It’s once again that wonderful time of year when the annual rites of spring are upon us. Major League Baseball’s Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues are in full swing, and opening day fast approaches – the National Past Time is alive and well.
The beauty of each new season is that every team has the chance to wipe the slate clean and start anew, with eyes fully focused on the ultimate prize – the World Series. When opening day arrives, each club theoretically, at least, has the same opportunity to make it to the World Series. Whether you’re a Cubs fan, Yankees fan, Giants fan, or Rays fan, eternal optimism leads you to believe your team has the chance to win it all – except for maybe Astros fans. But I digress.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the organizations we work with could do the same thing every year – toss our failures and shortcomings aside and start fresh on the path to achieve our most important goals. Like loyal baseball fans, our members would excitedly renew and voice great optimism that this would be THE year for them. If only…
There is a similar type of excitement and anticipation going on at YourMembership.com, too. Xperience2014, our Customer Conference, is just around the corner. Our conference is sold out with almost 300 association leaders and staff converging on St. Petersburg to take advantage of in-depth training on the YM platform; to gain insights on where our products and services are headed; to speak with peers on how they successfully use our products in their daily work; and to hear from some of the top thought leaders in the association industry.
We will have Christophe Morin, Mike McKinley, Mary Byers, CAE, Ben Martin, CAE, Elizabeth Engel, M.A., CAE, Shelly Alcorn, CAE, Willis Turner, CAE, CME, CSE, and Kathie Pugaczewski, CAE, CMP, on hand to share their unique insights on many of the major challenges facing associations today.
We will also have exciting news about the roadmap for our member management software, and some new developments around our Association Career Network.
Reading through the schedule I have already determined some favorite sessions I don’t want to miss (especially the ones I will be presenting). I’m sure you have your favorites, as well. We hope to send our attendees back with a lengthy list of actionable items that will make a positive impact on the work you are doing.
Having been involved in the previous eight conferences, I can honestly say that it never gets old for me. The energy that comes from our conferences often will carry me through the remainder of the year. And as a bonus, I’ve made a number of good friends along the way. It is much more than an opportunity to provide training and thought leadership to our customers – it’s a chance to dig deeper and talk with them about the challenges they are facing in their day-to-day work, and hopefully discover things we can do to make their lives, and the lives of their members better through the solutions we offer.
A lot of time and effort has been out into making Xperience2014 a valuable experience for of our attendees. If you are making your way down to St. Pete on April 1st, please take a moment and stop by and say hello. I am always excited to catch up with old friends, and excited to make some new friends, too. See you in St. Pete!
