Calling Out to Your Colleagues for AAIE San Francisco

A few days have elapsed since I last sent you an update about conference registration. As of this moment, we have 370 registrations, knowing there are still more people who have hotel rooms yet still must register for the CONVERSATION. Our goal of 400+ may be in reach.

CLICK HERE for the spreadsheet– organized by country– of AAIE participants from last year (NYC) who at this time have not registered for San Francisco. All vendor names have been deleted, and we are following up on that list.

Tom Shearer, holding down the Office of Overseas School all by his lonesome due to the Federal Government shut-down sent a full-throated supportive message to all A/OS sponsored schools promoting our AAIE gathering. A great example of a critical partnership that truly works. CLICK HERE to read what he wrote.

Please do use the list of non-registered people provided above and I hope you will make as many calls as possible. We have added a third hotel to our list where rooms are available at nearly the original conference rate. At least to date, we've solved every hotel issue that has come our way. Housing need not be an issue.

Tom Shearer and I actually rehearsed ways to share ideas about our San Francisco AAIE gathering, and he captured it beautifully in his letter to A/OS schools. Have a look by clicking on his letter above. And let me know what else we can do toward capturing our AAIE community's imagination. We are working the ideas.

AAIE– Building It to Last

No question that it is a quality experience we seek for every San Francisco participant.

We just completed writing a set of presenter guidelines for the HEADTalks and the "Un-Keynote" addresses. If we aspire to a fresh approach, then we do wish to instill an unmistakable sense of excellence in what our home-grown international school leaders and other through leaders are sharing– and to the extent they are connecting to the nine leadership challenges. Just wanted you to review both quality control documents. The issue here is that it is not fair to ask people to get up in front of our community without really knowing her/his audience. We've tried to close this gap. Quality predicts people will come back for more. CLICK HERE for the HEADTalk Primer. CLICK HERE for the "Un-Keynote Address" Primer.

A Tribute to Gil

A close read of AAIE history or to ask anyone associated with AAIE for number of years, there will be no disagreement that Dr. Gilbert Clark Brown who passed away on January 1, 2019 contributed more than probably any other member in the past 50 years of AAIE activities. CLICK HERE for the tribute that will appear in our conference program and within InterED.

Conference Planning-at-a-Glance

Completing the conference program content for printing-tomorrow
Ready to announce award winners to AAIE community (end of week)
Loading the palette for shipment of materials to San Francisco- including all digital projectors to save AV/IT hotel cost
Final stages of negotiating food and beverage and AV costing (initial costing could choke a horse)– getting there
Close cost surveillance for conference expenses
Conference programming completed
Final stages of confirming vendor participation
Continuing sponsor outreach- (Budget 75K, actual today 89.5K)
Conference swag (no bags-eco sensitive) purchased, ready to ship
Logo/branding signage completed, ready to ship
Quality control guidance for presenters sent
Ongoing WEBSITE redesign- hope to light-up prior to conference
Will continue to market the CONVERSATION Feb 3-6, 2019

And Finally

Best to end the way this missive began. Please use the spreadsheet (click above), organized by country, to reach out to your colleagues. Everyone should be back in the saddle after holiday break, and let's get people on planes and into hotels and in the Hyatt Regency ballroom seats. Thank so much for your help.