Highlights from the ACCE 2015 Annual Conference

26 Aug 2015


Chamber of Commerce

We had a great time in Montreal and we hope you did as well! As always, the ACCE Annual Conference provided a great opportunity to meet up with old friends, clients, and colleagues, and make new acquaintances, too.

Throughout the conference, we consistently heard attendees commenting on the strength of the sessions, many saying that they were the strongest they've seen. One of the things we noticed most about the content was the strong focus on workforce development, one of the major funding initiatives we have seen in our clients' capital campaigns for some time now, no matter their geographic location or community size.

The need to develop effective workforce programs often means that chambers must find new and increased sources of revenue to implement their strategic plans. One of the best ways to accomplish this goal is via a capital campaign, a topic Principal Mark Bergethon discussed in his ChamberTalk 'An Introduction to Capital Campaigns.' It was a great opportunity to provide a big-picture overview of the typical campaign process to those wanting to learn more. If you missed Mark's presentation, you can download a copy of his slides here, or feel free to reach out to us directly if you would like to have a more in-depth discussion with one of our experts about the campaign process.

Sessions covered a much broader range of topics than just workforce, of course, with some of the conference highlights including Mick Fleming's keynote on the eight influences shaping the future of the chamber industry, Salim Ismail's keynote on how disruptive technologies are changing the world, and Laura Schwartz's keynote on the art of 'story-selling.'

In an effort to help you quickly access the top insights shared by your fellow chamber professionals, as well as remember a few favorite conference highlights, we've compiled your top Tweets and images into one Storify post; just click on the image below to access it!

We hope you had as great of a time in Montreal as we did, and we look forward to seeing you next year in Savannah, if not sooner!

About The Author

Samantha Hardwick

Department: Author

After graduating with her BA in Organizational Communication from the University of Central Florida in just three years, Samantha’s career has focused on client and internal company support, while also serving as communications and marketing liaison. Samantha’s true passion is to provide quality service and develop mutually beneficial and meaningful relationships with Convergent’s clients, Principals and Campaign Directors – which makes her an integral component of our team.

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