[TheForge] Re: Seattle Conference

[Kagele at aol.com]

I have noticed a number of comments about the Seattle ABANA  Conference that 
are incorrect.  As the Conference Chairman I feel obliged  to correct the 
record.  First, the Seattle Conference currently shows a  $10,000 profit.  I 
believe that the rumor about a "loss" came about as a  result of a post-conference 
billing from the University of Washington.  The  bill was approximately 
$50,000 and was purportedly for housing costs incurred by  conference attendees.  It 
was obvious from the start that the bill was  grossly inaccurate.  The ABANA 
Central Office, with Leeann and Marcus, had  tracked every registration on a 
daily basis.  The University of Washington  was relying on its part-time 
college students in the dorms to put together it's  bill.  The bill included charges 
for people who were not ABANA members,  double charges, overcharges, and just 
plain mistakes.  We scrutinized the  bill and informed the University of it's 
errors.  They have not been able  to justify their errors.  Accordingly, I 
informed the university that ABANA  would not pay it.  In fact, at one of the 
lunches a large number of diners  got sick.  I informed the University that, in 
fact, it probably owed ABANA  money for refunds on the luncheon.  Based on my 
observations regarding the  conferences at Eastern Kentucky University and the 
University of Wisconsin, such  bureaucratic problems are common in dealing 
with universities.  The fact is  that conferences cost a lot of money.  The 
competing interests of  conference economics are virtually impossible to 
reconcile: everyone wants an  inexpensive conference that makes a lot of money for the 
organization!  The  fee standard that I used in Seattle was the cost of a 
weekend workshop in a West  Coast affiliate.  Despite the fact that the conference 
was geographically  isolated, attendance figures were comparable to inland 
conferences.  And,  as stated, the conference did turn a profit.  An ABANA 
Conference should be  an international conference and maintain a standard that is 
not found in the  activities of a local affiliate.   The problem that ABANA has 
with  hosting future conferences in the same traditional format is that the 
costs of  creating the physical structure must be paid by a relatively small 
membership  base.  ABANA is simply not a large organization.  It's membership is 
 not high income and conference attendance, with attendant travel and lodging 
 costs, is a major cost outlay for most members.  There is also a critical  
factor that must be present: someone to work on the conference for two  years!  
To do it right, a traditional ABANA conference has a two-year lead  time.  It 
needs to be promoted at least a year in advance so that people  can make 
travel plans.   In order to be a truly international event,  the conference must 
be an attraction so that families will spend their  discretionary income on 
attending.  I think that the bottom line is that  ABANA needs to reinvent it's 
conference concept.  Perhaps something along  the lines of a virtual symposium 
where unique demos are presented electronically  rather than in an actual, 
expensive, physical layout.  People come to ABANA  conferences to see 
extraordinary demos that they wouldn't ordinarily see in  their own affiliate.  I think 
that Powerpoint might be the answer!   Jerry Kagele
 








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