Dear LISA Members and Industry Professionals,

For most of us every new year starts off the same. We first take inventory of the year past, what we have achieved and learned as well as what we may have lost sight of. We then make resolutions for the new year, promising ourselves to exercise more, smoke less, start this project, or finish that book. Here at LISA we are beginning 2002 in the same way. This time last year I wrote about how the association resolved to continue to reinvent ourselves. We followed through with that resolution by expanding our membership to reach new groups of professionals and specialists through our Industry Professional program, and by creating more exposure for the association and our members through new strategic alliances driven by our spin-off marketing company, SMP Marketing.

We look to the new year with the same objectives, exploring different administrative, membership, marketing, outsourcing, and event models to find the best return for our members and the association as a whole. We've begun this process by enlisting the help of our team in Malaysia, who are taking a growing part in the everyday back-office functions and forum support LISA needs as it expands its model. We also aim to expand the LISA Forum model, by not limiting ourselves to a certain number of events per year, or locations in the world, or frameworks by which we usually present our events. One way we are doing this is through our workshops.

LISA workshops held in conjunction with LISA conferences and events have long offered participants ways to focus on what they consider necessary in a closed environment, with a degree of detail not feasible in a LISA conference session. We have had an overwhelmingly positive response to our workshops, with attendees reporting to us that after a full day workshop they now felt equipped to implement what they had learned in their own organization. Because of this response, LISA is now working towards taking our workshop model to markets around the world that have been underserved in the past. LISA will partner with various organizations to bring high-quality and informative workshops to locations independent of major LISA events, allowing individuals and corporate delegations to receive the same level of service and information they would get from attending a workshop in conjunction with a major LISA event without traveling halfway around the world to attend it.

This expansion of our event model goes beyond our workshops only. We will explore different concepts, themes, businesses, and markets by hosting events in conjunction with members on topics that they would like to run workshops on. By doing this we not only lend support to our members, but also strengthen the association's image and name by using the LISA branding to bring the association and all its members further exposure in our growing industry. A lot of what actually happens, of course depends on the interest of our members, so if you would like to sponsor a workshop with LISA or would like to see one held on a specific topic, please contact me at mike@lisa.org or Alison Rowles of SMP Marketing at Alison@smp-m.com.

Lastly, if the support of our members is any indication of where we're heading, then we are all in for a great year. In order to ensure that LISA would enter the new year running strong financially, we offered our members a discount if they renewed their membership early. We were both humbled and impressed by the willingness of members to prepay—months before their expiration. To us, this gesture of faith is yet another confirmation of the success to come for the association, our members, and the GIL industry in this coming year of the Horse.

Sincerely,
Mike Anobile signature
Mike Anobile