Diversity Week: NAMIC Conference Gears Up for Week, Year Ahead

Hell Week, Diversity Week, whatever you choose to call it will come to an end at the close of the Kaitz Foundation‘s annual fundraising dinner Wed night. And if you thought the week was busy, next year’s new, consolidated fall week will be even more jam-packed. CTAM Summit, NAMIC‘s conference, the Kaitz Dinner, SCTE Expo, CableLabs ‘ Seminar, the Cable Center Hall of Fame dinner and ACC Forum are among events being consolidated into the week of Oct 25 in Denver. Other gatherings, including Cable Positive‘s dinner, will be held in Apr around NCTA‘s Cable Show. As NAMIC pres Kathy Johnson gears up for this week’s conference in NYC, she already has her eye on next year’s event. "We’re cautiously optimistic about attendance. Currently about 40% of our attendees come from NYC, so we hope they will follow us out to Denver," she said. "And about 60% of our attendees come from the Eastern seaboard, so we’re hoping we can attract new constituencies that perhaps couldn’t attend in the past." While attendance is a bit of a question mark, Johnson noted that the group is excited to have more time for advance planning and cheaper venues than in the Big Apple under the new structure. This year’s conference begins Sun. As with many shows during the slumping economy, NAMIC is seeing a dip in attendance. Johnson expects about 600 attendees vs 750 last year. Highlights include the release of NAMIC’s bi-annual employment survey. NAMIC saw the number of companies participating in the survey increase to 16 from 14. While that’s only 2 additional companies, Johnson noted that some of the participants are larger than those in ’06. The 16 companies represent 220K+ employees, while the 14 in ’06 represented approx 108K. The survey will be dissected during Mon’s general session, which includes Scripps Nets pres John Lansing as a panelist. Lansing said the NAMIC confab remains an important gathering for the industry. "It’s just common sense if the basic goal is to thrive and see into the future that we recognize the value and importance of having not only a diverse workforce, but a product that is representative of the diverse community that we seek to serve both as programmers and distributors," he said. New this year is NAMIC’s 1st ad track, which CAB and ADCOLOR helped create. "Depending on what the interest is, we’ll look forward to doing further initiatives around ad sales," Johnson said. (Check out "Diversity Dinner" below for more on this week’s activities.)