The Board has been working on branding for a while now. I've been off
the Board for about a year and I'm just getting ready to jump back on.
I think we're finally close to solving this problem.

We eliminated "The Association for Information Management
Professionals" as a tagline because the press kept referring to ARMA by
tag name, not official name. I see nothing, repeat, nothing, wrong with
referring to ARMA as the Association of Records Managers and
Administrators. That's what the organization is legally called and
there is nothing about the word "records" that anyone should be ashamed
of. Arguably, the word "Administrators" has been problematic for some,
but let's leave that in there as a start.

The "elevator pitch" is worthwhile as well. We should all have an
elevator pitch that says who we are and what we do for our
organizations. It's helpful to articulate what ARMA is and does in a
short answer.

One of the problems is that other organizations are continually
reinventing themselves. This sometimes causes confusion over who does
what and who is what in our industry. This leads to a need to sharpen
the vision and mission for each organization -- and likely engage in
dialogue with other organizations to make sure that we all understand
each others' intent.

There are very big issues out there that affect ARMA, other related
organizations, and the profession. Boards that lead organizations in
our profession are charged with both strategic vision and oversight of
the organization. Some boards are also having to do much of the work of
the organization. ARMA's Board is no exception. We try harder and
harder to spend time working on strategy -- and I think we are finally
at a point where we should be able to start spending the bulk of our
time doing just that. I'm hopeful that Board meetings that focus on
strategy for the organization and the profession will enable ARMA to
make very clear progress over the next couple years.

We're making progress. Sometimes it seems glacial, but we're making
progress.

Patrick Cunningham, CRM

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