Spring Issue 2006

Electronic Message Center or Paper?

For the first time, the SOT 2006 Annual Meeting Message Center was web-based and provided an electronic method to stay connected to colleagues during the Annual Meeting. The Message Center facilitated correspondence among attendees, members, and CRAD Job Bank registrants and was developed as a result of member and attendee requests to offer a service that was secure, confidential, and more convenient than the post-it message and bulletin board system SOT used in the past. But attendees either loved it or hated it. A record number of 500 comments were received concerning the Message Center on the Annual Meeting Evaluation Form.

Many of the attendees appreciated the new electronic Message Center for its convenience. Since the Message Center was available 24-hours a day, before, during, and after the meeting (February 24 through March 31) from any computer with Internet access, users were thrilled to learn they had access to their mailbox from a laptop in their hotel room at their convenience. Attendees were no longer at the mercy of the convention center schedule or location to access the Message Center. If you didn’t bring your laptop or handheld/PDA to the meeting, computers in both ToxExpo and the registration lobby provided access while attending the meeting. The service even sent notification via your personal e-mail and displayed your name on a message panel on-site when you received a new message.

Other attendees longed for the simplicity of the pink pads. No passwords, computers, and hours of operation.

Now the Program and Career Resource and Development Committees, as well as Council, must decide if more computers and member education can be significant enough to convince 99% of the Annual Meeting attendees to “love” an electronic message center or if a return to paper pads is in SOT’s future.

Additionally, the Message Center provided extended communication permitting members and CRAD registrants who did not attend the meeting to communicate with attendees. Even colleagues and family members could send messages in to an attendant to be delivered to mailboxes.