Here we are in the FEMA convention breakout session. This is just before we got started. We have a full house that includes some bloggers. I’m happy to see that and think it’s a “trend?” Maybe. More in a moment.

So if Jim Wessing is the outgoing president of FEMA, who’s incoming?

He’s Richard Heiniger, Hemisphere GPS. Jim got introduced at the beginning of today’s general session here at the FEMA convention.

Later this afternoon I’m on the panel of a breakout session on “Marketing Communications Strategies & Tactics.” I’m going to be using these posts in my presentation. Hey, they’re even better than PowerPoint slides don’t you think?

I’m sure all the folks here will want to be in the Ramsey Room here at the Hilton at 2pm to see what we’ve got to say. It should be interesting.

Jim Wessing, Kondex Corporation, is the president of the Farm Equipment Manufacturers Association. At least until the end of the day.

Jim got the morning general session started today. I’m hoping to catch up with him later today for a short interview.

By the way, the FEMA convention also has members of FEWA, Farm Equipment Wholesalers Association and AIMRA, Agricultural & Industrial Manufacturers Representatives Association here with them.

The final day general session is in progress.

In the early part of the session attendees will hear from David Goldsmith.

His presentation is “You Can’t Begin Without A Product: New Product and Service Development.” The room was pretty full by the time it started.

From what I’ve learned there’s about 425 members here at the convention.

Since we’re all about communications I had to take a picture of this message center.

It’s out in the foyer area in front of the registration counter.

One of the things you get when you register is a number that identifies you. It’s used as a mechanism to send you a message.

That’s about all I know about it at the moment. I’ll look into it further and update this post if I have more to offer.

One of the first things I ran into here at the FEMA convention was the communications center. It’s a big room with lots of tables so you can meet up and have a nice chat which a bunch of folks were doing.

In it you’ll find things like this Information Center which lists companies who’s services FEMA endorses.

There’s also an interesting set of boards listing members and who is here representing the company. It even has a place for their room number if they care to share it. I don’t think I’ve seen that before.

What’s the first thing you do when you go to a convention? That’s right.

I got into Minneapolis yesterday evening. It was kind of drizzly and cool. Better than snow and ice. The weather should be nice here by this afternoon and it looks like we’re going to have a midwest warmup for a couple days.