"Why Did You Come To Today's ASIS Meeting?"

"Why Did You Come To Today's ASIS Meeting?" was the question at the top of the survey sheet I handed out during our first meeting for the New Year. With a record crowd of 64 attendees for a "regular" meeting, I had to find out why so many SFBA Chapter members decided to come. There were serious questions and a few "fun" questions.

Of the 64 attendees, 47 (or 73%) completed some portion of the survey. The significant break out went like this:

From the unscientific survey ("very much" and "yes" were combined), we learned in order what our attendees' wanted/felt was important:

#1 94%, to see the subject presented by David Walters, "eLearning."
#2 74%, to meet security friends.
#3 70%, to increase their professional education.
#4 62%, new time was more convenient.
#5 60%, new location was more convenient.
#6 47%, get back into ASIS activity.

The "fun" questions were also answered, and apparently very honestly:

#7 36%, said, "No" their boss was not out of town.
#8 32%, said, "No" they had nothing else to do this day.
#9 30%, said, "No" they were not on the way to something else important.

One person answered # 7 and #9 with a "yes" in each category. So this member's boss was out of town and he was on his way to something more important when he/she stopped by our ASIS meeting!

It is obvious that the topic of the presentation is the main reason our members will take time out of their schedules to attend an ASIS meeting. Networking and increasing their professional education was almost tied. The time and location of January's meeting seemed to be of lesser importance while recording 62% and 60%, respectively. And finally, almost half of our attendees felt they wanted to get back into activity with ASIS. I'll keep you posted about how we fair with future meetings.

By Ronald R. Sathre CPP
ASIS SFBA Chapter Chair