After more than 2 years of COVID-related absence, the AIIM22 conference returned to Denver, CO last week. I had the pleasure and privilege to attend, and to participate in a couple of educational sessions. The weather cooperated, and everyone in attendance seemed genuinely happy and excited to be there. Attendance felt a little light - the sessions I attended had less than 30 people in attendance, and the expo floor was never particularly crowded.
As with any conference, I got the chance to catch up with a lot of my favorite people - and met a number of new favorite people! I'm particularly happy to have had the chance to meet two of the people I work with on my current client engagement. I've been working with them just over six months but this was the first chance we had to meet in person.
There were very few people wearing masks. Not zero, but very few. (I did not wear a mask.)
I thought I'd group my impressions into the good, the not so good, and the missing. So, with no further ado....
The Good
The sessions. While many of them were led by solution providers, most of those speakers were also subject matter experts in their own rights. I heard fantastic feedback about many of the sessions.
Denver! I'm obviously very biased here, but the weather generally held up (notwithstanding the 30+ mph winds on Friday) and it seemed like everyone had a good time in my adopted city. I hope AIIM will give very serious consideration to adding Denver to the regular conference location rotation.
The CIP reception. Glad to see CIPs get some recognition from AIIM - though see below.
Sponsor participation. While the expo floor was not excessively filled with booths, AIIM noted that the conference had sold all the available spots. In talking to the sponsors, many of them felt that, while there were fewer in attendance, those that were there were much higher quality leads compared to larger but maybe less focused audiences at other events.
The awards. Congratulations again to Julie Harvey, Jed Cawthorne, and Ian Story for being inducted into the AIIM Company of Fellows. Aside - if you know of someone you believe is deserving of this honor, please reach out to me at jesse.wilkins@athroconsulting.com. Happy to share the requirements for eligibility, the nomination process, etc. and help with things like letters of support for deserving candidates.
Catching up with everyone in person after a long 2+ years!
The Not So Good
Attendance. I don't know what the final numbers will be from AIIM, but as of the close of the conference Friday, the Event Hub had around 480 attendees listed. I went through the entire list, and nearly half of those were speakers, sponsor staff, AIIM staff, AIIM Board members, or Fellows (and I deduped for those who fit multiple categories).
CIP recognition. There was a listing of CIPs printed on the show floor, and CIP speakers were identified, but CIP attendees were not. While there was a CIP reception as noted above, there were no new CIP T-shirts; rather, AIIM made available the leftover T-shirts from previous years. There was no alignment of sessions to the CIP domains. All of this just a couple of years after AIIM talked about wanting to position the conference as "THE event for CIPs to attend" and the "CIP user event". Related....
The list of CIPs. This list was printed on two large AIIM blue boards, all but hidden in the back of the expo hall. The boards included almost 800 names; I'm pretty sure I recognized dozens of names that had lapsed before I left AIIM. That said, perhaps they all did renew in the last 8 months after having not renewed for over a year in some cases.... I don't have access to any sources that that list could be compared to, and AIIM hasn't listed CIPs on their website or in the community for years.
The mix of sessions. I took a shot at mapping non-keynote, non-preconference, non-networking, content sessions to the CIP outline and I ended up at the following. Note that a few sessions covered multiple domains, but I chose to pick the one I thought most relevant. By far the greatest number of sessions focused on automating governance and compliance: policies, records management, etc. There were very few sessions on process automation or ML/AI.
- Creating & Capturing Information: 14
- Extracting Intelligence from Information: 5
- Digitalizing Information-Intensive Processes: 7
- Automating Governance and Compliance: 31
- Implementing an Information Management Solution: 15
The format of the "I'm Stumped" sessions. The descriptions made it sound like the main presenter was the one stumped and looking to crowdsource a solution. For example, "My organization uses both Microsoft and Box for file storage. Knowing we have to keep both options, what are some best practices for when, why, and how to use SharePoint, OneDrive, or Box? Concrete examples for standards and how-to guides would be a plus." Apparently the intent was for people with similar issues to bring THEIR challenges and crowdsource solutions, guided by the session lead.
The format of the "Ask Me Anything" sessions. Rather than having a microphone and allowing people to ask questions in person, attendees had to check into the app, then post their question to the app, then the moderator would read the question and the panelists would respond. Follow up questions went back into the queue in the app. As one attendee noted, "Good job of taking an in-person conference session and Zoomifying it."
The app. I think this was the same app used for AIIM20, and without a way for attendees to connect, chat, post pictures and reactions, etc., it's just about pointless. Yes, you can schedule 1-1 appointments with other attendees; not even close to the same. The event hub didn't provide the missing functionality either.
Vendor-led sessions. Several of them were pretty blatant pitches. I know this is a long-standing issue with vendors who just don't get it, but I'd love to see AIIM get serious about blacklisting those speakers who insist on selling from the podium. If they don't, I guess that's something for attendees to consider as well.
The Missing
The future of CIP. I'd noted in my AIIM22 preview that I'd hoped that AIIM would share updates on the future of the CIP program and/or the current status of the CEO search. There was no update whatsoever on the future of CIP. Despite all the noises about "everything being on the table, if a CIP needs to renew this month, it appears it's the same "take the exam again" process that remains on the website. I say seems because I'm 28 days out from my renewal date and have yet to hear officially from AIIM as to the process.
The future of AIIM. Peggy repeatedly made reference to her desire to "leave the party while she was still having fun", but no information was shared about where that process is. I was part of a discussion where it was disclosed that CEO interviews actively took place during the conference, but there was no official information shared about what's going on, the state of the process, etc.
Looking Ahead
At the closing keynote AIIM announced that the AIIM23 conference will be held in New Orleans, LA. I don't see it anywhere on the website yet, but I believe it will be towards the end of April again. I'm already excited!
1 comment:
Thanks for the recap Jesse, and for your support in joining the Company of Fellows.
As to numbers and attendance - COVID. Our governments maybe telling us its done, but perhaps if you are smart enough to work in information management, you can look at your own figures, and decided that that your personal risk assessment does including flying to a conference. We also heard from at least one friend and colleague that he was there on his own dime as his employer was not back to sending people to in person events yet.
By the way I think AIIM, and Georgina did a good job of explicitly stating the health and safety requirements for COVID protection etc, and I think that is why there was a maximum number of seats in some of the sessions?
Thanks again!
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