AssociationOkie

A week ago I was in St. Louis at the ASAE Opening Celebration. It is four days of pure association geekdom. And I love it.

As a one person shop, my attendance at the Oklahoma Society of Association and American Society of Association Executives activities are critical for me to grow as an executive.

Here is my view of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of ASAE 2011.

The Good:

• To hell with the good, there was a lot of great this year.Peter Sheahan knocked it out of the park in the Closing General Session. He was interesting, funny and had done his research. His talk was relevant to the association world.

• The necessary board introductions were quick, and in some cases humorous.

• The iPad app rocked, it did exactly what I needed it to do.

• There were a good variety of sessions to choose from, and the styles of delivery were varied, with some great instructional leaders.

• I enjoyed the trade show. I admit, I can’t use most of the products offered (although I hope as the AMC grows some of that will change), but I enjoy seeing what is out there. I especially enjoyed the CVB’s who brought a local flavor. Grand Rapids had a local craft beer (Founders Brewery) and brought the brewer with them, and Omaha had a local ice cream.

The Bad:

• The rooms should have been set up theater style, they were packed, and the round tables made it worse.

• The closing lunch was in a pitch black room. I couldn’t see to eat. (Although dessert was great).

• Not much bad to talk about.

The Ugly:

• The Opening General Session. Tina Brown, (The Daily Beast/Newsweek), who is a smart, successful Woman, but was unprepared to talk to association executives. She was the opposite of Sheahan, totally irrelevant.

So that’s it, not much to complain about. The St. Louis CVB, the City of St. Louis, the Mayor, and the Citizens of St. Louis did a great job of welcoming us and making us feel welcome. Although, I would have been happier if they could have arranged a Cardinal victory over the Brewers while I was there.

And lastly, a shout out to the ASAE staff. They work their butts off at Annual. They listened to past complaints, and concerns, and they made changes. Thanks Gang! See you in Dallas.

This entry was posted on August 14, 2011 at 1:19 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.