Amping up Peer-to-Peer WOMMA Connections in 2013

Amping up Peer-to-Peer WOMMA Connections in 2013

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The below is cross posted on the All Thing WOMM blog.

Happy New Year from all of us at WOMMA! I am honored to be serving as your Board Chair this year and looking forward to an amazing 2013.

2012 was a busy year for the organization – raising the bar on our events, upgraded educational offerings, new councils, the WOMM ROI guidebooks, and refreshed ethical and legal guidance to our practitioners, and some exciting additions to the staff. My predecessor, David Witt, set the tone across all of these efforts by focusing the organization on building brand advocacy – which has become a “true north” for us as the official trade organization for word of mouth and social media marketing.

Before I share with you our focus for 2013, I would like to contextualize it with a few sentences on my history with the organization. I was lucky enough to be present at WOMMA’s first summit in Chicago in 2005. I was a marketer at Dell and the lone member of a large department tasked with figuring out how to employ “viral marketing” for a new product launch (these were the days of Subservient Chicken, after all). At WOMMA, I not only learned the value of marketing by inspiration vs. interruption, I was more importantly given entre into a community of practice. In a medium that moves as quickly as ours, it would be impossible to stay current with simply reading industry blogs or our own experiences alone.

Over the years, WOMMA has connected me with the professionals who have given me advice that has changed my career and accelerated my own practice of WOMM. It is personal experience combined with what we learn from our respected peers that will allow us to continue to evolve WOMM as quickly as the means to spread and amplify it.

Thus, in looking at 2013, I am not here to shift our content direction, but instead to focus on HOW we as an organization, a staff, and a board serve you, the members. We want to take that amazing community feeling and valuable peer-to-peer connections of Summit & WOMM-U and extend it throughout the year and to a deeper bench of each member company’s marketers. For all of those who have approached me and wanted to get more involved, you have been heard. We will be providing many more means and opportunities throughout the year for you to take a more active role and get more value from the organization in the process.

Member Center

Here’s a sampling of some new ways the WOMMA community will be extended:

  • WOMMfest – On February 19, we’ll be hosting a first-of-its-kind coast to coast celebration of WOMM called WOMMfest.  In addition to three anchor events in Seattle, Chicago, and Atlanta, our friends at House Party are powering an opportunity for 50+ member companies across the country to host local WOMMA Trivia Nights. This is a chance to share your knowledge and enthusiasm with colleagues, clients, agencies, and vendors alike. Apply to host a party in your city here.
  • New Member Center – First of its kind member center providing you an opportunity to access a huge library of presentations and research material to build your internal cases for WOMM, but the opportunity to connect with your WOMMA colleagues and fellow council members on a far more frequent basis.
  • Better Events – Want to have a role in determining what content is shared on our event stages?  We are assembling member task forces who will determine what speaking and content proposals will make it on stage at WOMM-U and Summit. Email Sarah Stauffer at Sarah@WOMMA.org for more info.
  • More Councils – Our expanding group of councils and evolving WOMM-COM programs will provide great opportunities to get more members of WOMMA companies involved by providing year round education for members at every stage of their careers.

We wake up every day hoping to make WOMMA a more valuable organization for our members.  If you have ideas or feedback, we’d love to hear from you, especially in the member center. It’s your organization, and we hope that in 2013 you’ll help us find ways to make WOMMA even better for your career, for our membership, and for the entire industry.

Start interacting and taking full advantage of your membership right now at the member center.

Happy New Year!

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