What are your sort of longer terms plans for ASCII? Are you going to look to expand that internationally?

Yes, absolutely.

First thing is to do after, you know, they've been running that organization for nearly 40 years.

They've done such an incredible job.

So we're not going to break what isn't broken, continuing the legacy of Alan Weinberger and the great work that Jerry Katavis has done.

inside that organization and the rest of the team who came over.

But yeah, the opportunity to expand their peer-to-peer events and the incremental value and programs that they have always been famous for and done so well, we can expand that to the greater GTIA community as well as regionally.

You gave some sort of really interesting stats about how membership's grown and particularly how it's growing outside of North America as well.

So what are some of the big changes that you all made that are clearly making an impact on the membership?

So we've been known for a couple of things already, and we've taken on a yes and approach.

So yes, we need to continue to provide people the opportunity to engage.

Yes, we have great resources and research reports and insights and data and information that we are able to share through our portal.

And yes, we've had a very vibrant community, but we want to do and.

How can we add more people, more voices to the community? That's the growth side.

On the resources side, we're really focused on utilization of the resources that are being built.

Yeah.

And in terms of some of the themes and topics that are likely to form the agenda, presumably there's a little bit about AI maybe? Yeah.

It should come as no surprise that AI is certainly a part, you know, it's the cornerstone of the conversations today.

But what's really interesting and what we've seen is AI is impacting everything from pricing to customer value perception to, you know, the shadow IT of AI is incredibly enhanced, the impact of cyber.

So AI... on its own, yes, is a hot topic, something we need to talk about and are talking about, but really it's all of the impact AI is having on the traditional lines of business, service delivery model, value to customer that the MSPs are saying, and then the innovation from the vendor community.

What has always been special about ChannelCon is we come together as an agnostic industry at this event, where we put the innovators on technology and vendors alongside the MSPs, and we talk about how best to service the SMB and mid-market customers of which we're responsible for as an industry.

It's an exciting time, obviously, with the hype and realities around AI, but it's also so impactful across the board.

So we really see where those crossroads of technology innovation are coming with real impact.

What else is available to members throughout the year?

So with the passage of time, looking back at that last year since the last ChannelCon, where would you say you guys have made the biggest impact, made the most progress?

Yeah, so in taking on this job myself a little over a year ago, GTIA, uh, rebranded January 9th of, of 2020, uh, four.

Um, so we're a couple of initiatives where we're really important to the board and myself in taking this role.

Um, the, at the top of that mandate was to deliver more value to more members.

And that doesn't mean just more content and that doesn't just mean more members.

Uh, but it means the impact that we have.

on our members and to grow the number of members to add more voices so we sat down as an executive team and frankly as the entire gtia team along with our members and said what are the foundational pillars we want to build this association on and first for me has always been people the what i've gained out of this from a relationship standpoint we've talked a lot about it here at Channelcon, it starts with the people, making sure that we've got the right people in the room.

Are there any examples outside of those two I just named from the last year where you're really starting to put that money to work and get some impact from it?

Besides the lineup of the

entertainment? Yeah, the entertainment is going to be good, but obviously member value is paramount to everything we're doing.

You know, our mantra at GTIA since inception has been to deliver more value to more members.

And as a 30-year veteran of the industry on the vendor side myself and going to ChannelCon for most of those years, I We know that when the community comes together, what great things come out of it.

Right.

But especially in this day and age and the evolutionary path that we are on now and the acceleration of it, there may be no more important time as an industry to come together.

So our opportunity and our obligation as the trade association for the industry.

What do you tell them in terms of why are you sitting on the sidelines and When's the time to get in? Why get in? What do you tell people that are sitting on the sidelines?