Comments on: Seeking Your Input on New Ideas for the Annual Leadership Conference

By: Bill Chapman

Bill Chapman — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:23:33 +0000

Ron, good point, the timing and theme are right on!

By: Ron L. Andersen

Ron L. Andersen — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:12:02 +0000

With 2009 being the bicentennial of the birth of our most moral and God-fearing American President, Abraham Lincoln, I would like to see how we can learn from his unsurpassed leadership, integrity, and accomplishments.

By: Allen Arnoldsen

Allen Arnoldsen — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:45:14 +0000

I remember last year’s database session conducted by Robert Gardner had an amazing amount of energy going around the room. If you are doing another database session this year, and I hope you are, please make it longer as we were too short on the time allocated. I would recommend a minimum of one hour. Thanks! This will be another great conference.

By: Treaver Hodson

Treaver Hodson — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:49:51 +0000

I would enjoy training and discussion about using the social networking groups (like LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) to strengthen and grow our chapters. I have been experimenting, but would really enjoy some specific guidance or success stories.

By: Dale Richards

Dale Richards — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:12:48 +0000

We might consider taking the “More Interaction” suggestion one step further by planning more opportunities to network with other participants at the conference. Last year, there were so many people, which was great, but it was difficult to meet the better part of them because the amount of time dedicated to that was relatively small. We should have more dedicated networking time.

By: Brian Dixon

Brian Dixon — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:52:13 +0000

Bill–
I like the focal theme of benefits…that will help us with the marketing and recruiting and GROWTH of the society. I like the ideas of interraction and bringing successes. BUT, let’s not stretch this so much that new or ’struggling’ chapters feel excluded or alienated from coming.

I believe that we must recall that this is both a ‘rally’ and a training exercise. We always have new chapter reps come who need to be fed and trained and we NEED to provide ‘meat’ on our critical subjects.

My key thoughts are:
>make sure we deliver a ‘connection point’ on our values and cultural beliefs
>have practical and fundamental training on planning events and getting speakers; getting a board functional; networking; LDS employment.
>short presentation on Young Professionals

I think we can structure some time for choices:
some may need website training, others not; some may want scholarship info. and some not.

This will be another great step of progress for our society.
Brian Dixon

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 01:18:56 +0000

I need a seminar on “second wind”. Over 50s experience great changes in culture and communications. I need a jump start seminar to set me on the right path. Show me how to get started in social media. I need to go back to school and retool.

By: Bill Chapman

Bill Chapman — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:09:42 +0000

Joel, thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to do share your thoughts with us. I am excited that you are excited. Rixa is going to get me an electronic list of every phone number of the chapter presents worldwide and I’m going to call every one of them and invite them personally to the conference. I’m also going to ask them to bring a few of their board members.

At the same time, I am going to ask them to tell me their success stories and if they don’t have any off-the-cuff I’m going to ask them to think about it and get back to me within one week with an eye towards assigning them to share their story at the conference, as you suggest.

I also liked your idea about assigning a topic to each table, having them discuss it and give a report to the group. Kim Clark wrote an article in the Clark Memorandum (http://www.jrcls.org/publications/clark_memo/SubSections/Spring2009/CM_S09_Clark.pdf) where he discussed the BYU-Idaho Learning Model, with the following steps:

• Step 1: prepare personally and in small
groups before class.
• Step 2:teach one another through discussion,
by presenting ideas, by sharing
results of experiments, by teaching a segment
of the class, and in many other ways.
• Step 3: ponder and prove by reflecting,
discussing, keeping a learning journal, participating
in assessment, and getting ready
for Step 1.

I was amazed when I read your comment because it reminded me of Pres. Clark’s article. Let’s try this out!
Bill

By: Joel Deceuster

Joel Deceuster — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:24:41 +0000

Bill, I think these are all excellent ideas and I like our theme relating to the benefits of membership. One big benefit we don’t talk about much is the access we all have to the world wide membership of the management society. We actually have a number of unsung benefits that we should evangelize.

Love the idea of more interaction. You know, there’s no reason why we can’t make assignments to various individuals to do a vignette or mini presentation to provide real life examples relfecting the themes of our various presentations. The best way to draw a large crowd to this event is to give as many assignments as possible. Like bringing food to a pot luck. If you want a lot of attendees give them something to do. So, I would look to assign presentations to those other than the members of the national steering committee. You know we’ll all be there.

This is going to be a difficult year for many to attend so we need to give them a reason to show up. I suggest we brainstrom a “benefits of membership” document and turn it into a deliverable for the conference.

Here’s a trick I’m using with much success to generate more interaction when I do my public presentations. Pose a question to each table and have those at each table discuss thier answer with one another. Then ask someone from each table to report on their table’s conversation during the group part. This engages everyone around the table as well as those how lead each table.

Just some ideas. Joel