1. law, govt and politics
2. politics
3. lobbying

A guiding force for the photo and imaging industry
The four pillars
of the new PMA
End of last year, Georgia McCabe was appointed new CEO and Executive Director of PMA International. After the association had been downsizing its operations and loosing relevants for the global imaging industry
for many years, the renowned industry veteran took over in a critical situation: During the past months, McCabe has toured the industry and talked to countless representatives of manufacturers, retailers, service providers and associations all over the world to develop a vision of the
association‘s future. At the same time, McCabe re-organized PMA and
appointed the award-winning association management company,
Coulter, McLean, Virginia, USA, to handle the association‘s day-to-day
operations. Recently, together with the PMA Executive Committee and
staff, McCabe defined four key pillars of the new strategic direction
for the association. INTERNATIONAL CONTACT talked with Georgia
McCabe about her vision of the future of PMA.
INTERNATIONAL CONTACT: Your
appointment as CEO end of last year was
a surprise for many people in the industry.
How would you describe the situation of
PMA at that point?
Georgia McCabe: Before I joined
PMA as CEO, the Board had assigned
me to evaluate the association‘s overall
operations as well as its financial situation. What I found was not exactly
pleasant. After PMA had helped countless industry members to cope with the
arrival of digital imaging ten or fifteen
years ago, the association missed to
adjust itself to the significant changes in
the marketplace. Instead, it downsized
its operations significantly and terminat1
ed many services for members and for
the industry as a whole. We all know
the results: What was used to be the
world‘s annual imaging trade show
is gone, the membership base eroded,
and PMA lost most of its international
importance as a global voice of the
photo and imaging industry. Having
said that, the Board and myself saw the
urgent need for immediate, fundamental
change.
INTERNATIONAL CONTACT: We
all now that the photo and imaging market
has changed dramatically during recent
years, for example through the collapse
of the compact camera market. Is there
really an opportunity to revitalize PMA
while the photo business is dying?
Georgia McCabe: The photo business is not dying – just the opposite!
Consumers today are taking more pictures than ever before. In fact, just last
year they captured and shared more
than ten times the number of personal
images that were taken at the peak of
the analog photo business back in the
early 1990th. Personally, I believe that
the opportunities in photo are actually
greater now than they were back in the
late 18th century, when George Eastman first evangelized photography to
the mass market. Eastman had to educate the consumer about the value of
personal photography. Today, that‘s a
given – and photo-graphy pervades all
aspects of everday life. Posted personal
images are by far the largest source of
traffic in the exploding world of social
media. As an industry, our challenge is
to make it pos-sible for consumers to
enjoy connected photo­graphy and, at
the same time, preserve and celebrate
their special images with a wide variety
of exciting digital photo output products. The pro-blem has been that while
many of the new p
­ layers in digital photography understand the tremendous
appeal of personal imaging, they often
have little knowledge or concern for the
responsibility of capturing and storing
those most important moments of everyday life.
Copyright by INTERNATIONAL CONCTACT 4/2015
INTERNATIONAL CONTACT: Will
an association like PMA be able to change
that?
Georgia McCabe: I strongly believe
that PMA can play an important role to
turn things to the better for the whole
industry. In the analog past, our industry
was led by dominant players such as
Kodak, Agfa or Fujifilm. We all know
that these companies are either gone or
have lost their g
­ lobal leadership. But this
doesn‘t mean there is no need for a
guiding force in the photo and imaging
industry. In view of the challenges of a
more and more complex marketplace,
we urgently need a steward who can
foster and encourage discussion and
cooperation between vendors, retailers
and software developers alike. We
need someone to continually keep photography relevant in the lifes of consumers, in a much bigger way than as the
tool to show others what they had for
lunch or to remember where they parked
their car. This is exactly what PMA can
do for the industry, if we manage to get
our foot on the gas pedal and start
steering the photo business that it has
served for almost a century.
INTERNATIONAL CONTACT: What
have been your first measures to revitalize
PMA?
Georgia McCabe: Since early January, we have been more than busy to
determine the best way for the association to move forward into the future.
We have sought input and direction
from hundreds of industry members,
gathering insight into their business
challenges and how PMA can help
address them. With the support of many
people, a very motivated staff and the
PMA Executive Committee, we have
conducted interviews, scheduled in-perCopyright by INTERNATIONAL CONCTACT 4/2015
son visits and made phone calls. We
have attended conferences all over the
world, including the excellent Business
Forum Imaging Cologne that INTERNATIONAL CONTACT organizes on behalf of photokina. We have surveyed
the industry, and we have gathered
leading ­representatives from across the
imaging spectrum for a two-day strategic retreat held in March in Virginia. All
these efforts have provided us with a
wealth of information. After carefully
analyzing it all, together with the Executive Committee and staff, we have
determined four key pillars that
will be the corner stones on which we
will build the new PMA. I am delighted
to say the PMA Executive Committee
voted unanimously on May 13, 2015, to
move forward with this strategic direction.
INTERNATIONAL CONTACT: What
are the four key pillars of the new PMA?
Georgia McCabe: The first pillar is to
­empower businesses to effectively serve
and sell to the consumer. We will provide tools and resources to help our
members build their businesses and increase consumer enthusiasm for photography products, services and equipment. Our goal is to create a better and
more direct connection between consumers and service providers. The first
example was the launch of a dedicated
website for the National Photo Month.
Offering a constantly expanding menu
of photography tips and inspiration for
consumers as well as business tools and
ready-made marketing materials for our
members, this platform enabled a large
number of people to take full a
­ dvantage
of the excitement around National
Photo Month. Now, we have ­transitioned
the site to a permanent consumer-facing
Georgia McCabe: “I strongly believe that
PMA can play an important role to turn things
to the better for the whole industry.”
platform, celebratephotos.com, to keep
the excitement growing on a global
basis.
The second pillar is to evanglize, advocate and promote overall industry interests by encouraging positive press and
government action in favour of photography businesses, developing an outreach strategy for educating and informing federal agencies about the real
consumer benefits that flow directly from
local businesses. We are already working in this area with the help of Don
Kennedy from our UK office, on preventing the passage of legislation that
would allow selfies to be used as passport photos. Similar legislation has been
proposed in the US and other countries.
Providing knowledge and expertise to
help photography business to grow and
thrive is the third key pillar of PMA. The
association is poised to become the
”go-to“ resource for any and all photo
industry related information. To accom2
plish this, we are implementing a new
online “knowledge hub” that will offer
not only all the valuable content you‘re
used to finding in PMA Newsline, PMA
Magazine and on the PMA Podcast, but
also analysts insights, resources and
tools for your business, trend data and
marketing research information and reports from leading industry research
firms. In addition, we are launching a
new PMA website that will allow you to
connect with the PMA communities you
are most interested in. Here, our members will be able to interact with their
colleagues across the whole spectrum
of the imaging industry.
INTERNATIONAL CONTACT: Sorry
for interrupting you: Will there be any
events and activities for learning and interaction outside the Internet, for example a
convention?
Georgia McCabe: In-person events
are, of course, the greatest opportunity
for people to learn from each other,
exchange information and, last but not
least, do business. That‘s why PMA is
currently planning the first of our next
generation photo business and technology summits, which will take place this
fall on September 27 and 28, at the
Hilton Parc55, in San Francisco, California – immediately preceeding the established Mobile Photo Connect conference that is conducted by Suite 48a.
Under the theme “Innovations Now”, we
will target a distinguished audience of
photo service providers and industry
representatives including manufacturers,
software developers, cloud service providers, digital service providers, photog-
3
raphers, photo labs, retailers – in short:
everybody participating in one way or
another across the photographic product chain. During the event, we will be
holding an awards banquet to recognize “out of the box”-thinkers – individuals and companies from the US and
outside the US who have innovated,
become relevant and, as a result, had
success. Obviously, the location in San
Franciso is no accident: Silicon Valley is
very important to us, because new imaging stakeholders like Google, Apple,
Facebook and Amazon recognize the
immense value that photography can
bring to their businesses, but are often
unware of the responsibilities that go
along with personal imaging. Since
Californa is the home of many of the
new software providers as well as innovative imaging start-ups, we see a tremendous opportunity to bring them together educating and networking at our
event. Mobile Imaging, the focus of the
Mobile Photo Connect conference,
is clearly something that cannot be
ignored, but it is just one piece of the
imaging puzzle. By coordinating the
two events, we have the opportunity to
forge a partnership between the old
and the new imaging stakeholders
that will ­benefit both, and most importantly provide the consumer with capable, secure, easy-to-use and future-proof
imaging solutions that will last well into
the future.
INTERNATIONAL CONTACT: Let‘s
not forget the fourth pillar.
Georgia McCabe: The fourth pillar is
to create, support and promote indus-
try-related guidelines and conventions
that allow open APIs, standards and
future proof interoperatibility to remove
the barriers to greater consumer action
around photo products and services.
In addition, PMA is further developing
certification programs and best practice
guidelines, as well as a “train the
trainer” program to help our members
and their staff become an education
source for consumers. This will provide
significant points of differentiation from
their competitors, help them create
greater passion for photography in
their respective community and give
their businesses the edge they need
to grow to higher and higher levels of
success.
INTERNATIONAL CONTACT: Last
but not least: Can we expect a revitalization of PMA‘s operations in Europe?
Georgia McCabe: Yes, you can. With
Don Kennedy, we have appointed a
knowledgeable and respected industry
veteran to guide the UK operations, and
we have also found a new team to
re-establish PMA activities in Contintental Europe: Under the leadership of
Wolfgang Abendroth, a renowned industry veteran and previous head of
Cewe‘s onsite printing business, and the
support of well-known experts such as
Marion Knoche (previously GfK) and
our staff member Elisabeth Scherer, we
will develop new activities and services
that match the need of our members in
Europe.
I NTE RNATIONAL CONTACT:
­Georgia, thank you so much for this interesting interview.
Copyright by INTERNATIONAL CONCTACT 4/2015