In mid-March, the NC State Student Chapter of the American Marketing Association (AMA) attended and competed in competitions at the AMA International Collegiate Conference held in New Orleans, Louisiana. In attendance were 1,700 marketers, including 12 of our own members, faculty advisor Mr. Byrnes, and graduate student Chase Cannon. The conference exists to give AMA students the opportunity to learn about potential careers and the cutting edge practices in marketing and sales from professionals in industry. Our members in attendance had a great time!
The keynote speaker at the opening event was Luke Wyckoff, the Chief Visionary Officer at Social Media Energy, a company that expands social media efforts and increases their impact. Marisa Celedonia, one of our chapter members and a first time attender of the conference said her biggest take away from the weekend was from his talk. Luke told the conference that neither money nor status matter—that what really matters is time with family and friends and creating valuable relationships.
The conference held breakout sessions whereby individuals attended different groups with topics like networking, storytelling, and data analytics. Our very own chapter president, Lauren Brommer hosted a session on professional development. As chapter president last year, Lauren led our chapter to win an award in 2016 for our professional development. This year, she was invited to discuss the events that we host and give advice to other chapters for how to improve their own professional development programs. There were 25 chapters that attended her session—I think we can all attest to the great job Lauren has done leading our chapter over the past two years!
Saturday’s topic was how to improve AMA chapters in the coming year. As our future club president, Kaley Moffitt was especially interested in these sessions. From what she learned, her main focuses for our club next year will be:
Create lasting relationships with and among our chapter’s members through more social gatherings
Encourage members to compete in regional and national AMA competitions
Increase membership
Reach out to new companies
Implement SMART (Specific, Measurable, Agreed Upon, Realistic, Time-Based) goals for all events
While professional development was the goal of the weekend, the group was sure to make time to be a tourist. They stopped by Café DuMonde for a quick powdered sugar bath while eating the famous beignets and walked through the French Quarter filled with music, dancing, and artwork.
At the closing banquet, Mr. Byrne’s won runner-up for faculty advisor of the year! Mr. Byrnes does so much for our chapter as a whole and our members on an individual level, and we are proud he was recognized by the National Chapter. Our chapter was honored to also win Outstanding Chapter for Membership, Outstanding Chapter for Fundraising, and Outstanding Chapter for Communication.
We are grateful to be recognized as a chapter and overall had an unforgettable and professionally enriching weekend! The takeaways from the conference will help the executive team build an even better experience for chapter members next year.