Young Association Professionals (YAP) yapstar.org

Elizabeth, I think this is a great idea to expand upon the YAP Group at ASAE Annual. A perfect place where many are gathered and we can collect thoughts from attendees to the future of the YAP Group.

I def think we should be helping members learn about opportunities as far as career growth, CMP/CAE exams, mentors, philanthropy activities, and of course education on the best professional networking settings.

I will be thinking on some additional ideas to post, but look forward to the discussion at ASAE Annual.

Great thoughts and suggestions.  Love to see the YAPs help Kiki with the #Red4Joplin effort.

Is there a way to reach out to the YAPs in the state allied associations like FSAE, CalSAE, TSAE, etc.  Many of our best and brightest are there and we need to engage them.  Unfortunately, if they are from a small association they might not be coming to Annual.

Having been a direct beneficiary of the power of YAP thanks to support from Lauren, Maddie, Lindy, Jamie and Tom I would like to suggest that YAP could offer 1:1 mentorships over the 12month period between annual meetings.

The mentorship could be established at a training session offered at one annual with agreements entered into for regular online and offline contact over the next 12 months. Learnings and ideas could be shared online with the broader YAP men tees and mentor network.

My regular Skype calls and tweet contact directly contributes to my motivation for being back in the US each year and I would like this to be on offer for others. I will certainly offer my time each fortnight or month to Skype with a new YAP member and share my experience in association management, online, change management etc.

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Not to stop the discussion, and please keep your ideas coming, but it looks like there's a consensus forming around the idea of young professionals helping each other out.

But the last thing we want to do is start yet another boring old mentoring program. Bleh.

We want something YAP-tastic!

We want to help match up YAPstars who need help with YAPstars who can provide help.

We want to foster more of the amazing relationships we all already build around the parties and with the 5K group Lauren's put together for ASAE11, only this time around helping you kick ass at the office.

In other words, like in everything we do, we want it to be FUN!

But we need your help. What would a program like this look like? How would it work?

Feel free to share your ideas here, to contact any of the YAP Brain Squad (see above) directly, or to bring your ideas to St. Louis in August, where we plan to use the "Flash Learning Room" to put together an unsession about this.

This may be too specific, but....

Another model that might be fun/helpful could be a peer assist, either on the phone or on a webinar-type platform - I tried this with a group of Network Weavers, and it was the most productive ongoing session format that we tried out. Also, they're a relatively low-cost, low-time investment way to bring folks together.

Basically, one participant would bring a question or problem, and all fellow interested members would come and hear about their experience. We'd all then offer real-time peer counseling/coaching/consulting using our own experiences in the world. 

Just another option to keep us all talking!

I like everything Elizabeth Baranek said. Also, I love the idea Linda had in engaging the state associations. We experience this in our own associations - lower (wo)men on the totum pole don't get to leave the city for training, but they need training and networking more than anyone. I would be happy to help with the WSAE here in Wisconsin if you are looking for volunteers.

Really looking forward to the 5k this year, Lauren! Also, Maddie, count me in as an interested participant (granted, not an Association Exec, but still an interested participant) in a YAP meeting... I'm not sure I would recognize all the sober YAP-stars... Just sayin.

So many associations are now focusing on how to outreach to potential members/customers that fall within the YAP demographic - I wonder if there is a way for YAP to put together some best practices (including how to throw a great party :-) )?  If in an ongoing way, be consultants of some sort (though that is probably to broad - though we are brainstorming here).

On a different note, besides achieving the CAE, what if YAP could put together some ongoing paths to the success of an association career?  Are there choices that we make in our professional lives that increase the probability of job growth and satisfaction?  Some of this would of course be leveraging the experience of those outside the YAPsters, but we could be the body to collect, synthesize and share that knowledge.

Either way, look forward to continuing the conversation in St. Louis!

How about something like this? Offered at Annual, but then also a few webinar type events for those that don't always get to make it to the Annual. 

One presentation is 5 minutes, 20 slides. In this example in Phoenix there were a total of 18 presentations in one evening:

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizonaliving/articles/2011/05/19/20110519ignitephx0519.html

@Lowell, I've been thinking along the same lines, but instead of from the individual side, I'm interested in what YAPs want associations to provide to support our growth as leaders in the association world (full disclosure: I've proposed this topic to the 2012 ASAE Leadership Academy for our project). This group could be an incredibly powerful source of a PD agenda for the future leaders of the association world!