Women in CI

Comment

Comment by Arik Johnson on May 1, 2009 at 10:49pm

Hi ladies,

Great discussion going on here and leave it to you to crack the code on how to take this discussion forward on how to improve the meeting for 2010! ;-) You're brilliant!

The 1.5 day official conference program is a real issue for me as everyone I think - the old-timey schedule used to be a full or half day of workshops on day 1, with conference reception that evening, then a full two days of conference, followed by another full or half day or workshops.

I believe the shift to workshop-workshop-conference-conference from workshop-conference-conference-workshop tempo in San Diego was almost inadvertently repeated in Chicago and is a really abrupt way shifting of gears that can certainly be improved by moving back to that old schedule. It's simple to fix - but adds SO MUCH to the week... it would mean your Thursday night could actually be spent hanging out with friends too rather than planning how you were going to get through the final day and return home all on the same 24 hours. Likewise, a Wednesday night social event for all attendees (which I missed as well this year) would be a welcome restoration that really adds to the collegial tone of the week as well.

- Arik

Comment by Eliana Benjumeda on May 1, 2009 at 8:39pm

I agree with Claudia in the pluses and minuses of SCIP this year. By the way, I also enjoyed the three sessions mentioned. I would add the one addressed by Ken Sawka, that should have been done by Bill Fiora, and the one presented by Hans Hedin, which was quite different and interesting taking about how CI should learn from Nature.

From my point of view, squeezing the whole program in one day and a half was not the best choice. After travelling 11 hours crossing the ocean, and trying to find at the hotel reception where the SCIP meeting was taking place, which it was not easy, I arrived at the registration desk a while after 6 pm just to realize that it was too late to register that day. Without registering I was not allowed to enter the exhibition hall where the networking reception was taking place. I must thank Martha Gleason, our SCIP president, and Robin from the SCIP staff their invaluable help at that point, but for future editions it should be expected that the registration would stay open longer enough for people coming from abroad. I know that Milena and Carla had the same problem.

I also think that by having 5 simultaneous sessions is easy to miss something interesting. It is difficult to make a choice. And last thing, please give us more time to visit the exhibition hall and to talk with people. The only way to do it is by not attending the sessions, which is just a pitty.

Comment by Claudia Clayton on May 1, 2009 at 6:21pm

And missed those who weren't there -- I hope to see you in 2010.

Comment by Claudia Clayton on May 1, 2009 at 6:20pm

Yes, indeed, there were pluses and minuses at SCIP this year.

Due to the intimate nature of the event, I got to spend more time with people I only see once a year. You know who you are.

There were, as usual, many great speakers and topics. I particularly enjoyed the Active Dialog on CI in 2020 led by Craig Fleisher and Arik Johnson, Eric Garland's session and one delivered by Suzy Badaracco of Culinary Tides (a company that identifies trends in the food industry). If I didn't mention your session, that's probably because I couldn't get to it due to the shorter timeframe and so many great choices on Thursday afternoon.

The negatives were driven by the poor economy and corporate cuts of CI personnel and meetings or travel expense. It was a smaller conference, stuffed into a day and a half, with a very long day on Thursday. Many attendees agreed that the content was wonderful, but the schedule on Thursday was brutal in terms of so many good choices in the afternoon in particular, and the late sessions. There were cries of exhaustion Thursday at about 6 pm.

The biggest loss in my opinion was the lack of a networking event on Thursday evening. I think most of us would rather have a cash bar or some other low cost option, as the networking opportunities are so important to most of us.

The industry vendors deserve kudos for being supportive of SCIP in hard times and continuing to sponsor booths, etc.

Overall, I believe that SCIP made the best of a diificult situation. We will just look forward to finding ways to get that networking back in the conference next year -- I'll be happy to work on some ideas!

Enjoyed seeing all of you and look forward to next year.

Comment by Carla Vavassori on April 30, 2009 at 4:08am

Hi everybody,

I was quite enthusiastic about SCIP 09 Chicago. It was my first time both to a SCIP International Conference in US and to Chicago and I really enjoyed it.
I had the opportunitity to meet people I only "met" by e-mail before and it was great for me.
Moreover, Milena, my boss and friend, received the Fellow Award, so I was very happy for her!
Ellen and Eliana are right: unfortunatly not so much time for networking!

And, Ellen, thanks for the wonderful dinner at the Armenian restaurant!

Comment by Ellen Naylor on April 29, 2009 at 10:33am

Yesterday I omitted to mention that Donna Hawyliw, a great CI professional and SCIP member won the Catalyst Award at SCIP. Donna was the leader of SCIP08 in San Diego and the first non-board member to direct a great SCIP Conference. She broke in a lot of new territory in planning! Congratulations Donna!

Comment by Ellen Naylor on April 28, 2009 at 9:45am

I'll be blogging about what I attended at SCIP09. Here is my first blog from the dialog led by Ken Sawka for Bill Fiora who couldn't come since he suffered a collar bone injury from a bike accident. This talk was on being in a rut in CI which is also on our Ning here.

Also the new book on CTI is out by CI Foundation, which was published just in time for the conference. I got a copy and will be blogging on that too. I enjoyed our keynote, Treacy and will write up some notes there too. He was provocative and suggested a more entrepreneurial approach to CI.

Like Eliana, I felt frustrated at not having more time to network! I would like to have had more time to network in the exhibit hall after the first day...a long day which ended at 6 p.m. so we could be through by 2 p.m. on Friday. The cocktail party was just 1/2 hour and was outside the exhibits area which was closed. I liked all the networking that SCIP did plan...I just can't get enough!

I loved the hotel which was right by the river and not far from Lake Michigan. Milena, Carla and I took the Chicago architechtural tour on Friday after SCIP, highly recommended!

I will be interested in other women's comments who attended.

Comment by Heather Disher on April 27, 2009 at 6:53pm

Congratulations to Milena on her fellowship. Ellen I'm looking forward to hearing more about your thoughts and views on the SCIP conference this year. Like many of us this years wasn't a good one for me to able to attend so I'm looking forward to hearing all the latest and the WLC sounded like a success. Hopefully we will all be able to meet up for next years event.

Comment by Eliana Benjumeda on April 27, 2009 at 5:19pm

Hi Ellen,

Nice to see you in Chicago. I hope to meet the rest of you in future conferences. I enjoyed the event but I always feel very stressed for not being able to talk to everybody I want, see all the exhibitors and go to all the sessions. There were so many at the same time!

Comment by Ellen Naylor on April 27, 2009 at 1:23pm

Oops I added my comment too soon! I got to meet with Eliana Benjumede several times at SCIP. We seemed to like the same sessions too!

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