The board met July 17 and 18 at LMA headquarters in Chicago. I thought it would be helpful to share with you some key decisions made and discussions held at the meeting.
Annual Conference Partner: In January, a task force was formed to oversee the selection of a strategic annual conference partner for the next three years. Tim Corcoran, president-elect, chaired the task force, and other members included immediate past-president Alycia Sutor, education committee liaison Catherine MacDonagh, Mark Usellis, Kevin Iredell, Katie Reagan, Chelsie Givan and Betsi Roach.
The task force issued an RFP and made recommendations to the board on who should be considered based on how well they met the qualifications set forth by the RFP.
On July 17, the board engaged with the finalists and selected ACI to continue as our strategic partner for the delivery of our annual conference. Because we have one year left on our current contract with them, the new contract will take the Association through 2017.
After four years of collaborative partnership with LMA, we believe that ACI is attuned to the goals and requirements our diverse membership. In these last four years, since ACI has partnered with LMA on our Annual Conference, attendee revenue has risen by almost $350,000. As an organization, we rely on income from this key event to provide funding for many of the other products and services we offer to our members and chapters.
Education Product Development: The focus for 2013 has been on one of the goals in the Association’s strategic plan: to be the leading provider of legal marketing learning and networking opportunities. Education product development is one of the keys to realizing this goal. We recently completed a segmentation research project that will allow us to build more effective member benefits and communications by thinking about our members in new ways. Previously, we focused on demographic factors such as firm size and years of marketing experience, but what we found is that there are more similarities than differences between these various groups. We’ve listened hard to understand what drives your day-to-day activities and view of the world, and we’ve been able to reduce the number of segments down to just six primary groups that represent the wants and needs of our members. This will allow us to more efficiently build education programs and other member benefits that support more of our members in the ways they would like to be supported.
The first way this information will be used is to group members into focus groups to understand the educational offerings that would be most beneficial for each segment. We are very excited about this world-class approach to understanding our members in new ways beyond the traditional demographic perspective and anticipate that it will inform much of our work in the coming years. Special thanks to our director of marketing Stephanie Kusibab, our education consultant Chris Peck and members of the Segmentation Task Force, which include Catherine MacDonagh (board liaison for the education committee), Heather Morse (board liaison for the technology committee), Steve Hennings, Megan McKeon and Roberta Montafia.
Strategic Direction for 2014: Looking forward to 2014, the board plans to continue the focus on education and put the result of the product development effort into action. Additionally, the board agreed that 2014 should be the year that we focus on ensuring LMA has an effective infrastructure, including staff, technology, resources and governance. As president-elect, Tim Corcoran will be leading the board and the Association in this direction beginning in January 2014.
Nominations Task Force: It is a good governance best practice to regularly review our processes to ensure they continue to meet the needs of our ever-growing membership. This is a very important initiative for the Association, as LMA continues to grow in members, and our Pathways to Leadership initiatives are seeing success. At the July meeting, a Nominations Task Force was created and charged with exploring the current process and practice of the Governance Committee’s nominating sub-committee and provide recommended changes for approval by the board. Heather Morse will be chairing this task force; other participants include Greg Lambert, Simone Hughes and Jennifer Manton. The task force will make a recommendation to the board.