If you were to look at any organization’s DNA, you’d see that surveys at its foundation. While not the sole driver of life, surveys are a strong part of an organization’s success and push for progress.

“Surveys are important to MPI (and associations in general) as they are a good way to learn from our membership in order help us improve,” said Marj Atkinson, MLS, CRP, MPI’s manager of research. “MPI’s goal is to serve our members—and if something needs improvement or if is going well, we need to hear about it.”

A membership satisfaction survey is just one way to accomplish this, she says. 

“We conduct surveys to gain feedback on what members need, such as educational content, opinions on our live events and how well they like some of the services we provide,” she said. “Online surveys are a relatively quick way to get a pulse on our membership.”

MPI recently sent out our annual membership survey, and we encourage everyone to complete it. By participating, you’ll personally be entered in a drawing to receive a free one-year membership extension.

Let us help you become successful. That’s what we’re here to do. 

“Hearing from our members has allowed some significant adjustments in the past,” said Randy Crabtree, MPI’s membership marketing manager. “It represents a key listening tool for us to ensure we are delivering value to the MPI community.”

Remember, the survey only takes a few minutes to complete; however it will provide MPI with a great deal of valuable feedback that will last a long time.

If you receive The Pulse e-newsletter (check all your email folders!), you may have noticed that we're including a weekly video rundown of top stories from the newsletter, this here blog and One+.

We're not doing this to be hip. We're doing it because we're seeing an increase in online video consumption from our members, many of whom find it more efficient to watch a short video than read one more thing in their already busy lives. 

We recently conducted a poll to get a sense of what our members enjoy and want from online videos. From the 1,018 participants, we found some interesting results.

• 71 percent prefer news videos
• 96 percent watch videos on their personal computers
• 33 percent like videos that are two-to-three minutes in length
• 79 percent feel that YouTube offers the best viewing experience
• 68 percent share videos via email

Thank you to everyone that participated, and congratulations to Mindy Kim, CMP, winner of a US$100 AMEX gift card.    

Despite the up-and-down nature of the social media network world, Facebook seems to be holding strong as the most versatile platform around. Now Facebook usage is elbowing in on the once-monopolized e-mail as a communication route. Turns out, Facebook invitations are expected to surpass printed/snail mail (sigh, is using "snail" now antiquated?), according to the findings of a new BizBash survey.

This offers up one more glimpse into the minds of planners and is another piece of the bigger puzzle that is technology, a blessing and a curse, a force that continues to empower and bog down meeting and event professionals. Tech usage is just one significant trend which will be elucidated in the forthcoming FutureWatch survey (next month!).

But at what point does language just dump the "e" bits that were once required for distinguishing between the digital and the "real" realms? Now I'm sounding like a sort of Andy Rooney who's seeking to embrace the future by changing the past, rather than condemning evolution because it's just so darned fluid.

The National Business Travel Association (NBTA) Foundation has released findings from its 2010 Travel Management Compensation and Benefits Survey, which reveals total compensation for corporate travel buyers and meetings managers increased in 2010 by 5.3 percent, for an average of US$96,851, based on responses from 250 corporate travel and meetings managers working in the U.S. and Canada.

More than 63 percent of travel buyers surveyed said they were satisfied with their compensation (up from 56 percent last year), and compensation levels for travel professionals were clearly correlated with the sales volume of their employers, with salary levels tending to increase as company sales volumes increase.

Vice presidents saw a salary increase of 39.7 percent to $170,375, with directors up 2 percent to $132,643, managers up 2.8 percent to $91,865, supervisors up 17.4 percent to $74,714 and coordinators/specialists up 13.4 percent to $58,274.

“The industry is breathing a sigh of relief as we begin seeing and experiencing the long-awaited business travel recovery, which is demonstrated by this year’s respondents who observed considerable increases in their travel budgets and reported a bump in their own salaries as well,” said Craig Banikowski, CCTE, C.P.M., CMM, NBTA  president & CEO. “Travel buyers remained optimistic last year despite hardships and cutbacks. They are building on positive momentum in 2010 as growth returns to companies and travel budgets and travel professionals continue to contribute to their companies’ performance by using the cost-saving disciplines they’ve acquired during the recession.”