It is impossible to ignore that the internet, electronic devices, and social media have an overshadowing presence in our
personal and professional lives - and it is still growing.
Can you recall the last time you saw a student
consulting an encyclopedia? Today there is such a wealth of information stored
electronically that it would exceed 4,500 stacks of books from the earth to the
sun, which is 93 million miles away!
In the summer of 1995 Amazon sold its 1st book in the garage of Jeff Bezos. Today Amazon has more warehouse square footage
than 700 Madison Square Gardens.
How many of us shopped on-line 15 years ago? Today
look how on-line shopping has been the death of or severely impacted many traditional
brick and mortar stores.
It is crazy to think that a person would have had
to remain still for 8 hours to have a picture taken by the 1st camera invented. Last year 75% of photos taken were shot by some type of phone
that provided an instant picture.
Not so long-ago single people met in church,
schools, clubs, and bars. Today 1 out of 8 married couples met on the internet.
Also consider these facts:
38 years - the time it took radio to reach an
audience of 50 million people
13 years - the time it
took television to reach an audience of 50 million people
3 years - the time it
took iPod to reach an audience of 50 million people
2
years - the time it took Facebook to reach an audience of 50 million people
$680
worth of transactions are made every second on eBay
1,530,000 - the number of orders per hour Amazon processes on its busiest day
35,000,000,000 - the number of monthly searches on Google
60,000,000,000 - the number of emails sent daily - 97% of which are spam
With such a tidal wave of electronic data and
communications available how does a professional association stay relevant?
A professional association can be defined as an
organization designed to represent the interests of certain professional
practitioners. Certainly, NACM then remains relevant in numerous areas, including
education, networking, mentoring, and credit reporting.
Still there is one segment which the Affiliates of
NACM offer that combines all of the previously mentioned benefits and routinely
surpasses the information available on the internet and that is Industry Credit
Groups.
The industries participating in NACM are as varied
as there are opinions. No matter what industry you are in NACM will have a
local or national group in which pertains to your profession.
In these group settings there is always so much to
gain from other credit professionals. Perhaps Helen Keller put it best "Alone
we can do so little; together we can do so much."
More than just strength in numbers, NACM Groups
affords the opportunity to learn and keep growing. One of the reasons for that
is the way members are engaged with each other. It can make one feel directionally
challenged just trying to figure out if some members are 'paying back' to the organization through their service to others, or
if they are 'paying it forward' by
laying the foundations for others to build upon.
Having been a part of the National Railroad
Industry Group for almost 25 years, I have seen over and over again the value
of this association. There are guest speakers that add to my education, there are
credit exchanges that add to my knowledge about customers, but it is the
relationships with other members that add to my trust and confidence in the
information that is discussed in our meetings or the credit references obtained
outside of the meetings from members. After all, I value much more the debtor experience
from a group member versus a credit reference from an unknown vendor or customer-supplied that may contain self-supplied data.
Being a participating member of an Industry Credit
Group is akin to getting a Bad Debt Vaccination -- it is still possible
to become ill once in a while but the chances of it happening and the severity
of it are greatly diminished!
If you are not participating in an Industry Group,
you owe it to others to share your talents and you will find that the gains will
greatly outweigh the effort you put into it. Each of us recognizes that the internet, electronic devices, and social media are part of our professional
tool bag, but you need to discover, if you haven't done so, why Industry Groups
is one of the most useful tools.
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