 Washington, DC Society of Certified Public Managers®
By Danny Weiss, CPM
The DC Society of Certified Public Managers® has been focusing its recent efforts on improving its benefits and organizational infrastructure for members. What, you say? The Society has put in place several arrangements to provide additional member benefits, including magazine subscriptions, software discounts, and a new web site. Finally, the Society is implementing a system to accept credit cards for membership payments, manually at first, but eventually in a fully automated mode. Several of the Society’s recent projects are being conducted as pilots with an eye towards offering to expand them to other Societies, as desired, in the future if they prove successful. More specifically:
The Society and The Public Manager journal (www.thepublicmanager.com) have implemented several programs. In a pilot program still underway, the Society has been using a one-time-only, free one-year print subscription to The Public Manager as an incentive for members to join prior to our upcoming annual meeting. Society members were already entitled to a substantial discount on subscriptions to The Public Manager, but it is hoped the inducement of including it with membership will further encourage CPMs to sign up. Also under consideration is the inclusion of an electronic subscription to the Journal for all members.
Governing magazine and the Society are pilot testing a program to provide members with subscriptions to Governing. By including some of Governing’s subscription qualifying questions on the Society’s membership form, the two organizations are hoping to make it easier for CPMs to become Governing subscribers and to provide an additional incentive to join the Society. A new membership form was created for the project.
DC Society members are now entitled to discounts on several Corel Software products, including WordPerfect Office Professional, Corel Draw Graphics Suite, and Corel Paint Shop Pro. Through an arrangement with Corel, a local vender, and the Society, members can purchase Word Perfect, for example, at a fraction of its normal cost and get two years of free upgrades as part of the package.
Dell computers are also now available to Society members at a discount. Again, as a trial program, Dell has made the DC Society part of its membership purchase discount program.
The Society has also invested a tremendous amount of effort in a complete redesign of its web site. While not yet finished, www.dccpm.org is a completely new design with new content, and the objective of offering new services to members. Included in the web project is a state of the art discussion forum system to enable CPMs to keep in touch, share information, host online meetings and, generally, encourage a sharing of knowledge, which we all say we want to do but too often do not achieve. The forum system is being designed with an eye towards sharing the resource with other Societies as it is developed. Anyone interested in joining the project should contact Danny Weiss of the President of the DC Society, through the Contacts link on the DC web site.
The Society continues to work on expanding its member benefits programs and hopes to be able to offer participation in some of the programs described above to other Societies later this year.
By the time you read this, the DC Society expects to have all new officers in place following its annual elections being held on 22 May. While the election results are not known as of this writing, the Society expects to be moving two of its long-time officers into retirement. Danny Weiss, currently the Society’s President, has been active as an officer of the Society since its inception in 1999. Danny was first appointed to the Board to fill the unexpired term of a departing Treasurer and subsequently served several elected terms as Treasurer before assuming the Presidency for two terms. Danny has not only been active in the Society, but has served on Academy committees, is a lifetime member of the American Society for Public Administration, and has been appointed a member of the Editorial Board of The Pubic Manager. Nancy Hapeman is completing her second and last term as the Society’s Treasurer, following her service as President of the Society; Nancy also served on an Academy committee. George Nichols will finish his second and last terms as Vice-President, while Deborah Crain is completing her term as Secretary and contemplating seeking another office.
Finally on the discount front: Daly Computers, a local technology vendor in the DC area, has extended a blanket discount to CPMs that covers all hardware and software products the firm sells, which is just about anything. Most importantly, members can use this discount for the benefit of their government agencies when doing purchasing for the government.
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