San Rafael, Calif. -- Bridgeway Interactive and Creating Your Space held their 19th annual member conference last week in Napa Valley, Calif. This year’s theme, “Passion in all that you do,” was interwoven into all aspects of the conference from the business sessions to the social gatherings, including the venue where, for the first time, they hosted the event at The ARCHER Hotel in downtown Napa.

Over the course of the two-day conference, attendees were equipped with new ideas, tools, and strategies to implement into their builder channel and retail flooring businesses. This included the official launch of Design Now, the newest visualization tool for Bridgeway and Creating Your Space with direct application to both retail consumers and new construction homebuyers. The conference also served as the debut of companies’ 3rd brand, Bridgeway Technologies, which focuses on providing digital technology solutions to suppliers and distributors in the flooring and interior industries. The new company's first customers are Southwind Carpets and Cali Brands.

Other focal points of the conference included: a demonstration by vice president, Jay Flynn, of the data and system integrations that they have implemented to support their dealer members; Layla Evans, director of search engine marketing, shared insight on how Creating Your Space maximizes their member’s digital marketing dollars; George Ruegg, director of SEO and Bridgeway Interactive operations, discussed the updates to Google My Business; and president and CEO, Michael Vogel, provided an overview of the business and what members can expect in the future.

“The Creating Your Space annual conference is substantially beneficial, both from a networking standpoint as well as in terms of discovering technological trends and tools," said Blake Powell, director of marketing and training, ICC Home in Indianapolis. "The CYS team is not only passionate about what they do, but their drive to offer the best to their clients is incredibly admirable. Our company recently started offering our customers cabinets, something that we believe will set us apart from our competition, and we couldn’t be more excited that CYS is extending their brand to the kitchen and bath realm as well. We look forward to attending this event again next year.”

Keynote speaker, Randy Walton, a highly sought-after speaker, consultant, and leadership expert, tied it all together in his presentation “The Weight: Crafting a Culture of Passionate Engagement.” His powerful perspective enlightened attendees on the purpose of empowerment, the good leader vs. poor leader, establishing boundaries before rules, and more.

This year’s conference uniquely brought together builders and contractors servicing the builder channel, leading flooring, and interior retailers, as well as the suppliers who support these companies, in an interactive environment to learn and share best practices to improve their businesses.

For more information, visit www.creatingyourspace.com.