As humans, we hate change. Change is uncomfortable and sometimes difficult to adjust to. But change can be a great thing, especially for associations past their founding generation.

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

Time to change: For things to move forward in your organization, you need a vision. Things will change inevitably, but as a leader you ensure whether the change is good or bad for the organization. AMR Management Services’ vice president of sales and marketing, Brian Reuwee, recently came across an organization that could use a lot of change—and maybe even needs to start from scratch. “In the association business in many instances walking away from activities, slaughtering sacred cows and making wholesale change is the only way for an organization to move forward. Nibbling around the edges isn’t enough,” he wrote. How do you approach change in your association?

Inside the feed: Facebook has undergone plenty of face-lifts throughout the years, particularly in the way users are fed information about their friends. In 2006, it introduced the News Feed. Simply said, users weren’t happy. They didn’t understand the purpose behind it and they even created a group on Facebook to express their hate for it. Eventually, the anger simmered down, and the News Feed is now standard. Even though users were reluctant about the transformation, Facebook wasn’t. There’s a lesson here, according to Brenton Thornicroft, cofounder of cliqie.com: “Pay attention to what the data is telling you, more so than what the users are.”

What’s behind the growth? According to Marketing General’s 2013 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report, 24% of associations experienced rapid growth in membership in 2012. (Marketing General CEO Tony Rossell describes rapid growth as an increase of 6 percent or more in a single year.) How’d they do it? Membership Marketing Blog has put together a list of characteristics of these growing associations using the study. Where does your association fit in these numbers?

What’s on your reading list today? Let us know in the comments below.

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