Jim Roberts is director of plant operations at Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina, and APPA's vice president for educational programs. He can be reached at roberts@mailcenter.campbell.edu.
In the world of facilities management, dealing with change is a daily occurrence. In the past 20 years, our profession has moved from one of managers, training, and paper, to one of leaders, education, and technology. After a series of surveys, APPA's Education Committee realized that we must make some changes in our Annual Meeting and Educational Conference to meet the needs of our membership. When this July rolls around, we are asking you to be prepared for what we hope will be the change you wanted.
In 1999, APPA's Education Committee began looking for a new direction for the annual meeting. We were seeing less participation by the membership in preparing presentations for the educational sessions. The topics seemed to be limited, and the membership was asking for a different type of presentation.
Our process started with a survey of the membership to find out what was needed. We contracted with three companies to assist in this project: Kazoleas and Associates, Marketing General, and Survey Advantage. Survey Advantage asked 18 questions on touch screens at the 2000 meeting, which gave us specific information on the annual meeting in Fort Worth, Texas; we then expanded the touch-screen survey at the Montreal meeting in 2001. Dean Kazoleas and his associates completed a communications audit of APPA. It included interviews with more than 500 respondents and covered a needs assessment for programming. Marketing General handled a survey of our general membership. This involved questions about the location of our conference, topics of interest, type of presentations, the length of the conference, and the time of year the conference is held. All of these instruments told us that we are seen "as the place to get cutting-edge information, whether it be about specific problems, the future, or broader management issues." (Marketing General Survey) The surveys also told us we needed to make some changes, and that is what we have done.
In July 2001, the Education Committee met in Montreal to begin the groundwork for our new program in July 2002 in Phoenix, Arizona. The theme of the meeting is, appropriately, Rising to the Challenge.
We started with three main objectives: determine what types of sessions would be offered, specify what delivery methods we would use, and develop a new name. From these discussions we determined our focus would be threefold. First, address the changing needs of educational facilities professionals; second, provide a forum for exchange of information; and third, offer the tools for professional development and institutional excellence. In this challenge we intend to follow APPA's mission "to support educational excellence with quality leadership and professional management through education, research, and recognition."
APPA's annual meeting has been renamed the Educational Facilities Leadership Forum. Our intent will be to prepare a program similar to the Institute for Facilities Management and the Leadership Academy. We will provide the tools to sharpen your professional saw. The six topic areas for the Forum will be:
Our sessions will continue to be focused on achieving organizational excellence. We plan to use at least six presentation directions:
There will be planned time for networking, enhancing relations with business partners, entertainment, and recognition. We are designing the new Forum to prepare you to meet the future challenges of facilities management. You will learn how to complete assessments of your organization and what it takes to improve organizational effectiveness. We will provide opportunities to develop leadership skills. We will develop the "how-to" for safety, regulatory, and technological issues.
There is excitement about the opportunity we have to change, grow, and lead our profession. Our direction is on track and moving. The Education Committee wants you to continue to communicate with us, sharing your ideas and needs. The Educational Facilities Leadership Forum is going to be your best opportunity to sharpen the saw. I guarantee it.