Click the tabs below for each day of conference for details on the scheduled sessions.
Monday, Sept. 3
9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Board Meeting
10 a.m. – 9 p.m. Registration
3 – 7 p.m. Community Day & Opening Reception
7 – 9 p.m. Opening Night Dinner & Festivities
Tuesday, Sept. 4
7 a.m. – 6 p.m. (Daily) Registration
7 a.m. – 6 p.m. (Daily) 3-Day Displays
7 a.m. – 6 p.m. (Daily) Working Press Room
9 a.m. – 5 p.m. (Daily) Break Station
7:30 - 8:15 a.m. Breakfast
8:15 – 9 a.m. Keynote #1
9:15 - 10:15 a.m. Sessions
10:30 - 11:30 a.m. Sessions
11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Lunch
12:45 - 1:45 p.m. Sessions
2 - 5:30 p.m. Demo Day (+ Outdoor Skills Contest)
6 - 7 p.m. Dinner
7 - 8 p.m. Past President's Meeting
8 - 9 p.m. Jade of Chiefs Meeting
9 - 11:30 p.m. Hospitality Suites
Wednesday, Sept. 5
7 a.m. – 6 p.m. (Daily) Registration
7 a.m. – 6 p.m. (Daily) 3-Day Displays
7 a.m. – 6 p.m. (Daily) Working Press Room
9 a.m. – 5 p.m. (Daily) Break Station
7:30 - 8:15 a.m. Breakfast
8:15 – 9 a.m. Keynote #2
9 - 10:30 a.m. Membership Meeting
10:45 - 11:45 a.m. Sessions
11:45 a.m. - 2 p.m. Roundtable Small Discussion Lunch
2:15 - 3:15 p.m. Sessions
3:30 - 5:45 p.m. Sessions
6 - 6:45 p.m. Dinner
7 – 8 p.m. Ask the Editors
8 – 9 p.m. Editors Meet & Greet
9 - 11:30 p.m. Hospitality Suites
Thursday, Sept. 6
7 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.(Daily) Registration
7 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.(Daily) 3-Day Displays
7 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.(Daily) Working Press Room
9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.(Daily) Break Station
7 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Silent Auction
7:15 - 8:15 a.m. Breakfast
8:30 a.m. – Noon Board Meeting
8:30 - 9:30 a.m. Sessions
9:45 - 10:45 a.m. Sessions
11 am – Noon Sessions
12:30 - 1:15 p.m. Lunch sponsored by NSSF
1:30 - 4:30 p.m. Shooting Day
4:45 - 5:45 p.m. Photo Scavenger Hunt
6 – 7 p.m. Reception & EIC Winners Display
7 - 9:30 p.m. Honorary Awards Banquet
9:45 - 11:30 p.m. Left Over Luau
Members welcome to attend
Registration 10 a.m. – 9 p.m.
Activity Center
Community Day & Opening Reception 3 – 7 p.m.
Join members of the local Fairbanks community as they showcase true Alaskan culture, crafts, trades, outdoor activities and more. Discuss post conference excursions and opportunities and converse about any Alaskan experiences you have had so far. Community Night is a great way to connect with Alaskan experts that can help you develop potential story ideas and get the most out of your journey to Alaska.
Opening Night Dinner & Festivities 7 – 9 p.m.
Fairbanks CVB, Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute and Alaska Travel Industry Association welcome you to Alaska and the Interior with a seafood feast and true Alaskan entertainment.
Speaker: Paul R. Anderson, Superintendent Denali National Park & Preserve
Planning to come home with Northern Lights photos you can sell in a snap? Learn tips and techniques from longtime Alaskan photographer Leroy Zimmerman who has made a career out shooting the Aurora. Then put those skills to use with a night photography session at the aurorium.
As the U.S. population continues to diversify, minority involvement in environmental issues will beome ever more vital to long-term conservation efforts and the preservation of the earth’s natural resources. John C. Robinson explores multiple reasons for the relative absence of minorities among bird watchers and other outdoor recreation enthusiasts, and then leads a discussion on how outdoor writers can tap the enormous potential they already have to attract inner city and minority youth and young adults to nature.
A retired ADF&G biologist with over 45 years of Alaska experience will give an insider’s perspective on the publicized as well as the behind-the-scenes controversies and management issues associated with Alaska’s fish and game management, and their ongoing implications to sportsmen.
Most folks don’t get rich blogging—those that do ought to run right out and buy a lottery ticket – but blogging can be an important piece to supplement the good work outdoor writers and photographers do all the time. Learn how blogging can help you develop a following, increase your name recognition and build a brand.
Outdoor communicators are the role models for people who enjoy sports afield and mentors for future conservation and outdoor journalists. But the field traditionally has had little ethnic diversity. Looking at how we got here, the opportunities lost, and the unprecedented circumstances which make the next decade the most advantageous time for change.
Deep budget cuts for federal natural resource agencies are affecting conservation and outdoor recreation programs, and more could be in the offing after this fall’s election. We hear from top U.S. officials how their agency is coping and what lies ahead.
Learn the inside secrets of success that turn your personal expertise into a regional empire. In-depth graphic presentation that shows how to leverage your intellectual property assets into vehicles of perpetual profit and promotion.
Demo Day 2 – 5:30 p.m.
To dig or not to dig? Hear comments from key stakeholders on both sides of the issue of excavating the Pebble mineral deposits in the Bristol Bay region of Alaska.
How do you move the big stories, the really good ones, from the sports pages to the front page? Developing, selling to editors and getting maximum exposure to readers.
You’re a book author and want to self-publish, but you’re not sure whether to hire print-on-demand services or offset. Print book and e-book specialist Kevin Rhoades will provide comparisons, discuss pros, cons and pricing, and will show authors how to affordably tap into databases that libraries and bookstores order from. This session will also illustrate how authors can build promotional presences on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and the iBookstore. Session will conclude touching on advantages of publishing print books and e-books simultaneously.
Roundtable Small Discussion Lunch 11:45 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Having a website that reflects your professional identity is your digital calling card. Your online presence should show who you are, your interests and background, and showcase your best professional work. With journalism shifting toward an era of the personal brand, rather than the institutional brand, all outdoors communicators need to consider how they are going to stand out as the expert in a knowledge-based economy.
Is the age of online video changing outdoors TV? Learn what you need to account for when producing online content. Lisa Densmore shares her experience from both Web-based and traditional video pre-production and production.
Hear firsthand examples of how to leverage the unique knowledge you gain as an outdoor communicator, such as knowledge of a particular geographic region or species of sportfish. This includes the creation of an association and website, membership development, monthly e-zine, book and video publishing, hosted trips and several other marketing activities.
Grizzlies killed three people last year in America, and somebody from a natural resource agency had to talk to the media about it. Most media and PR specialists don’t deal with grizzlies, but some days the crisis sure feels that big. A look at how to manage information when breaking news is challenging.
Join Sigma pro staffer Dave Fitzsimmons in exploring and capturing the beautiful landscape of Chena Hot Springs Resort. Try out a Sigma demo lens or bring your own! Get out of the classroom and get outside to use Dave’s tips and tricks.
OWAA members from all segments of our industry will share their most recent experiences in the rapidly evolving realm of outdoor communication. Come and find out how your peers are faring in the exciting (and somewhat scary) world of new media. Learn how to make the latest technological advancements work for you.
See how cartoons are created, from idea to finished art.
Hear book publishers and acquisitions editors of outdoors publications discuss their editorial needs and how to sell your work. Then we will open the floor to questions from you! This Q&A style session will be followed by a Meet & Greet to meet our panel of editors and publishers face-to-face.
Learn about the difference between telling a funny story and telling a story funny. A lot of folks equate “humorist” with “clown,” but most humor writers are pretty serious people. It is a lot more difficult to write humor than to tell it. It is even harder to sell it. Hear award-winning humorist Liere discuss the reasons for laughter and how to use the knowledge of such to bring a manuscript to life, making it more entertaining and thus more sellable.
Cash in on the profitability of having your book printed in color overseas at little or no cost to you and selling them through a variety of guerilla marketing strategies that all writers can successfully employ.
This presentation tells the story of Alaskans who still use the American epic, the “frontier romance,” to shape their lives. Judith Kleinfeld explores how Alaska provides the iconography for letting people live out the frontier romance in attractive personas such as mountain men, wilderness women, and members of utopian communities. The frontier identity, however, also provides a mask for dangerous characters to disguise their evil and psychopathology.
From the Aleutian Islands to the North Slope to the panhandle of Southeast, Alaska’s indigenous people and settlers alike have found a way to intimately connect with the animals, plants, and other humans who occupy this vast and diverse landscape. In this seminar, we will present the myriad ways humans have adapted to life in the north, both in historic and contemporary times.
Lunch Sponsored by National Shooting Sports Foundation
Shooting Day 1:30 – 4:30 p.m.
