SMPS Southern Regional Conference Recap by Katie Karris, LEED AP

The 2011 Southern Regional Conference was a great way to cap off my first year as an official SMPS member. Like any business-minded individual in a down economy, I was skeptical whether or not this conference would be worth the expense and time away from work. Towards the end of last year I was still undecided on whether or not to attend, when I unexpectedly won a complimentary registration to the conference at our December SMPS Luncheon. Given this opportunity, I happily accepted and headed off to Houston in February.

During two days worth of sessions, I attended topics ranging from high-impact interview presentations to killer networking. One of my favorite sessions was “Social Media Success” by Peter Wyro. Peter’s presentation went far beyond the typical social media discussion – including specific tools such as Gravatar – a globally recognized avatar that appears beside your name when you do things like comment on a blog post. Peter also talked about the challenges and benefits of developing a social media policy within your firm, and offered a copy of his standard social media policy for any interested attendees. But beyond the specific topics covered in these sessions, what had a lasting impact on me were the personal stories each speaker shared. In the midst of his presentation on Right Brain/Left Brain thinkers, I was inspired by architect Craig Galati’s anecdote on how his firm made a conscious decision to move away from a “we do everything” approach to focus on the sociology behind architectural design and selectively pursue projects they actually care about. Likewise, I found it interesting that marketing guru Scott Butcher has very successfully created engineering work for his firm based on his photography skills and extensive community involvement.

Since it was my first time to attend this conference I can’t speak comparatively between this year or any other, but I can say that I left the event with a better understanding of critical topics, strengthened relationships within my network, new contacts within the industry, and a renewed sense of excitement for the year ahead.

Katie Harris, LEED AP
Encotech Engineering Consultants