For the first time since 2019, the PRSA Conference was held in person, and I was there.
The venue, the Gaylord Texan resort in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex was super-deluxe, and in the worst ways possible. First it was hella expensive to stay and eat, and second it was overwhelmed with families kicking off the Christmas at the Gaylord season (Sign: So. Much. Christmas.)
Sigh.
I’m no grouchy Grinch, mind, I just want a reasonable wait time for the elevator, and some ability to go to a reasonably priced place for breakfast that doesn’t require a 3-days-ahead-reservation.
#Fail
I got there Friday prior, with Leadership Assembly on my calendar for Saturday morning. It’s four times, I think, that I’ve carried that responsibility — three for the Employee Communications professional interest section and this one for PRSA NW Ohio. In Assembly, most of what we do is listen. It’s like a bad college class; well-intentioned speakers saying things that are rather important to the management of our Society, but the constant suspicion that there surely would be a better way to handle that information.
I just wrapped up my 25-week course on Effective Teaching through ACUE (The Association of College and University Educators), and a key insight is that I have over-lectured and under-participated my classes. I switched my script about halfway through the semester and have been doing a lot more discussion-based work to great effect. Assembly finally got around to some discussion-based work with barely an hour left in our day, and we were supposed to discuss six initiatives in about 35 minutes. Aieee!
We probably should have a lot less presenting in Assembly and a lot more applied discussion and insightful sharing!
One of the Big Questions was about ICON itself – whether to change how we do it (it’s keynoted general sessions and breakouts, just like every other conference) and where we hold it (we have one more year with Marriott and the Gaylord folks). On the latter, do we move to a convention center model, with multiple hotels available? Drop or reduce keynotes? Do something about the price, which is among the most expensive conferences in our industry?
Speaking as a public servant and a teaching professor it is WAY too spendy and exceeds budget. I go because I get some help from several institutions to pay my way! Our Society wants to have more diversity, equity and inclusion, but the economics for ICON are surely exclusionary on many levels. A heap of my colleagues come only for the Educator’s Academy event, and nothing else.
What do you think?
In my next posts I’ll cover more of the sessions I saw and the people I met.
Thanks for your comment, Katie!
Couldn’t agree more about the participation vs lecture. The trouble is that we’re all so used to be lectured at in hotel ball rooms, its hard to switch up the model to actually get people to ask questions and participate.
Just before ICON, I had the opportunity to go to a corporate gathering where the format was totally Q&A — a set of 6-7 questions that would make sure my hosts got their messages across and the rest was open to the room and it was terrific. Everyone I talked to afterwards raved about the session.
Totally agree about the Gaylord. (I didn’t stay there because it was too pricey and my friend Deanna Centurion kindly offered me her guest room.) But the cost of a beverage was outrageous and n Saturday there was essentially nothing to drink or eat all afternoon.