Participants

Task Force:   Roger Ueltzen - CyLex Systems
                       
AeA Staff:      Matt Page – D.C. Office
                        Rhonda Star – D.C Office
                        Jo Moskowitz – Florida Council
                        Richard Lerman – New York Council
                        Mike Levin - South East Council
                        Raquel Figueroa - Preferred Business Services
                        Angela Pellegrino - Preferred Business Services
                        Erica De La Rosa - Peferred Business Services
                       

Old Business

Mike Levin, Executive Director for AeA’s Southeast Council, is in discussions with the Small Business Administration's regional office in Atlanta to determine if an event   with AeA members is worthwhile.  The purpose of the proposed event would be to expose SBA's field representatives working on small business procurement opportunities to AeA's small and emerging growth businesses.

Two meeting options were have been discussed.  One that would have the SBA be the single focus.  The second option would have the SBA participate as a part of a larger program.  Based on initial contact with the SBA officials, it is Mike Levin's impression that the latter option would be more beneficial.

The SBA promised to follow up with Mike regarding next steps.

New Business

The January teleconference was originally scheduled to allow TrueAdvantage conduct a demonstration of their service, which is an Internet-based program of private-label sales leads and RFP services to the online B2B marketplace.  A last minute problem with TrueAdvantage forced a change in the agenda.

In lieu of the TrueAdvantage demo, the topic of the teleconference was the launch of a new small business newsletter, called "The Bottom Line."  The first issue will be distributed by email to AeA's small businesses on January 31, 2001.  The target audience are the CEO's of companies with annual revenues of $20 million or less, AeA's definition for small business.

The purpose of the newsletter will be two-fold. One, it will become a key source of information for AeA’s largest membership segment – small business. Second, written in abstract form, "The Bottom Line" will link members to AeANet to provide more detailed information about each topic.

The format of "The Bottom Line" document will be in a .pdf and posted in the AeA Small Business CyberCenter area of AeANET. Distribution will be done by email burst through iMIS, AeA’s membership database.

Each edition will begin with a topic of the month, typically a business issue of significant impact on small and emerging growth businesses. Based on input from the Small Business Advisory Task Force and working with both AeA’s policy team and Membership Services division will help determine which issue to feature. Depending on the topic, there will be opportunities to work with AeA members that are active in the selected issue. On occasion, they may be interested in providing content, which would not only benefit AeA members, but also serve the purpose of gaining exposure to the contributor.

Other features of "The Bottom Line" will include:

• Announcement of new information on the AeA Small Business CyberCenter
• Highlight a current/new Member Services program or service
• List of upcoming events (National/Regional)
• Reference to AeA’s membership directory
• Significant new regulations with bottom line impact
• Important call to action for grassroots activity

A question was raised about using the newsletter as a recruitment tool.  The Task Force agreed that "The Bottom Line" could be used in recruiting new members.   It was proposed that an "older" edition could be used to demonstrate the type of information a smaller member could expect to receive as an AeA member.

Next Meeting