A Director’s Series of Pain

Developing conference programs for any group, sizes from 500 - 5000, accumulates tremendous amount of hours to complete. Its complexity in terms of content concept, resources, and leadership coordination is another. Pulling all the necessary components together, especially when resources rely upon from other inputs, essentially the most time-consuming part of the project. The “Program Director” (guess who that would be) is then responsible for collecting and coordinating those elements and develops a program out of what every input has accomplished – sort of the “bridge”, if you will. Establishing and implementing the project’s timeline is also a big key. Every input has to adhere to the timeline and be coordinative. The Chair of the Conference Program Planning Committee has the overall authority to oversee the whole process and makes certain project timelines are met, including the “Program Director”.

In conjunction with the Committee and the Program Director, the Administrative Director facilitates progress, communications, and resources that the volunteers needs. (Volunteers refer to the “input” or “individual” that establishes the scientific element of the program.) The Program Director and the Administrative Director coordinates with one another to progress development and report timeline updates to the Chair.

The project current status is in its early stage of development, particularly with the abstract submission system currently in place to gather submissions, which is the foundation of developing the program. Next major project point is the abstract review process. From that point on, a series of coordination points will follow during the next 10 months.

That is the nature of the project I’m currently working on. The program is intended for the Society for Social Work and Research, consisting of approximately 1,300 members, who will have their conference in New Orleans, LA this coming January 2009. The conference committee is anticipating an attendance of 1300 participants this year. My role as being the Program Director is to assist the Administrative Director and the Committee to coordinate all the efforts made by volunteers and put things together and present a program.

Isn’t a fun project? Yes, it is, indeed! Sooo…. I have two weekends to enjoy before the crunch. I will lose it, otherwise. But, I promise myself I’ll have an awesome weekend! I hope you will, too!

d-Jae