Top Minds and Bottom Lines (TMBL) is an event series I created with SIOP’s Visibility Committee to help show leaders the benefits of I-O psychology to the business world. One of SIOP’s brand propositions is that we are a valued business partner. However, we offered few opportunities for business leaders to learn about and benefit from our work.
The TMBL event series presented a new event twice per year, with a unique topic and speakers, on location at our spring annual conferences and fall Leading Edge Consortia. We leveraged the fact that our high-level members would already be attending the SIOP conference/consortium and thus available to speak at TMBL. We also partnered with local universities and organizations for event space and assistance with promotion. We were also able to submit for and obtain continuing education credit hours for these events through the HR Certification Institute, offering more value to attendees.
As we progressed, we noticed a strong demand for events catered to business students as well, so we began hosting the spring event for those already working and the fall event for students. The business student event proved to be very popular and regularly attracted more than 100 attendees. These students were a prime audience for SIOP, as we were able to engage them early in their careers and educate them on the numerous resources and research SIOP members were producing.
Stephany Below 