Martin Shova
President, InSource, Inc.

On behalf of the InSource Board of Directors, I want to thank you for your continued support of our creative community.

Over the last year in-house creative teams have managed through the continual change that currently surrounds the design industry. We've seen trends in out-sourcing continue and, along with that, the need to justify the value of staff and consultants, as well as develop measures to quantify the value-added benefits of strong in-house creative teams to management. We've seen the need to treat in-house design more as a business; capturing time, estimating return on investment and selling are as important for in-house businesses to practice as they are for our agency colleagues. We've identified and addressed such critical topics as "career path," "motivation" and "complacency" issues to assist managers as they look to productively grow in-house groups, and we've discussed the need for continual innovation around design and new products. These changes and issues have a tremendous impact on all of us. We have worked hard at InSource to provide practical solutions and insights to our members, and I'm excited to say we plan to do even more throughout 2008.

InSource Plans

The InSource community has grown considerably over the last year. Now nearly 1500 members strong, we have made great progress towards our goal to be the best "real-world" resource for in-house corporate creatives. We have hosted many valuable events and communicated insights from these events to the rest of the community through our website and e-mail communications, and we have plans to enhance both content and event reach this year.

First, we are proud to introduce our new website and community portal. Our new site offers enhanced information sharing among members and valuable insights from our community, sponsors and partners. We realize that the value of the InSource community lies with you, and we have made it easy for all members to communicate, ask questions and share information. In response to this need, we have launched the InSource FORUM, our online community information portal. We've found that in-house design departments face many similar issues, and we believe that our FORUM can be a valuable resource to tap that vast knowledge of our community and effectively deliver solutions.

Second, we plan to address your needs more aggressively this year. We have received constructive feedback from many members, asking for more content, more updates and more events. Due to our limited funds in 2006, we were unable to meet all the challenges, but we have a better plan moving forward. We will update our content regularly, we will search out new thinking surrounding design and in-house topics and deliver this to you via our e-mails, events, website and other member interactions. We plan to address your event needs and begin to take InSource events "directly to you" through our national event efforts. We will send event e-mails to everyone as these national events are finalized, and we hope to meet many new in-house friends in our travels.

Third, I'd like to announce that, due to the larger needs of the organization and our passion to deliver in-house design insights to our members, we will implement a membership fee beginning in January 2007. If you have been an ongoing InSource member, you will receive 6 months of free access to our new InSource community, where you'll see firsthand the fruits of our labor. To receive your free access, simply login as normal using your old ID, re-register with updated contact information and fill out our in-house survey so that we can better target our content to your needs. Our free 6-month membership offer for past InSource members will expire in July 2007. We ask that you continue your support of our organization after the free membership period. We will send e-mails to alert you to this change in membership details as we move closer to July.

If you're new to InSource, please register and fill out our survey as well and Welcome! Membership fees will be $199.00 per year, much lower than other similar design organizations for membership in an organization that is much more targeted to our in-house needs. As a non-profit organization, we've kept these fees as low as possible so we can cover our basic costs and properly maintain our website and marketing needs throughout the year.

Special Thanks!

I would like to take this time to thank our InSource Board of Directors, who have worked tirelessly over the past year to deliver value to our community. I also want to express our appreciation to our first national partner, Aquent, for their continued support of our in-house community as they have been instrumental to our progress. InSource is very interested in securing new sponsors and partners and we have affordable sponsorship plans and more extensive partner programs to meet everyone's needs. Follow this Sponsorship link for an overview of some of our plans or contact info@in-source.org if you would like more information on sponsorships and partnerships with InSource.

Finally, we encourage you to reach out to other in-house creatives, sharing information about InSource and urging them to join our valuable community. As always, we welcome any questions about our work, as well as ideas to help us grow. The true value of our group is with you — your experience, your knowledge and your creativity. We look forward to hearing from you through info@in-source.org, sharing information through our FORUM and meeting you at our regional and national events over the coming months.

Best regards!

Marty