Acronym

First off, I am not good at grading things like this. So I am not going to do a breakdown by grade each section like others did. But I will give the conference three letter grade: WOW!

I should mention that this was my first conference and I got a whole lot more out of it then I expected. So I don’t have the luxury of comparison to past conferences.

I experienced a mix of great to mediocre thought leadership sessions and learning labs—but the overall effect is now, two days after I’ve been home, I am still sorting out what I learned and the new ideas I took away.

My favorite learning lab was entitled "Now What? How to Take a Strategic Plan from Paper to Reality." The presenter not only gave a wealth of information, but he provided it in such a well organized and thoughtful way that I walked out of that room with twice the understanding of strategic planning than I had when I woke up that morning.

I also walked away with a wealth of information from the unofficial “bloggercon” that took place on Sunday. What I learned in that session combined with the people/contacts I met there more than paid the cost of going to Chicago.

I do have to go out on limb and say I really enjoyed the musical portion of the general sessions. Not only was it clever (brilliant really), but I think it served its intended purpose of waking up and energizing the audience. I also loved that way ASAE business was mixed in with the musical—it sure beats a typical business report first thing in the morning. Judging by the laughter and applause --I would say that I am not the only one who enjoyed it. Maybe it’s because I am new to conference, I found the opening session presenters to be fresh and interesting.

I enjoyed the networking too. But it was a little awkward for me since most of the other attendees were CSEs or senior staff at their given associations. But the other attendees where very friendly and very willing to share insight with me and offer guidance.

I would say I didn’t like the McCormick Center (it was so spread out and as Virgil said, it could take 20 minutes to get from point A to point B), but as someone who likes to see the positive side, the walking was good exercise. I just wish the place didn’t feel like the inside of a deep freezer.

The Expo was interesting. But not being a meeting planner, most of the booths weren’t for me. I appreciated the fact that the booths were split up and organized in such a way that I could avoid the hospitality industry booths (I just felt so guilty when they would hand me give aways when I knew I have no influence on any of my associations meeting destinations).

One other thing I would like to say, I am very impressed with professionalism of the ASAE staff. They seemed to be everywhere and anywhere. And whenever I had a question, every single staff person I talked to had a smile and the answer (or could point me in the direction of the person that had the answer). Kudos ASAE staff!

This is my sixth conference, and each has it's plus and minus.

General Session: Excellent, I appreciated the attempt to be humorous. The speakers were interesting, and each was very different.

Thought Sessions: Excellent, maybe I picked right, but all adapted to the association world.

Learning Labs: hit and miss, but that is to be expected, when I hit a bad one, I tried another one.

Location: Love Chicago, but the Mac is poorly laid out, and it seemed they felt we had to see every inch of it.

Transportation: Horrid. Who designs a convention center, and does not connect the mass trans system to it? Chicago is a great town to get around in, but the Mac is off line. My bus driver got lost one morning, and we had to tell him where to stop.

Overall a great conference, and I can not wait for San Deigo

Kristi, not to pick nits, but how did the conference get an overall score of B+ when your highest standalone score was a B?

By my count you gave a C, two C+s, two B-s, and one B. Yet your overall score was B+.

Talk about grade inflation! ;-)