Convention preview: Why can’t they all be like this?

Monday, Feb. 21 through Wednesday, Feb. 23 we're hosting some 750 of our closest friends at our first annual convention in Las Vegas. We're really looking forward to it, for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, it's going to be great to get together with so many of our customers. We're having a "What Do You Want in 2005?" audience participation panel where attendees can ask questions of and make comments to our senior executives. It's going to be great to get feedback and suggestions in that setting, as well as less formally as we mix and mingle.

Beyond that, though, we're looking forward to doing an appraisal convention the way we've always thought it should be done. We've seen (as have a lot of you) appraisal conferences go from thousands strong in attendance to much (much!) smaller events, centered on Continuing Education – which makes you want to "put up with" the classes and sessions so you can get that certificate. What's worse, the sessions that aren't CE-centered are just commercials for some new product or service, in the guise of an informative presentation. In other words, many conference organizers center their sessions around whether they can get them approved in the biggest states and whether they can sell you something – which is often a far cry from what you'll find most useful and interesting.

We're going about it differently. We're focusing on technology, and about concrete, achievable ways you can be more productive and efficient. Real-world solutions to your daily problems beat three credits for a divisible interests lecture any day.

In addition to intensive training, tips and hands-on sessions with some of our programmers, we've put together panels on the most important topics in the profession today.

We'll have a panel discussion in which we'll discuss copyrighting your report and protecting its intellectual content. One of our panelists is the chief counsel for the U.S. Copyright Office in Washington, DC. Another is our own staff chief counsel, an intellectual property attorney experienced in copyrighting appraisals. Yes, we put our money where our mouth is on this one.

The concepts we'll discuss with this panel, and the copyrighting tools we'redeveloping, will put a stop to the process of your intellectual property being taken without fair compensation to you.

But that's not the only panel. We're infamous – or nefarious, depending on who you ask – for our outspoken opinions on Automated Valuation Models (AVMs). But we're not putting on an "anti-AVM" panel. Proselytizing isn't going to do anyone any good, and our customers will be investing valuable time, money and effort into their attendance. You deserve more than the one-sided AVM presentation you normally get at "valuation" conferences. So we're going to have a give and take where AVM experts and developers sit side by side with us and everyone gets to make their case and take questions.

Last but not least, we'll have a roundtable discussion on what the next 10 years holds for the appraisal profession. Our own Dave Biggers will talk about marketing and technology. Conrad North, Vice President of Appraisal Retail, QA, and Special Projects with Aurora Loan Services will talk about the future from a client perspective. And Frank Gregoire, Vice Chairman and immediate past Chairman of the Florida Real Estate Appraisal Board (FREAB) will talk about a range of issues including AQB changes, trainees, appraisal regulation and governance, and possibly the Daytona 500.

The full roster of topics and events is available here. As you'll see, there are lots of opportunities to bend Dave Biggers' ear – at our complimentary breakfast, in sessions, at the open bar Monday night, and of course at our "dinner and dancing" event Tuesday night. In his keynote address there, Dave will talk about the challenges and opportunities facing us as a company and profession in the coming year – and then diners can corner him to tell him what they think.

Maybe the most obvious reason we're looking forward to it is that it's going to be a lot of fun. It's Vegas, and we're a la mode, with all the bacchanal possibilities that entails. But we're also going to have fun spending a couple days with some of our customers, hearing what they have to say, entertaining them at a night of dinner and dancing, and exchanging ideas.

For those of you who miss this one, we're having a video production firm record it, and we'll be putting highlights on the web after the conference. It's also not our last annual convention! Even before 2005 is out we're also having a mid-year convention late this summer in Orlando, the site of our awesome new regional sales and training center. So stay tuned, then bring the family with you and have some fun.