How to differentiate your business tops the agenda of the 23rd annual Seeley Conference at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., June 21-24.

This year's focus,  "Profit Squeeze: Is Differentiation the Solution?", delves into product differentiation and how it will affect (and improve) your bottom line. Other topics that will be addressed include:

• What is the state of our industry?
• What changes in customer focus, and retail platforms, will further affect floriculture? Will Generation X and Y care?
• What opportunities are created by differentiation?
• Are we the "Green Industry" or the "Greenhouse Gas" industry ... and, what is sustainable floriculture?
• Is sustainability a differentiator?
• Who will fail, who will survive, and who will prosper?

Speakers will include James Russo, vice president of business development for TNS Retail Forward; Gary Mangum of Bell Nursery of Burtonsville, Md.; Dr. Charles Hall, professor at Texas A&M University and the Ellison Chair in International Floriculture; Brian Minter of Minter Gardens and Minter Country Garden of British Columbia, Canada; Jennifer Duffield White, editor at GrowerTalks magazine and author of GreenTalks e-mail newsletter; Peter Moran, executive vice president and CEO of the Society of American Florists; and William J. Lipinski, president and CEO of First Pioneer Farm Credit. Also serving as this year's conference coordinator is Bill Gouldin, president of Strange's Florists, Greenhouses and Garden Centers in Richmond, Va.

The Seeley Conference is named for the late Dr. John G. Seeley, the head of Department of Floriculture and Ornamental Horticulture at Cornell University, and it has been conducted each year since 1986 to facilitate the prosperity of the floriculture industry.

Conference attendees will also receive a copy of SAF's fourth edition of The Changing Floriculture Industry: A Statistical Overview, which features an analysis of industry sales, production levels and trends for each segment of the floral industry.

To get more information on the conference, click here.

--Cassandra P. Foster
cfoster@safnow.org

Previous Article    Next Article