Well, just as I said throughout the Symposium.....anyone who left Tuesday night and missed Andy Goodman's Wednesday morning session on Storytelling as Best Practice should be crying in their coffee right now. Andy's session made us laugh, cry.......and laugh TIL we cried. I'm certain that every person who saw Andy speak is thinking a little differently today about how they do their work. Shout out to Rob Moore, from Lipman Hearne, for helping to get Andy on the program. And, if you want to hear more from Andy, take an online course from The Goodman Center.

Thanks to all who attended the AMA Syposium. It was great fun to see so many friends. For me, the picture below sums up what the AMA is all about. A bunch of smart people together sharing ideas and having a lot of fun while doing it.

Pictured (left to right):

* Ryan Morabito - Performa

* Dennis Whelan - The Whelan Group

* Me - SimpsonScarborough

* Dana Edwards - SimpsonScarborough

* Elizabeth Landry - Creative Communications

* Dan Yoxall - Our Lady of the Lake University

For all of us here at SimpsonScarborough, the best event on Tuesday was the Wii competition at our exhibit booth. Marc Camille, from Loyola College in Maryland, and Sadie Kohlhaas, from Iowa State, both tied at 30 in the 3-frame bowling contest. So, we had to have a showdown to see who would walk away with the free Wii. 

The two vicious opponents shook hands politely before the competition.

But, Marc had his game face on for the competition.

The match was tight for a while and the stikes and spares were many. Alas, Sadie was victorious (209 vs. 199) and took home the Wii. But, we are suckers, so we gave Marc one too and everyone went home happy. Thanks to all who played Wii at the AMA!

Hello everyone from the Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile where the AMA Symposium is fully underway!  We are officially up in registrations over last year with 652 attendees. We are only up a little, but considering the fact that registrations at conferences like this one all over the country are tanking faster than the Dow (thanks to the economy)......we are thrilled!

We had a great lead off keynote session this morning in Karen Breen Vogul, President of ClearGauge, on ROI. Karen didn't hold back...she gave us a good healthy dose of marketing metrics medicine. I loved her corporate tone. She said flat out, "You are a cost center until you do your math.....your president isn't going to give you more money for marketing until you can prove to him/her how that investment is going to make your university money in the long run."

Karlyn Morissette, Web Producer at Dartmouth, had a packed house for her session on taking email to the next level. She framed her presentation with Barack Obama's email campaign and talked about why it was so effective. I'm pretty sure Karlyn's session had the highest attendance of any track session so far.

Alright, time to head back and see what's going on. There are a bunch of roundtable sessions this afternoon and those are always lively. Back atcha later...... 

The regional paper north of my home, The Times-Call, today is running an editorial giving kudos to Secretary of Education Spellings for her "directive for states to provide apples-to-apples comparisons provides educators and national leaders -- who today can only guess exactly how many students across the nation drop out of school each year because of divergent counting practices -- with accurate statistics. " 

I encourage Secretary Spellings to go one step further.  Let's apply an apples-to-apples approach to tracking college dropout rates.  Since progress towards and completion of a degree are  calculated into many rankings, our nonuniform approach seems counter productive.  Add in an approach for all institutions to account for students who transfer out and graduate elsewhere, since we currently only give credit if a student transfers in and graduates. 

The Times-Call's final paragraph sums up my thoughts nicely on college dropouts: "As a nation, we need standardized, nationwide reporting to know who these students are and at what grade they are dropping out. Taking stock of the situation is absolutely necessary to improving it."

-- Teresa

I now adore Nancy Tribbensee, counsel at Arizona State University. 

She just asked the AIMHO SHO Institute participants how many understood what it meant if they or their staff were named as defendants in a lawsuit.  Seeing blank stares, she talked about ensuring everyone understand the process--invite someone from legal counsel to come in and talk to your staff.  What does this mean for you?  How does the institution cover or not cover you?  Do you need additional insurance?  Do you to get a lawyer?  Who pays for that lawyer?  Do you have qualified indemnity?  What resources do you have on campus?  What are your records retention requirements in case of an emergency?

Nancy said, "don't wait for your staff to ask these questions.  Get them this information in advance."

Food for thought, huh?

-- Teresa

PS--a new trend are requests for companion animals for emotional support (not a service animal) in the dorms--including companion snakes.  Do you have a process for these types of requests?

Hope this makes you smile! Happy Friday!

Gustavus Adolphus College recently inaugurated Jack R. Ohle as its 16th President. The inauguration festivities included a tree dedication, Oktoberfest, gala dinner, and a Nobel Conference Preview Dinner. See the video.

Gustavus is the only educational institution in the world officially authorized by the Nobel Foundation to hold its Nobel Conference, which brings together world-class research scientists and scholars to discuss leading topics in science with audiences of thousands.

We have the distinct honor of working with President Ohle, chief marketing officer, Gwen Freed, and the rest of the Gustavus community to develop Gustavus' identity. With a "product" like this, our work should be pretty easy.