 |
 |
 |
 |
June 2008 • Volume 13 Number 6
|
 |
|
Executive Director's Letter
It has been a good past few weeks for me to get a reading on how people are feeling about the Smart Card Alliance and the smart card industry as a whole. Last month, I had the opportunity to see and talk with many of our members and other industry followers at the CTST 2008/Smart Card Alliance Annual Conference in Orlando. This month I closely read the member feedback from our online survey of members who attended CTST 2008/ Smart Card Alliance Annual Conference and our annual member survey that we conducted earlier in June. If you read this newsletter last month, you saw my remarks on the just-completed CTST/Annual Conference and learned how people loved it or not depending on their expectations and their perspective of the event as a conference or as an exhibition. We followed up with a detailed online survey that went out to 550 individuals (about one-third of all attendees) who are associated with our member organizations. We received 124 responses (over 20%), which was an excellent response. One-third of the respondents had never attended a Smart Card Alliance Annual Conference before. I feel great that we were able to attract a larger group of first-time members to this combined CTST event than we had previously attracted to Alliance-only events. I suspect the broader program content, international flavor, and added attraction of an exhibition contributed to that. The survey results quantified what many people had told me were their personal perceptions. 78% said the conference was good, very good, or excellent, and 82% rated the event as valuable or very valuable. The conference program was cited most often (58 times) when we looked at the list of positive comments, and the exhibit hall was cited most often (38) when we looked at the areas that needed improvement. Also, far more attendees identified themselves with the payments industry (46%) than the next two largest market categories, identity (19%) and security (10%). That did not translate to conference session track attendance, however, as the Payments Track (527) drew only slightly more people than the Mobile Track (443), Identity Track (396), and the Security Track (369) over the 3 full days. This result indicates that the interest was evenly distributed and many people moved from track to track during the conference. We will take this input and store it away for now, but be assured that the feedback will play an important part of our planning for the May 4-7, 2009 event in New Orleans. We recently concluded our online 2008 Annual Member Survey, which was open during the first 2 weeks of June. Once again, we were very pleased with the number and quality of the responses we received. The survey serves two important purposes to the Alliance. It gives the Board of Directors and me a valuable measurement of member perception of the value of the services we provide. It also highlights the services that the Alliance provides to our members and to the smart card industry during the course of the year, and identifies all of the services, new and existing, that are available to our members. We have grown so much and have added so many new programs and services that it takes just such an exercise to bring it all into focus at least once every year. The great news is that we scored a very solid satisfaction rating of 85.5 (out of 100), down slightly from 2007, when it was 88.9. The newest communications activity introduced this year, the Daily Industry News Summary, received the highest satisfaction rating (90%), followed by the Smart Card Talk monthly newsletter (87%), and the Smart Card Alliance web site (86%). The membership benefits rating told us that the highest valued benefit for members was networking (93%), early understanding of industry trends (93%), and visibility of vertical market smart card initiatives (92%). The tremendous volume and quality of the work coming from the industry councils was also clearly valued by the members, as the white papers, reports, and resources on the web site received a 94% favorable score, followed by the member contact information (84%) and the past conference proceedings on the members-only web site (81%). So in conclusion, I must tell you that I am feeling very upbeat by all of the feedback I received. Our fiscal year ends this month and I was able to present to our Board this week that we have accomplished a great deal. We have also maintained steady growth in both membership and operating revenues and will continue to invest in more expanded programs and services to the industry and our members in the coming year. I thank everyone who actively participates in the Smart Card Alliance, or simply keeps up with our organization and its activities all year long. I want to extend a special thank you to our great staff, our partners, and the many members who contribute their time, talent, and loyalty to the Alliance and, as a result, help the industry continue to grow each year. Mark your calendars for the next Smart Card Alliance event, the 7th Annual Smart Cards in Government Conference October 22 – 24 in Washington, DC. Early registration discounts for non-members are available right now if you want to get a break on the registration fees. Also, the exhibitor spaces and sponsorships are selling well, yet there are still great sponsor opportunities and booth spaces available if you want to have your company present for the largest and most important gathering of government identification and security leaders in North America.
Randy Vanderhoof
|
|
