NAMAC, Austin, October 2007

This was my first NAMAC conference and my first time Austin. On arriving I was really excited by the energy of the people there: everyone had a project they were working on and their eagerness to share was evident on faces and in the glossy literature passing from hand to hand.

The main thing that stood out to me at this conference?in contrast with the five other conferences I've been to this year?was the level of practice and involvement of everyone in attendance. Each person felt they played a pivotal role in the success and vision of their art or cause; that above all created an inspiring experience. Elsewhere I could find myself on the vendor floor, beset by marketing associates with a purpose not to broadly inform or empower, but to make a sale. But at NAMAC people were genuinely proud of their work, and in reciprocation, genuinely interested in what I was doing and why I was there.

Sitting in on the conference sessions I felt very inspired by the work people had done. Most of the panels I sat in were great demonstrations of what motivated, visionary and hard working people can create. As interested as I was though in hearing what people had done, I as somewhat disappointed in the explanations of how these great projects were accomplished. Art and organization is both an outcome and a process and I felt that I was only seeing the final product.

During the whole conference I felt some tension; I felt it strongly during Saturday's keynote by Gary Chapman and some of the new media sessions. Working within the nonprofit technology field, where new is revered, I feel I am particularly attuned to the pushes, and push-backs, of the new media field. Attendees seemed to be aware things are changing, but no one was particularly sure of the direction, or more importantly, what that change means for their art, culture, cause or organization.

Overall the NAMAC in Austin has been one of my favorite conferences of 2007. I learned a lot and met many people who I hope can help my organization, the CTC VISTA Project, and those we can help in return. I general, I would liked to have learned more about the process of how things were accomplished: the issues, resolutions and evolutions of projects and the discussions and actors involved. Especially in new media with its fears and opportunities, it’s important to know how we got here, not just that we have arrived.