SIPA Board Highlights

The SIPA Board met this morning and I am sure I would be pelted with more than one margarine patty if I wrote about everything discussed there. Not because it's a secret, but because I don't think anyone wants you to know just how boring we can be.

One thing that is not dull is the progress we are making in reforming our association to better support the changing needs of information professionals. SIPA embarked on a strategic planning project two years ago this month and we are starting to see some solid signs that we are on the right track. While new membership remains a challenge, that is partially intentional. The Board felt it needed to ensure that SIPA should first firm up its offerings for our non-traditional prospects before actually pushing a heavy recruitment program. Now that many elements of our plan are in place we're ready to go. Again, early signs look good. We heard one report that a very large publisher who used to pass on participation in a newsletter-only association sees the newly directed SIPA as one that is relevant and on target with its business goals.

The "Welcome to The New Rules" Conference which began this morning -- chaired by in-coming SIPA VP Wayne Cooper -- has 625 attendees, up from 571 last year. Today's workshops, one a SIPA "bootcamp" and the second a usability session, drew a combined 92 attendees. We have 32 exhibitors, 21 of which are return vendors and 11 new vendors. Great to see so many coming back and so many new faces. We have strong international attendance this year, with a particularly strong German contingent from GVNR, including that company's Helmut Graf, also a SIPA board member.

There was much discussion around building more of an online social network for SIPA. This blog is just one aspect of that. I also found out that the U.K. has had a blog since 1876 or so, and I look forward linking to that forum from this one (apologies to the word "forum").

But more importantly, the M&Ms have returned to the registration desk. Their absence may have impacted previous attendance, market research suggests.

I understand there is a new beverage with our name on it, The SIPA Pearl, but no reviews yet on its deliciousness compared to, say, the SIPA Snowcone, SIPA Pâté and the short-lived SIPA Pâté - Snowcone Combo.