Is it really possible to separate the personal from the professional? I have been struggling with this issue for the past few months both in my daily life as well as my blogging. What follows is a description of the struggle and explanation of why I ultimately have decided to start a new blog (Associated Knowledge) to serve as my public speaking venue and focusing this blog on my personal / family life. For those of you who have bookmarked Nomadic Learning, I would appreciate it if you could change your bookmark to http://www.associatedknowledge.com and update your RSS feeds as well. Please read on for more details.

Many of you have come to know me through my Nomadic Learning blog. Initially I had intended to use it as a way to share my thoughts surrounding life, my family and my travels. I also figured that while I was at it, I could use it as a portfolio to showcase some of my work and technology related experiments. For almost 9-months that is exactly how I kept it and it wasn’t until I attended the ASAE Technology Conference in February of this year that things started to change.

It was at that point that I not only found additional topics to write about, but I also discovered a network of like-minded individuals (The Association Blogoclump) who were also interested in similar topics and were passionate about sharing their thoughts. At that point I tried to maintain my blog as dual-purpose, but I quickly realized that similar to my actual life, separating what is personal from professional online is not an easy thing to do.

I really do love my family and know that there is more than enough material that I could share in a blog format. My family and I have the opportunity to do a lot of really fun things together. And with a toddler in the house, there is never a shortage of activity to write about and share pictures of. However, I am also extremely passionate about the association that I work for, the work that I do, and talking about the intersection of technology, learning and associations. While I am not able to discuss many of the specifics of my day-to-day work, I have been able to share my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences in more of a general manner pretty regularly since I started blogging about it.

A few weeks ago, my son and I accompanied my wife on a trip to a conference in Detroit she was attending. It was at that point when I realized the true challenge of blogging about professional activities and personal life in the same venue. During the time that we spent in Detroit my son and I made many memories (visiting Comerica Park and Ford Field, attending the Detroit Autorama, etc.) but I really didn’t feel it was appropriate the share those pictures with folks who read my blog for thoughts and ideas related to technology and associations.
(more…)

If you are unfamiliar with or confused by the constantly evolving language and landscape of Web 2.0 and the almost endless surge of emerging technologies, BusinessWeek has come to the rescue in the form of monthly primers targeted specifically at top executives and organizational leaders.

While primarily targeted at folks who occupy the “C-Suite“, and therefore more of a general overview as opposed to an in-depth exploration of a topic, these primers are nonetheless a great resource to gain a basic understanding of the topics and technologies that are shaping the current business landscape regardless of where you sit in an organization.

This series appears to have been published monthly since June 2006 and have thusfar covered the following topics:

• Wiki Special Report (Articles) | The CEO’s Guide to Corporate Wikis (Podcast)
• Virtual Work Special Report (Articles) | The CEO’s Guide to The Virtual Workplace (Podcast)
• Video Blogging Special Report (Articles) | The CEO’s Guide to Video Blogging (Podcast)
• Where the Workers Are Report (Articles) | The CEO’s Guide to Where the Workers Are (Podcast)
• Guide to Mashups (Articles) | The CEO’s Guide to Enterprise Mashups (Podcast)
• Location Aware Technologies (Articles) | The CEO’s Guide to RFID (Podcast)
• Social Networks (Articles) | The CEO’s Guide to Social Networks (Podcast)
• Prediction Markets (Articles) | The CEO Guide to Prediction Markets (Podcast)
• Internet Telephony (Articles) | The CEO’s Guide to VoIP (Podcast)
• Web 2.0 (Articles) | O’Reilly’s Guide to Web 2.0 (Podcast)

Included in the special section are numerous print articles as well as the content in podcast format. And for those of you who are so inclined, there is also an RSS feed of all of their Technology and Science (rss link) related material that you can add to your reader to eliminate one additional trip out to the web.

This is a great resource to come up to speed on some of the technologies you are hearing about and may be unfamiliar with or like to know more about, because they provide both detail and context.

For the past few days I have been in Detroit, Michigan with my son as we tagged along with my wife who was attending an Association Conference (American String Teachers Association - ASTA) of her own. It was a great experience for me as I got to spend some time exploring Detroit with my son and I also had the opportunity to attend a conference from the perspective of a visitor / outsider and view the experience from a different lense.

While I wish I could have come up with a myriad of paradigm shifting thoughts that I could share with everyone that I learned through the experience, the only thing I can offer is based on a simple observation. My wife was so excited about the conference and really took so much away from it that she seemed to be floating on air at the end of each day. She came away with ideas and strategies completely unknown to her and it seemed to have a profound impact on how she viewed a number of challenges that she was facing as a teacher.

Seeing her reaction made me realize just how fortunate that I am to be working for an association, gave me yet another reason to wake up in the morning, and reminded me of how much impact we can have on a daily basis. As association executives and employee’s, face our fair share of struggles in providing member value, being good stewards of the association and keeping our members happy. Sometimes these objectives come at odds with each other and it doesn’t always feel like what we are doing is making the type of impact we had hoped. However, I think we need to stay focused on the fact that what we do is extremely valuable and a lot of people are really excited to be part of it.

For those of you who haven’t done it, I think it’s a worthwhile activity to be able to attend an association meeting or conference when you don’t have a vested interest in the content, outcome or planning and execution. While conferences and meetings are only a small part of what many associations do, it is definitely a very visible activity and a great example of how associations provide additional member value through networking and professional development. For many, conferences are the only way they come into contact with your association on a personal level but they can serve as continuous reminders to our members why they decided to join in first place. In my wife’s case, I have no doubt that the conference reminded her of the value because she is already talking about attending next years conference. When viewed from that perspective, I think her attendance was very rewarding and a potentially transformational experience that she will carry with her for some time to come.

The moral of the story is that sometimes in order to gain clarity we actually need to move away from, rather than closer to, the situation we are facing, problem we are trying to solve or question we are trying to answer.

While I am on the subject of rewarding and potentially transformational experiences, Jeff De Cagna has proposed pulling together a social media unconference for folks from the association community at large, who are interested in learning more at the role about the possibilities of social media in associations or even contributing what they know and have experienced. I suggest taking a look at the Association Social Media Unconference Wiki and considering getting involved. I know I will be and think it could be a great way to illustrate the power of social media and learn a lot in the process.