Inside AASA: Chris Daw and Jennifer Rooney

INSIDE AASA

AASA’s flagship event, the National Conference on Education, brings together more than 2,000 school system leaders and industry representatives each winter. But the platter is much fuller for Chris Daw, the organization’s assistant executive director of conferences and divisional initiatives, and Jennifer Rooney, assistant director of meetings.

Daw and Rooney plan an additional 40-50 small-group meetings and niche conferences for AASA during the other 11 months. None is as multifaceted as the national conference, but each requires hours of behind-the-scenes planning, marketing and detailed on-site orchestration.

Daw has seen numerous changes to the industry during the 18 years he has led the association’s events team, but one facet remains constant. Well-planned, engaging events benefit superintendents and, in turn, help the students they serve.

This interview by assistant editor Kristin Hubing has been edited for length and clarity.

How do you see your event planning roles at AASA?
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Daw: We’re kind of a service arm for the rest of the association, so we work on any meeting that pops up, whether for 10 people or 2,000. We handle our summer advocacy conference in conjunction with our policy team and organize topic-specific meetings with sponsors that provide funding.

Rooney: We also plan all our governing-related conferences, like the governing board, executive committee and state leadership meetings. And we work with the leadership services and awards team on events for programs such as the personalized learning summit, the digital consortium and the AASA Collaborative.

What would an AASA conference attendee find most surprising about what goes into producing an event?
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Daw: They would definitely be surprised about the level of detail. For the national conference, anything you see in the convention center has to be ordered. Prior to the show there’s absolutely nothing there. No chairs, stages, screens or registration counters. The exhibit hall is a huge blank slate, a concrete room. So we work with various teams to make sure all of it comes together so when the attendee walks in, it looks like it has been there forever.

Do professional conferences still play a role with so many other ways to keep abreast of education issues and communicate with distant colleagues?
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Daw: Superintendents feel best when they are around one another. It allows them the chance to talk about issues that affect them in an environment where they feel comfortable. Plus, where else can you go and get 200 different content offerings in one place?

Rooney: We’ve also begun including a lot of AASA’s small groups at the national conference, like the digital consortium and the large-county consortium. The number of preconference events has tripled since I started at AASA five years ago. The subgroups meet before the conference and can benefit from education at the conference as well.

How do technology and social media affect event programming?
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Rooney: When I first started planning events in the hotel industry, I carried around a binder of information that probably weighed as much as me. Now I keep all event specs on my iPad and can easily search and edit them on the go.

Daw: Social media allows us to reach our audience onsite in real time for reminders, announcements and programming changes.

Rooney: We’ve also added a national conference app so people can build their personalized schedule right on their phone.

What’s in store for attendees at next month’s National Conference on Education?
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Rooney: We’re rolling out the School of the Future, which we pilot-tested last year. It’s an opportunity for superintendents to learn about specialized products and services directly from the companies that offer them in a more casual environment than a booth in the Marketplace.

Daw: This year’s theme is “personalized, accountable and visionary.” In response to attendee feedback, we’ve changed programmatic timing to allow for more free and networking time, while still providing a rich variety of professional development opportunities.

*Inside AASA is a new monthly feature about AASA services and products and the staff members behind them. Read full versions of the interviews here.*