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I realize this post is a bit late (sorry Mr. Marketing Coordinator Kyle!) but I wanted to take a few moments and let you know about our recent visit to the ECNO conference at the end of May. Our CEO Barney Lawn and I attended and I think he won’t mind me saying that it was very worthwhile.
ECNO is the Educational Computing Network of Ontario and they are a fine group of people – even if I do say so myself. A non-profit co-operative that can boast 66 of 72 school boards in Ontario as their members. Very impressive!
We are lucky enough to be considered Endorsed Vendors for our product PD Place which basically guarantees any member board “best pricing” for our software solution – just one of the many benefits of membership they see.
We have been going to this conference for about 10 years now and are constantly amazed at how smooth it runs and how much value – we as vendors – get from it.
It starts on a Sunday which is Golf Day and at this point I would like to extend my heartfelt apologies to all of my previous golfing partners for my deplorable lack of skills with a golf club in my hand. Your kind words and extreme patience are much appreciated 
It is always fun (for me anyway).
This conference is more about networking, meeting with current clients, talking with prospective clients and learning more about the real issues that these educators and administrative staff face on a day to day basis. By listening to them, attending sessions and chatting with them in an informal setting – it helps us foster relationships and more importantly – learn how we can improve our services. There are no vendor booths at this conference which really helps us to have that informal conversation on the golf course, at dinner, in between sessions or in some cases at 3am in between songs at the jam session.
With our clients and prospective partners being spread out over Ontario this is a great opportunity to be in one place with everyone at one time and is an extremely valuable and important event to us. We will even be presenting a session in 2012 so even more value will be realized.
Whenever you tell one of the conference committee that it has been another great conference they all say the same thing – “We’ve been doing it so long now it runs itself”. Well I have no doubt that it certainly does get easier as the years go on but I am fairly certain that it still takes up a huge amount of time and effort to have it run as smoothly as it does and my thanks go out to those people who organize this great event – while still doing their very difficult jobs at their respective boards.
Congratulations ECNO – and see you in 2012!
