GWA Awards, newsletters

**"* S* <a*@amystewart.com>**

This is a great discussion.  A few thoughts:

Lois says " downloading a 28-page newsletter would be a nightmare"  

I do hope that GWA can reduce its substantial printing and postage bill
($68,000 for "printing and publications" and $18,000 for "postage and
shipping" according to 2007 tax returns) by making newsletters and
directories electronic.  Ideally it would not be 28 pages loaded with
graphics that take forever to download, but a short and useful e-mail
newsletter that perhaps comes out more frequently and that offers the option
of a text-only or low-graphics format.  (I have Outlook configured so that
it does not download graphics in emails, even though I have DSL.  I can
click to view the graphics on an individual email when I need them; usually
I don't.)  So those who need a text-only email should be able to get it.  Or
maybe the newsletter becomes a blog that you can subscribe through via RSS
or Feedblitz?

And for those who simply must have paper, the directory can be available as
a print-on-demand (or print-it-yourself) document, with the person
purchasing it paying the full cost so it doesn't cost GWA anything extra.
The newsletter could be the same thing--if it turned out that some small
number of people simply had to have it on paper, it would be a matter of
printing out the email version, putting it in envelopes, and mailing it.
Hopefully the cost would be so low--an hour of an intern's time to stuff
envolopes, plus postage?--that we wouldn't need to charge extra for the
print version, but we should at least let members know what it costs the
organization to have to print and mail those copies.

And Doug--I agree with everything you have to say, especially the part about
why GWA doesn't promote member-to-member discussions (I have been told there
is fear of lawsuits and so forth, but other member organizations have worked
that out so why can't GWA?)    

As for promoting one "segment" over another, that is a tough question, but
in my opinion groups who worry too much about this end up promoting nothing
at all.  I've seen that happen with my downtown business association, which
won't promote, say, restaurants, on the grounds that it overlooks retailers.
Well, I want people going to restaurants and wandering around my bookstore
before or after dinner!  The flower industry makes this mistake too--they
claim that they can't promote independent flower shops over grocery stores
or local flowers over imports or roses over lilies because that wouldn't be
fair.  Instead, all they can agree on is a very bland "Buy Flowers!"
campaign that ends up exciting nobody.  I think that some targeted efforts
can benefit us overall, even if some of them focus on some aspect of the
business that I'm not really involved in.

Amy Stewart
www.amystewart.com

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