While many of you have been to countless IDA Annual Conferences, there are also those of you who will attend your first one in Seattle. The conference elements will look familiar… tours, breakout sessions, receptions and larger talks with everyone gathered in a great room; however, the difference at an IDA conference is that the humans doing all those things are deeply warm, encouraging and eager to share. That part creates a connection that I’ve never felt in another event.
You go to a breakout session or hear a Master Talk and would like to know more about the topic: stay behind after it ends, and I guarantee that those presenters will always, without fail, offer you their direct contact information (not just the main office line). If you choose to reach out, you will now have a new network of brain power to tap into whenever you need it.
You learn about a project you want to replicate at the awards ceremony or in a hallway conversation: there will be no territorial nature to the conversation when you reach out to the team behind the work – just the opposite! I’d wager that they will send you the project plans, timelines and budgets so that you are steps ahead of their starting point.
You’re at a reception, and you start to chat with a person who does similar work in another downtown: you will find yourself lost in the conversation, getting an emotional buzz from the satisfaction of meeting someone who truly understands your work.
At the conference, you can expect to learn very detailed, actionable elements to take back to your city and implement. However, … The IDA community is there, arms open, willing to share the best of the work and humble enough to recount the failures.
If you haven’t already signed up, I encourage you to do so before August 14th when the registration fee will increase. If you have signed up, start exercising your extrovert muscles, because you will want to spend time meeting colleagues and gaining friends (post on IDEA Connection now and start finding new friends to meet up with in Seattle!).…. On behalf of those of us who have been in this industry for years, I promise that we have just as much to learn from the conference and the newer place managers – we are all on this journey together.
Click here to learn more about IDA’s 70th Annual Conference & Marketplace.