Steve King - MCA-I Board Member from New Zealand 

With the addition of Steve King to the MCA-I Board of Directors, monthly calls are a bit trickier to schedule – he’s in New Zealand – but well worth the effort. Steve currently Executive Producer - Corporate Television for Screentime NZ, brings more than 20 years of producing, shooting and editing experience in the corporate communications and video production industry and a long association with MCA-I. His favorite, and still used lesson from an MCA-I conference he attended 8 years ago in Orlando was this, “The more you try and tell people in a video, the less they’ll know.”

Steve states his "goals are to work towards more e-learning opportunities for all members - including members remote from a local chapter, and more member benefits available to offshore members. Again online is easiest such as free/discounted subscription to web services and video hosting, and member-only viewing of Golden Reel winners."

Steve was introduced to MCA-I (then known as ITVA) when it had a New Zealand chapter. He was able to convince his boss at the time to send him to New Orleans for his first ITVA International Conference, a trip which shaped his future career. Returning home inspired, and with a concrete business plan for the department – which included expanding to the point where all there was to do was buy the department form the company and keep on expanding.

As National President of ITVA-NZ from 1998-2001 Steve increased national membership by 1500% over his three-year tenure. There is no longer a chapter in New Zealand and one of Steve’s goals as a Board Member of MCA-I is to focus on providing increased value and relevance to 'international' International members.

Traveling to the states again a few years later to attend the MCA-I conference in  Philadelphia, Steve recovered a major ‘lost’ client, growing his business with them fourfold, and having his most profitable year to that point. It's worth noting that his business 'peaks' have all occurred during recessions...

Steve figured that if he couldn't come home with enough new ideas, contacts, and technical information to get the one additional client or job that pays for the trip, he had bigger problems than attending Conference would ever fix! For Steve that annual face-to-face get together is the most valuable, enjoyable, and memorable part of his association with the members who make it up MCA-I.

A Canadian member he met on one visit summed MCA-I up neatly: Conference is about "collective energy"; after twenty four months of looking for the next job, watching the bottom line, helping clients and being creative, he believes you need a week or so of reminding yourself why you're in this business- to ingest information for the fun of it, and to recharge your batteries.

"Many of us work by ourselves a lot of the time and only see our own work. It’s educational and inspirational to see what others are doing- good and bad- and find out how and why they’re working this way. One thing I’ve learned is that it’s often easier to identify why a message is communicated badly than why a message is delivered incredibly well. Most visual communicators face the same challenges and problems as you do, so it’s a powerful resource to be able to tap into to learn and share."

Having recently discussed his new role in helping to grow MCA-I’s international membership with local associates (who were usually keen to know if he was resurrecting ITVA here again…) it’s clear that the networking and fellowship aspects of MCA-I are the main reason most of them would consider joining- locally or internationally. Steve says, "I returned home from the 2008 MCA-I conference with a fresh approach to my work, pages of 'takeaways' and memories of a great holiday."