2016 is Second Year of Multi-Year Reimagining of CSAA’s Signature Event;
Adjustments to Traditional Schedule Will Enable Full Participation in Fewer Days

With a sharp focus on technology and on business and performance management, along with the networking opportunities for which the event is famous, the 2016 CSAA Annual Meeting offers participants the kind of value in both content and engagement that is unmatched at any other industry event.

The 2016 meeting will be held at the Marriott Resort Marco Island, Marco Island, FL, on October 22-26. Last year’s Annual Meeting in Sonoma, where a revamped education program took center stage, drew rave reviews from attendees. “2015 marked the beginning of a multi-year reimagining of CSAA’s annual event, and based on the member feedback, our efforts were successful,” says CSAA President Pam Petrow. “Attendees in 2016 can expect the same value, with timely presentations built around themes of leadership, business management, and technology, along with the networking opportunities you can only find at a CSAA Annual Meeting.”

Petrow notes that CSAA is making a change from “our traditional leadership meeting schedule this year, in order to address feedback on the length of the meeting.” The CSAA Board will meet on the first day of the conference–Saturday, October 22. Committees will meet on Sunday, October 23. “This change will help committee members participate in the complete array of annual meeting events but arrive a full day later than in the past, if they wish,” she says.

General sessions begin Monday morning, October 24. They include:

Bankable Leadership Strategy: The Secret Weapon to Accelerating Business Success
Speaker: Tasha Eurich, PhD, The Eurich Group

Keynote speaker Tasha Eurich is an organizational psychologist, speaker and New York Times best-selling author of Bankable Leadership – and a fresh, modern voice in the leadership world. By pairing her scientific grounding in human behavior with a pragmatic approach to business challenges, she has helped thousands of leaders over the last fifteen years. With a PhD in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Colorado State University, Eurich serves on the adjunct faculty of the Center for Creative Leadership, one of the top ten executive development institutions in the world. She’s also the principal of The Eurich Group, an executive development firm that helps companies succeed by improving the effectiveness of their leaders and teams. (View Eurich’s recent TedxMileHigh Talk at https://youtu.be/NVPxmz_PvUw.)

“In today’s competitive business environment, leadership is as difficult as it is important. Good leaders create economic value–and poor leaders can sink companies. Even though research tells us that effective leaders balance people and results, this complicated balancing act is easier said than done,” says Eurich. “In the quest to create engaged employees and drive business growth, most leaders feel more comfortable doing one than the other, but this imbalance drastically limits their success.” Eurich will deliver an engaging keynote based on her bottom-line research that will help attendees master the balance. Built on decades of research on the transformation of real leaders, her fresh, practical approach can help almost anyone become bankable–delivering bottom-line results, while simultaneously fostering a healthy work environment. At the end of the session, attendees will understand their personal preferences as a leader and what skills they need to sharpen, and leave with a plan to improve immediately.

Capitalizing Customer Experiences
Speaker: Dennis Snow, Snow & Associates, Inc.

Noted speaker, trainer and consultant Dennis Snow is the author of the book Lessons from the Mouse: A Guide for Applying Disney World’s Secrets of Success to Your Organization, Your Career, and Your Life. His customer service abilities were honed over 20 years with the Walt Disney World Company. There, he developed his passion for service excellence and the experience he brings clients and audiences worldwide. Today, Snow helps organizations including banks, universities and hospitals achieve goals related to customer service, employee development and leadership.

Snow explains: “World-class customer service is not simply a matter of smiling employees who say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ Everything your customer sees, hears or touches impacts their experience … This session will cover how delivering world-class service requires careful orchestration of the entire customer experience. Employees watch to see how committed we are as leaders and take their cue directly from us.” Snow will help participants discover what key points of contact make or break the customer experience and understand the behaviors that create a culture of accountability among employees. “As customer expectations are at an all-time high and business competition is fierce, learn about the steps you can take to reinforce organization values and gain organizational commitment to a vision that capitalizes customer service in your company,” he says.

Marketing in the Digital Age–Social Media 102: How to Leverage Social Media To Build Your Business and Your Bottom Line
Speaker: Ken Countess, The Countess Group

Ken Countess is managing director of The Countess Group, a strategic marketing and communications consultancy now in its 15th year. He is an award-winning marketer and an internationally recognized, accredited expert on email marketing and social media marketing. His approach to educating audiences about how to use these tools to build their businesses has earned him the respect of loyal followers around the world.

Countess understands the challenges marketers face. “You’ve hit all the social networks to market your business–but they seem to change every day. Your email contact list is up-to-date–but reaching your audience is a challenge as best practices continue to change. Where do you go from here? Are you getting back what you are putting into your digital marketing efforts?” he says. This session will give participants a closer look at the value of popular social media networks to the professional monitoring industry. They will discover how others in the industry are using social media and email to develop business and learn how to tell if their social marketing activity is working and how to gauge success based on customer reaction and engagement. Takeaways will include reporting and measurement metrics tools and a better understanding of how using digital media can impact the bottom line. CSAA and Countess will present a pre-meeting webinar on Tuesday, September 13 in which participants can get a preview of the impact and value of social media tools.

The complete preliminary program can be found at csaaintl.org/2016am. Additional speakers and session details will be announced in the coming weeks.

To register for the CSAA Annual Meeting, visit csaaintl.org/2016am. The Marriott Resort Marco Island in southwest Florida is on the Gulf of Mexico, just 55 minutes from the Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW) or a short drive from Naples, FL. Visit csaaintl.org/2016am for the special reservations link, or call 1-800-GET-HERE (1-800-438-4373). Rates as low as $185/night are available.