The Good
*The Communications Section Council had an excellent meeting on Saturday, August 11, 2007. Barbara Hyde ended her highly productive year as Chair, and will still be a Council leader as Immediate Past Chair. Following the path she has laid out for us, our new Chair Ginny Fordham and new Vice Chair Joyce O’Brien set a wonderful tone of energy and optimism for 2007-2008. And, we have an outstanding group on the 2007-2008 Council, so watch for more great things from the Communications Section!
*DJ Johnson, our tirelessly working staff liaison, provided outstanding support and advice during our Council events. We were all very pleased with the Gold Circle Awards Ceremony, which drew 100 people! DJ planned the ceremony, wrote the script, and made sure the awards were ready for presenting (after a mad dash to the loading dock), in addition to getting our Council meeting ready, and helping with our four Learning Labs. Whatever he gets paid, it’s not enough. Thanks, DJ.
*The four Learning Labs that the Communications Section Council organized were well attended, and Peter Mosca (also a member of the Communications Council) and I were very pleased with our turnout at the “Thinking on your Feet” session. It was standing/floor sitting room only, and we retained about 98% of the original audience, even though it was one of the last sessions on Monday afternoon.
*The Situation Room session, with three ASAE Fellows, was an excellent idea, and I hope in future ASAE & The Center will add two or three of these type of sessions with ASAE Fellows. Since this is supposed to be a conversation, I suggest smaller, more intimate rooms for this session instead of the cavernous room assigned to this session.
*The Consultants Section had a happy hour that was well attended, and our staff liaison Ron McNally was there to help us connect. Thanks, Ron!
*The ASAE & The Center Staff – I don’t know all your names – did an excellent job organizing this conference and helping attendees find their way around the convention center. Thanks for a job well done!
The Bad
*The bus service was pretty bad. I heard a lot of complaints from attendees about the quality of the service, how long it took to get places, and the quality of the drivers. On the last afternoon of the conference, it took 90 minutes to get from McCormick Place Convention Center back to my hotel on Dearborn Street. This should only take about 25 minutes, maybe 35 minutes if the traffic is heavier. However, the reason it took so long is that the driver had absolutely no idea where he was going and ended up stuck at the end of a service tunnel. Then, after getting out of that, he had no idea how to get to the hotels and ended up asking passengers for directions.
An exhibitor who was stuck on the bus with me Tuesday afternoon told me that earlier in the conference, it took her over one hour to get back to her hotel because there was a shift change in the middle of the route and the original driver just got up and left. The replacement driver didn’t know the route and also had to get direction from passengers. *There was no breakfast to be found in the convention center on most days. There was a small Starbucks that was usually open, but most of the other restaurants in the building were closed over the weekend. I was very excited the day I found Pop Tarts in the vending machine! *The “Thought Leader” who presented the “Woman to Woman – balancing personal and professional demands” was a major disappointment. How this person made it on the schedule is a mystery to me, because if she ever was a thought leader, it was in 1971. Her presentation was trite, outdated, and offered no solutions – but we did get to hear the names of all her celebrity friends. *I was asked to volunteer at the closing session of the meeting, and I left The Situation Room early to be there on time. However, no one knew what the member volunteers were supposed to do. I ended up leaving, because I needed to get a lot of things done before the closing concert (which I ended up missing because I got stuck on the bus). I like the idea of the “Ambassador” program but next time, it needs more organization. The Inexplicable *At the volunteer breakfast on Saturday morning, John Graham talked about the diversity program ASAE & The Center has. Right after that, he referred to one of his female staff members as a “princess.” You can’t have diversity without respect for others, and this means treating each other kindly and courteously, especially in public. Maybe this is why the ASAE diversity program is so slow to take off . . . *Go Go dancers at the opening reception. Why would a professional society that has more than 50% women members decide it would be a good idea to objectify women by dressing them all alike, and having them dance to music played by men who were all displayed as individuals? No, ladies, the answer is not to have “go go dancer men” at the next reception. The answer is to stop objectifying each other. Hmm, maybe a diversity program would be a good idea . . . *The music at the opening reception was so loud you couldn’t talk to someone right next to you, and it ended up giving me a headache and elevating my blood pressure. I left because of the dancers and the loud music, but at least the food was okay. If the annual meeting is about connecting, why on earth was the room so dark and the music so loud you had no hope of making contact with anyone?? *Association: The Musical – I put this under inexplicable because, while it was a really unique way to deliver the opening ceremony each day, I started to wonder how much it cost to hire dancers, singers, and someone to author the script and lyrics, especially when during the entire meeting attendees were encouraged to post on the “Wall of Social Responsibility,” which costs $99.00 to post one photo and one message. The musical was fun, but was it responsible?
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