With 2025 right around the corner, we’ve been reminiscing on collaborations with two high-profile clients, the Michigan Farm Bureau and Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute, as well as making our fourth appearance at the New England Association of Town Clerks’ annual conference in Rhode Island.
NEACTC
For the 4th time, Meridia attended the New England Association of Town Clerks (NEACTC) Conference which, this year, took place in beautiful Newport, Rhode Island. We met some old friends and made some new ones, but mostly spread the gospel of supporting democratic processes in city council and town meeting voting that we make faster, anonymous (or identifiable, if desired) and more accurate than ever.
New England clients who use our TownVOTE software mostly report that their town meeting attendance is up, and are more frequently attended by the business community because they don’t have to fear their votes causing their clients to boycott their businesses. Town Moderators report that they love the fact that the 2/3 votes take about 1/3 of the time they used to when they were done by hand counts.
Michigan Farm Bureau
Our longtime collaborator, the Michigan Farm Bureau, convened at the DeVos Place Convention Center in Grand Rapids for their 2024 State Annual Meeting on December 3rd and 4th. The Bureau had some unique requirements for voting during their meeting, opting for a hybrid setup where participants vote both in-person and at home simultaneously using CloudVOTE software. The meeting was attended by around 350 people who are selected by their peers as their county representatives.
This year, we provided support as the Bureau voted on close to 100 bylaws and resolutions, and we helped elect their new president, Ben LaCross, succeeding the former MFB leader, Carl Bednarski, after ten years of service as president. CloudVOTE’s fast vote-collection and quick runoff rounds greatly expedited the voting process during the meeting, saving time despite participants voting from completely different locations!
Jeff, another perfectly curated discussion on the issues that matter to CEO’s, with frank and open discussion which invites and encourages both debate and constructive confrontation. All done in a fantastic venue conducive to engagement.
-Bob Diamond, CEO Atlas Merchant Capital, former CEO Barclays
Yale CELI CEO Summit
Yale held their 150th CELI CEO Summit (20th overall for Meridia and using the Meridia system) from December 17-18 in New York City, with Jeffery Sonnenfeld, Yale’s Senior Associate Dean for Leadership Studies, once again taking charge in hosting and organizing the meeting. Roughly two hundred CEOs attended the summit, including the likes of Tim Cook, Arvind Krishna, Robert Isom, and Marc Benioff.
Much like the other three meetings that Yale engages in throughout the year, CEOs at the Summit answered some candid questions from Sonnenfeld. Meridia clickers were utilized to survey the CEOs on questions centered around the use of cryptocurrency, the president-elect’s nominees for his Cabinet, and the impact tariffs may have on business in the USA. The Summit then displayed each result quickly on the screen for further discussion. One such result was an overwhelming “No” (on a question: “Do you use Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency for daily transactions?”) that it eliminated the need to ask other, related questions that were queued up in case there was an interest in that topic. With a quick analysis of the Summit attendees’ opinion, the 150th CELI CEO Summit was once again a resounding success and we look forward to working with them once again in 2025 and beyond.
