American Society Of Association Executives
Challenge
Live meetings remain among the most potent ways for ASAE to connect and engage its members. Each year, several thousand associations and industry partners look to the ASAE Annual Meeting and Expo to show them the way to inspire their own members. ASAE shares many of its members’ meeting challenges: Conference participation is hampered by budget constraints, relentless demands on executive time, and the ease of online connection. So, the annual meeting is a plum opportunity for ASAE to provide its members not just with valuable content, but with an example of how to deliver it. After 12 years of producing ASAE’s general sessions, our ongoing goal is to find ways to make the annual meeting more personal. Each year, we work with ASAE’s team to reinvigorate the conference experience to draw, entertain, connect and inspire its members.
Solution
The ASAE Annual Meeting is only as effective as it is relevant to each person in attendance. Over the years, we’ve looked at the general sessions as opportunities to celebrate the association community by recognizing its power. Associations truly shape our world in many, many ways. Through staging, set design, video, music, and live entertainment, we tell this story in fresh ways each year.
Results
We take the success of a decade-long partnership very much to heart. Each year we ask ourselves, What more can we do? And each year we’ve deepened the experience. The close alliance between the meeting brand and the story we tell throughout the general sessions has resulted in a more passionate response among attendees. The success is anecdotal--more felt than measurable. But the words of praise ASAE hears from its members are meaningful. And the true achievement lies in associations asking ASAE, “how can we do that?”
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