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The Amtower ReportVolume 5, #1, January 3, 2006This newsletter is only sent to those who request it. Sign up for your free subscription at http://www.FederalDirect.net and if you like this newsletter, please pass it along to your colleagues. To unsubscribe, see directions below. The newsletter is posted each Monday at www.FederalDirect.net, and the latest "Off-Center Observations" is on the home page. All back issues available at http://www.federaldirect.net/newsletterarchives.html)
Item: Happy New Year and welcome to year 5 and issue 156 of The Amtower Report. Again, I appreciate all who read and comment on this e-zine/e-newsletter. The more feedback I get, the better it is for the people reading this. Please keep the feedback coming. So if are you ready for 2006, let the festivities begin! Item: For a second time I will be on Taking Care of Business with Brian Roberts (WMAL, 630AM) Sunday January 8 at 3 PM with Lorenz Hassenstein, VP of Trade Shows for PostNewsweekTech Media. The show will be archived at www.CroixConnect.com a few days after the broadcast. If you have not heard this show before, it is the only Washington-centric business radio show I know of and it is quite good. Item: I have included a Hall of Fame at www.GovernmentMarketingBestPractices.com . I have been in the government market since the early 1980s. During that time I have seen hundreds of people make significant contributions to this market that go largely unsung. I have also seen some garner kudos that were at best undeserved, at worst stolen. While I cannot rectify all that has gone on, I can dedicate a page at this site for some of those who may have been overlooked. Others honored here may not have been overlooked, but have also contributed to something more than their own coffers, something to the community at large or to our collective experience. Many of them continue to do so. I will also occasionally single out organizations deserving or recognition. The 2005 inductees are posted. Item: As this is an election year, we are bound to run into headline chasers running for office who will be discussing their very narrow and self-serving views on government spending. This is as predictable as the sun coming up and represents nothing new. I will comment as necessary. Not that I have an opinion. THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY: AN INVITATION TO JOIN GOVERNMENTMARKETINGBESTPRACTICES.COM 2006 marks my 21st year in business as Amtower & Company. During that time I have observed thousands of companies gaining marketshare and losing marketshare, entering the market and leaving the market, growing and dying, buying and being bought, doing smart things and doing stupid things. As a result of watching, I have grown and become the repository for much that has occurred as this market has matured. Those who have attended my seminars or read my articles and newsletters over the years have seen me dissect and analyze much of this. To share this with a broader audience, today Amtower & Company launches our first membership site, www.GovernmentMarketingBestPractices.com . This site will archive materials like
The upcoming revised version of Government Marketing Best Practices (the book) will be free inside the site, and will be posted incrementally, as it is written. We will be doing the same videotaping and archiving for the upcoming Government Marketing Best Practices seminar (version 6.0) on Feb 23 (Ten Oaks Ballroom, Clarksville, Maryland – see below) and the first MEMBER DISCOUNT is a $95 discount for this seminar – making attending the session for members $100. By the end of 2006, we will have an audio archive of at least 12 one-hour informational sessions with industry experts, a video archive of at least four events, the newsletter, white papers from experts, and more. If you attend two of my seminars during the year, or simply bought one hour of my consulting time, you would pay for an individual membership for a year (corporate memberships are available at very reasonable rates). I realize none of us has a couple hours a day for this, but if you can take four or five hours a month, you will have the equivalent of B2G graduate school – except that you cannot get this information at any school. This is an investment for both your career and your company, and there is nothing else like it available anywhere. Need more? Consider this: there are over 11,000 companies on GSA Schedule. The top 2% of those companies took 65% of the Schedule dollars in FY 2005. What are they doing better than the other 98%? One thing many of the top Schedule holders do is attend Amtower seminars (some every year), and others have been or are currently clients. While this is certainly not the only thing they do, it is among the things many of them do. This is not information you can get in any classroom at any graduate school. This is real-world, rubber hits road stuff from the front lines. If you were at the October 12 GMBP seminar, you saw three of my favorite companies (and people) present – CDWG (Ann-Marie Clark), MPC (Micron PC, Ron Clevenger), and Juniper Networks (Lou Anne Brossman). These people discussed many aspects of how their respective companies grew mindshare and marketshare. If you missed the seminar, the only place you can see it is the member section of our site. If you are interested in enhancing your marketing skills and becoming a member of the top tier of government marketers in Fortune One, the US Federal market, you need to join us in 2006. Membership is only $495 per year for www.GovernmentMarketingBestPractices.com . Take your career to the next level – join us in this new enterprise. EVENTS WORTH ATTENDING Beware of the schlock vendors, producing minimal value events, events that eat your money with no significant return! The events listed below are among those I think are worth your time, money and effort. Just because an event is not listed below does not imply it is not worth attending. If you want my opinion on a specific event or producer, call me. January 19, ITAA's Base Realignment & Closure: Moving Forward with Information Technology, Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City http://www.itaa.org/es/events/bracinvite.htm January 25, 2006 National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Chantilly, Virginia In-Agency Event, www.fbcinc.com January 26, 2006 National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Chantilly, Virginia In-Agency Event, www.fbcinc.com February 2, 3rd Annual Strategies for Winning Government Contracts Matchmaker & Conference, 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Sheraton Conference Center Burlington, VT http://www.vtsbdc.org/getcontracts.cfm February 15, 2006 NSA/OPS 1 Building (Day 1), Fort Meade, Maryland In-Agency Event, www.fbcinc.com February 16, 2006 NSA/OPS 1 Building (Day 2), Fort Meade, Maryland In-Agency Event, www.fbcinc.comFebruary 22, 2006 NSA R&E Building (Day 1), Fort Meade, Maryland In-Agency Event, www.fbcinc.com February 23, GOVERNMENT MARKETING BEST PRACTICES – First Maryland Session – 10 Oaks Ballroom – Clarksville, Maryland, 9:00AM – Noon. February 23, 2006 NSA R&E Building www.FederalDirect.net/gmbpfeb23.html(Day 2), Fort Meade, Maryland In-Agency Event, www.fbcinc.com February 28 - March 1, 2006 FAA IT/ISS Conference, Denver, Colorado www.fbcinc.com March 7-9, 2006: FOSE www.FOSE.com APRIL 19, 2006, Tower Club, Vienna, VA. Amtower & Company presents the one and only Amy Africa and THE ULTIMATE B2B WEB SITE MAKEOVER. For those of you who do not know Ms Africa, she is perhaps the most sought after web consultant in the world, and we have sixty seats available for her first ONE DAY session focusing exclusively on maximizing the impact of B2B and B2G web sites. www.FederalDirect.net/ultimatewebsitemakeover.html *** As always, your comments, questions and suggestions are welcome. Thanks The Amtower Report is published by Amtower & Company, and is written for companies targeting the government marketplace. The opinions expressed are those of Mark Amtower unless otherwise noted. Contact us at Amtower & Company, PO Box 314, Highland, MD 20777-0314 (301-924-0058). This material is copyrighted and may not be duplicated, reprinted or otherwise replicated without written permission of the publisher. Email subscriptions are free by request: sign up at www.FederalDirect.net |
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