One of my highlights of the year takes place next week. We have the privilege of hosting our top supporters at the World Business Forum in New York City.  This is will be the third year in a row that MERIX along with a number of our loyal supporters, gather to listen to successful people speak of their personal and business knowledge. My experience at this event is that there is always a “ah-ha” moment for me.  There’s always a pearl that either provides me with clarity on a matter that I have struggled to properly articulate or a viewpoint that I never considered before. It’s funny what happens when you allow yourself to be a sponge and enjoy the process of being mentally stimulated.

After the first year of hosting our loyal supporters at this event, we surveyed them to gauge their satisfaction and value of attending. One of the questions we asked was, and I’m paraphrasing, “would you like MERIX to change events and location for their recognition awards trip?” The answer was a resounding NO! We were blown away by the response, but in retrospect we shouldn’t have been. For over a decade, Merix has gone to great efforts to establish that it is not the “party” brand. There’s nothing wrong that and I’m not passing judgement on what others do. It’s just not us. MERIX has always held onto the belief that the greatest gift we can give to our supporters is the gift of knowledge. Therefore, everything we do is based on that principal. This mind set clearly appeals to a number of our supporters, and they dispel the old theory that opposites attract. Our loyal supporters share the same principals we do, which manifests itself in the survey results. That’s what makes it such a pleasure for me to be able to spend three days together with them; like-minded people sharing knowledge, networking with people from all over the country, and having a little fun.

There’s no doubt that enjoyment plays important part in this trip. I mean, it’s New York City. There’s an energy and vibe to that city which is different than others. It’s big, it’s brash, it’s bold, it can be intoxicating. I’m sure for New Yorkers it’s all second nature. But for visitors like myself? It’s always new and fresh. So, we plan enough events around the conference to ensure that it is not all work; there’s time for play and the opportunity to experience the city on a different level.

One event that we are all looking forward to attending at the World Business Forum is a private reception with one of the speakers at the conference, Kevin Spacey. He stars in the Netflix series, House of Cards; if you haven’t seen that series, you really should. Spacey is a nasty piece of work in that show and I want thank him personally for finally making the Democrats look like the bad guys. Just kidding. Kind of.  So to all of our loyal supporters, I look forward to seeing you in New York next week. 

Until next time,

Cheers.