Content might be king but networking is queen
For the last 3 years I’ve had the pleasure of working with a team of talented Credit Union Marketers as a Board Member for the Marketing Association of Credit Unions or MAC. My position was to serve as the liaison for other vendor partners, but I quickly became more involved and I am thankful for the experience.
If you have never attended MAC, you should. MAC is unique. The content is geared entirely towards the Credit Union Marketer. Plus, all MAC events, including the annual conference, are intimate. You really feel like you’ve met everyone by the time you pack up for home. MAC also does an outstanding job with innovative speaker line-ups. Last year we had Brett King, Facebook, Twitter and several others that are being widely promoted by other conferences this year.
The 2015 conference in San Francisco from May 27-29 will keep the innovative momentum flowing. After all, it IS San Francisco, right? Attendees will have an open key to the Facebook Campus via a private tour. Same with Salesforce and Levi Straus. Other headliners include Chatter Yak and Pierry Software, plus keynote presentations from industry leaders Mark Weber and Tony Rizzo.
With my 3-year term coming to an end in May, this is what I’ve learned:
- Credit Union Marketers have a real passion for the industry- I have been in this industry for nearly 15 years now and I’ve always heard CU Marketers say how much they loved their Credit Union and the entire industry. There is talk about the movement and how they strive to help their own members, but also those of other Credit Unions- even if they are competing in the same market. Passion and collaboration – truly the bloodlines of MAC and the marketers who make up the Association.
- Content might be king but networking is queen- Without good content, industry tradeshows can fall short on the main ingredient. In my mind, the piece that gets overlooked is the people in the room. Being surrounded by smart, capable people and drawing on their intellect to help me come to my own conclusion on the topic at hand is equally as essential as who is delivering the topic itself.At MAC, the conference is literally built for networking. If you aren’t talking and interacting before, during and after sessions, you are not getting the most from the conference. It is a unique culture.
- MAC is the ideal stress reliever- When you put a bunch of crazy busy extroverts into a room together and add a culture that not only encourages but forces them to meet each other, the fog from the daily grind begins to clear. (Pause for irony of going to San Francisco to clear the fog.) MAC is the embodiment of this description. Once you are literally “away from the office,” you develop friendships with colleagues you respect and whose opinions you can trust. If content is king and networking queen, then let’s put fun and pressure relief as prince and princess. For me, that is the royal value of the conference.
Join me and all of the MAC family in San Francisco on May 27th – 29th. My term on the MAC board will end, but you can count on me attending for many years to come as an exhibitor, networker, friend, and the guy who even springs for a round or two!
