What was Johnny doing at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the National Association of Independent Schools conference (CASE/NAIS… damn that was a mouth full) last week? Well, when you have to be in a position to support database systems throughout an organization it helps to understand the reasons people want to keep track of the things that go in them… like MONEY!

Well the CASE/NAIS conference is more than being about the money, but my first reaction was that it was all about the money. First, the conference fee was $795.00!!! Now that’s not a group rate… that’s per person and we sent 8 people… that’s $6360 in conference fees alone! The conference was in New York City and that’s always expensive, but DAMN, the Big Apple or not that’s taking a big bite!

Given that amount of money you had to pay to attend you might expect a few things… like Internet access… right?!?! NOPE!!!! If you wanted to access the Internet you needed to use you mobile device, or get a little crafty and find some people that might have the access code and being willing to share…. shhhh…. that’s how I got on. It’s funny, while they did have some good food and drink ant the cocktail receptions I would have preferred that they spend some of that money on providing access… that and they didn’t have whiskey.

What I find even funnier then the lack of Internet access is that there was a Twitter hashtag (#casenais) they wanted people to use while at the conference to tweet with…. HOW!!!! YOU DIDN’T PROVIDE INTERNET ACCESS!!!! On top of that they sent out emails each day (which I filled out dutifully) to review that’s days sessions. How do you expect people to fill these out with no access?

Now… this is just Johnny, an attendee, but what I find even more amazing is that for the vendors they not only charged them for the space on the floor, they charged them for POWER & INTERNET access as well. Now, I don’t know if this is something that the hotel (New York Marriott Marquis) in responsible for, but so far this conference sound like it’s all about the money!

So, is this just going to be a long rant on how much money was spent and how little I got in return… NO. The conference was time well spent (still not sure about the cost)!

The conference provided me with the chance to raise my Development IQ. My understanding of development has developed (hahahaha) from providing hands-on support from a data perspective in the office, from reading a few books and the FundSVC listserv, and talking with a lot of people.

I attended the conference for three days and went to some really good sessions. I measure the success of each session by being able to take at least one thing out of it and with the exception of one session I was able to do that.

Some highlights were:

• Listening to Carlos Barroso, the Director of Marketing & Communications at the St. Andrews School talk about dealing with all the different types of media he has to manage at his school.
• Hearing about number and metrics from Steve Baker, Director of Alumni & Development Operations from St. Paul’s School.
• Understanding the importance of the “Loyals” from Liz Cahn from The Planned Giving Company.
• Joel Price (@jfwp) the Webmaster & Information Manager from the Friends’ Central School talk about the role of the web in alumni relations.

The “marketplace” where the vendors were is always the place I like to spend some time as well. At many of the conference I attend I find this area to be the most useful as it give me a chance to connect with those vendors that I work with and make some new connections.

A few of the notables in this area were edSocialMedia which provide a social media blog and services for schools and the being able to talk to the different web site providers such as FinalSite, WhippleHill and SilverPoint as they all offer something unique and I am in a position where I need to know what they are all doing.

So… all in all after I got over the price of the conference and the fact that they didn’t provide Internet access, I have to say that the conference was three days well spent. I was tired, I didn’t want to sit in a chair for a minute longer, but I did learn a lot from the conference and would go again… but net time… PLEASE… GIVE ME INTERNET ACCESS!!!!

[CASE/NAIS logo from conference web site/Facebook page.]