Say the name Skip Cohen and almost every wedding or portrait photographer on the planet will know exactly who you are talking about. He’s that guy from WPPI right? What they might not know is that Skip has stepped out from behind the desk at WPPI and Rangefinder Publications and has launched Marketing Essentials International aka MEI500 for short.
The primary focus of MEI is on marketing and education. From special events, like this year’s Summer School to Skip’s Network, our goal is to help you work through the challenges of building, growing and maintaining an active business in today’s photographic market.
And like that, Skip is out of the gate and running, as I write this post Skip’s Summer School is underway in Las Vegas with 15 of the top Marketers and Photographers on the planet providing over 26 hours of education over the course of 3 days. A quite impressive first venture as an independent entity if you ask me.
That brings me to the real reason for my article, recently on his blog Cohen asks and helps to answer the question “Where do you need help the most?“.
Now that I’m independent and far more objective about our industry, it’s time to address an issue that’s driven me nuts for way too long…the challenge of photographers getting caught in the battle over which photographic association to belong. I won’t deny for a second, for me to be writing about this is bizarre. In my previous life I was guilty of contributing to exactly what I’m complaining about. In my own defense, when it’s the company you work for you have to do your best to promote their products.
APA, ASMP, DWF, PPA and WPPI are a few of the organizations that came to his mind as he approached the question from his new vantage point. He says..
Consider them (the organizations mentioned above) like five of your friends or associates who you enjoy being with, but who might not know each other. They each have a quality that makes them unique, but not necessarily better than any of your other friends.
Skip also goes on to say that given the current economy we should belong to as many different groups as our wallets will allow. I won’t spoil the rest of the article which covers tradeshows and conventions you should attend, what you should look for in a professional organization and the questions you should be asking yourself but I will share with you his opinion on the Digital Wedding Forum.
My favorite at the moment is absolutely DWF, who for years I looked at as trying to compete with WPPI. The truth is, I think it’s the biggest group of interactive photographers with a common interest on the planet. The benefit of DWF is being able to toss a question out there to an audience of almost 6000 wedding photographers and in minutes have some answers. It’s about a network with some horsepower. It’s about ways to make your life easier and solve problems faster.
Read Skip’s full blog post right here and be sure to bookmark his blog as a little bird tells me he’s one to watch.
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