February 2008

At this time of year I always look forward to the first day of spring, but this year I am particularly excited. That is because the first day of spring is Thursday, March 20, the same day of our March MarketingMasters luncheon seminar.

Truly, I look forward to all our luncheon seminars—including our upcoming February event with Motorola’s Casey Keller—but for March we are re-engineering our luncheon format. Our speaker at that event will be Tim Armstrong, Google’s president of advertising and commerce for North America. Tim told us he prefers question-and-answer sessions to canned PowerPoint-type presentations; so for the first time, our luncheon speaker will have no prepared remarks. Instead, he and Jim Lecinski, Google’s Midwest regional director, who will serve as the moderator, will field a series of questions, some of which will be solicited in advance.

In order to accomplish that, we need your help. Collect all the burning b-to-b questions you have been dying to ask a high-level executive at Google, and please email them to us at info@bmachicago.org. The BMA board will select from the questions submitted. A live Q&A will take place at the luncheon as well. It promises to be a very entertaining event indeed.

I would like to welcome four members who recently joined our board of directors. They are Jason Ferrara, vice president of corporate marketing at CareerBuilder.com; Jennifer Howard, head of B2B markets for the Central region at Google; George Stenitzer, vice president of corporate communications at Tellabs (and a former BMA president); and Chris Iannuccilli, executive director of marketing at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. We thank them for the time they are devoting and we look forward to their ideas and contributions.

I also want to welcome two new contributors to the BMAIL. Pamela Robertson, principal of WriteWayNow, and Don Talend, president of Write Results, will be writing reports on our previous month's luncheon seminar presentations.

Pamela is an experienced marketer whose strong business acumen and leadership skills complement deep functional experience. She has spent the last 20 years delivering smart strategies around a variety of marketing programs, including direct mail/email, marketing communications, Web marketing, branding, business development and strategic alliances, special events, and crisp writing and editing.

Don's firm provides complete communications project management solutions, including content/creative development, marketing collateral and campaigns, pay-for-performance publicity, e-content development and presentations. You can read Don's first report, on January's presentation by Dow's Patti Temple Rocks, in this issue of the BMAIL.

Finally, our award-winning, two-day Integrated Marketing Communications seminar is fast approaching. This year’s seminar will be held April 8 and 9 at Illinois Institute of Technology's Stuart School of Business. This seminar is a great refresher for the seasoned marketing professional and a great primer for those planning to take the Marketing Skills Certification exam.

If you are not already a member of BMA, please consider joining today. You can join or register for BMA programs through the BMA Web site.

BMA members get the exclusive ability to download the PowerPoint deck and/or an audiocast from our monthly luncheon seminars in the first BMAIL of the following month.

Other exclusive members-only benefits include:

• The BMA/Chicago Directory
• Publications and white papers from the national BMA
• Eligibility for professional Marketing Skills Certification
• Member rates for guests joining you at BMA events
• Free postings to BMA/Chicago CareerLink listings

I look forward to seeing you at our next MarketingMasters luncheon on Thursday, Feb. 21, at the Mid-America Club.

All the best,