I just heard that Susan Sarfati’s leaving ASAE and The Center–she’s been president of the Center and the executive vice president of ASAE since the Greater Washington Society of Association Executives, of which she was the head, merged with ASAE a few years ago.

ASAE is issuing a statement about it in 40 minutes or so, but wow, what a huge loss for ASAE. I’ve noticed a big difference in the education ASAE offers since she’s been on board, which I doubt is a coincidence. I don’t know whose idea this is, or where she’s heading from here, and I doubt the coming statement will tell us much (they never do when it comes to changes in leadership at our industry associations, which makes me crazy. But that’s another story).

I wish her well. Geez, is Deborah Sexton at PCMA now standing alone in terms of women in leadership positions in this predominantly female industry’s associations?

Update: Here’s the official word:

After more than 25 years as a leader and outspoken advocate for the association management profession and for life-long learning, Susan Sarfati, CAE, founding president and CEO of The Center for Association Leadership and executive vice president of ASAE, advised the Board of Directors of The Center that she will leave the organizations, effective August 31, 2008.

“Susan’s leadership, passion, creativity, energy and commitment are unsurpassed in the profession. She is an icon in the industry and is held in such high regard by the ASAE & Center boards, association professionals and industry partners alike. Susan has been the heart and soul of The Center and will be sorely missed,” said Mark Golden, CAE, chairman of The Center and executive director and CEO of the National Court Reporters Association (NCRA).

“Susan is a visionary leader and innovator who has taken risks that have shaped the profession and we’ve all benefited as a result,” said ASAE President and CEO John H. Graham IV, CAE. “Susan’s passion and strong belief in the importance, possibilities and contributions of associations have always been evident, and we thank her for her leadership at ASAE & The Center and in the larger global community.”

“Going forward, my work and career will continue to focus on leadership development, social responsibility, women’s issues and contributions to the association and meetings industry, which are all my passions,” Sarfati said. “My career over the years has been very fulfilling with more to come. I am proud of my many contributions, including being the founding CEO of The Center, leading the 13 seasons of the Nation’s Capital Distinguished Speakers Series, building a high performance team, and most recently, launching the Global Summit on Social Responsibility and the association social responsibility movement. From now until my departure on August 31, I will direct my efforts toward moving the Summit outcomes to the next step. What I value most are the relationships I have built with volunteer leaders, members, and the incredibly talented staff whom I have had the honor of working with over the years.”

I haven’t been able to attend ASAE’s Summit on Global Responsibility, which started yesterday, but I hope to sit in on some of it virtually today (in addition to the on-site gathering at the new Gaylord, there also are a number of satellite sites (none near me, alas) and you also can hook into the meeting online. Industry consultant Joan Eisenstodt is at the live meeting, and from this post, it sounds like an amazing experience so far.

Of course, ASAE and The Center’s Acronym blog is posting about it, and Jeff De Cagna has some interesting thoughts on the first day as well.

If anyone else is attending–live, remotely, or virtually–I’d love to get your perspective on both the content of what’s going on, and how the format of the meeting helps (or doesn’t help) participants to reach their goals for the gathering. So drop me an e-mail or leave a comment below. I’m curious to see if this is really as big a deal as I think it is–or could be.

At the green meeting session this morning at NEMICE (led by my colleague at Corporate Meetings & Incentives, Barbara Scofidio), I was in charge of keeping the discussion going on greening up conference bags, gifts, and giveaways.

We had two questions to start off the conversation: What our organizations were currently doing to green up their bags, etc., and what our organizations were aspiring to do make be greener in that area. Here’s a quick recap.

Bags: Some people said they were trying to do away with bags altogether, while others were trading in plastic bags for cloth, since cloth is more biodegradeable. Some said they asked people if they wanted a bag, which cut down on the number of bags used since not everyone took one.

One idea I loved was BYOB–bring your own bag. They asked, and an amazing number of attendees did in fact bring their own. Another person said she gave her leftover bags to a friend who was going to China, who gave them to an orphanage there.

Also, some people said they stopped putting dates and 4th annual whatever on the bags so they could reuse them for other meetings.

Giveaways: The trend on handouts and proceedings was to take as much of it as possible online, and have people download what they need ahead of time and bring it with them. Some were using flash drives to hold the PowerPoints, or CDs, which also have the added benefit of being updateable up to the last minute, just in case some speaker may decide to make a change. I know, it never happens, but…

Some were condensing their syllabi down to 1/5 of what it used to be. Others were using recycled paper.

Hot green giveaways were plastic and metal water bottles that attendees could use instead of the usual disposables and refill at water stations. Everyone seemed to like the idea of bookmarks that contained seeds attendees could take home and plant. People were interested in the idea of giving away saplings as gifts, which PCMA did at its annual meeting in Seattle this year.

Gifts: Some people were giving donations to charity in their speakers’ names as gifts; some were contemplating offering carbon offsets, but we weren’t sure if that’d be well-received or not. Also, some were cutting back on the gift-wrapping as a small way to cut waste.

Tips and ideas
Buy from local merchandisers
Check out biodegradable cups made out of corn (that came up a couple of times)

Other things that came up but weren’t related to bags and gifts:
• Set up recycling stations for cans and bottles
• Reuse signage
• Donate banners to organizations that make handbags out of them and donate them to charity
• Donate food to local food banks/shelters. Hotels may balk, but you may be able to talk them into it (more on the topic is here). I couldn’t for the life of me remember the name of the national group that can help you find local organizations to donate to at the time, but now of course I remember that it’s America’s Second Harvest. One person talked about a meeting she held in California when all the wildfires were burning–she donated the unused food from her meeting to the fire victims.

I ventured into Boston today to check out NEMICE, the New England Meeting Industry Conference and Exposition, and it was interesting.

They didn’t get space to do a general session to kick it off, which they always have done in the past. But rather than gripe (though I’m sure there was some of that, too), the organizers got creative and cut the 90 minutes down to just the essential 17 minutes, then broadcast the presentation into the various session rooms. Due to a technical difficulty, it didn’t make it into our session, but it still was a great idea.

My colleague Barbara Scofidio led a green meetings session, where I volunteered to be a table host for three rotations of roundtable discussions on the topic of going green when it comes to bags, gifts, and giveaways–not something I know a lot about, but I learned a ton by taking part in the discussions this morning (more on that specifically in another post). The format we used was sort of a hybrid of World Cafe and open space, where we came up with seven topics, and then had people spend 20 minutes at one table, then 20 minutes at another, etc. The table hosts reported out at the end. Also, professional facilitator Joan Parker-Roach captured the results with a graphic recording, which came out pretty cool. Of course, I forgot to bring my camera so I don’t have a photo now, but there was a photographer there so hopefully I’ll get a picture of it eventually.

Then I went to another session which, despite the unfortunate title of “Dimensionalize the Attendee Experience,” was going along great (and presenter/Energizer bunny Chris Gasparro said right up front he knew “dimensionalize” wasn’t a word but he didn’t care, which was funny. Guess you had to be there). Anyway, about halfway through the 90-minute session, the alarm goes off and they had to evacuate the building. I saw a bunch of firetrucks and police cars outside, but haven’t seen anything on the news so I don’t know what happened, but it must not have been too bad.

At least, not too bad for the Hynes Convention Center, where NEMICE was being held. But for the conference, I have a feeling that I’m not the only one who, once having stepped out into the 65-degree sunshine, decided not to go back in for the expo and just headed home to get some work done (this is a mostly local crowd, after all). I hope I’m wrong.

Check out the new YouTube channel the Association Forum of Chicagoland recently launched. This is way cool–at least in concept. I haven’t had time to review the vids yet, but the topics sound good, though the only one that may have direct links to meeting planning is one on disaster planning and business continuity (the others are on things like data mining, ASAE and The Center’s Decision to Join study, and customer service, though the latter also could have some good pointers for planners). I love that they’re doing this.

I forgot to mention it, but PCMA had several announcements at the press conference on Monday, particularly about the record attendance (more than 3,400, unaudited) and about the numerous green initiatives they undertook this year. here’s my writeup if you want to know more about the official stuff.

I love this convention center. I know it’s not the most environmentally friendly, having been built before anyone cared about being green, but the sense of light and connection to the city around it—including great views from most of the common areas—go a long way in my book. Now if they could just get some windows in the meeting rooms…

PCMA got a record number of students coming to the show this year, and they are an impressive bunch. I met one young woman yesterday who was taking 18 credit hours this semester while holding down a full-time job that includes managing 20 contractors. And she owns her own condo. At 23. I won’t even tell you what I was doing at 23, but let’s just say my parents weren’t crowing about me at the time the way I hope her parents are. But, seeing as the poor thing had 20 text messages and about the same number of voice mails over the course of the one session we were in together, I can’t help but agree with the Aliens Among Us/Generation Next speaker who said we were raising a generation of type A++ stress puppies. I may not have been accomplishing much in my early years, but I think I had a whole lot more fun than she seemed to be having.

Overall, the students just blew me away with their professionalism (every single one was dressed better than I was, too). One young man we met at the reception last night was the smoothest networker I’d ever met. And their focus is on this business. These kids aren’t falling into the profession the way so many of us older folks did. They are focused, driven, and ready to shake up the meeting/hospitality world. I can’t wait to see what they accomplish!

The people in Seattle are the best! I know Southerners are supposed to be the most hospitable, but every single person I met from Seattle, from the bus drivers to the convention center greeters to the front desk folks at the Hilton to, well, everyone, were open and lovely and seemed genuinely glad to have us here. Particularly, the women who were doing the directing at the convention center just made my day. I can’t say enough good things about them.

At the PCMA Annual Meeting general session this morning, Authenticity and The Experience Economy coauthors Jim Gilmore and Joe Pine did the best they could to condense hundreds of pages of explaining their five genres of authenticity and how to apply them to meetings.

I think it was a little too academic for a lot of the crowd, who were all jazzed up from the earlier speakers (including Washington governor Chris Gregoire, who I hope governs as well as she speaks–she was fantastic!). But it got a little too experiential for me when the coauthors asked people to stand, then to sit down if they hadn’t read The Experience Economy. Then they did the same for their new book, and out of however many thousands of people were in the audience, there were only three of us left standing.

I figured out too late what was going on to sit down in time, and so was called up on stage to join the other two loyal readers to talk about what we thought was best about the books. Man, I had to strain to remember some distinct points from The Experience Economy, since I read that several years and several hundred books ago. I did better with Authenticity, which I just read a month or so ago in preparation for interviewing the authors.

Being one of those people who’d rather eat a raw tarantula than be on a stage in front of a bunch of people, I thought I was going to die. Fortunately, I didn’t, and I’m told I didn’t embarrass myself too badly. It was, most definitely, an experience I’ll remember!

More later on other things from today…

What do you think of Meeting Professionals International’s attempt to promote it Professional Education Conference North America on YouTube (see below video)?

I applaud them for trying out a new medium, but wish it wasn’t just a slick ad. It would have been a lot more effective, I think, if they had just interviewed some people about what their opinions of PEC-NA are, or, better yet, if they had put out a call to members to submit their own videos, have people vote on the top five or whatever, and use that for the promotion. Then again, that might be a fairly big risk: I wonder if anyone would submit a video about the conference? I don’t know if people feel that passionate about it (but that’s another story, isn’t it?).

Anyway, if they could have done something a little rawer, less packaged, it would work better, but good for them for giving it a shot.

Update: Here’s the latest

Better, but still awfully slick. Then again, that may just be my bias.

I’m looking forward to being able to congratulate this year’s International Association of Exhibitions and Events IAEE Individual Award winners at Expo! Expo in a couple of months! To see who won, and more about the awards, click here.

Here’s the latest entry into the association blog world: PCMA’s Membership Blog. While not too much is going on there yet (it’s just a week old), I like its style.