Over a decade ago, I set a goal: to one day serve as President of the SMPS Philadelphia Chapter. It’s hard to believe that I’m now entering the final six weeks of my term. This year has been everything I dreamed of, and so much more.

As President, I had the opportunity to bring my ideas to life, implement initiatives and standards that I believe will strengthen our Chapter for years to come, challenge myself as a leader, and grow through both triumphs and tough moments. Most importantly, I’ve had the privilege of working alongside and learning from some truly incredible people.

To my Chapter Leadership Symposium (CLS) Cohort, SMPS HQ staff, the 2024-2025 SMPS Philadelphia Board of Directors, and every member of the Philadelphia Chapter—thank you. You’ve made a lasting impact on me and I can only hope I’ve done the same for you.

As I’ve said in (probably all of) my previous messages, the more you put into SMPS, the more it gives back. I challenge each of you to dream big, get involved, and set goals that will help you grow both professionally and personally.

PROPOSAL ROUNDTABLE

An annual fan favorite, this year nearly 50 marketers and allied AEC professionals gathered to talk proposal shop, with each attendee bringing an example proposal to dig into in a 3 Cs – collaborative, creative, and crowdsourced – environment. As AEC marketers, we do so many diverse things, but proposals are one of our big common denominators, so this yearly event is the perfect opportunity to really examine our work together. From the nuts and bolts of RFP-speak, to establishing win themes, to telling compelling stories through each prescribed section of a proposal, to compliance, QC, production, and, of course, design, it’s a great time with great takeaways! Thanks so much to three-time moderator extraordinaire Steven Alvarez, APPE, and Pennoni for hosting us!

TECH TUESDAY - TIME-SAVING AI TOOLS FOR MARKETERS

Thank you, Froilan Miranda (AI and Automation Consultant), for joining us to talk about the world wide web of AI platforms and giving us a rundown of ChatGPT, Cloud AI, Repurpose, and Lavender, among others. Froilan also shared an AI implementation roadmap and adoption checklist as well as ethical usage guidelines, encouraging us to continue experimenting with our teams to best scale and tailor AI solutions to meet our marketing needs and workflows.

MAY ESPRESSO EXCHANGE

“I’ll take that to stay!” for spring sweets and iced lattes of great conversation. Caffeinating off the inaugural year of our members-only perk, Chapter members from around the region gathered for the last (official) time this program year to connect over breakfast, on the house. We hope you enjoyed these casual meetups to help fill your cups and fuel your days!

2025-2026 PROGRAM PLANNING

Thanks to everyone who came out to one or both sessions of SMPS Philadelphia's program planning for the upcoming program year. With the Board of Directors and representatives from all seven committees, over 30 Chapter members came out to get geared up and planned out for '25-'26. Keep an eye out for the future fruits of this labor, with professional development topics/speakers, event partnering, scheduling and coordination, AEC philanthropy, and new initiatives on the horizon!

TECH TUESDAY - PHOTO EDITING HACKS (PART 2)

Guess who's back, back again? Dorothy's back, tell an SMPS friend! Thank you Dorothy J. Verdon, CPSM (Principal, Bright Bunny Communications) for coming back to show us more of the latest and greatest Photoshop tips for enhancing all those images that come to us marketers in varying states of needs fixing. And an extra special thanks to Dorothy for her unofficial Part 3 of this presentation series, a YouTube addendum on a couple extra topics!

STRATEGIC PLAN RESULTS PRESENTATION

We love it when a plan comes together! This program year, SMPS Philadelphia set a bold goal to develop a three-year Strategic Plan for our Chapter. Over the last seven months, with the leadership of our facilitator, Holly Bolton, and support from our Board of Directors and members, we are excited to unveil our 2025-2028 Strategic Plan! Thank you Madam President (Laura Frein, CPSM) for rolling it out to our membership and here's to putting it into action, together (hint, hint)!

END OF YEAR VICTORY PARTY

June's 100° temps couldn't melt our malts or harsh our hops – the vibes at Victory Brewing, with snacks, were lit! We had a great time kicking off summer and celebrating a great program year for our chapter. Congratulations to all of our Chapter Award Winners & Honorees, and thanks to everyone for showing up and showing out – we love SMPS Philadelphia!

TECH TUESDAY - FIGMA THE COLLABORATIVE DESIGN INTERFACE TOOL

In July, we learned new tech! Thank you Robby Prall (Brand Director, D2 Groups) for introducing (many of) us to Figma, a low-cost, collaborative design platform with core web design and UX/UI features and functions similar to both Adobe Creative Suite (think, layers, styles, brand libraries) and Canva (think, templates). They even have a whiteboard called FigJam (how fun!). Another great addition to our graphics toolkit!

New Members

JP Ervin, PhD

Warren Chiara

Daniel Fox

Anniversaries

May

June

July

Kate Antolick, 5
Jennifer Cantono, 12
Laura Frein, CPSM, 12
Robert Fini, CPSM, 22
Jennifer Ganesharatnam, 8
Kathy Kostiuk, CPSM, 12
Bridget J. Shane, CPSM, 11

Abby Early, 4
Mary Fitzpatrick, 19
Kayla McCause, CPSM, 11
Ashley Neelis, 7
Lance Weatherly, 1
Yanie Willie, 1
Nia Wills, 1

Ellen Berry, 20
Shanae Brown, 1
Lauren Coughlin, 2
Karen Duerholz, 1
Megan Gregory, 1
Filomena Iorio-Tasoluk, 1
Stephanie Pagán-Guridy, 3
Indira Santiago, MBA, 3
Holly Taubman, 10
Anne Voorhees, 3