Nearly 900,000 apps are available for download on Apple’s App Store. Of those, more than half remain untouched. But the ones that people do use are game changers.

That, and more, in today’s Lunchtime Links:

Mobile app-titude: Looking at the numbers, it’s hard to tell what has made the trend toward mobile applications so successful. Out of nearly 900,000 apps available on Apple’s five-year-old App Store, tracking service Adeven reports that nearly 580,000 have never been used. Furthermore, research from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project says the average smartphone owner uses five or fewer apps on a weekly basis. If that’s the case, what’s with all the hype around mobile applications? Writing for BBC, tech reporter Dave Lee says the App Store helped create a new tech economy—one that has changed how industries connect with consumers. “The launch of the App Store in 2008 is widely regarded as a game-changing moment for how we consume technology,” writes Lee. “It has inspired other companies to follow suit, with Google, Microsoft and Blackberry among those to have launched their own stores. Apple says it has paid out 10 billion dollars to app developers—three times more, it boasts, than all the other app stores combined.” Does your association use mobile apps to connect with its members?

Who should lead? Steve Drake, president of association consultancy SCD Group Inc., recently posed an interesting question to association leaders: “Should the CEO of an association be an industry insider or association professional?” Drake compiled several responses from the field for a blog post on the topic. Said one association leader, “My personal opinion is that all association CEOs must be in the constant learning curve and earn our jobs every day. If we really are good at leading and managing the business and Board, using our members for their expertise in the field or industry and bring to the table new [ideas], which keep our association growing and stretching, then we are doing our jobs.” What do you think? Tell us in the comments.

The magic of unlearning: If planning your association meetings feels too much like a boring habit, it might be time to unlearn some of your strategies, writes Elizabeth Zielinski, CMM, for Meetings and Conventions. Create ingenuity by revisiting your go-to meeting model, she suggests. There are a number of habits you could stand to “unlearn,” such as the way experts are asked to present and even how you set up a room. “Simply stated, the process of unlearning means to consciously discard certain knowledge or habits,” Zielinski writes. “The world is full of examples of one-time truths that eventually required reconsideration.”

What are you reading today? Share your links in the comments.

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