Strauss Articles

Knowledge, Insight, and Experience

Every Thursday, our experts provide insights into industry trends and issues that readers can leverage to improve their associations and signature events.

Articles by category

Critical Paths Designed for Recurrent In-Person Board Meetings

Just like a birthday or wedding anniversary, there are a number of events that occur annually. It is important to remember [...]

Dealing with Difficult Association Members

One of the interesting things about working for an association management company is that I have the opportunity to interact with [...]

A Joint Venture Between Two Associations – Creating A Mutually Beneficial Partnership.

One of our association management clients has recently decided to join with another association on a new joint venture. This is [...]

Change Up Your Floorplans to Enhance Your Conference

I am sure we are all tired of walking into an event with banquet rounds in our plenary rooms or rows [...]

Evaluating Your Association Management Company

Is your association management company doing what they are contracted to do in their scope of work? Are they doing it [...]

Staying Organized in the Fast-Paced Association Management World

In today’s association management world, it is a complicated task to keep all your association contacts and to-do lists properly organized. [...]

RFPs for Association Conferences – What to Ask and How to Ask It

One of the first steps in the association event planning process is venue selection. Whether the event is being planned for [...]

The Importance of Role Clarity for Association Boards and Committees

I recently attended the Symposium for Chief Staff and Elected Officers led by Glenn Tecker and presented by the Canadian Society [...]

An Association’s Annual Trade Show – Is it Becoming Obsolete?

Recently, our association management company brought on a new client. This association has hosted a trade show for many years, sometimes [...]

The Rapid Pace of Change: The Association Challenge

I recently attended the kick off breakfast for the Electrical Association of Manitoba’s annual conference. The opening speeches were very typical [...]

Five Tips for Writing Things That Will Actually get Read

One thing that struck me in my first few months at an association management company is the amount of writing required [...]

Could You Be Saving Hundreds of Dollars and Trees? Analyzing Your Event Printing Budget

As event managers, we are always looking for ways to reduce costs for the association events we manage. Two areas that [...]

Association Cyber Risk: Reducing It, and Insuring Against It

“It’s no longer if you are going to have a cybersecurity event, it is when.” This grim prediction comes from the [...]

Reading and Understanding AV Quotes

With new developments in technology and more options becoming available to association event managers, audiovisual (AV) is becoming an increasingly complex [...]