Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Quarterly - President’s Column

This is the copy of my first editorial published originally at the AMS Quarterly, 17 (1), Spring 17.

I am including it here in case you missed it ;)

Dear AMS family,

The Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) does an extraordinary job serving everyday its members and the marketing discipline. Since Dr. Harold W. Berkman created this wonderful initiative more than 45 years ago, #AMS grew and developed into one of the most respected, internationally inclusive, and supportive professional marketing associations in the world. We stand on the shoulders of leaders like Dr. Berkman, Barry Babin, Joe Hair, Jay Lindquist, and all these incredible people who have served and continue to serve AMS as officers, on the board of governors, conference chairs, track chairs and in all other capacities fundamental to fulfilling our mission of developing and presenting rigorous and relevant research in a friendly and supportive atmosphere. I have no words to thank you all for your services to the AMS family.

Looking into the future, we have great challenges and opportunities ahead. The AMS will pursue its internationalization, increase the services we offer our community and improve the ways we engage with our members. The AMS is the most international professional marketing association today, and giving the profound transformations coming from all over the world, we are in a unique position to help boost research that matters all over the world. Being the first international AMS president captures in a nutshell the trust of all our members in the fact that tapping into the diversity that comes along with an increasingly international body provides a wonderful opportunity to help marketing academics and practice everywhere.

The AMS will also work on diversifying and creating new services to our members. We already deliver great value through our journals, conferences, workshops, and other initiatives that help and support our members during their research endeavors. We are now expanding these to think about other ways in which we can help you, and therefore the market discipline. For instance, we launched a certification initiative last year. In this initiative, our members can get deep insights through a special program designed to tackle one particular topic relevant to research and teaching . We ran a pilot of the certification initiative at our Annual Conference at Disney and it was very successful. We therefore will be working to expand this initiative during our next conferences. We are also looking for your feedback and help on topics and ways of delivering these certificates. You can reach any of the Officers if you want to help us with this initiative.

However, to achieve these goals, there is one absolute necessary condition: your engagement! So, I have an invitation for you. I would like to invite you to engage even more with us to help shaping the future of the AMS.

• I invite you not only to come and enjoy great conferences in magical places, but also engage as a track chair, or suggesting a special session. Share your AMS experiences with your friends back on your school and if you think they can benefit from our supportive atmosphere for research development, invite them to come and join our family.
• I invite you not only to come and enjoy the multiple actions AMS is doing to improve our publication skills (e.g. meet the editors sessions, publication panels, workshops on research tools, writing workshops…) but engage by suggesting and leading a seminar or workshop that you can put together to serve our colleagues to improve their skills
• I invite you not only to enjoy reading the AMS Quartely, but engage by proposing to write there as well as engaging with all other social media initiatives
• I invite you to engage with one of the Officers or with a member of the Board of Governors. We would love to not only hear your great ideas, but to point you to the right way to help us in actually implementing them. I invite you to make your ideas real alongside with us.

In one word: ENGAGE!

If you have any questions about how to do it, please get in touch with an Officer or with a Board of Governor member. You can easily find our names and emails in our website. We are working on innovative ways to facilitate this engagement by for example creating participative sessions during our conference in which you can come and share your ideas. We did the first one in Paris last July and it was very intense and rich. Keep an eye on these future sessions and attend, so we can work together on your initiatives to serve our community and our discipline.

Together we will continue serving AMS Fellows and the marketing discipline by developing and presenting rigorous and relevant research in a friendly and supportive atmosphere. I am looking forward to working alongside you.  

Adilson

If you have any comments or thoughts on how we are doing at the AMS, I would love to hear from you.

All the best,

________

Adilson Borges is the Chief Learning Officer at Carrefour France and the President of the Academy of Marketing Science. Adilson is also the IRC Professor of Marketing at Neoma BS. Before that, he held various positions at Neoma Business School, Reims Management School and Unilever. He's is passionate about marketing, learning, decision making and behavioral science. Adilson enjoys sharing his personal thoughts here on LinkedIn. All statements and opinions presented in his articles or posts only reflect his personal opinion.

Follow Adilson on Twitter: @aborges_mkt