Skip to main content

More ASAE Annual Thoughts

One of my yearly comments on the ASAE Annual post-meeting survey has been about the sessions. There are just too many offered at the same time. I was sitting down planning my sessions and found many I wanted to go to, but were in the same time slot. For example, on Sunday from 1:30-2:45 there are 25 Learning Labs. Doesn't that seem like a lot for one time slot?

I understand more choice is better and there are lots of different types of attendees, but I would rather have more, shorter sessions. Break those up into groups of 12 and make them 45 minutes. Force presenters to skip the fluff. Or, have them offered twice during the convention.

Just some thoughts. Hopefully this isn't viewed as a complaint. Really it is a compliment. The sessions and speakers are great. There is just too much I want to do and not enough of me.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I like the suggestion of shorter sessions. Besides allowing us to attend more sessions (and forcing speakers to be more efficient with their time), it would also enable us to move around more - it would be physically beneficial and lead to more networking.
August 12, 2008 at 5:53 PM
Anonymous said…
Really? To be honest, I've found this to be the most anemic workshop schedule of any ASAE meeting yet, and I've been to a lot of them. I was able to find one workshop per session I wanted to attend, but that's it. That's all I needed to justify my attendance in my own head, but still, I miss the days when I had a hard time choosing.
August 12, 2008 at 10:44 PM
Anonymous said…
Kevin, maybe you've been to too many meetings. I was overwhelmed with the choices when I first went - perhaps it was the novelty of the sessions.

As the years went on, the choices seemed fewer. But I don't attend every year so there's often something fresh to look forward to.

The real problem is several interesting sessions in one time slot and none in the next. More choices would be better.
August 13, 2008 at 3:48 PM
Jeffrey Cufaude said…
Matt, 25 sessions aren't a lot considering there are thousands of people at the meeting with very diverse learning needs. The session length also allows for interactive formats to be used as opposed to presenters just talking at participants.

That being said, it might be interesting to have a round or two of shorter sessions that could use different formats.
August 14, 2008 at 6:08 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

10 Thoughts on #ASAE10

Ok, so I could have spelled out the title, but chose the hashtag - #asae10. Supposedly there were over 8,000 tweets with the hashtag, but probably countless more direct messages of messages that left out the hashtag but were conference related. Two years ago, we were using twitter as a backchannel to talk about speakers. Now, over 800 people sent conference related tweets. If you aren't on Twitter, you are already late to the party. Anyway, on with the post... In no particular order, my thoughts on this years ASAE Annual Conference: 1. LA was a good venue. Lots to do. Hotels close by. Only downside was the rooms were a bit of a hike. 2. I missed Sunday because of family obligations. That really put me behind the 8 ball. Since I led a session, that meant I only got to go to 3 true sessions. Sorry, I don't count Joy Behar and the closing session. Although Marshall Goldsmith was good, I probably wouldn't have gone to see that speech as a Learning Lab. 3. Based on #...
11 comments
Read more

The Whole Cook Source Flap

I am going to give my 2 cents on this whole Cook Source thing. If you don't know what I am talking about, you can read more here and here . I am sure a few folks are going to take umbrage with my stance, but that is bound to happen. So a magazine found a blog post, liked it, printed it while giving credit to the author. The author hears about it, and gets pissed? She wants printed apologies and a donation made, because she got published? What am I missing here? Who wouldn't want their stuff to be published while being credited? Isn't that one of the main tenants of blogging, to be linked to? Sure, the response from the editor was one of the dumbest things ever written and she handled it tremendously bad. However, I am just floored that this person is pissed off. True, the internet is not public domain. However, every college paper in the world has citations. And all those students didn't contact the author to make sure they can use it. And every blog post ...
8 comments
Read more

Where do you draw the line on social media?

I try to keep up. I have a feed reader . I blog . I comment on other people's blogs. I tweet . I have multiple websites . I have accounts on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and others. But you have to draw the line somewhere. I wrote earlier about being app'd out . I still feel that way. But each day I feel farther behind. Maybe not behind, but not necessarily maximizing potential. I don't Digg. I don't StumbleUpon. OK, maybe I do like once a month if I have some spare time. But I know I am missing out on a lot of cool things. I usually check out other people's links to cool tools or the next new thing. But right now, I feel like I am in the Dip . Any suggestions on how to get out?
6 comments
Read more