MISAC Cancels Fall Conference: 'Way Too Many Unknowns'

The Municipal Information Systems Association of California (MISAC) decided this week to pull the plug on its fall conference.

MISAC’s conferences typically attract hundreds of participants — numerous chief information officers (CIOs), IT directors and municipal IT leaders from across California, as well as scores of vendors and others in the IT industry. This year’s conference, “Vision 20/20 — Aim for the Stars” — had been scheduled for Sept. 27-30 in Rancho Mirage.

The group’s board of directors met Tuesday and decided there are “way too many unknowns” about whether and how people would attend, said MISAC’s executive director, Brad Walker.

“They’re all disappointed, obviously,” Walker told Techwire. “We have good momentum and didn’t want to lose that" by holding a poorly attended conference. 

At last October’s conference in Monterey, for example, keynote speakers included state CIO Amy Tong.

Directors considered four options at Tuesday’s meeting:

• Go “full steam ahead” with an in-person conference, despite the likelihood of attendance being limited by travel restrictions and other factors tied to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which still has many people working from home and otherwise maintaining social-distancing precautions. “Way too many unknowns,” Walker said.
• Shift to a completely virtual conference, with speakers and presentations being streamed online. “But by the end of September, people are going to be so Zoomed-out,” Walker said, that they may be reluctant to spend two or three days watching a conference online.
• Hold a hybrid conference, with some in-person breakouts and some online.
• Cancel the conference altogether and, as Walker said with a laugh, “Try to forget that 2020 even existed.”

For MISAC’s strategic partners and corporate members, being able to stand up a booth and network with IT directors and CIOs at conferences is among the benefits of membership.

“Instead, we’re going to offer significantly more educational opportunities and webinars,” Walker said.

MISAC, based in Folsom, has three California chapters — Northern, Central and Southern. In January, the group chose its top leadership — Fullerton IT Manager Helen Hall is president; Roseville CIO Hong Sae is vice president; Fremont IT Manager Ed Miranda is treasurer; and Diamond Bar Information Systems Director Ken Desforges is secretary.