By Brooke Thomson
President & CEO

One of our most important roles at Associated Industries of Massachusetts is to track the status of the state and national economies. Peter Drucker famously said that you can’t fix what you can’t measure, and business leaders and policymakers alike need reliable data upon which to base decisions.

That’s why it’s so important for AIM members to participate in our monthly Business Confidence Index survey of employer attitudes. The BCI is one of the most widely followed economic and business reports in the United States. It is “must reading” each month for elected officials, business executives and the general public. More than 150 companies representing diverse industries from throughout Massachusetts participate each month.

But the BCI is meaningful only if members like you participate. The survey comprises just six questions in which employers rank their views about business conditions, hiring plans and sales on a scale of 1 to 5. There is also an open answer box that allows participants to comment on any issue that is important to their companies.

The entire process takes just two minutes.

Thank you in advance for taking our year-end BCI survey.

AIM is also working with outside organizations to broaden our understanding of the economy.

The association has become a “contributor” to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Beige Book, closely followed report that looks at the New England business economy eight times a year. Our role as a contributor will be to sit for periodic interviews with the Federal Reserve about what we are hearing from AIM member employers. Several AIM members will also become direct contributors to the Beige Book.

If you would like to be a Beige Book contributor, please contact Chris Geehern, EVP of Communications at AIM, cpg@aimnet.org, who will connect you with the Fed.

Our thanks to Boston Fed President Susan Collins for the opportunity to collaborate on this important project.

At AIM, we believe that knowledge is power. And knowledge shared is power multiplied.

At AIM, we believe that knowledge is like money: to be of value it must circulate, and in circulating it can increase in quantity and, hopefully, in value