First of all, I hope many of you made it to the presentation by Kathy Button Bell, who is the VP and CMO of Emerson, at our MarketingMasters Luncheon in February. There’s a reason she’s consistently named one of BtoB magazine’s top marketers, so we really thank her for joining us and I hope you enjoyed it.

 

In March we have Richard Castellini, who is the chief marketing officer of CareerBuilder, talking about the company’s campaign strategy. And keep in mind this is not for the job seeker but an inside look at what CareerBuilder is doing to get through this state of flux that all of us from a marketing standpoint are dealing with these days. So I hope you can make it.

 

And I’d like to thank our long-standing sponsors, The Wall Street Journal and Paladin, for their consistent support of our luncheon series. And I’d also like to welcome a new supporting sponsor, Business.com. Thank you very much.

 

So we have Breakfast Roundtables also coming up, and on Wednesday, Feb. 17, BMA Chicago board member and head of b-to-b markets at Google, Jennifer Howard, will moderate a deep-dive discussion with Grainger, Slack Barshinger and a fellow Google colleague. You can register for that at bmachicago.org.

 

The Tower Awards are open and hopefully you’ve got plenty of things that you want to apply and enter to win. The call for entries is open and the first deadline is March 6. Find all the details at TowerAwards.org.

 

Now if you haven’t seen the great creative yet in the BtoB magazine ad we just put out or on our Web site, take a look. I’d like to thank DraftFCB for this year’s theme: “Where business and creative mingle.” Did you catch the tattoo? Not something you’d normally find in a BtoB ad but, hey, we’re creative people, too, right?

 

So, coming up in June we have the BMA annual conference, which I hope you’ve heard about by now. It’s June 2 through 4 at the Swissotel. We’ve already had about 200 people raise their hands and let us know that they’re coming. And last year it sold out, so definitely keep an eye on this and register when registration opens. Further details will be available at www.marketing.org. And sponsorships are also available, so reach out to us for further details on that.

 

Our annual fund raiser is the Windy City Biz Bash, and that’s going to take place Thursday, June 3, which is the second night of the national conference. Now you might think it’s a little early to be talking about that, but one of the things that we do traditionally is offer media buys for auction and a lot of really great deals. Well, if you let us know now where you’re advertising, online or print, we’ll go after it for you so that you’ll have something that you’re interested in to bid on. So please let us know and we’ll start working on that for you. And we’d like to give a special thank-you to Carolyn Gerard and her team at Gerard Design for taking on this year’s creative again. So expect to see exciting details soon on that. 

 

I’m also excited to tell you about an initiative that I share with another BMA board member, Carolyn Kae Phillips.  Carolyn is a VP of the BMA board and by day is the director of strategic initiatives at World Business Chicago (WBC). I sit on WBC’s “mini-board” supporting the mission of this organization and they do a fantastic job promoting the city and encouraging businesses to settle here. There is a natural connection between what the WBC does for the city and what we do as marketers here in Chicago. Carolyn and I thought it would be good to share a little more background on the WBC with all of you, so we put together a quick video. Check it out!  I plan to highlight other BMA board members in the future and will let you know when the spotlight shines on another Chicago marketing leader!

 

So thank you for your support. And you know if you’re not a member yet, you can join us at www.marketing.org. And don’t forget to join our LinkedIn group, Business Marketing Association of Chicago, and follow us on Twitter at @BMAChicago. And if you’re wondering what it’s like to be a member and what the value is, at the last luncheon we actually caught a few people talking about it. Here’s what they said:

 

 

Mike Griffin, The Wall Street Journal: “I came to the BMA MarketingMasters Luncheon today first and foremost because of Kathy Button Bell. She’s a great example of who the BMA brings to us every month in the series. And so we’re members, we sponsor the series at The Wall Street Journal, and we’re looking forward to seeing more just like it.”

 

Brian Sauerland, Wunderland: “I love this organization. It’s been a great opportunity to meet people at it, people in my industry, to better understand what’s going on, trends out there. But I also get a lot of insight from the different guest speakers that they bring in at the monthly events. It’s a great organization to be a part of.”

 

Lynn Hazan, Lynn Hazan & Associates: “I’ve greatly benefited from BMA because my learning is always accelerating and I love our presentations and presenters. The top-notch quality of membership makes it the organization of choice.”

 

Tim Smith, DePaul/Wiglaf Pricing: “BMA is one organization where I get to meet top professionals who are actually trying to accomplish goals and have the skill sets to do it. If you want to network with power people, this is the place.”

 

Sunny Heyer, DataCo LLC: “It’s a great opportunity to network with peers and to gather in a really, really friendly environment. The people here are very open, very interactive and very welcoming.”

 

Lora Cain, Lora Cain Marketing & Communications: “It was very impressive. This was actually my very first event and I’m going to become a member.”

 

 

So thanks again and we look forward to seeing all of you at our great events coming up this spring.

 

 

 

Suzanne Martin, President, BMA/Chicago