NTEA song from holiday party

Sung to the tune of The Brady Bunch theme song...

Here’s the story of NTEA
That was founded back in 1964
Some remote, some lifers and some new blood
Adding value to their members like ne’er before

Here’s the story of NTEA
And how a dedicated group could save the day
Their tech help, comm staff and great sales team
Soothed fears, filled booths to lead and pave the way

Until one day with Chicago as their venue
And their show bigger and better than before
Despite auto woes, a credit crunch and bad financials
The Work Truck Show had hope for what’s in store.


Very nice holiday party yesterday. Kudos to Sheree, Steve C, Jim and all those involved in the planning :)

What is a Blog and Why are we doing this?

Yesterday, I mentioned in a meeting that I had posted my first blog. Someone asked me what a blog was. To be honest, I, too, am new to all this – and I do not even pretend to know all the answers – but here’s what little I know…

Blogs are like little written monologues or journal entries. In our case, Payal has set this up as an opportunity for us to test, trial and learn. Each person on staff can create a running blog (post as often as interested) and we, the other NTEA staffers, can read each blog and, if interested, then post a comment to the blog. I happen to have a personal gmail account – and can attest, it was not hard (especially with Payal looking over my shoulders!) to start my blog. And, now, look at me, I am writing again!

Instead of broadcast emails, we can post once and everyone can view the original message and all the comments. This is the future, folks, and it is likely we will someday get to a point in helping our members to network in this way.

So, let’s take advantage of this great opportunity to test the waters and get more comfortable in this universe… and just think what we can learn from each other!

Social Media Meeting last week

I had the pleasure of attending a Steve Miller conference in Arlington, VA last week. Did you know there are more than 400 associations in Arlington? Walking down King Street, you see sign after sign.

Steve Miller's meeting was on Social Media. We met with two sharp guys from a Boston-based consulting firm, who provided a nice overview of the different platforms and available social networking opportunities - Facebook, Linked In, Twitter and more. What you can do, why people do it, etc.

Then our group of association execs shared what social media strategies they were implementing or considering. They are the early adopters in the association world and it was interesting to learn what they are doing and what value they see from it.

In short, while our membership may not be as technologically motivated as other association's memberships, we intend to assess social media strategies as part of our membership support, provide networking opportunities for those who seek it and pave the way for use of such tools for NTEA's future.

As a side note, as an association, we will need to proceed with caution because of ant-trust laws.