I wrote 2001 in my posting on the SAA yesterday; that should have been 
2002.

My thanks to those who wrote me privately, explaining how SAA handles 
panel proposals and what it is doing to encourage greater dialog in the 
future.  My ability to travel increasingly is circumscribed but I hope 
I can attend some future conferences in other cities.  I wish I could 
have attended some of the workshops and more of the roundtables in DC 
(work and family obligations prevented that), where there might have 
been some discussions I needed to hear, but unfortunately, I only could 
get away to attend some of the panels.

I would love to see greater representation by former government 
officials on SAA panels.  I think some of the panels would benefit from 
the greater candor permitted a former official.  I don't mean slamming 
one's successor officials, of course.  Rather, I'm interested in a 
balanced lessons learned approach, something that can be hard to 
present to the public when you're an incumbent official.  (Although I 
should note that Mike Kurtz actually touched nicely in his seminar on 
some past NARA practices in quantifying production, etc.  And, as I 
mentioned, Jim Hastings and Fynnette Eaton did well in their 
presentations.)

Obviously, current officials from NARA may feel an obligation to 
present a rather rosy scenario in some cases where listeners at SAA 
actually would benefit from a more candid examination of what works and 
what doesn't.  And why things go the way they do.  But, as I said 
yesterday, on a number of issues, that can be difficult to do in 
Washington.  Perhaps I'm looking for something that just isn't 
possible.  I still think we need a mix of present and former officials 
and private sector representatives in some key discussions.  But, I'm 
not convinced that I'm the right person to persuade people that this is 
needed.

I'm not very optimistic that I can persuade former officials to speak 
up more than they have.  And share what they know.  A Listserv isn't an 
ideal place to air out some of the things I'm interested in.  A 
conference such as SAA might not be, either.  Anyway, I have to give 
this whole communities of practice thing some more thought.  Thanks to 
the couple of people who took time to reply to me privately!

Maarja

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