#NAPC11 -- Thank You For a Great Conference, NAPC!

Well, I made it home from what I called #NAPC11 -- that was our Twitter hash-tag as well, and since I was tweeting through the whole thing on behalf of NAPC, it was just easier to remember that.

The Conference -- formally entitled the National Association of Planning Councils 2011 Conference: Communities in Transition -- was amazing.

On Friday afternoon, we heard from Irv Katz, the Executive Director of the Human Services Assembly. He talked a lot about what we could call "the state of the union" with respect to human service organizations and planning councils.

As a communications guy, I found his remarks about the need to better market our collective message to be very interesting. More on this in a minute.

We also heard from Tom Pollak, the Program Director at the National Center for Charitable Statistics. He had to wait for us to go buy a projector -- a mission on which I gladly helped Claudia Gooch of The Planning Council in Norfolk, VA -- and was very gracious about the whole thing.

One of the great things about this conference is how much gets done in so little time.

On Saturday, there were three roundtable breakfasts, and unless you could figure out how to eat three breakfasts in a short amount of time, you had to pick between the Canadian Caucus (since we covered health reform in-depth this year, our Canadian friends... well, let's just say they realized they have a lot to be thankful for), the strategic use of public benefits, and disaster preparedness. I sat in on that one with my colleagues from Pinellas County at the Health and Human Services Coordinating Council, Joe Baldwin and Denise Groesbeck -- kind of in the name of Florida solidarity.

The morning got off to a lightning-speed start. Xiaoyi Huang (@XiaoyiH), an Assistant VP for Policy at the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems, talked about implementing health care reform, and what local communities need to know.

Guess what came up?

That's right: messaging.

After Ms. Huang's little eye-opener, we went in to a panel on implementing health care reform, with Allen Lomax of the Community Indicators Consortium, Lauren Shirey of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, Candace King of the DuPage Federation on Human Services Reform, and Joe and Denise from the HHSCC.

Following that, there was a great Annual Meeting. Some folks spoke very eloquently about Browning Spence, who had been President of the NAPC. I was not one of them, and fumbled my way through some comments about a friend, colleague, and mentor who meant a lot to me, to the Juvenile Welfare Board, to the NAPC, to Pinellas County and Florida... and to his family.

We had the Annual Judith Rothbaum Award as well. The award recognizes excellence in using social indicators for community action. The Award is supported by the United Way of Central Oklahoma in honor of the late Judith Rothbaum. The winner this year was Joe Ahern of the Center for Community Solutions.

I'm not going to lie to you: one of the highlights of the event for me last year as well as this year is the economic report from Dr. Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute. I have to give her credit: she really tries to put a good face on things (hard to do in these economic times).

We also heard from Demetra Smith Nightingale of The Urban Institute. She had good information about what these sometimes confusing economic trends may mean for local planning.

Following that (I told you it was a long day) was a panel discussion led by John Begala of the Center for Community Solutions, Martha Blaine of the Community Council of Greater Dallas, Ben Warner of the Jacksonville Community Council, Inc., and Tracy Viselli of ACTion Alexandria.

Sunday was a pretty fantastic day as well. Phil Dessauer of the Community Service Council in Tulsa, Oklahoma led a book discussion of "The Watchman's Rattle -- Thinking Our Way Out of Extinction." Claudia Gooch, Ben Warner and other NAPC Members talked about indicators over breakfast as well.

In the 9:00 a.m. hour, we started talking about immigration (an issue with which I am woefully unfamiliar). I may have learned more from Margie McHugh at the Migration Policy Institute on this issue in about an hour than I ever have. And Frank Sharry of America's Voice talked a great deal about how you talk about immigration.

There's that messaging piece again.

Vanessa Sarria of the Austin Community Action Network moderated a great panel on local responses to immigration issues. Both Kate Hanley of the Tempe Community Council and Cheryl Little of the Florida Immigration Advocacy Center had remarkable stories to tell about immigration... and deportation.

After the conference ended, there was a NAPC Board Meeting.

I am pleased and honored to tell you I'm a Board Member -- and I've got some work to do.

The Board was good enough to entrust me to help put together our program for next year: NAPC 2012.

Pretty exciting stuff.

Three things I can tell you about it right now: I'll work day and night to help make sure it's as good an event as this year.

I'm going to engage good people like Katie Ross of JCCI, who did great work interviewing folks for our YouTube channel, and make sure they're involved next year.

And we're going to talk about messaging.

There is a lot to do before next April.

For now, though, I'm going to take a breath, and regain my bearings here in Florida.

After all, there's no place like home.