What Did You Do This Summer?

September 13, 2022

How was your summer? I hope you had some time to rest and recharge. These past three years in our industry have been hard-charging. And while there are signs of potential trouble ahead, from what we’re hearing, most of our members continue to operate at a high rate. We hope you’re one of them.

Since it’s back-to-school season, I feel obligated to stand up in front of the classroom and share with you what AICC has been up to through the steamy months of summer. We should have been sunning ourselves at the beach, enjoying the mountains, or building tree forts in the backyard. Instead, your hardworking AICC staff has spent the last few months balancing some time for themselves and family with producing new, exciting, and useful programming for you.

Speaking of school, on August 1 AICC launched its Packaging University. This is a rebranding of AICC’s Packaging School. It is symbolic of our transition from a partnership with The Packaging School (TPS) of Greenville, South Carolina, an organization that has been hosting AICC’s online packaging courses since 2016. TPS has been a wonderful partner in the development and presentation of AICC’s catalog of more than 100 courses. AICC will maintain its partnership with TPS on course development and cooperation but will move the catalog to a new and exciting platform.

The new platform, now up and running, is AICC NOW (NOW.AICCbox.org). This site is the location for all AICC media content for members. In addition to hosting AICC’s Packaging University, AICC NOW will be where members go for all content, webinars, white papers, One Point Lessons, podcasts, Ask the Experts, and more. It brings easier access to content and better connectivity among content. Keyword searches now bring together the full AICC offerings on the topic(s) of interest. Searches will be more intuitive, and the site will make suggestions for related content. AICC NOW is a real game changer for all the resources that AICC has had, and will have, available going forward. Please let us know what you think.

Meanwhile, more Breaking Down Boxes podcasts are on the way. Among the millions of business podcasts, Breaking Down Boxes is continuing to rise on the charts in terms of popularity. AICC has engaged familiar names Ed Wallace and Mark Roberts to launch Sales Leadership Groups. We will also introduce membership to Milton Corsey, who will moderate Production Leadership Groups, and to Omar Abdullah, who will educate members on leadership.

None of the above happens without the direction and guidance provided by AICC’s many committees and our active and engaged board of directors.

AICC’s new fiscal year opened July 1. Look for a full report on AICC’s finances in the November/December issue of BoxScore. Renewals for the new fiscal year, as of June 30, are well ahead of the same period last year, and the new fiscal year starts with six new general members and five new Associate members.

We need a vacation.