What's Winter Good For? Management Clinic and Mid Am. That's What!

Winter Recharge February 6, 2007 It sure has been cold here in the Chicago area! We mourn the Bears' loss in SB XLI inside, as temps outside have been the coldest in 10 years! I imagine there will be lessons in plant hardiness following the -10 degree Fahrenheit (-23 C) temps we've seen this week. Is this global warming? Mid Am Week before last was the Mid Am Trade Show in Chicago. It's amazing how many friends you run into there. I gave a talk on 1/17 called "The Transition Zone." I'm told there were around 150 in the room, which isn't too bad for the first lecture on the first day. At least there were more people in the room at the end than at the beginning! The trade show seems to have a lot of the same things year after year–good things, mind you, but not much new. My goal with any conference is to come away with something I can use. Here are two. If you are using Dynascape's CAD program, keep an eye out for their new color module. As a long-time skeptic when it comes to CAD graphics, I was really impressed. No, I don't work for them! The second thing I came away with was a terrific quote from John Powers during his keynote: "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. We are the one-eyed man; we don't know it all, but we know more than our clients." What a great way to look at selling landscape design services! The Clinic The majority of last week was spent at ANLA's Management Clinic. You can read details in my blog. For those who have not been, you are missing out on one of the best industry conferences out there. It's always the same time (first week in February), and always at the Galt House in Louisville, KY. You always know where it is, and when. This year they reportedly had 1200 attendees. Learn more about ANLA at www.anla.org. Blog Advice from those more knowledgeble than I is to post more to the Blog, so I have. Please take a look. Your feedback is welcome. I'll try to keep up the effort. Check our website to stay up to date on current offerings. Welcome to our newest subscribers. It's been awhile since the last message. I'll try to keep them infrequent and, I hope, worth your time. A warning though. You'll probably hear from me again in the next week or so! Stay warm. Sincerely, Tim Thoelecke American Academy of Landscape Design email: info@aaldweb.com phone: 847-657-7900 web: http://www.aaldweb.com