Association News

Given their unique organizational cultures, hiring and retaining staff at AAN papers presents a distinct set of challenges. Laura Dell, who serves as a management consultant for several alt-weeklies, understands what's at stake as well as anyone. Following several highly rated presentations at the last two AAN conventions, Dell returns for an double encore this year in Portland. She'll help publishers and senior managers hire the right people ("Smart Hiring: Attracting and Capturing the Best"), and she'll work with editors to increase staff motivation and productivity ("Talent Management: Directing and Energizing Editorial Staff").

If you've been drowning in the alphabet soup of web metrics and analytics, have we got a lifeboat for you! Executives from the Overland Agency -- one of Portland's leading brand marketing and interactive advertising agencies -- will teach AAN convention attendees how to talk "letters" and "numbers" with online media planners/buyers, as well as how to align their presentations with advertisers' objectives.

That's what we'll be doing in the editorial stream on the opening day of the convention, when Pulitzer winner Jonathan Gold joins a panel of AAN editors to chew over the best ways to write about food and cover the restaurant industry. Also on the panel's menu: reader reviews and restaurant blogs. Two days later, panel moderator Kelly Clarke, arts & culture editor at Willamette Week, will lead a morning stroll through Portland's bustling, delicious Farmers Market, where AAN foodies can graze on gratis samples from some of Oregon's finest farmers, cheesemakers, bread bakers and sweets makers.

Event listings have long served as the sine qua non of alt-weeklydom, but with the likes of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo focusing on the online distribution of event information, our share of the market is less than secure. That's why AAN commissioned Jackson Free Press publisher Todd Stauffer to review the state of the art in online event listings to help AAN members defend their turf. In his presentation at the AAN convention, Stauffer will suggest best practices for presenting online events; recommend tools to enhance the distribution of event information online while facilitating a web-to-print workflow; and propose technology standards for integrating event content into popular social-networking tools.

The award recognizes a journalist or media figure whose reporting or commentary has had a profound impact on the public's understanding of vital national issues. It will be presented to the Countdown host in a ceremony to be held this afternoon in New York City. "I'm utterly honored," said Olbermann, "largely because I'd still like to be Molly Ivins when I grow up." To recognize Olbermann's achievement, AAN will donate $2,000 in his name to the Molly Ivins Fund for Investigative Reporting at the Texas Observer, where the Ivins served as co-editor from 1970 to 1976.

It's time for you to take control of the budget process. Whether it's budgeting from the bottom up, or top down, there are methods and analyses that can assist in this important task. Fran Zankowski will teach you how in his "Financial Management for Ad Sales Managers" seminar at the upcoming AAN Convention in Portland.

That's the question we're going to try to answer on Thursday, June 14, the opening day of the convention. In an AAN convention first, our hosts at Willamette Week have assembled a panel of lively and articulate local experts to discuss the region's unique approach to public-policy issues that have national resonance, including land-use planning, mass transit, assisted suicide, sustainable development and medical marijuana.

AAN's room block at the Portland Hilton has already sold out for the night of Wednesday, June 13. You can still reserve a room at the Hilton that evening, but you'll be asked to pay more than the convention rate of $129. (For the time being, the Hilton still has rooms available at the convention rate on June 14, 15 and 16.) For those on a tight budget, we've added a small block of rooms at $129 at the Paramount, a boutique hotel located less than two blocks from the Hilton. So if you are planning to arrive on June 13 and want to save a few dollars, call the Paramount Hotel at 503-223-9900.