About IAM and its annual meeting.

The International Association of Movers is a nonprofit trade association located in Washington DC, but with members in 180 countries around the world. It started back in the early 60s representing movers who moved US military personnel, but the association has grown to now encompass the entire industry around the world. They serve as an advocate primarily with the US government, with the EU and other national organizations that have regulatory and enforcement authority in the moving industry. They also serve as a training entity for the industry and perhaps more importantly as a business development entity. The networking within the moving industry is tremendous. Among the most important objectives of this organization are: Develop and enforce industry standards and compliance. Provide clear, directional guidance to moving companies on operations best practices. Enhance data collection and analytical capabilities to offer market intelligence that enables members to make data-driven decisions to improve their performance. Further invest in efforts to facilitate the exchange of data for all industry stakeholders.

The IAM annual meeting and expo is certainly the biggest thing they do every year. They have smaller events for training opportunities with a variety of other stakeholders in the industry, but the IAM annual meeting brings together about 2.000 people that attend the exhibit hall. The venue is about 50,000 square feet, with an average between 150 and maybe 160 vendors, but their booths vary in size. The annual meeting event started out with just movers, now the technology side of the industry dominates it, because just like any industry the data is probably almost as important as the stuff movers move. So technology has become a big thing, lots of vendors there but the IAM also represents a variety of people that are involved in the moving business. Not just movers, they have insurance companies, customs brokers, trucking companies, ocean carriers and airlines. You don’t really think about the moving business involving that many parts, but it does particularly when you look from an international perspective. All these people come to the annual meeting to build their social network and sell to each other, it’s a very active four days event. 

The association works towards meeting their members needs. They do formal surveys to their members on a regular basis, they go out to the members and ask them what their opinion is about the services they are currently providing and get them to rank them. They also ask their members about what services should be included in the portfolio. This research has produced a lot of innovation as an organization over the last few years. The last survey indicated people wanted more information, so they now have seven different newsletters that go out on a periodic basis.There’s a government associated military newsletter, there’s one on logistics for non movers, another for the young professionals, among others depending on what people want. Of course they have taken full advantage of social media, through which they give their members daily or weekly updates, so they take advantage of technology and the fact that people are mobile and want to get the information when they need it and want it.