Acronym

Thank you to ASAE for inviting me to be a guest “live-blogger” for the Great Ideas Conference in Orlando this weekend. I have never been to Great Ideas before, nor to Florida, so I thought I’d try and give Acronym readers a little play-by-play taste of what the conference is like from my first-timer perspective, particularly for the benefit of those who could not make it south this year.

So I arrived last night, with family in tow (hubby Andy: au pair Nussara; Jackson, who will be five on Tuesday; and baby girl Bohannon, who is 21 months). First thing I noticed – time seems to have no meaning down here. Plane landed at 10:40 pm – we got in to our room at almost 2 am. What’s up with that? The half hour bus ride took FOREVER. Checking in took forever. Breakfast this morning took forever!! But having said that, our hotel room at the Yacht Club Resort is really fabulous – I swear it’s bigger than the footprint of my house. The bathroom is huge and has real marble tiles and an awesome shower. And the weather is perfect!! Which leads me to the second thing I noticed – palm trees and warm weather paired with Christmas trees in the airport and hotel lobby is truly surreal. There were three inches of snow on the ground and the world was white when I left DC; and now here I am in Orlando, getting the bathing suits out.

So the family went off to the Magic Kingdom, and meanwhile, I am chilling out this morning and arranging via text message to meet up with some ASAE buddies, particularly those I have not seen since we met in Chicago at the annual meeting last year. I am so psyched to see them – one thing ASAE enables is Friends For Life. That is a fact! And it overrides everything.

The general session starts at 2 pm with Bruce Turkel, CEO of the Miami brand building consultancy TURKEL, described as a “creative guru” who “constantly pushes the envelope” and “believes that the real trick is not just coming up with ideas but recognizing them, developing them, and making the most of them”. Turkel’s website is wicked cool – check it out here. I’m psyched to hear him speak.

This afternoon, I plan to go hang out in Jeff De Cagna’s session on “The Wonderful World of Wikis: Supporting Innovation and Collaboration at Web Speed”. I’d love to get a wiki started for my association, but need to know how to help my members get over their fear of all things technological! : )

Then, looks like there’s a welcome reception this evening. So that’s the schedule for today – will of course report back as the day goes on.