As a former H.R. and Recruitment professional, I am still quite interested in the differences between each of the generations, what each values, and how they learn to co-exist in the workplace. Documenting, explaining and rationalizing these differences are definitely a hot topic these days (here, here, here, and here. One needn’t look any further than Jamie Notter, who has done a great job covering many of the differences and challenges that exist among and between the generations (Baby Boomers, Gen-X, and Millennials), in his e-book Generational Diversity.

If you are new to the topic or simply want a good overview of the generations and how to transcend some of the generational issues in your own association or organization I highly recommend Jamie’s book. Yet, as with any topic there are multiple perspectives to consider, especially with a topic as broad and complex as generational diversity.

This morning on my ride into work I heard an interview on the Marketplace Morning Report on NPR on the topic. Host Scott Jagow interviewed Cam Marston, author of “Motivating the ‘What’s In It for Me?’ Workforce“.

The key take away for me was the fact that there is a definitive gap between the way the generations view their work. Marston claims that the Millennial’s work to live, e.g. they define work as what takes place between the weekends and define who they are based on what they do in their free time, not what they do for a living. Conversely, the Baby Boom generation live to work and define themselves and derives their self-worth by what they do professionally. To that end, he advocates that the older generation manage the younger generation not through the number of hours they work or because they simply show up but rather by the quality of their work.

Another interesting point (and one that I completely agree with) is the fact that the Millenials are a generation that is used to flattery and praise for doing just the minimal things. It’s a reflection of parenting trends that we have experienced for the last 25 or 30 years. It’s problematic and a less then desirable attribute that will make them more challenging to manage.

Listen to the rest of the story here or listen via iTunes or get the feed.

Today is the day! After months of informal discussion, organization and anticipation we finally reached the day of the Association Social Media Unconference (for more on unconferences). Jeff De Cagna did an awesome job laying the foundation (setting up a wiki for the event), securing a great space (thanks ASAE & The Center), and encouraging people to sign-up and participate.

For me the event was going to be an opportunity to get out of Philadelphia and into D.C., meet a number of you folks who I know only from a virtual perspective and hopefully share some knowledge, camaraderie, and good times with. Needless to say I was really excited about the event and thrilled to be involved with it.

However, I guess it wasn’t meant to be. A small home related situation (my HVAC system died) has left me stuck waiting at home for a service man to arrive and repair the fan unit. Not a fun way to spend your time, at least not compared to how I had planned on spending the day. This whole experience does make me wish that was closer in terms of where I live/work (even though Philly to DC isn’t that far) it’s still much farther than 99.9% of you were going to have to travel today or any day to meet up with other association folks. I guess I am on an island of sorts and it bothers me from time to time.

Regardless, I hope all of you who are attending the ASMU have a great day! I can’t wait to read/listen (podcasts please!) to some of the sessions and I want to thank folks like Jeff, Ben, Rick, Zach, and Sue for taking such a leading role in this and for their thought leadership in general. Hopefully, the next time we do this we could have a virtual component so we could accommodate folks who want to participate regardless of where they are. I’ll start looking for potential solutions!

Apparently the association blogosphere is growing pretty fast and that is a great thing. However, with any type of growth come challenges. One of the biggest challenges is keeping track of who is actually blogging. To that end, Fred suggested that some type of blogroll be created and BMart and myself both agreed.

Not being one to simply sit around waiting for a solution to be created, I took it upon myself to scour the blogs that I read regularly, take a look at their blogrolls and see where that left me. So far, I have complied a list of almost 30 bloggers that have made themselves known in one way, shape or form. However, I know there are plenty more folks out there blogging on some aspect of associations that should be on this list as well, therefore lets call this a work in progress.

I am maintaining the list via del.icio.us and therefore can make the list available as a reference and RSS feed with little effort. Additionally, I have also collected each of the associated feed links for each of these blogs and have that available as well as an OPML file that you can import into the feed reader of your choice. I am also making this list available via HTML with and without the website information. I think I have all of the bases covered, but if I am missing a format that you may want/ need so you can include the blogroll on your website/blog let me know.

Additionally, should there be demand, I’d be happy to create a widget so you could simply add it to your site/blog with ease, however the syndicate javascript below should work in most instances.

• Del.icio.us Blogroll
• Del.icio.us Blogroll RSS
• Blogroll (HTML) - load the page then click file > save as to save the html file.
• Feedroll (HTML) - load the page then click file > save as to save the html file.
• Blog & Feedroll (HTML) - load the page then click file > save as to save the html file.
• RSS Feeds (OPML) - right click on the link, click save as.

Finally, if you want to syndicate the del.icio.us feed that I am displaying above without the styling simply include this javascript on your page where you want it to appear:

 
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://del.icio.us/feeds/js/associatedknowledge?count=30;
title=Association%20Bloggers%20Blogroll"></script>
<noscript><a href="http://del.icio.us/associatedknowledge">Association Bloggers Blogroll</a></noscript>
 

To adjust the style of the blogroll to match your site review the styling guide from del.icio.us.

Now it’s up to all of you to either recommend folks (via a comment) or point folks to this posting and have them comment themselves. Please be sure to provide not only the blog/bloggers name, but also the url for the site and the url for their RSS feed. Upon receipt, I will then add them to the list. It would also be pretty awesome if folks could notify me as bloggers decide to discontinue their writing or urls / feeds change so I can update them as well. My goal here is to do nothing more than make sure the Association Bloggers Blogroll is as complete as possible and available for any/everybody who wants it.