TOCA President Ed Hiscock

By Ed Hiscock, TOCA President

If you’re like me and the record-setting crowd of 81 members who attended TOCA’s 19th annual meeting May 7-8 in Minneapolis, blogs, podcasts and generational issues are still swirling in your brain from our professional development sessions.

Great ideas for extending your brand from Chuck Zimmerman of ZimmComm got a lot of folks thinking about blogs and other types of new media – if these things can be considered new media any longer – and the impact their use can have on your business. If you haven’t considered using these communication devices, and if this session didn’t motivate you to start, let me emphasize how important they can be in your communication mix.

We here at Golf Course Management magazine have been blogging for a while, and although there are some issues having to do with time management (see my previous TOCA Talk column for details), its value has been apparent to us. GCM editor Scott Hollister’s blogging effort from the recently concluded U.S. Open in San Diego garnered thousands of views by members of our association who were interested in what goes into prepping a course for a major championship. The blog hits – and the good will from our members for this type of offering – were worth the extra planning and work involved. What could a well-thought-out and executed blog do for your company?

Making perhaps a greater impact on my long-term thinking, however, was the discussion of generational issues led by Steve Drake of Drake & Co., and the editor/PR panel that followed up on the topic afterward. The pump for this discussion was primed, of course, by a survey many TOCA members completed on the Web site. This added well-defined TOCA-member information and concerns to the proceedings.

What came across loud and clear from the session is that there are “evergreen” issues in our profession that every generation must confront. However, there are distinct differences in the way Boomers, Gen Xers and Gen Yers confront them, and we must all recognize the distinctions and adapt.

But after Minneapolis it’s time to look ahead, and after the 19th meeting comes the 20th, set for May 12-14 at the Wyndham Rio Mar Beach & Resort Spa in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico. And if you’re so inclined, there’s plenty of time to create and enter a special logo for TOCA’s 20th annual meeting and win $100 for the effort. TOCA will use the winning logo on all printed materials for the meeting as well as on site and on the Web. If you’re interested, get more details from Barb Ulschmid at 952.758.6340 or tocaassociation@aol.com.

If you win, you’ll have something to blog about.