Neely becomes board chair, plans to promote association careers; continued testing of experience-mapping tool draws happy faces from attendees

The ASAE Annual Meeting & Expo wrapped up Tuesday in Nashville, Tenn., with a spirited forward look at #asae15 presented by the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau, and a closing party featuring country music by pianist Phil Vassar at The Wildhorse Saloon.

After Motor City officials talked up the "comeback city" at the closing general session in the afternoon, they wowed the crowd with a gospel choir that brought association executives to their feet. The Selected of God choir also serenaded conventiongoers in the hallway as they exited the session. The group appeared in Chrysler's "Imported from Detroit" ad that ran during the Super Bowl in 2011.

Also at the closing session, American Beverage Association President Susan Neely took the baton as ASAE board chair and author and economist Noreena Hertz unsettled attendees with her portrait of a world of "continuous techno-disruption."

Neely told CEO Update in an interview that the future for ASAE was bright.

"We're moving into a golden age for ASAE in terms of firing on all cylinders. There's a lot of energy and excitement in the community," she said.

"One big thing the chair has is a great soapbox to get people to pay attention to things. My soapbox will be focused largely on talking about careers in associations … to talk about what a great profession this is and what a great career path it is."

APICS CEO Abe Eshkenazi was introduced as incoming chair of the ASAE Foundation.

Real-time feedback
ASAE said results were good as it continued to beta test a real-time attendee feedback system, known as an experience mapping tool. A select group of volunteers communicated with show organizers throughout the event to report positive or negative experiences with hotels, registrations, learning sessions and other aspects of the annual meeting.

At one point, some of the participants complained of having to sit on the trade show floor to eat lunch, said Allison Wachter, ASAE director of exhibitions and registration. Organizers were able to point attendees to other food locations in the hall that weren't so crowded.

"It's really inspiring to see the changes that we've been able to make for people that are truly changing their experience at our meeting," Wachter told CEO Update. "We've gotten easy things we can fix and have done and totally changed people's experience at our event."

Wachter said it is too soon to tell when system testing would be complete, but said the association plans to incorporate it into ASAE's mobile meeting app.

Frank Gainer, director of conferences and professional affairs at the American Occupational Therapy Association, was one of the volunteers beta testing the experience mapping tool. He also was one of the original testers at ASAE's Great Ideas conference in Orlando.

"It's a great device and it's something I'm looking forward to them selling because we would be one of the first to buy it," Gainer said. "I have not seen it on the market and it would certainly fill one of our needs.

A happy face
Gainer said his feedback on #asae14 was mostly positive.

"I generally have given them a happy emoticon and when I didn't, when I had one issue, I got an immediate response back and the problem was fixed," he said.

MAPI CEO Stephen Gold said he too would anxiously await the availability of the system. His group conducts 80 meetings per year.

"It's an excellent concept and it's something we're going to attempt to implement at MAPI," he said. "(But) it's one thing to get input from your members, it's another to actually solve their problems.

"You have to have the staff in place and the resources in place to make sure they're having the experience they're expecting," Gold said, adding MAPI would "positively" invest in the staff and resources necessary.