I spent the previous two weeks in sunny Arizona. Last week I hiked around Sedona. The week before that I was in Phoenix attending the Amplify Your Effectiveness (AYE) conference. AYE is not your typical sit-in-dark-hotel-rooms-listening-to-droning-speakers-read-their-slides. Although the sessions were in hotel rooms, they weren't dark, and the presenters are not allowed to use slides. I've been wanting to attend AYE for several years, for many reasons, including:

  • Jerry Weinberg is one of the founders (and, I daresay, the godfather) of the conference, and I am a self-confessed Weinborg.
  • The teachers are all people whom I have come to hold in high regard.
  • There were only a few sessions over the entire conference which did not interest me, and at least two sessions in each timeslot which did.
  • I had a hunch that the conference would be rife with other SHAPErs, and that they would be as interesting in person as they are over the web. (They were.)
  • I knew that many of the sessions would be experiential, and (as I've already mentioned) that slide-driven presentations are not allowed. I expected that the differences from other conferences would not stop there. (Nor did they.)
  • The conference is limited to only ninety-nine people. I've never attended a conference that small.

AYE turned out to be everything I thought it would be. As I write this I have only begun to process what I took in over the week. (Actually, writing this is helping me to process it.) So I am at least as curious to see what I am about to write as you are!

The hotel was good enough; the conference was great. I am glad I went! I definitely recommend AYE 2008 to anyone who wants to spend a week (that will feel like a lifetime) learning about and working on themselves.

 

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