ideas included “quick actions” which I shared in my first post, tips for listening, several thoughts on integrating social media (which will come in future posts) and this checklist for building relationships from David Nour, author, speaker and consultant. 

In the waning hours of the Aughties (or Double Ohs??), I sought advice from a cadre of friends and colleagues to help me set some goals for the fresh decade. I tweeted to about 30 peeps:

peggyhoffman pulling together a new years list for social tips/to do for 2010 - let me add one from you ... dm okay?

Come to think of it, this was a most appropriate exercise to end the Search Decade (so named by Micheal Kruse in his article in the St Petersburg Times). The responses back were all over the board and yet all on the board. I’ve since spent the first couple weeks of the new decade pondering this advice.

Two quick clicks that are worth lingering over - both under the header "it's all about relationships":

Mark Horoszowski's post Relationships are relationships kicks off with the truism "Whether its online or offline a relationship is still a relationship."

The essence of Brian Solis' must-read post, The Human Network: The Social Economy is Influenced by How We Communicate Online and Offline, can be captured in one line from that post: "Relationships... RELATIONSHIPS…count for everything here."

Or in the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (from Flight to Arras, 1942): Man is a knot into which relationships are tied.