It was a fantastic conference in National Harbor, MD at the beautiful Gaylord Resort. I really enjoy that resort for the facilities for conference. AC2DC was an inventive and creative approach to conference this year. I especially enjoyed the keynotes. It was a bit of a different spin with interaction and not necessarily in rows. It was light but at the same time full of just stuff to take back to my firm.
I really want to bring a shout out to the staff of ILTA and the board of ILTA and the bazillion of volunteers as they tirelessly put on great sessions, good speakers, setup the conference in a superior way.
Couple of things I would recommend after conference is over. I would suggest the following tidbits.
1.
Get the keydrives out. I am sure that most of us have completely forgotten the majority of the sessions that were awesome takeaways. Just lookiing back through the session "decks" would refresh your takeaways and really grab the essence of the topics. We are into week 2 since the conference, last week was a bit of catch up. Now this week you should be close to getting in full swing so take advantage to get maximum value of the cost.
2.
See the recorded sessions that you missed.The sessions are what makes ILTA Conference stand out in my opinion and unless we can develop technology that we can clone ourselves, we miss a majority of good sessions. All the sessions are
recorded for you to listen back to. It may be a session that you couldn't make up your mind to see. You have a whole slew of sessions to really catch the ones that you missed.
3.
Vendors, vendors, vendors- I am in the middle of projects trying to iron out and our vendors are the best in the business that tie directly to our visions and goals. Sometimes they can be a creator or they can just assist you in casting your vision. Besides scoping out the vendors for that punch of a bingo card or getting into those juicy drawings, they may be the very connection you need for your firm. I would suggest, pulling out the pack of business cards and really start plugging them into your project plans. Really bring them to light your vision and goals for you firm and connect the dots.
4.
Get Involved with your PEERS. I can't go without saying that the three above are great but that conference is
1 week a year. ILTA is not just a conference, it is an organization of peers. There is a slew of information behind the keys of your laptop/computer/mobile devic. It is a peer driven organization to assist you. I would suggest putting in some volunteer time. I encourage the Connected Community as a first step and then getting involved with your City events for ILTA. It is a year long organization, not just a week. Get plugged in. If you are wanting to volunteer with ILTA, There are quite a bit of opportunities, peer groups, and steering committees that you can get involved. The site is
http://www.iltanet.org/specialpages/Volunteer-Job.aspx .
Well gotta go and get to work. Let's do things right, ILTA style!
Steve White