My Highlights from the ASAE Annual Meeting

I am a learning junkie. I like to jump into whatever subject is near to my heart and then learn as much as possible about it. That’s why going to something like the ASAE Annual Meeting, which is what I did last week, is especially exciting for me.

Along with learning more about some of my favorite topics, like membership development and community building using new media, I was also able to talk in person with members of the Association Twitterati, who are without a doubt some of the most innovative and fun-loving people I have ever met. Maddie Grant, Lindy Dreyer, Elizabeth Weaver Engel, Sandra Giarde, Jeff De Cagna, Jamie Notter, Jay Moonah, Ben Martin, Matt Baehr, Peggy Hoffman, Jeff Cobb, Deirdre Reid and numerous other association superstars met up at the meeting and generated a plethora of tweets and posts. We are all geeks about engagement and that made the conference a kind of nerdy heaven for me. I’m surprised we didn’t make up campfire songs. Oh wait…we kind of did at dinner one night. Nevermind.

Anyway, the miracle of the meeting will be if I can possibly keep by note or memory even a tenth of what I learned.

Here is my Top 10 List of the Absolute Coolest Highlights of the ASAE Annual Meeting:

1. Hanging with my ASAE homies
2. The Delcor/Syscom Party at the Fifth Grill
3. Talking about Netbooks and then about trends with Clay Shirky and about 15 other people
4. Charlene Li answering our small group’s questions – easy with only 10 people in the room
5. Listening to David Nour’s presentation on Relationship Economics
6. Good lunch food provided on the show floor…on bamboo plates no less!
7. Tweetups and the active Twitterstream for #asae09 (Also, the online hub! And the WiFi!)
8. Meeting some awesome vendors in the Expo Hall
9. My session with Peggy Hoffman, naturally!
10. The Online Engagement Lounge (thank you, ASAE!)

Here is my Top 5 List of Things That Could Have Been Better:

1. Ribbon bar available at registration area by council meetings for the volunteers on the first day…I didn’t actually get my ribbons until Day 3 of being there and I noticed several others missed out on theirs. It would have been more natural to pick them up right in the beginning.
2. Bamboo forks were kind of ridiculous. The idea was good, but fell short in execution.
3. Not such a long walk from one side of Convention Center to the other
4. A bag check by the front of the Convention Center for Tuesday
5. My scheduling abilities – I missed out on a couple of things I wish I could have attended…I did better than last year, but STILL missed out on a little even though I planned ahead of time. *sigh*

Moral of the story? I’m not sure. But I had a fabulous time in Toronto and will write some follow up commentary from the notes I took during the Nour and Shirky presentations..