3CMA 2020

By Patty Prince
3CMA President | Communications Manager, City of Manassas, VA

Welcome to 3CMA 2020. Our new 3CMA year brings so many vision sayings to my mind. I'd like to start with one - "the past is always 2020."

I'd like to thank Tom Bryson for his leadership and steering 3CMA into a healthy future for government communicators for years to come. Tom created the first Pop-Up Workshop and rocked it. He, Belinda Willis and Steve Stoler helped the rest of us prepare for the First Amendment Auditors. His leadership has definitely left its mark on this organization. As we say in 3CMA – We Get Gov, but Tom really gets gov.

The new year also signifies a vision for the future. There are some new initiatives we would like to try. But we also like the momentum to continue on others, like the pop-up workshops and the 3CMA Member Blog. If you have an idea for a blog post, we would love to hear it. In this group, we all learn from each other.

If you are a member of 3CMA, make sure to be added to the 3CMA member Facebook page. Members share great ideas and information with each other on the page that has become a great resource for government communicators.

I hope, if you attended the annual conference in Denver, you met a lot of folks and kept their business cards or contact information so you can stay in touch after the conference. The people you meet through 3CMA are another great resource in the government communications tool box – and great friends.

When I first started with 3CMA, I had always thought I was a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. Not a lot of people understood what I did, but at the same time, everyone thought they could do what I did because they knew how to write a sentence (there was no social media at the time). It was a strange conundrum.

Then I went to my first 3CMA conference, and I found my people. In each conference room there were others just like me who knew exactly what I was talking about. By the end of the first day I had to go to my room and shut my mouth because I was so tired from talking. It was great. I was not alone.

Although we are from all over the country and may serve in different departments, we are all dealing with many of the same issues. We are all working to inform our residents in the best way we know how, and sometimes we can't see how to do that as clearly as we would like. When your vision is not 2020, make sure to reach out to one of your 3CMA friends or a board member. If we have been there or done that, we are more than willing to share the information and our experiences.

It's going to be a great year. I hope you get as much from this organization as I do, and we continue to grow as communicators. My wish for you for this year is that your roadblocks are small, your troubles are few and your vision is always 2020.

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