PONTIAC ? GLIMASoutheast has a new board with a new attitude about doing what it takes to get new members on board and make current members happier. President John Channell of Resource Technologies said his chapter will look for recruits from the ranks of all technology professionals, not just from interactive marketing.

The former Great Lakes Interactive Marketing Association is trying to move away from its decade long roots as a breakfast club for marketing, public relations and advertising professionals to reflect the all inclusive strategy used by the other four GLIMA chapters in Grand Rapids, Flint, Kalamazoo and Traverse City. Those chapters have engineers, software programmers and hardware vendors on their membership rolls.

Other changes include creating a series of breakfast meetings very topic specific with the hopes of attracting 30 very interested members, rather than trying to attract 200 at major monthly events. Topics could include how to keep bad guys outside your firewall, or how to find the money you need to start a business. The key strategy is to give GLIMASoutheast members what they want.

?We?re in the process of sending a survey to all our members, as well as to the Automation Alley network, to ask them how they would pitch potential recruits, what types of questions they?d ask in a survey, Channell said.?

GLIMASoutheast needs to know why potential members would want to join. Would they be seeking, for instance, networking and access to seed capital?

?We want to create a new direction,?? he said.

Helping Channell do that are executive board members:

Sarah Gozmanian, Vice President, Execution Partners

Shane Gianino, Secretary, Computer Consultants

Mark Powers, Treasurer, Great Lakes Journal

Board of directors:

Steven Berkholz, Tesco Group

Lynn Ingberg, Comsource

Mike Ingberg, Great Lakes Journal

Brad Pines, Portfolio Search

Sarah Prucha, Oakland University

Jeff Stanislow, Motor City Interactive

Mike Wilk, Oakland County

Shawn McCracken, Crane?s Detroit Business

This article appeared in the October edition of GLIMA Connections. To learn more about GLIMA, click on GLIMA.Com