I have just arrived home after a great few days in Tampa with our telecom executives at our annual Telecom Executive Forum (TEF) event, one of my very favorite meetings given the ability to really focus on what leaders in our industry are seeing. These insights give us previews into where the industry is heading and where NTCA needs to be moving to ensure that we are meeting “the puck” where it is going and not where it has been. Certainly, the beautiful weather in Florida didn’t hurt either while our brethren across the country were enduring some pretty crummy weather. Nothing showcased that weather differential more than our gathering in the outdoor courtyard for our welcome reception on Monday, which saw many of us squinting against the strong sun and our Dakota members turning a nice shade of pink while standing outside and sipping a cocktail.
The program kicked off on Monday morning with a robust discussion on community leadership and what it means. We had the head of the Maine Development Foundation share his thoughts on what it takes to partner with state and private business stakeholders to create world class opportunities, which was followed in a timely manner by a great presentation on how to make your local community a destination location. Lots of notes were taken by all in the room.
Of course, a number of other key topics made their way through the day and a half agenda: cybersecurity, company legal liabilities, broadband mapping, how to use metrics to increase team productivity and a great exercise with our friends at Corning on how to optimize network operation through some real case studies. But as always, the power of this meeting is not always what is happening in the meeting room but rather the conversations out by the coffee pot in the hallway.
It’s no surprise that this industry has been undergoing a number of transformations with executive turnover and new key leaders stepping into their roles. I also loved seeing the number of executives who brought along some of their own key leaders to bring home as a team some new thinking and best practice ideas.
Maybe one of my favorite lines of the meeting was someone sharing how excited they were to walk into the ballroom for the opening session and see so many “fluffy” heads from the back of the room. Although I would say my hair with Floridian humidity is more “mad mess” than fluffy, I loved the sentiment and appreciation for the nearly one-third of women executives who attended TEF. The diversity of demographics is exciting and bodes well for the future of the industry. We also hosted a closing workshop for our Women in Telecom executives and had a full room with our workshop leader sharing how to use energy and tools for leadership development and ensuring effective messaging among numerous audiences.
Good things happen when our industry can gather and compare notes, share experiences and best practices and frankly just catch our collective breaths with one another.
I am already looking forward to 2024 in beautiful Hill Country.