Focus on Future

By Tom Brennan, EDmarket Chair

I am excited about our development as an industry and want to take this opportunity to update you on EDmarket’s strategic plans. Recently, sixteen of your industry colleagues graciously volunteered their time and expertise to meet in Memphis, Tennessee for a two-day strategic planning session to help determine best pathways to a successful future. I’m also sharing this in more detail in the winter edition of Essentials Magazine, in emailboxes last week.

You may recall that last year we revised the mission of EDmarket to “represent, connect, and serve people who want to succeed in the education market by providing events, opportunities, resources and leadership to those serving education.” Within this new mission and the early successes afforded by change, we have discovered the seeds of future growth.

With two very successful tradeshows for years, change in the marketplace has presented numerous challenges, with one venue decreasing in participation, and relevance while the other — EDspaces — experienced a resurgence because of the strategic decision to align the event with industry partners who could help broaden the scope of attendees to professionals representing all facets of educational facility planning. This elevated the conversation and the expertise, to the benefit of all.

In the face of these challenges and change, the question for the Board was how to continue to develop our value and relevance, and in these initiatives, we have a great “proof of concept” that shows the path we should be taking. In our meeting we committed to the development of a 5-year plan that would specifically address six fundamental areas that we feel need development for us to continue our transition:
• Strengthening our value proposition
• Developing strategic information
• Broadening our membership composition
• Restoring financial viability
• Creating strong networking opportunities 
• Creating pathways to membership engagement

All of these are important within the 5-year plan. But following the “Rule of 1 or 2”, it was broadly agreed that membership composition and strategic information are the most imminent and critical areas to address.

Our opportunity is two-fold: the shifting needs of our education customer and the disruptive changes in distribution. In the past, we were a simple, show-driven organization for manufacturers and distributors. 

Two new initiatives are currently gaining steam and follow an updated model. In September we launched the first EDchannels conference, and just recently we launched EDmarketplace, an online 365-day virtual platform for buyers and sellers. Both provide unique opportunities to meet changing needs in the marketplace.

If we work together to develop better strategic information and involve all people in the market, we can focus more on working to increase member engagement and find new ways to improve value. In the course of this, we can define and rebuild the foundation of the association.

Your Board team has been working to build a 5-year plan to guide us in a successful direction and is anticipating sharing that with you within the next six months. Like all 5-year plans, the important thing is not that it is 100% right, but to provide future Boards and chairs update and make adjustments annually based on interaction and feedback from members and analysis of the results of our initiatives.

As I stated in my piece featured in Essentials Magazine, EDmarket has a bright future because of you. Reinvesting your time, experience, and expertise has developed an industry community to be proud of. If you can, please consider getting on the bus with us and adding your time and talents to the conversation. The old proverb, “two heads are better than one” is never more true, as, for our industry, many heads can lead to success in ways we haven’t dreamed of, because there is strength in numbers.