I just found out I'm going to be serving as Chair of the AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education for one more year.  So, I'll be responsible for the 2009 program, which will be held in Boston!

A lot of folks have asked me how I came to be Chair. Many assumed that my late business partner, Christopher Simpson, (who served as Chair for 2005 and 2006) simply passed the torch to me. But, that's not what happened at all.

My first engagement with the Symposium was back in 1992 when there were only 125 people in attendance. (Over 600 people attended last year.) I presented a paper that year and have attended every year since except for two; 2000 when my son Griffin was born and 2002 when Savannah came along.

I've presented more track sessions, tutorials, and advanced marketing sessions than anyone cares to remember!  And through the years I served on the Steering Committee and became good friends with the folks from AMA who ran the Symposium. So, it was a very pleasant surprise when in 2005, Nicole Morris from the AMA, approached me about serving as Chair beginning with the 2007 program. It was her decision, not Christopher's. And, Christopher and I had not even formed SimpsonScarborough at the time. Shoot, we hadn't even started talking about it.

My role as Chair is to develop and work with a Steering Committee to put the entire program together. The AMA manages the hotel and takes care of all the marketing. But, the Steering Committee members and I read all the paper proposals and select the track session presenters. We discuss and discuss and discuss who we should invite to do keynote sessions and what topics will be of greatest interest to the attendees. And, we choose all the speakers for the tutorials, advanced marketing sessions, and roundtables.

It's a very long, very time consuming process but one that I absolutely enjoy...especially on the last day of the Symposium. haha! I have met so many incredible professionals through the AMA.  It's the only program in the "never miss it" category for me.

Oh, I wanted to mention something about the Steering Committee too. It's my responsibility to pick the 5-7 members of the team.  The AMA encourages a balance of institutional representatives and vendor representatives. Typically, the committee is comprised of professionals who have been involved with the Symposium for years. And, we keep a couple of repeats and rotate a couple new people on each year giving us a nice balance of "familiarity" and "new thinking." Every Chair served on the Committee first. And almost every Committee member has attended the Symposium for years.

This year's Symposium is in Chicago, November 16th-19th.  It's another "don't miss it"......so don't miss it!