AMR's Molly Marsh discusses changes in conference planning with a new networking initiative in that made a positive impact on the conference attendees.

The Challenge
The Academy of Communication in Healthcare (ACH) defines diversity as any and all differences between and among people. ACH welcomes all diversities, recognizing that various life experiences, perspectives and cultures inform and enrich their understanding of the world, each other and themselves.  ACH is committed to building an inclusive organization and has identified diversification of membership as a priority action.

The Challenge
Manels…they’re a thing. It’s rarely intentional, but one of the challenges in volunteers working on components of a conference is that they aren’t always in a position to see how their individual work impacts the big picture. For the National Association of State Procurement Officials, well-intentioned volunteers developing conference sessions worked to identify individuals with the best expertise on each topic. But, NASPO found that a conference pieced together by different volunteers ends up with session after session of men-only being presented as the experts in the field. The “manel” phenomenon didn’t go unnoticed, one evaluation response noted “The last few panels were devoid of women. Given the large number of women involved in procurement, and the specific challenges women face…I hope that next year the panels are more balanced.”

The Challenge:
Making internal training about Association Management Company (AMC) accreditation fun! AMR is accredited through the AMC Institute. Every four years, the company goes through the re-accreditation process to ensure adherence to the AMCI Standard of Good Practices for the Association Management Company Industry. A critical component of the re-accreditation process is a full-staff review of the standards and Accreditation Summaries, but simply reading the almost 40-page document doesn’t ensure understanding or retention, let alone a full understanding of the importance of the standards on the business.  

The Challenge: To give strategic purpose to the National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO) Annual Conference. Like many associations, NASPO held an Annual Conference with positive satisfaction ratings from participants, but that didn’t always connect member attendees with their larger professional development needs from the organization. Even with the introduction of a new strategic plan, conference registration was still driven more by destination than by the quality of the event itself and the evaluation results indicated disappointment in the gaps between the conference and what members truly wanted and needed.  NASPO realized quickly there was no mention of the Annual Conference – or any of the association’s conferences – in the strategic plan.