AMA Training Series

Summer Marketing Educators’ Conference

August 3-6, 2007

Hilton Washington

Washington, D.C.

Survey sent to: 646

Received: 189

Response Rate: 29%

4. What did you like most about the Summer Marketing Educators’ Conference?

• A chance for networking and seeing friends from the discipline. Going to sessions and having DIALOGUE.
• Ability to see co-authors and friends
• As a first year PhD student, it was my first time attending AMA, and the best part was the advices that I got from the faculty.
• Ease of use to conduct interviews.
• ERB meetings, networking, research meetings with colleagues. The Hilton in Washington is an excellent conference venue.
• Faculty Recruiting; Networking with friends.
• Friday evening cocktail reception
• get to meet a lot of people
• I had to go for interviewing
• Good organization and program
• I loved the range of research topics addressed and appreciated meeting the researchers in person. Everyone is very friendly and approachable.
• I was there primarily to interview for positions and had a number of very good interviews.
• Increase familiarity with the association Chance to meet colleagues
• Interesting sessions, particularly those that dealt with topics not always found at marketing conferences - e.g., getting a Fulbright, AMA Definition of Marketing.
• Interesting sessions. Professional and friendly atmosphere.
• Job Placement service.
• Level of presentations
• Location
• Loved the SIG receptions, but should have them spread out on different days and times.
• Maintaining contacts. Being exposed to new research ideas.
• Making so many new contacts. The session on "What is a contribution?"
• Meeting and discussing with colleagues
• Meeting colleagues
• meeting customers
• Meeting faculty and making connections.
• Meeting old friends and attending the SIG meetings.
• Meeting the leading people in the field, networking, getting good feedback from the review process and during the presentation
• Meeting with colleagues
• Networking
• networking opportunities
• Networking opportunities, especially those that are informal.
• Networking opportunities.
• Opportunity to reconnect with colleagues from all over
• Panel Sessions, Networking
• Quality of candidates we interviewed.
• Quality sessions
• Reception time -- opportunity to interact with colleagues, see old friends. Unfortunately, I was interviewing faculty candidates during most of the sessions.
• Seeing colleagues.
• Seeing friends, networking, and papers.
• Since I was there expressly to recruit new faculty, I had very little opportunity to like or dislike anything.
• Special sessions, recruiting
• the ease of locating the various tracks and the food/drinks
• The Friday Early Bird Social
• The manpower support available for the technology setup during the sessions.
• The opportunity of meeting new people
• The opportunity to listen to the latest research in the field and the possibilities of meeting the leading scholars in the field.
• The professional development sessions were very good. The contribution continuum session was also well-done.
• The range of activities
• The receptions and opportunities to network
• The sessions.
• The use of electronics to establish an interview schedule.
• This year I was there just to interview for jobs.
• When we did get a chance to speak to some of the delegates there was some interest in the products.

1. What did you like least about the Summer Marketing Educators’ Conference?

• the quality of several presentations was pretty poor this year - no free Internet access at the conference spot (i.e. Hilton hotel) - it seems that the number of attendants was much lower than in the previous years (and the quality of the presentations was worse - audience in the sessions is too small - several discussants and sessions chairs and presenters did not show up
• - that there were too few people in the session - the hotel was just awful - particularly the room for the social events
• Hotel left much to be desired. -Something to accompany the coffee...cookies, fruit, muffins, etc.
• Timid" discussants who were not tough enough to criticize fundamental weaknesses in papers
• A couple of the schools interviewing took a less than professional approach.
• Academic placement "booths" were a joke. You could not hear yourself think in them - plus you could not help but overhear what people in the next booth were saying. Very disappointing.
• AMA Summer is still a recruiting conference. The sessions were under attended.
• Attendance at sessions is small even though overall attendance is large. This is due to all of the interviewing that goes on, so I'm not sure how to address it.
• Cost vs. value! Very expensive!
• Crowds....also having to walk down two levels to the conference area. I wished it was on the mail lobby level....
• During the one session I attended, the hotel staff was setting up for a reception that would follow. They were pouring ice, clanging bottles -- making a lot of noise. The hotel electronic support staff was contacted to get Internet access for a presentation. Someone came, made a phone call, but no one connected us.
• Ending rather abruptly Monday at noon; I would have liked to see more Monday afternoon activities.
• Failure to reorganize the conference to meet the real needs of educators. The old "present a paper sessions" are about dead. This is now mainly a recruiting meeting and you need to rethink everything.
• Holding it in Washington, D.C.
• Hilton Hotel.
• I HATE to be kicked out of the early bird reception. Every year, I am talking to colleagues and friends who I haven't seen in years, and a bell or some other obnoxious sound rudely kicks us out.
• I was a discussant at one of the paper sessions and all of the presenters in the session did not know that they were supposed to bring their own laptop. Luckily one of the presenters had hers in her room and was able to get it, otherwise we would have been scrambling to find and beg somebody to let them use a laptop.
• I would prefer to have the PPTs and/or the full papers on the DVD rather than only the abstracts. I scribbled many citations down that were mentioned in various presentations but now can't determine what articles these references are actually for since more complete information is not available.
• Lack of additional handouts (apart of proceedings)
• Lack of orientation activity designed for new members
• location of exhibitor area at the Hilton Washington
• low attendance at sessions--this impacted the presentations and the comments.
• Monday morning session attendance
• No complaints.
• Other than a few sessions, I didn't find a lot of sessions that included high quality presentations.
• No closing dinner and/or conference lunches.
• Participated in Academic Placement: VERY disorganized. The woman in charge did not provide correct information when asked directly. She was also VERY condescending. Academic Placement needs to be outsourced to another provider. The hotel was VERY hot. The air was not working properly.
• Poor hotel: small rooms; far too slow/late room service and service in restaurant. Hotel's internet based printing service down. Positive note: Exceptional front desk service. Could not attend sessions because of primary goal of meeting job seekers.
• Receptions too early in the evening.
• Terrible service at hotel. Overbooked rooms, rude and incompetent staff. Please do not hold the conference at the Washington Hilton again!
• session attendance is sparse
• That the last day of the conference was on a Monday by which time most of the participants had left and no presentation or sessions had enough attendees for a true discussion and deliberation!
• That some session discussants did a very superficial job. I would expect (and this is what only some of them actually did well) that they give presentation’s a feedback concerning their papers and some helpful recommendations how to improve them.
• The AMA Placement Service is flawed in design and in dire need of change. Most schools do not use the service and schedule interviews on the hour. The AMA Placement Service is structured such that interviews are available at odd times (e.g., on the half hour or on the quarter hour) that do not jibe well with what the vast majority of schools are doing. Consequently, I was very reluctant as a candidate to schedule interviews through AMA and did it only as a last resort. In fact, I turned down several schools that were using AMA because the interview times were so out of whack. I did use the AMA Placement area for 2 interviews and found the area very noisy and unprofessional looking, which in my opinion put the schools using it in bad light. Moreover, on Monday morning the booth numbers had been removed making it difficult to find the schools. Unless major changes are made to this system, I will strongly recommend that colleagues avoid this service in the future.
• The availability of the internet access: at least find a hotel that can provide free internet access from the guest room.
• The conference hotel's communication systems were terrible. The internet only worked intermittently, even when I paid for it already! And the cell phone service was terrible with most places in the building not having service.
• The fact that some interviews went beyond their scheduled time and thus causing a backup on all participants. Some interviewers did not realize that interview booths varied based on the day and time of day. They thought they had the booth for the whole day and caused others to move to alternative locations.
• the hotel
• The hotel had serious issues. I signed up in very early May for a non-smoking room, yet I was assigned a smoking room. It's a tired property to say the least. I did think their conference lunch was one of the best I ever had.
• The hotel was horrible. I had a mouse in my room. If we had it at that hotel again i would not stay there I definitively would not eat there.
• The hotel was mediocre.
• The hotel. I'm not sure that it has been updated in the last 15 years.
• The hotel. The Washington Hilton is showing its age. Lots of things don't work right and the hotel gouges on things like internet connections and health spa. This hotel does not have enough public area bathrooms, nor enough elevators for AMA needs.
• The job placement program charges both the school and the candidate for interviewing in the booths.
• The lack of interest on the sessions. This meeting has become a job market venue instead of an intellectual meeting.
• The location in the basement was poor and the numbers of delegates that came in past the stands was very low. Also, the interviews further diminished interest from the exhibitors.
• the location. You should NEVER schedule a conference in WashingtonDC in August. The hotel is getting seedy and my allergies went crazy and I had a headache the whole time I was there.
• The papers seemed weak and the sessions unrelated. Tracks seemed to stop and go. The hotel is one of least favorite conference venues. The trade show/exhibit was forgettable.
• The price of registering relative to what is provided by AMA. Not sure why we need the association.
• The sessions were very, very poor
• The quality of the presentations was partially very low and did not keep the promise they made as juged by the title. In addition, a large number of the top researchers just presented old material which they had presented at other occasions before. The Washington Hilton was not an appropriate conference hotel in terms of international standards.
• The summer conference focuses on the academic placement. The sessions therefore are not 'energetic' and lively. I was also surprised that there was only one lunch.
• There should have been food available at the breaks between the sessions.
• There was no list of attendees put up on the site
• Too many concurrent sessions
• traffic was light
• Way too many no-shows!!!!!! There no longer seems to be an expectation that author(s) attend the conference to present accepted papers.

How would you rate the following aspects of communication about the Summer Marketing Educators’ Conference?

How would you rate the facilities for the Summer Marketing Educators’ Conference?

Not Apply: 1.4%

Not Apply: 1.4%

How would you rate the location for the Summer Marketing Educators’ Conference?

How would you rate the AMA staff at the Summer Marketing Educators’ Conference?

Not Apply: 4.5%

Not Apply: 9.0%

Not Apply: 7.5%

Not Apply: 11.9%

Not Apply: 7.5%

How would you rate the Program Overall for the Summer Marketing Educators’ Conference?

Not Apply: 10.6%

Not Apply: 13.4%

Not Apply: 10.6%

Not Apply: 11.9%

1. How could the Summer Marketing Educators’ Conference be improved?

• Better and more opportunities for networking and social interaction. More opportunities for collaboration on research.
• AMA staff continues to engage in the economic rape of members. Staff are not responsive, the value of events is provided only by members (with value then reduced by AMA staff). AMA is an organization run by staff for the benefit of staff and members be damned. Let's outsource AMA.
• Again, just improve communication with presenters - i.e., equipment needs/availability well in advance of the conference.
• 1. The detailed information (e.g. schedule, location of sessions, etc.) of the conference could be earlier to reach to the participants by both electronic and printed formats. 2. The conference should provide speakers with the PC for presentations.
• Better attendance at sessions
• Better hotel
• Better quality control of presentations given at the conference itself in addition to the review of the submitted papers.
• By not scheduling some rather popular discussions/sessions at the same time - for example: The meet the editors sessions was at the same as the Service Dominant Logic session and that was a travesty!!
• Cheaper membership fees and hotel arrangements, I am a doctoral student and did not like paying $10 a day to work out in the gym--although it was a superb facility.
• Consider having more "after" activities; this might have been a constraint of the hotel.
• Do not use the Hilton Hotel, Washington DC, until it has been fully refurbished and the staff properly re-trained. The hotel has been sold and is due for renovation work, and fundamentally is a filthy dump. I hope that at least they charged AMA a cut price for their facilities
• Enforce the requirement that an author from each paper actually comes to the conference to present the paper. Other conferences employ "black lists" of non-presenters. Is it time for AMA to do the same?
• For the DC location, choose a hotel closer to the capital/Washington Monument/Lincoln Memorial so that attendees can do some sightseeing without having to skip out of an entire afternoon of sessions.
• Have more of the job activities prior to the conference.