NEWH - June 2009 - (Page 4)

news Q&A with Anita Degen Linked In In this tough economy, there is no better time to stay connected. NEWH—The Hospitality Industry Network is helping to fill the need. We sat down with the organization’s president, Anita Degen, founder of Seattle-based Degen & Degen architecture and interior design, to discuss NEWH’s new initiatives, how membership is holding strong, and the fact that the best part of the hospitality industry is the people. “ Our current initiatives are pretty exciting. First is NEWHconnect. Through our experiences with social networking sites such as Facebook we discovered a strong interest from our membership in having a networking site truly geared towards the hospitality industry. So we have created NEWHconnect. “ Q: NEWH seems to be more active than ever. What are some of NEWH’s new initiatives for 2009-2010? A: It’s hard to top 2008 but believe it or not we are! Our current initiatives are pretty exciting. First is NEWHconnect. Through our experiences with social networking sites, such as Facebook, we discovered a strong interest from our membership in having a networking site truly geared towards the hospitality industry. So we have created NEWHconnect. It will be the hospitality networking site with forums for questions and discussion, blogs by industry experts, articles, and more. You will be able to find industry colleagues and craft your personalized NEWH calendar, a huge time saver for our members that travel and want to participate in NEWH events around the country and abroad. Another exciting initiative is the NEWH Sustainable Hospitality website. This website will be a dedicated forum for sustainability in hospitality and a direct source of information for the many projects by our Sustainable Hospitality committee. It will showcase the many projects we are involved in as well as projects and products by our members. The Sustainable Directory will be easily accessible as a tab right on the homepage. Finally expansion. Chapter expansion has been going strong. We have seen great response to our San Francisco Bay Area Region group and have targeted three more up and coming regions: Vancouver, Canada; Kansas City, Missouri; and the Carolinas. Speaking of expanding, our regional tradeshows have been expanded from three per year to four at the request of our vendors and chapters. Q: At Hospitality Design Exposition & Conference (HD Expo), you hold your annual silent auction. How helpful is it for the organization? A: The silent auction at HD Expo is one of our most successful fundraising ventures. I am always amazed by the enthusiasm of our bidders. It’s a serious financial benefit to the organization and to scholarship and education. With NEWH there is always a side benefit to everything we do and it’s true with the silent auction. It brings us closer to our vendor members by creating a partnership for a common cause. When they donate goods for the auction they help promote scholarship and education in a way that is more exciting than simply writing a check. Q: Speaking of auctions, how are the online auctions going? A: They are great! These auctions are much smaller than our silent auction but we can hold them more often giving a substantial boost to our bottom line. We hold them now quarterly for NEWH, Inc. and twice a year specifically for Sustainable Hospitality. They not only help NEWH to raise funds but again they have a side benefit. The auctions are great exposure for manufacturers and they have become a wonderful showcase for our members who have side ventures such as art, photography, and jewelry making. We are considering expanding online auctions to every other month and we are always on the look out for new and interesting items for auction. Q: Another great exposure for your members is the recently launched Resource Directory. How is that going? A: It is doing really well and starting to evolve with everything else. We are currently getting the directory live and online through the newh.org website, making it even more accessible to the industry and valuable to our advertisers. Tracking usage is a tremendous benefit to our advertisers and our office is working on ways to make that information readily and easily available. Q: Your Leadership Conference was just this past January. Any highlights/thoughts/take-aways? A: The San Diego Leadership Conference was a major success. To have record attendance in a down economy was a wonderful surprise and testament to the value of the conference. Our events team, headed up by Julia Davis and Veronica Gilmore, did an outstanding job on every detail. Our Southern Counties and San Diego members were superb hosts. We can’t thank our event sponsors and esteemed panelists enough for their contributions to the conference. We were so fortunate to have Raj Chandnani, WATG; Tom Maier, GVD Hospitality; Michelle Finn, Hospitality Design Group; Cliff Tuttle, ForrestPerkins; Gary Golla, Sera Architects; Robert Maricich, World Market Center; Trudy Craven and Bill Gregory, both of Milliken; Susan Grant, Grant Consultants; Barbara Filippone, Enviro Textiles; environmental activist Charlotte Black Elk; and Emily Talbert and Joanna Doyle, both of Host Hotels. 4 june 2009 www.newh.org tel 800.593.NEWH http://www.newh.org http://www.newh.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NEWH - June 2009

NEWH - June 2009
Contents
News
Have you Seen?
Product Know-How: Lighting
Design 101
On the Scene
Sustainability: POV
Sustainability: Green Award
Sustainability: Competition
Cover Story: Magic Carpet Ride
Project: TD Banknorth Garden
Project: Ajax and Sneaky’s
New Members
Save the Date
Partner Profiles

NEWH - June 2009