Happy New Year everyone. I hope you got to take some time off to enjoy the holidays and re-energize for the upcoming year. This is my last conference email so I want to start by thanking the many people whose hard work and support helped make CMG’08 a success - the Conference Committee, our headquarters staff and the Board. I would also like to thank all of our authors and presenters who did a phenomenal job, as always. Volunteering to be part of CMG was a great experience, as it always is, and I heartily encourage you to volunteer for CMG’09 as it is a wonderful way to meet people and network.
Shortly you should be receiving the Call for Papers for CMG'09, which will be held in Dallas this year. Please start thinking about writing a paper and, if you need a mentor, please ask for one early. Our goal is to help everyone interested in writing a paper and sharing their experiences with their peers at our annual conference, so please don’t be shy – if you’ve got a good idea and need some help getting it on paper our mentors are ready, willing and able to assist! Your contributions make the annual conference a success – and you give others the tools and skills they need to bring benefit to their companies.
One of the things that helps us immensely to improve the conference each year is the input that you provide on the Conference Evaluation forms. This year we did not receive that many back and they are critical to our ability to improve from year to year. Please help us fine-tune the conference to meet your needs by completing the online form. You will find it at: http://www.cmg.org/eval/. Another way you can provide feedback is via the new functions we’ve added to the web site; you now have the ability to rate sessions using your schedule in the online agenda. This helps us figure out what people liked and disliked, and that information is critical to us in designing the next year’s conference.
For those of you who are looking for the handouts and presentation material from this year’s sessions, you can find this information online by using the online agenda at: http://www.cmg.org/cgi-bin/agenda_2008.pl The papers should be online in the next couple of weeks so watch this space.
Lastly, we want to congratulate our award winners. Best paper winners were Richard Campbell, Charles T. Foy, Peter Johnson and Denise Kalm. The Mullen award went to Charles T. Foy and John Van Wagenen. Dr Neil J. Gunther was the recipient of the 2008 AA Michelson award.
CMG'08, in spite of the economy, was very successful and I want to thank you all for your part in it. I also want to encourage you to get involved and to volunteer at http://www.cmg.org/cgi-bin/volunteer.pl. I hope you all have a great 2009 and look forward to seeing you at CMG'09 in Dallas.
