Retreating in style – this year’s AIGA Leadership Retreat

I just got back from design nirvana – but you might know it as the National AIGA Leadership Retreat. This year, 500+ designers convened in South Beach for three days to talk about everything design-related in our world. Since this was both my first year as co-president of the Nashville chapter and my first national retreat, I had no idea what to expect. I assumed there’d be a slew of designers in stylish glasses talking about the new new mint green shade that’s all the rage and frolicking in paper samples. Nope.

Starting bright and early at 7:30am (obviously the work of a non-designer) and going until 10pm (now we’re talkin’), each day was filled with presentations, workshops, breakout sessions and group lunches, all intended to get people out of their shell and away from their own chapter to trade stories and ideas about cool programming, governance challenges and growing membership.

The highlight for me was co-moderating one of these breakout sessions on “communications and Emma.” Shel Perkins and Katie English from the National board sat in with about twenty other members as Jessica Gore, my co-moderator from AIGA San Francisco, and I spoke about how our chapters use Emma to reach out to our members and design community at-large. Other members jumped in as well to add their own experiences to the mix and brainstorm more creative ideas. Among the great suggestions were things like spotlighting an outstanding volunteer, gathering programming feedback using surveys and getting the word out about member discounts and benefits. We also covered hot topics like designing HTML email, optimizing for mobile devices, using CSS the right way and how to conquer your fear of Outlook 2007 (don’t cry). Everyone, including people who had no previous web or email experience, walked out of this session like champs ready to get their chapters talking.

2008 retreat, here I come.

[tags]AIGA, design, CSS, Outlook 2007, AIGA National Leadership Retreat, myemma.com[/tags]