i to i - The Blog

Here are a few highlights:

On Wednesday evening, we were invited by AIIP member Ellen Naylor to a reception hosted by SCIP's Women's Leadership Council. We met a wonderful group of leaders, and I'm intrigued by the concept of perhaps establishing a leadership council within AIIP for both men and women. Marjorie and I made sure that everyone at the reception knew about AIIP and our booth in the exhibit hall!

I had the opportunity to attend a session Ellen gave on using cooperative connections for building an early warning system. I'm all about networking, and this was a great overview of how you can use your people connections for research purposes.

Marjorie and I spent the majority of our time at SCIP in the AIIP exhibit booth. We talked with a number of people interested in joining the association and several others wanting information on how to outsource to our members.

We're following up with everyone who gave us business cards and requested additional information.

After spending several days meeting and talking with scores of SCIP members, I feel that exhibiting at the SCIP conference is a great way for AIIP to recruit new members, market our member directory to those who are looking for subcontractors, and raise the association's visibility within the information industry.

I’d like to use the i to i Blog to occasionally highlight our AIIP member benefits. I’ll start with our member-only webinars, since we have one coming up on April 16th. In "First-Year Questions,” Risa Sacks (Risa Sacks Information Services) and Cynthia Shamel (Shamel Information Services) answer those important questions that come up when you’re just getting started--and even later on. Go to www.aiip.org/webinars and sign up now. While there, be sure to check out our webinar archives for previous slides and handouts.

Thanks to all our webinar presenters and to Mary Ellen Bates, Webinar Committee Chair, for helping AIIP provide high-quality, easily-accessible professional development opportunities for our members.

In my first post as President, I’d like to introduce the 2009-2010 AIIP Board of Directors:

Marcy Phelps--President

Ed Vawter--Immediate Past President

Margaret King--President-Elect

Cliff Kalibjian--Treasurer

Vada Repta--Secretary

Marjorie Desgrosseilliers--Director, Member Benefits

Ulla de Stricker--Director, Membership Development

Andrea Carrero--Director, Marketing and Web

We have three primary areas of focus for this year:

• Increasing membership recruitment and retention rates
• Increasing and diversifying AIIP revenues
• Developing AIIP volunteerism and leadership 

If you’d like to read the updated AIIP Strategic Plan and 2009-2010 Operational Plan, go to www.aiip.org/Governance.

In addition to regular updates on board activities, I’ll be posting about AIIP events, members and sponsors. Also look for posts about the information industry and our partners in the industry. And if I come across anything else I think would interest a group of people who own an information business, I’ll be sure to pass that on, too.