Live from the MSAE Annual Meeting & Technology EXPO

I have to be honest - when I woke up this morning and thought of making the trek to and from downtown St. Paul during rush hour for the MSAE Annual Meeting, I nearly caved in and went to the office instead.

I'm glad I stuck with the original plan.

The session started out with Fred McGrath leading us in meditation. In with the cool blue air, out with the bad red air. Now, I'm a native Minnesotan and the whole thing seemed very goofy to me, but truth be told I did feel better after participating, and given the absolute stillness of the room, others thought it was a pretty good thing as well.

After running out to take a quick conference call, I caught the "State of the Industry" panel. Moderated by Kent Eklund, this panel looked at ways to adapt to the changing times and provided some concrete examples of taking stock of the situation you are in and working to better your position.

After taking a stroll through the EXPO, I sat in on Eric Piela's presentation on Best Practices for E-Mail Marketing. With an engaging presentation style and a rapid delivery of information, I learned that there are people who know about sending e-mail, and then there are people who specialize in it. It was very informative and entertaining.

We've just finished lunch, and after one more spin through the EXPO I'm going to grab a chair and listen to Warren Macdonald talk about the Challenge of Change.

That's my report from the MSAE Annual Meeting. If I can get my hands on any of the collateral materials presented, I'll work to get them posted. There are a handful of people who are Tweeting this program as well...and if you want to see the comments, just search #MSAE in whatever Twitter program you use...and you can join the conversation.