June 2010 (Updated 6/14/10)

I would like to thank Linda and all my fellow board members for their support, guidance and friendship over the past year. I’d also like to congratulate the 2010-2011 board of directors and welcome the new vice presidents to the mix: Don Scheibenreif and George Rafeedie. Along with Jen Howard as executive vice president from Google and returning vice presidents Carolyn Phillips and Tom Insprucker, I know I’m leaving the organization in great hands.

 

We’ve had a lot of accomplishments over the last year. We redid our Web site at the end of last summer, thanks to Symmetri Marketing Group. We launched our Flux campaign for our luncheon program series, thanks to GyroHSR, and boy, how far we’ve come since last summer on that. We’ve started two new committees: the Social Media Committee, which launched our Facebook and Twitter pages, and the Millennial Committee, which partnered with our Membership Committee to launch our first ever BMA Chicago Day in October, Young Professionals Month in April and also our inaugural Rising Star Award.

 

Of course, we can’t forget our first ever televised and streamed national event in April, which featured YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn Day. And, of course, not to mention my use of Skype to be at the luncheons even when I was out of town, and these President’s Message videos.

 

You know, we welcomed new sponsors this year, too, like Business.com and IC Group, and new in-kind sponsors Deja Views and The Simons Group. We welcomed back some of our great sponsors, too, like The Wall Street Journal, Paladin, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Freeman, Slack Barshinger, Erickson Research, SourceFour, Plum Productions, IIT Stuart School of Business and ExactTarget. And one final thank-you to our creative partners for the 2010 Biz Bash, Gerard Design, and the 2010 Tower Awards, Draftfcb.

 

We started the year last September in a state of flux, and while flux still abounds in everything we do, we’ve seen how marketers are doing things smarter and making a difference every day, from Randall Rozin of Dow Corning to the technology side of things with Steve Liguori of GE; from Nancy Bhagat of Intel to branding ourselves with Eileen Zicchino of JP Morgan Chase and our channel markets with John Maples of PepsiCo.

 

Other top CMOs shared their stories with us, too, like Kathy Button Bell of Emerson and Richard Castellini of CareerBuilder. And we wrapped up things with our organizational purpose by Eduardo Conrado, my boss, actually, at Motorola, and branding partnerships with Phil Clement of Aon. So we’ve definitely touched on flux in all states of marketing.

 

Our Breakfast Roundtable series also delivered topics related to flux, starting with our social media series that ran from September to December. We hit record attendance, averaging more than 100 people per event. We even had to switch to a bigger room. So great news. The last few sessions of the year highlighted measurement, engaging your customers, sustainability, the state of b-to-b search, creating a b-to-b marketing strategy—and we wrapped up in May with building revenue. So great job by Mary Uhrina, the Breakfast Roundtable chair, and the Breakfast Roundtable Committee.

 

The feedback from our event surveys continues to tell us what you’re looking for and to justify us bringing in these high-quality speakers. We will continue to listen to you and what you’ve got to say, and we will make sure we incorporate that into our program for next year. So stay on track and stay tuned and we’ll be starting to promote next year’s programs shortly.

 

Now as a member of BMA since 1992, I can’t encourage you enough to not just be a member but to engage and participate. Being president is pretty high-level participation, but I can tell you that what I’ve done just connecting with people through this organization has paid dividends more than the investment I’ve given it. I’ve made lifelong friends. It’s a real payback to your membership, both personally and professionally.

 

So dive in. If there’s one message you pull from me today, it’s that. Dive in, get involved, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube. We try to give you as many options as possible. But definitely start connecting with the people in the organization, because that is the power of the network that we provide you.

 

Thanks again for letting me serve you as your president. You’re in good hands with Linda and the rest of the board. And, of course, I won’t be too far away, in person or on Skype. Enjoy the summer, and see you in September.

Best regards, 

Suzanne Martin, BMA Chicago President