Last week I attended the MER 2022 conference, held for the first time outside of Chicago in Indianapolis, IN. This was the first in-person MER conference since 2019; it was one of the first events in our industry impacted by the broad COVID shutdowns. I was there to attend and network; I also had a speaking session on professional development for information professionals.
The hotel venue was excellent, as is typical of the MER, and I have to give a special shout out to the food which was pretty amazing for conference food.
As with AIIM22, I got the chance to catch up with some of my favorite colleagues including no fewer than five of my Slackers! (I'll do a post about this august body at some point.) In-person attendance was, however, somewhat sparse - I'd guess 150 or so including speakers & vendors. There were at least another 100 attending via hybrid, and it may be significantly more than that - I was told that there were 100+ virtual attendees for my session. Attendance at the in-person sessions was around 20-30 per session, and one of the rooms was set for around 200, so people really rattled around in there. I know, social distancing, but still.
There were only 12 vendors listed on the website; only 7 actually set up booths and had personnel manning them. The ICRM had what I assume was a free booth as well. Not sure if the low overall number and even lower turnout was due to COVID restrictions, the event being in Indianapolis this year, or something else, but it was definitely unusual to see so few vendors in attendance.
The app was good for seeing the schedule, but as with AIIM22, there was no real way to interact with other attendees other than 1-on-1 email-style messaging. I don't understand why nobody seems to get the value a) of having a live feed and b) keeping that live feed going year round. I'll go out on a limb here and say that there's probably a non-trivial number of conference ticket sales being left on the table because attendees can't stay in touch between conferences and can't show off/generate fear of missing out (FOMO) with their colleagues.
At the opening keynote, Seth Williams announced that MER has joined the training game. MER Immerse Online will feature online self-paced training courses, at least initially. At launch it includes Rob Bogue's very good courses on change management and managing information with SharePoint and M365; later this year, it will also include courses on eDiscovery, by Ann Snyder; Mind the Gap: Demystifying AI Systems and Their Implications for Information Governance, by Julie Brickell and Bruce Hedin; and Fundamentals of Information Management, by...me! I'm hoping to have my course done and ready to go by the end of the year, and we may start posting bits as they are ready rather than waiting for it all to be done.
I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with my colleagues old and new during conference. So much so in fact, that I started feeling a little run-down on Saturday as I prepared to head home. At the time, I chalked it up to too much time at the cigar bar, but a colleague informed me in a group text this morning that she'd tested positive for COVID today. Another colleague in that group text also tested positive, so I decided that I would take a rapid test. Despite having had OG COVID in December 2020, and having gotten 3 Pfizer shots, I, too, tested positive this morning. We since found out that another of the Slacker group did as well; I'm not yet ready to call it a superspreader event, but it goes to show that COVID is still out there.
MER hasn't yet announced where MER 2023 will be held. I've strongly recommended to them that they consider Denver, for all the reasons I outlined in my many AIIM22 posts. Regardless of where it is, though, I am absolutely looking forward to next year's conference!
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