Last week, PPAI President and CEO Paul Bellantone, CAE, and Director of Advocacy and Member Engagement Anne Stone joined the Promotional Products Association of the Mid-South (PPAMS) for a strategic foresight workshop at Nashville, Tennessee’s Hotel Indigo.

In a program designed for executives and business owners, Bellantone and Stone worked with attendees to analyze their organizations and ensure they were on a strong path to future success. In introducing them to the Association’s strategic foresight philosophy and outlook, they asked attendees about their challenges, whether they stem from the industry itself or market issues and whether the Association could help address them.

The session also included surveys for attendees to help identify where their businesses stood and a walk-through of several of the Strategic Foresight Playbook’s plays to show how they could be applied to their own operations. Real-world applications and a back-and-forth with participants equipped attendees to further apply what they learned to their businesses.

“I knew the strategic foresight session would be great but had no idea how great,” says Mark Farrar, PPAMS executive director. “It’s clear that PPAI is investing a great deal of resources into this program. It is a resource that is essential to any promotional products company planning for long-term success.”

While in Nashville, Bellantone and Stone also paid a visit to distributor Something Inked, where they met with the company’s vice president of marketing services, David Schneiderman (above, left). Something Inked offers a wide range of services, including fulfillment, graphic design and ecommerce for a variety of clients, many of which are in the sports and entertainment space.