Welcome to a GIANT ConnexFM | 2022!
It will be great to be in Long Beach, California. While we won’t quite be able to “conference like it’s 2019,” we are moving closer to pre-COVID operations each day. However, as the ConnexFM team prepared for the ConnexFM | 2022 National Conference, we realized that we will never (nor should we) go entirely back to the way ConnexFM conducted business a few short years ago. While COVID-19 laid bare weaknesses in all our organizations, overcoming the challenges of the pandemic also made ConnexFM a more agile, transparent and forward-thinking association.
So, what should you expect from ConnexFM | 2022? To start, a continuing focus on delivering a competitive advantage in Multi-Site FM to our attendees. ConnexFM builds that competitive advantage through its marketplace, professional development, thought leadership and core values. Nothing that ConnexFM does throughout the year demonstrates these four strategic ends — simultaneously — like our national conference.
The size of ConnexFM | 2022 will approach past national conferences. But the truly giant nature of ConnexFM | 2022 will be its impact on our association going forward. Beginning with the successful CONNEX2021, our national conferences are now linchpins connecting the ConnexFM community. Leading into ConnexFM | 2022, we met with our FM community through Connexion100 events. We designed these events to get our FM community back to the mindset of in-person meetings. In Long Beach, we’ll continue our in-person meeting operations. And, during the summer and fall, our in-person events and engagement will continue.
As I prepared for ConnexFM | 2022, I read a book by John Amaechi, an organizational psychologist and former NBA basketball player. The book, “The Promises of Giants: How You Can Fill the Leadership Void,” posits that “everyone [or organization] is a giant to someone or has the potential to be.” Only one definition of giant deals with physical size (although Amaechi is 6’10”). Amaechi’s giants are leaders of organizational cultures that raise performance to higher levels. Interestingly, he maps out that as work becomes more driven by technology, the human side of leadership will become even more crucial. For associations, the past 24-plus months of operations were more virtual, less human and ruled by technology. We learned that in-person interactions and events are still essential. In-person connecting at ConnexFM is back.
My sincere thanks to the ConnexFM Board of Directors, ConnexFM volunteer leaders, ConnexFM HQ team and our attendees who led us to ConnexFM | 2022. We made it to our national conference, and with all that is going on these days, that is no small feat!