by Mary Ellen Bates
One area of focus for the Board of Directors as we implement our strategic plan is in building and enhancing the Annual Conference. It’s one of our chief member benefits, as well as a significant source of association income. We also recognize that the conference needs some adjustments to reflect the current concerns and issues of our members, as well as the market in which we operate.
Since it’s one of my passions, I’d like to share the vision that the board has developed regarding the Annual Conference. As anyone who has ever been involved in conference planning knows, it involves a significant time commitment, often spanning several years, on the part of many volunteers. In order to continue offering high value to members, we see the need for a more strategic approach to planning the conference, in which our volunteers’ valuable professional time is used in the best way possible. We have selected several avenues to pursue for the next three years:
- Develop a more streamlined way to develop conference content
- Offer more value to more senior members
- Develop our virtual conference activities
What will this look like? In terms of the conference programming, division leaders will offer higher-level input and will be looking at ways to extend the programming virtually throughout the year. We also envision an executive track for experienced members that will have a high profile and will generate press coverage of the conference as well as publishable white papers. Our goal by 2014 is to have a full-time staff member involved in coordinating CE programs, conference programs and year-round education, in order to better support SLA’s strategic goal to support information professionals.
The number of sessions conducted during the Annual Conference will drop, as we combine similar topics and focus on providing fewer sessions of high quality. We also see the divisions offering more virtual programming throughout the year; this can be an opportunity to offer division-specific virtual programs that more division members could attend.
As a conference attendee of more years than I care to count (except that I’ll note that I have tote bags from two Annual Conferences in San Antonio), I know how valuable they are for my professional development. I am really passionate about finding ways for us to continue to add value to the conference, and to enable even more virtual learning for our members throughout the year.
I welcome your questions and comments. You can reach me at mbates@batesinfo.com or +1 303 772 7095. And I look forward to seeing many of you in Chicago in 2012!
Mary Ellen Bates is SLA’s Division Cabinet Chair.
Thanks for sharing the overall strategy and direction to improve conferences, MEB. I think you address a key challenge by having advanced sessions for senior / more experienced members.
As a member of the competitive intelligence division, I appreciate the 3 webinars they have offered since SLA 2011 in Philly. These are a great member benefit and a nice way to stay connected with SLA in between conferences, and a nice supplement to local chapter meetings.
I’m also interested to see what comes out of the idea of improving programming for more experienced members. I think providing programming that is relevant to people in many stages of careers is one of the biggest challenges – everyone needs to be able to get something out of the sessions, and that’s hard with a range of experiences. At the same time, we don’t want to separate ourselves too much and miss the cross-pollination that conferences are so good at. The goal will be to offer opportunities targeted to each career stage, as well as opportunities that bring us together to share, disagree, and absorb what others are thinking and doing.
I wholeheartedly support the plan to reduce the number of conference sessions. Not only could this make it a little less overwhelming to try to decide which sessions to attend, it should also mean a little less work for the division planners, who will have fewer sessions to plan for, fundraise for, and devote many volunteer hours for.
I’ll be interested to see how the virtual conference esxperience will be enhanced. Perhaps “webcast” some of the sessions for future distribution at reasonable cost and make them available to members, chapters, and divsions/sections/caucues.
If I were already a participant in previous SLA conferences, I could see how I might be interested in a lot of these initiatives. However, as a newer member in a distant country there isn’t much that appeals to me. It is unlikely that I will be able to justify going.
*Travel expenses are prohibitive.
*It’s hard for me to get involved from so far away.
*I am not a senior member.
*Virtual conferences will likely be recorded and distributed, which doesn’t allow me to participate in the conference itself.
Hi Ben. The virtual conference option SLA has offered the last two years allowed for live participation by attendees who couldn’t physically attend and I’m pretty sure there were people from around the globe who participated.
You posted to this blog, so I don’t think you can say it’s hard for you to get involved! I’ve chatted with SLA volunteers in the UK, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Australia, and Japan via email, skype, twitter, facebook, etc.
Where are you?
Hi Ben,
I found the virtual conference quite worthwhile (though not with the same level of immersion and face-to-face contacts). For a take on the Virtual Conference experience, see Jane Macoustra’s 2011 blog posts, beginning with http://slablogger.typepad.com/sla_blog/2011/06/sla-2011-conference-in-philadelphia-the-virtual-conference.html
SLA can probably make it easier to find the virtual conference registration next time around, too. I hope we’ll “see” you in 2012, one way or another.
I really like the idea of an executive track. Besides offering much needed content for “senior” members, it reminds us that if we are not part of our organization’s executive team, we’re missing out.
I am so happy to see a commitment to a staff member who will oversee CE, conference programming and year-round educational choices. These opportunities are a a key benefit of being a member of SLA and a principal way of marketing the association.
Thanks, Mary Ellen, for summing up the annual conference strategies moving forward. I like the ideas of fewer, better sessions, a senior track, and yet, as Elizabeth noted, enough sessions for all that get us connecting no matter where we are in our careers. And, may I suggest some sessions geared to students and those just starting their careers?
As Daniel noted in his post on volunteering it will take a village and that is all of us, to get this going. What can we each contribute?
Great ideas, MEB. I’m really looking forward to the more concentrated Conference.
One of the things I took away from the CE analysis this year at Conference is teaming Chapter and Division in creating professional development sessions. We have a new concept for our Chapter Prof. Devel. we’re providing the Chapter’s logistics, venue and promotional skills with Division content and speakers.
I encourage all the Chapters and Divisions to join our experiment. Ideally we could record these and make them available throughout the organization.
SF Bay Region Chapter