PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE | february 1, 2021

Virtual Meetups

It’s been fascinating listening to community television professionals around the country talk about their work the past few weeks as a result of our PEG Meet Up series.  In brief, we’ve been gathering people – both ACM members and non-members - in different states to encourage professional networking and informal learning. We have had seven states so far and more to come in February.  Here are some takeaways:

1- There are a lot more of us than we imagine – it was common in these conversations for folks that work near to each other not knowing about other operations, or not seeing their colleagues in years in some cases.  

2 - There are start-ups looking for solutions – particularly in the Education sector where school districts and colleges have channel resources that they want to take more advantage of.

3 - Meeting coverage and production of health information have grown enormously this last year (something we saw from the American University study release in August). 

4 - There’s an interest in free or low-cost programs, program solutions and shared programming at the state level.

5 - Revenues and revenue generation (both short and long term) are on everyone’s minds.

And just as important, while each of the conversations was different because the state contexts were different, everyone wanted more networking opportunities.

I hope you take advantage of these in coming weeks – and that you encourage other people in your organization to take part.  I believe one of the keys to organizational success is to find room for people to grow and grow confidence in themselves and challenge their knowledge along the way. ACM is here to help make that happen.

 
Public Policy Call Thursday, February 4 at 4 pm ET.
 
We’ll talk about changes in Washington, DC at this week’s ACM Public Policy Call. Please join us – if you need the call coordinates, contact me at mwassenaar@allcommuntymedia.org.