August 22, 2008
ASAE Post-Mortem: Top Ten, Split in Half
Posted by Kevin | Print This Article
God, I am still on California time and can’t get to sleep so might as well go ahead and write this post. Here are two top fives, five good and five not-so-good:
5 Little Things About the ASAE Conference I Liked (And May Steal):
- Loved the Toronto Imaginarium — only ducked in once, but it was a very fun concept.
- The “Stop!” signs inside the booths of conference sponsors.
- The little map things with the neck straps given out at the opening and closing parties.
- The many ways in which next year’s conference was promoted so heavily (see Imaginarium above) — I realize a lot of this was to do with the efforts of the Toronto CVB and associated properties, which isn’t really something applicable to other associations, but I believe each year’s event functions as a commercial for the next, and picked up a lot of ideas for expanding on this.
- The yellow padfolio things with the plastic sleeve organizers were kind of useful.
Now, the 5 Little Things About the ASAE Conference I Could Really Do Without in Future Years:
- Political agendas masquerading as “education.”
- People who believe that just because something is important or valuable to them, it must be objectively important or valuable.
- Consultants leading workshops who casually mention what they have to sell every third or fourth slide in their presentation.
- People who say things like, “Associations must [DO THIS THING I LIKE OR SELL] or they won’t survive.” (Actually, the only thing any association has to do to “survive” is make more money than it spends. Everything else will vary from market to market, and culture to culture.)
- Three days of exhibit hours — love the expo, love all the exhibitors, and I know how hard it is to balance exhibitor and attendee needs (and the importance of doing so) … but as an attendee, I have to say, two days is enough (or cut back the time per day to two hours rather than three, or break up the time more throughout the day).
Category :
Rants & Raves
That was no padfolio…it was a Trapper Keeper! I had some serious 70s/80s flashbacks when they handed me that at registration.
LOL — no wonder I felt such a strange affinity for it!
David, you made me feel so much better! We were all calling them Trapper Keepers in the Daily Now office, but I mentioned it in front of a member or two and they stared at me like they’d never heard of such a thing. At least we weren’t the only ones who had Trapper Keepers back in the day!
(And I have to admit, I always liked my Trapper Keeper when I was in school. They were all nice and organized …)
I love your frank comments, Kevin.
Your observation about people saying what associations MUST do is something I’ll remember, because I probably say that occasionally.
I agree on the expo hall hours (I guess I was on the border of the trapper keeper generation so can’t relate to that!) . . .
It’s hard to stay at the convention center every day during those long expo hours.