My MPI: Reflecting on 10+ Years of Service and Membership

I nervously stepped into the event space at Dave and Busters in August 2011 to discover volunteer opportunities for the professional association I had just joined. Coming from a not-for-profit event management background, I saw first-hand how attending monthly events was necessary but not sufficient for maximizing the ROI on association membership – to really get to know your industry colleagues, to grow your personal brand, and to make business connections, committee service was necessary. So, here I was, at the volunteer fair, hoping to discover opportunities to volunteer that would cover the gaps in my professional resume or that just seemed fun and interesting. Joking that my B.S. in Marketing doesn’t just stand for Bachelor of Science, I found myself signing up for the Communications team and committing to writing for “MPI to Eye”, our quarterly printed magazine. After several months of service, the Director of Communications was offered her dream job, which, being out of industry, meant she was stepping down from Board service and away from MPI. I don’t know that I felt I was ready for leadership, but there I was, “voluntold” to serve on the Board of Directors, just a year after stepping into that meeting room…

I served with Communications through the evolution of our print magazine going from quarterly to bi-annual, to becoming this blog! I learned so many things: how to tailor messages for different social media platforms, how to edit HTML code to personalize a template, how to create a marketing flight plan, and how some ideas need to be abandoned – and to walk away from a project that is not working is not failure. When I served with the Education team I was able to work with my colleagues to envision room sets beyond the traditional, and was able to take those ideas to my jobby-job. And, beyond the practical skills I learned, I also discovered my leadership style (and all the good and challenging things doing so revealed to me about my nature and my personality).

My presidential theme was “Realize Your Potential” – to realize something means to become aware, but it can also mean to make something happen. Potential means the ability or capacity to develop into something in the future; it also refers in physics to the energy stored in an object… so, to realize your potential can mean to become aware of your abilities, but it can also mean to activate those abilities. You can also read this as “Realize You’re Potential”… to become aware of the fact that you possess that energy that can propel you to succeed in your endeavors. Through membership in MPI PHL, I have gained so much knowledge and skill, and have been given opportunities to experiment with those ideas in fun and creative ways that have helped me realize my potential.

At the end of the day though, what MPI means to me is relationships – my relationship with my profession, my relationship with myself, and my relationship with my industry colleagues. Personal growth through knowledge acquisition is all well and good, but having people to share your success with, and who understand the challenges of our profession – that truly is invaluable. Who else understands the challenge of trying to find space for a full day meeting with no overnight guest rooms eight months before the client wants to host the event???

Service, knowledge, experimentation, and relationships – that’s what MPI PHL means to me.