No news is good news for latest ABA Web event

Northwestern Financial Review, May 1-May 14, 2002 by Dullum, Justin

Aside from a layman's interest in technology, I've discovered why I take such a keen interest in the American Bankers Association's online conferences - I like real conferences. You get out of town for a while, you meet people and someone cleans your room every day. While online conferences lack these niceties, I was determined to make the best of the ABA's latest effort.

I ate a continental breakfast before coming to work. I brewed five gallons of coffee and took 15-- minute breaks every couple of hours and by gosh, the online conference almost felt real - save the obvious lack of people.

Because of that, comparing real conferences to the virtual variety is futile. But comparing virtual conferences to each other is fair game. I compared the ABA's first two online conferences in a past column. The first conference had good content, but was too graphics heavy for older computers and dial-up modems. The second, done in a pinch following Sept. 11 and the subsequent cancellation of the 2001 national convention, was more functional but had less content. I predicted the ABA would find a happy medium in 2002. It has. The site works great. No blunders or scandalous, closed-door deal making to report. Sorry, no news here.

I imagine this is how the ABA wants it. The first Web event was newsworthy by virtue of being the first. The second was fun to pick apart. What did they do differently? What did they learn from the first one? Since this third one settles any doubts raised by the second, it marks the beginning of what will be a long series of online events held without much fanfare. Checking to see what's new at the online convention will be like checking your e-mail. No big deal.

"We take very seriously our role as the leader in the banking industry of presenting information online," said Mike ter Maat, director of ABA's conferences. "The latest conference is a step toward being more inclusive."

Unlike the first conference, even a dial-up modem could handle the current site's interface. Unlike the second, the presentations are self-paced and cover every angle of the banking industry. ter Maat said this conference will be the model for future online events, but that the ABA will remain sensitive to evolving technology. After all, that's how they figured out how to do this right in the first place.

The ABA has hired a different company this year to put together the conference-the third in as many events. It's done things differently every time. It tweaked and tinkered around with the model. Now, it's simply focusing on the Internet's greatest attribute - information proliferation. This makes the conference a good argument for why high speed Internet should be everywhere.

A lot of promises were made on the back of the Internet and most of these were never kept. As a result, many bankers remain unconvinced of the Internet's value to their bank. Even with data pointing toward e-banking becoming an increasingly popular service, it's understandable that some rural bankers downplay their bank's need for a Web site and high-- speed Internet access. (High speed access is still not available everywhere.) Well, here's why they need the later: for students who study the industry on a daily basis, Webbased seminars are quickly becoming the classrooms. The casual success of the latest ABA conference backs this up.