Down Is Up
Thanks for the article(s) on the economy in the June issue. The optimism presented by Peter Leyden in "The Economy Is Half Full" certainly didn't mirror the comments made by those in our industry. Perhaps it is "recession depression" because the issues in this economy are more visible to us at home (fuel, mortgage) and we carry that over to the business side. It sure doesn't seem like prices are dropping where I shop, but at the same time, the mall parking lots aren't exactly empty.

Interestingly, there was no discussion of online communities/social networking/creative marketing approaches to keep attendance from falling or even to grow attendance. It would seem that after so much growth in technology, people in our industry would be using more offensive than defensive strategies. An exception was Ron Moen's comment about declines in physical attendance at his organization's meetings being counteracted to some extent by growth in other products and services using technology (teleseminars and Webinars) to connect their "knowledge seekers" with "knowledge holders."

This seems to me a proactive approach, aligning face-to-face with online, versus the "cutting" approach that might have short-term balance-sheet impacts but longer-term negative implications. There are never "easy" solutions during cyclical economic shifts.

Thanks for creating the discussion.

D. Bradley Kent
Vice President, Account Strategy Sales Administration
Freeman

We'd love to hear from you! Please e-mail Managing Editor Peggy Swisher at pswisher@pcma.org.

Convene Gets The Gold ...

… two more times! In our July issue, we reported that Convene had won two Society of National Association Publications (SNAP) awards. Since then, we've earned an American Society of Business Publication Editors' Azbee Annual Award of Excellence (regional) for Editorial Gold (for our November 2007 Leading by Example profile of Dr. Bruce Charash), and ASAE and The Center's Gold Circle Award for Magazine. We're extremely proud of all the people behind our success.