May 2009

Already, 215 people have signed up for our May 7 luncheon. Go here to see the 102 companies registered to attend.

Next, go here to see what BMA’s 2009 national conference, June 10-12, has in store for you. Six weeks out, we’re already at 2/5 of our attendance goal, and we’ve extended early-bird registration rates to May 15. Go here to see the 134 companies already registered to attend (may with three attendees to get the special discount).

BMA 2009 National Conference Details

Built around the theme, “UNlearn: Reprogramming marketers when it’s business as unusual,” BMA’s 2009 national conference will focus on what b-to-b marketers and communicators have learned, what we need to relearn and what we need unlearn to get the job done in these challenging times.

Keynote and general-session speakers will include:

• Kendall Collins, chief marketing officer, Salesforce.com
• Patrick Crane, vice president of marketing and advertising, LinkedIn
• Scott Davis, general manager, Chicago office, Prophet, and author of The Shift (to be published in June 2009)
• Tom Haas, chief marketing officer, Siemens Corporation
• Mark Mitten, chief brand officer, Chicago 2016
• Ralph Oliva, executive director, Institute for the Study of Business Markets
• Joe Pine, author of The Experience Economy and Authenticity
• Matt Preschern, vice president of marketing, IBM
• Al and Laura Ries, co-authors of The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing and War in the Boardroom
• David Meerman Scott, author of the recently updated The New Rules of Marketing & PR and the just-published World Wide Rave
• Al Saltiel, vice president of marketing, Navistar
• Sam Sebastian, director, local and b2b markets, Google
• Andy Sernovitz, CEO of The Blog Council, founder of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and author of the just-revised Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking

The conference will includes four sets of three breakout sessions, for 12 sessions in all, on these highly relevant b-to-b marketing topics:

 

• Best practices in b-to-b market and customer intelligence
• Business process improvement for corporate marketing departments
• Building online b-to-b communities
• Best practices in corporate and b-to-b blogging
• Best practices in b-to-b email marketing
• How b-to-b marketers can use LinkedIn
• Incorporating sustainability into b-to-b marketing
• Managing b-to-b marketing and pricing in a down economy
• Measuring b-to-b marketing ROI
• Creating online and virtual b-to-b events
• Social media applications for b-to-b marketers
• Building better b-to-b Web presences

These breakout sessions will include moderators and panelists from these companies and organizations:

• Aon
• B2P
• Bizo.com
• Dresser
• ESPEC
• ExactTarget
• GE
• Genworth Financial
• GlobalSpec
• Grainger
• IBM
• Indium
• Insight Direction
• JPMorgan Chase
• LinkedIn Research Network
• Maritz
• National Instruments
• NAVTEQ
• Newark
• Obama for America
• PennWell
• Real Results Marketing
• SAP
• Schneider Electric/Square D
• Siemens Building Technologies
• Social Media Today LLC
• The Blog Council
• Thomson CompuMark

To learn about new speaker additions and/or changes to the agenda, go here.

We’re going to start a new tradition at this year’s annual conference—numerous private dinners for 10 hosted Thursday evening, June 11 (after the Windy City BizBash), by top Chicago and national b-to-b marketing leaders—and, we hope, many of our speakers—at top Chicago restaurants and private clubs.

Dinner hosts already confirmed (with many more to come) include:

• Suzanne Martin, senior director, north American marketing, home and networks mobility, Motorola, and 2009-10 president, BMA/Chicago
• Eduardo Conrado, corporate vice president, global marketing and communications, Motorola
• George Rafeedie, chief marketing officer, Blue Silver
• Gary Slack, 2009-10 chairman, BMA, chairman and CEO, Slack Barshinger
• Jason Ferrara, vice president, corporate marketing, CareerBuilder

You’ll be hearing a lot more about the national conference in the coming weeks.

Register by April 26 and pay only $695 as a BMA member or $995 as a non-member—a $300 savings over member and non-member rates after the early-bird deadline.

If you can’t attend the entire three-day conference, you can register for single days at lower daily rates.
Also, if your company buys at least three registrations, you get an even greater discounted rate of $495 per registration, and you can enjoy that rate all the way up to June 10.

2009 Tower Awards

The entry deadline has passed, and I’m pleased to report that this year’s Tower Awards attracted 305 entries—about the same number as in 2008, no small feat in this economy.

This year’s Gala and Awards Ceremony will take place May 13, at Germania Place, 108 Germania Place (North Avenue & Clark) from 6:00-9:00 p.m. The cost is $75 for members, $95 for non-members, and $80 per person for groups of 10 or more.

As he has done so ably in past years, former BMA International Executive Director Rick Kean will emcee the ceremony. For more information and to register, go here.

Using our new electronic entry and judging system, entrants have saved a lot of money and time in preparing their entries, and our brand new cast of 11 judges, all located outside of Chicago, has been able to judge entries at their convenience, 24x7.
Here is a list of this year’s 11 Tower Awards judges, all nationally prominent marketing and marketing communications leaders. We thank them all!

BMA/Chicago LinkedIn Group

Just six months old, our BMA/Chicago LinkedIn Group is becoming an interesting place to spend time.

It is attracting 50 new members a week and has grown to nearly 1,150 members, making it the largest BMA LinkedIn Group nationally and one of the largest LinkedIn Groups nationwide for discussing all things b-to-b.

Now that we've reached critical mass, I'd like to invite more of you to more regularly visit and engage in the discussions. We have dropped the requirement that you have to be a BMA member to initiate discussions.

Go here to join the BMA/Chicago LinkedIn Group

For those of you in transition, our Jobs board is getting more active, too. Soon, we hope, LinkedIn will add an Events tab.

Subscribe to the BMAIL

Subscribe to the BMAIL, our award-winning e-newsletter, to stay abreast of the latest news about all BMA/Chicago activities and events.

We produce two versions: one for BMA members, which goes to our 500+ members, and one for prospective members, which goes to a list of 5,000 prospective members.

The main difference is that the very first issue of the BMA-member version includes links to the presentation decks, audiocasts, Flickr photo galleries of the previous month’s MarketingMasters Luncheon and Breakfast Roundtable speakers.

Non-members eventually get access to these links in later BMAILs in each promotional cycle, but not as early as do BMA members.

Join BMA

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

I hope to see you at our May 7 luncheon, the June 10-12 BMA national conference and future BMA and BMA/Chicago events.

Best Regards,