ASAE Annual Meeting Hits a Home Run

Every year that I attend the American Society of Association Executives' Annual Meeting it takes me a little while to let the experience settle into my pores before I can write up something about it. It's like writing a diary entry about camp when you know someone may read it...it is critical to prioritize the biggest, most important pieces of the experience lest anyone get the wrong idea.

That said, abandon all hope ye who enter here. I'm still trying to pull my thoughts together, but I didn't want to wait any longer to start sharing some of the lessons I took away from the meeting.

Attending ASAE Annual is a big deal for me. ASAE is my professional home and I have made many wonderful friends through ASAE, many friends whom I meet up with at Annual. Sure, sure...now that I work as a consultant for DelCor, there is some awareness of meeting potential clients at Annual, but let's be clear. I attended Annual before I "went to the dark side" and the meeting is always going to be more like a summer camp for association folks like me.

This year it was an even bigger deal because we were in my home state of Missouri for Annual. My hometown of Joplin, Missouri was destroyed by an EF-5 Tornado earlier this year, so all of the work that various CVBs, vendors, ASAE, and especially YAP did for Joplin meant a lot to me.

This year I approached Annual with some goals based on previous experiences with the conference:

1. To work out every morning of the meeting, no matter what - past experiences with post-reception hangovers and walking pneumonia have made this goal especially important

Workout Day #1

2. To eat healthier foods during the meeting - not only does it fuel my brain, but it keeps me from post-conference regrets

3. To focus more on my own presentations and less on attending others - this is not my preference, but a necessary requirement because I stress out over any criticism I receive from speaking evaluations

4. To identify new ideas I can use for my work with associations

YAPstars UNITE for the YAP Party raising funds for Joplin!

5. To keep a better record of my expenses and receipts

 The conference was amazing for many reasons:

Kylee Coffman, my sister and RILA social media hottie, showing her ASAE Classic pose

• The city of St. Louis put on a fabulous show of hospitality city-wide for us
• The content of the sessions seemed to ring people's bells - mine included
• The network of people in the association world is more like a family than some families I know
• The ASAE staff were smart, fun, and helpful
• The layout of the conference hall, events, and hotels made it easy to network nonstop
• Twitter coverage of the conference was robust
• The backchannels on G+ and Beluga that many of us were using for coordinating meeting areas and making inside jokes made for a fun way to stay involved while not cluttering up the conference Twitter feed
• I was able to hang out with my sister, Kylee Coffman, a social media rockstar working for RILA more than I had in the previous 6 months

Workout - Day #3

 If I had to quibble about anything, it would be about these things: 

• There was no room at the stable when a group of us tried to find any seats at the closing keynote lunch - too bad, too...I heard it was really good.
• The mobile app needed help - working across platforms, including other important agenda events, etc...
• Any small kind of - even free - effort to reach out to an audience virtually would have been great...something to help those who couldn't be there to see what they were missing

All-in-all, I thought ASAE showed they had listened to comments made by bloggers and attendees in the past. They did a phenomenal job and I enthusiastically approve of the way they handled things on site.

Many thanks to everyone who made this ASAE Annual Meeting phenomenal. I will definitely see all of you next year!

Workout - Day #2

Someone graffiti'd our session sign - cool, no? ;-)