Author Archives: Jackie Dooley

Yesterday Kathy Marquis, co-chair of SAA’s amazing Annual Meeting Task Force, posted to the group’s web page a note about what’ll be happening at the AMTF’s public forum on next Wednesday, 15 August, when we’re all gathered in New Orleans. Her post gives you all the details, so have a look.

Here’s what I’d like to highlight: Most of the forum will consist of small group discussions about how SAA should follow up on the TF’s recommendations  in the following areas:

• What sort of networking opportunities, both structured and unstructured, would you find valuable at the Annual Meeting?
• We’re already implementing a variety of popular new session formats, such as lightning rounds and unconferences. What others would you like to see offered? See the call for proposals for the 2014 conference for a list of some of the possibilities being encouraged for next year. Which ones work the best for you?
• Is it important to try to shorten the Annual Meeting in order to help attendees save on their expenses for the week? And if it is important, where should we cut back? Fewer sessions? Shorter sessions?
• How should we approach offering some of the meeting content online to enable remote participation? Which types of session are the most important to make available? Section and roundtable meetings? Some of the dozens of education sessions? Plenaries? Perhaps live-streaming of the business meeting? SAA will have to factor in the cost of each methodology and set priorities. We’ll need to get the sense of the membership regarding what you need the most.

And be sure to have a look at the document that Council will be considering next Monday that may determine our priorities for making changes of all kinds to future Annual Meetings. Any and all comments on that are welcomed.

See you all soon!