CopyDiva

I’m currently in Las Vegas for the annual BMA National Conference. Today was Chapter Leadership Day, which as an active board member (ok, I am this year’s president) of the Colorado Chapter, I find really valuable. It’s an afternoon of sessions dedicated to sharing knowledge amongst different chapters on everything to developing compelling programs to retaining members and creating new member benefits. Many chapters are doing innovative things to build and retain membership, even though this is a time when trade organizations as a whole are struggling to hold on to existing members — and are in fact struggling to survive.

Its always fun to get to see my fellow chapter leaders and find out what they are doing on the local level. Organizationally, this is a group that’s good at sharing knowledge so that other chapters can achieve success, a good feeling to be a part of this in such a competitive business world.
I’m impressed to see the positive changes taking hold in the national organization, which has experienced some stellar lows in leadership and financial management in the past. The current national board has done quite a job turning around the organization to the point of actually being able to support chapters (instead of the other way around). Kudos go to the leadership over the past few years for having the vision to get beyond these problems and move the BMA towards its true mission of helping business marketers be successful in their work.

Now if only Vegas wasn’t so overstimulating, I might actually be able to go to sleep…