Section Meeting Programming

I’m sitting in upstate New York after attending the first day of a two-day ISA District Leadership Conference (DLC). This falls on the heels of another DLC held last weekend in San Diego. What I find fascinating, after reflecting on the past two weeks, is that Sections seem to struggle with meeting programming, and yet I hear so many good ideas for how and what to program that I don’t understand why this seems to be difficult. What is encouraging is that Sections take this subject so seriously—ISA is only as good as the last contact we had with an individual, and that might well be a Section publication or event, so I’m glad that leaders take this seriously.

Now on to some ideas:

Section Co-sponsored Training: Want a dynamite training course in your local area? How about working with ISA headquarters to bring their professional level training to you—this is the same in-plant training ISA offers with the same professional trainer materials and subject matter. Best of all, the sponsoring Section gets to share in the revenue. If you look around, you might find several companies interested in the same training that find themselves without enough participants for in-plant training but are not willing to send people traveling…ISA local Section to the rescue! This year ISA has 20 such co-sponsored events on the books so far. More than any previous year, so this seems to be quite successful.

Webinar/Webex Meetings: What I like about this idea is that people don’t have to travel to get to these. They can sit at their desk with their quarter-pounder with cheese and Coke and listen in. Most of our speakers use PowerPoint so implementing this is easy to do. The meeting can be in the evening, over lunch, or even in the morning (over those first three cups of coffee). If you want a catchier title call it a cyber-meeting. Some of the networking benefit is lost, but this may allow people to attend a meeting that they were not able to before. And don’t forget the archived webinars on the ISA website—these are a lifesaver when your speaker has to cancel because she went into labor a little early!

Panel Discussions: Next to plant tours these are the most popular meetings to attend. If you really want to spice it up, make sure end-users are debating the pros and cons of a particular technology. Vendors are compelled to be polite in public settings but users don’t seem to feel the same need for decorum. I’ve seen some panel discussions almost go to fisticuffs!

On a final note, find out what your Members want to learn or hear about. There are many electronic survey services available that will allow you to find out what your Members would show up for. Program it and they will come.