| President’s Message:
Winter 2004
Eric Sahlin, President
Last year I went fishing with Salvador Dali.
He was using a dotted line. He caught every other fish. --
Steven Wright
The end of the year is time to tabulate the fish caught. Last
year, we
- Hosted 14 events (the most of any year in recent memory) on a wide
variety of subjects and interests. True to our promise, the majority
of these events were free to our members,
- Revamped and modernized our newsletter in both content and form,
- Updated our website and linked it to the brand identity that National
has promoted so successfully,
- Expanded our listserv to reach more members and subscribers than
it ever has with timely information related to the profession and
the chapter,
- Emerged from the red to a modest surplus
in the Chapter’s
finances through meticulous accounting and dogged pursuit
of overdue invoices,
- Began, most notably, to grow our membership again.
These accomplishments are
largely due to the efforts of both the active and advisory boards.
I have been astonished and honored
by their level of commitment and effort. At our last retreat, we formulated
an ambitious plan of pre-scheduling 12 events for 2004, promoting
a membership drive, and increasing member resources. It’s a
good start; but, we’ll still look for the “other fish” along
the way.
Finally, we’re coming up on our annual board election. Although
I’m happy to report that all the current board members have
agreed to run for their respective positions for another year, we
are accepting nominations from our membership for any board office.
This chapter is run on a volunteer basis, and if
we run out of these volunteers, the chapter will cease to provide
the services on which
we’ve come to rely. Regardless of the rumors that have
circulated, board membership is not a thankless position and
does not require
you to give up your business for the year. The commitment is
reasonable, flexible, and is compensated in many ways.
If you
have any questions
and/or interest in becoming a member of the board, please
contact me at president@asmpnorcal.org.
Thank you.
ECOHOST MARKETING RECAP
On Tuesday, October 14, Ron Blaise and Terry O'Keefe
of EcoHost Marketing presented a lively and extremely informative
talk about the mechanics of web marketing and strategies to make
a web site more visible to search engines. The information they
provided is particularly relevant to photographers and others who
rely on images rather than text to convey their message.
As an added bonus, Ron and Terry generously donated
to the raffle three free Usability Analyses, each a $250 value.
They also followed up the event with a link on their website summarizing
their presentation and including additional helpful information,
such as a list of all photography-related worldwide searches for
October, 2003. Their full presentation can be viewed at: http://www.ecohost.org/seminars/asmp/
NEW WEB ASSISTANCE
It is with great pleasure that we announce that Wayne
Wallace will assist us with improving and maintaining the ASMP
Norcal Website. Wayne is an up-and-coming photographer with extensive
Dreamweaver experience. He’ll be updating, fixing, and tweaking
the site for maximum efficiency and impact. Over the next few months,
he’ll focus his considerable talents on getting the site
placed highly with the search engines, which greatly increases
our visibility.
Please join us in welcoming him. If you’ve
got any suggestions or comments about the site, he can be reached
at web@asmpnorcal.org.
Eric Sahlin, President
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