DMA Conference-DMEF Awards Dinner

Direct is alive and kicking!

I attended the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation (DMEF) Awards Dinner last night. Close to 300 marketers from all over the country gathered to honor Beth Smith, http://sbdirect.net/ with the Edward Mayer Award. Beth is a super lady who over her career has taught so many people direct advertising that she probably has had a direct affect on the country's GNP.

For the past three years the DMEF has asked me to do the auction part of the evening. That's because I'm a shameless ham who has absolutely no problem asking people for money in public. Some day, I will probably have a very successful career as a homeless person.
I must admit that with the economy the way it is, I did not have great expectations to raise a lot of money, in fact, I had decided to go easy on the crowd and not shake them down for their last penny like I usually do.
Well let me tell you something, when it comes to a good cause like the DMEF, direct marketers step up, no matter how bad the economy is!
In about 30 minutes, I think we raised over $150,000.00, I haven't heard the official count yet, it might be more.
I must admit that putting me on "before" dinner was served was a brilliant strategy and I apologize to everyone for threatening to not feed anybody until they gave me all their money.
Hey, it was for a very good cause.

Today is the DMA board meeting and they have moved it to a much larger room so that we can all come to see what a proxy fight is all about! (see my previous post). Everybody is talking about it and excited about the changes that could take place.

I'll fill you in on what happens.

Jon