Phoenix in Review: Notes from ICA Membership Director Sam Luna
Final numbers are in on the Phoenix conference. This year, 2166 people registered for the conference, 557 attending for the first time. Regionally, 35 attendees came from Africa & Oceania, 17 from the Americas (not including US or Canada) and 48 from Canada. There were 89 registrants from East Asia and 79 from West Asia. Europe and the US were the two largest groups with 408 and 1483 people respectively at the conference. A chart illustrating totals by country follows this article. As you know, ICA offers a triple-tier dues structure to adjust for varying economic indexes around the world. There were 2063 conference attendees from Tier A, 38 from Tier B and 46 from Tier C.*
As expected, regular members were the largest group represented with 1111 members. Student members were not far behind with 949 members. Other groups included 134 nonmembers, 68 Life members, 50 Sustaining members and 26 Institutional members (faculty members associated with an Institutional membership). Eleven Institution (university communication departments) and two Association representatives also registered.
This year two options besides the printed conference program were available. Still, 1192 people requested the printed program, making it the most popular option. The other two options were roughly half that at 510 requests for the flash drive and 427 opting to use only the mobile app—the latest offering in our continued effort to reduce our carbon footprint. Both options significantly reduced the number of printed programs required for the conference with 44% of our attending members opting for either the flash drive or the mobile app.
The mobile app is ICA’s latest move towards modernization and becoming a “greener” organization. Read about the various app features in Emily Karsnak’s newsletter article in this issue. Ms. Karsnak, Conference and Membership Coordinator, and Communication Director John Paul (JP) Gutierrez were both instrumental in the app’s development.
According to the buzz overheard at the conference, many thought this conference was one of the most innovative ICA has had with several new formats and presentation options. The ability to Tweet messages specifically addressing conference issues (and sometimes non-conference issues) was very popular. Communication Director Gutierrez created hashtags dedicated to each section. A monitor in the exhibit hall published tweets as they came in.
You may have noticed a question on the conference registration form asking how you traveled to Phoenix. The Task Force on the Greening of ICA is using this data along with other information in an attempt to calculate ICA’s ecological impact in terms of energy and resources expended. The calculation will help us determine whether our efforts are making a significant impact and will provide a guideline from which to determine future efforts. ICA plans to develop a website section devoted to conservation issues and information like these calculation results. Suggestions on what content you would like to see in that web section are welcome. Contact me at sluna@icahdq.org to share your thoughts.
We would like to know your thoughts about the conference! The conference survey is open and we ask those who attended to offer opinions, suggestions, and critiques of the conference. The survey site will be available until 23:00 EDT Friday, 20 July 2012. Here’s the link: http://www.icahdq.org/cgi-shl/TWServer.exe?Run:CONFSURV12.
As a Post-Conference Reminder: Conference papers remain online until 15 July. The only way to obtain a paper after that is through the author. The papers are available to all registrants of the main conference. Contact conference@icahdq.org for access code. You can access papers here: http://convention2.allacademic.com/one/ica/ica12/index.php?cmd=ica12_access
Coming Up….
Upcoming events include the start of the membership renewal period for all members, ICA elections, and ICA’s call for papers. The first membership renewal reminders go out 1 August to provide a 60-day advance notice to members. ICA’s membership term is 1 October 2012 through 30 September 2013.
ICA elections are just around the corner. Now is the time to nominate individuals for sectional leadership positions and future board positions. We will post letters of nomination, support, and nominee CVs on the ICA website before and during the elections on the voting ballot. Contact your respective section’s leadership for sectional nomination requirements. We will also post organization-wide submission guidelines as elections approach. The polls open 1 September.
Finally, the ICA call for papers will go out in early August. The paper submission site will open the following month and accept paper and panel submissions. We remind association members of their dedicated session slot in the program. Don’t forget to take advantage of this benefit and submit a panel proposal.
* Note: This data was compiled from information provided by each registrant. Some totals may not agree with each other.