My 2016 Pittsburgh AIIP Roger Summit Award Days

On April 8th, I had the honor of receiving the Roger Summit Award, from the Association of Independent Information Professionals/AIIP, at its 30th Annual Conference, in Pittsburgh. Roger is a pioneer of the online information world, as founder of Dialog, the world’s first online search service. (It is now a platform within the global information company ProQuest, and called ProQuest Dialog.) As part of the award, I delivered the Roger Summit Lecture that morning, “Creating a Compelling Future: Business and Beyond.”

Roger, who has long been based in Silicon Valley, participated in this year’s conference, including introducing me for the lecture and then in a nice surprise, announcing after I finished that for the first time, the award winner would also receive a one year’s membership in AIIP. This is a strong, tightly-knit association, and I know I’ll learn a lot as a member.

The four days were packed with networking and meeting many interesting people (it’s an international organization, and some members traveled from great distances) and attending a number of helpful sessions, most of which featured AIIP members presenting about their work. Getting to spend some talking with Roger during the weekend was a wonderful bonus.

One of the cool features of the conference (although I was skeptical about this idea when I first heard about it), is that during breakfast on Friday, the first full day, everyone (including the speaker), has to walk to the front and give a succinct 30 second self-introduction. Fortunately, there is a time-keeper and the 30 second rule is strictly enforced. I found it to be an informal yet effective way to learn more about the AIIP members. A group of us got together for dinner on Friday night, and later went to the Thunderbird Café to listen to two terrific groups: one from New York (Matuto), and the opener, from Pittsburgh (Machete Kisumontao).

Everyone made me feel at home during my time at the conference, and it was nice to be back in my home state: I was born and raised in Scranton. It had been six years to the day since I was in Pittsburgh, on April 8, 2010 to speak at a Pittsburgh SLA event.  Next year’s conference will be in New Orleans, and I’m looking forward to finding out who the 2017 Roger Summit Award winner will be!