Acronym

Many of us are gearing up for San Diego in a couple weeks. It occurred to me as I sat down to write that the mark of a truly great meeting is the 'event-ness' that it creates. I can't speak for anyone but me (and sometimes I'm a poor spokesman for myself!), but in contrast to many of the other events I attend over the year, this is the one conference that I really anticipate. It is always educational and relaxing--a vacation of sorts that also gives me 15 or 20 good ideas that I can put to work in various projects. The meeting allows me to put faces with names of people I correspond with throughout the rest of the year ... and it gives me a chance to say hi again to semi-familiar faces from Tampa, Houston, Brussels, Los Angeles, and Chevy Chase. Most of us get so immersed in our work that we never take the time or have a reason to contact our peers, old coworkers or our competitors--thankfully ASAE assembles 'em all in the same place so we can see them all at once.

In my initial guest blog post, I wanted to plug the basic concept of friendliness to strangers. Attending a conference is at its core a passive act--ergonomically speaking, we spend the majority of our time in a chair and listening rather than walking and talking. Yet as spectators we have great control over our quality of experience, and we also have the potential to affect the quality of experience of those around us. As you know from the conferences that you plan and conduct, what appears in the Program Book constitutes maybe 40% to 60% of the value you'll take home with you between your ears on your plane ride back. The rest is up to you, and it's the discussion and interaction with peers—new friend sand old friends—that can make or break your experience.

Most of us reading here are probably long-time ASAE people, but I think it's helpful to think back and remember how it felt the first time we were new somewhere. The conference is not only an opportunity to reconnect with old friends, but also to make new ones, and there are a lot of new friends to choose from! I personally find that it's hard to get 20 years of staff work out of my blood--I catch myself walking the exhibit hall and asking the personnel 'how's traffic'--but I think if we all take a little responsibility to say hi to the person who looks a little tentative when they enter a reception or just to say hi to the people next to us in the hallway, we'll all have a richer experience.

When I think back to past Annual Meetings, the people who stick out most in my mind are the random people I meet: on the bus ride over to the Convention Center, outside the bookstore waiting for someone else, or the person sitting on my left at the only lunch table with an open seat on the exhibit floor at noon. Mind you, I'm a somewhat quiet but not a shy person at heart, but that's mostly training with some positive reinforcement. I actually kind of wish the world the other 364 days was like what downtown San Diego will be for 4 days—that if I turned to someone and introduced myself, they wouldn't find it terribly odd, and within a minute or so we would find something in common and have a nice conversation, and we'd each walk away feeling good for having met the other. I get that feeling at ASAE and I hope you do also. So, here's to the Meeting, and to random meetings. Hope to see you in San Diego!