I like the hand-shake bit, and your use of color. But all-in-all it looks like a logo for a labor-union, instead of a logo for the guys who EMPLOY the union workers. Not sure how to translate that into something specific though. Maybe loosing the globe and letting the tagline and spelled out name read straight across? Actually you don't need the spelled-out name... unless it really adds to the design in your opinion.
FYI I updated the project brief... I screwed up the tagline. Sorry about that!
You do great work! Despite my concerns above, I feel good about where this is going!
This contest got off on a tangent.... and I'm hoping you might be willing to get us back on course...
I am only now realizing that "general" comments are not frequently read by all designers. Rather they look at what is ranked up top... and try to do something like that. Here's some candid info that might help us get where we need to go:
1) We are branding the Conference... NOT the organization holding it. That is the problem with the early submissions (including yours).. they looked like logos for IEA.
2) The URL for the conference website is IEARENO.com. We could legitimately call the Brand we are creating IEA RENO 2012, RENO 2012 or IEA RENO, or IEA 2012. Any of these with the words "international conference" attached would work well.
3) You can blow off the motto for all I care. It does not need to be part of the logo.
4) You may Ignore all those city-scapes. I ranked those on top beauase they were the first not to have the letters IEA as a central focus. Then a bunch of buildings and cityscapes wound up on top.... and I made the mistake of telling folks: IF you're gonna have a city scape... make sure it looks like Reno.
5) I said I was not crazy about "globes." and that remains true... it was making the logos look like union lapel pins. But In retrospect, the REAL problem was the globe associated with EAR. I now wonder if such a motif... without making IEA the focus would work?
If you'd be willing to take a fresh look at this, I'd appreciate it. For what it is worth, I am providing this feedback to you alone.