PCMA Convene

Sebastian Thrun's Big Idea

2012-02-01T16:48:00.005-05:00

Today is the first-ever national Digital Learning Day, a good day to talk about computer scientist Sebastian Thrun, a Stanford professor who is leaving a tenured position and will teach free online computer science classes to a global audience. (Thrun begins talking at 2:27 minutes into the video.)

Thrun is a very popular professor at Stanford -- the class he taught with Peter Norvig on Artificial Intelligence (AI) routinely drew 200 students. But when Thrun offered the course online and, with one email, invited the world to enroll, that number jumped to 160,000 students.

The experience changed Thrun's life, he said in a talk at the recent DLD - Digital Life Design conference in Munich. The course was exactly the same as the one he taught in the classroom on the Stanford campus, but the online students included working men and women of all ages from all across the globe.

As Thrun heard back from the online students about the impact the class was having on their lives -- including a note from a soldier stationed in Afghanistan who watched online instruction while on a break from mortar fire -- he decided that making education free and accessible could change the world, he said.

Thrun and two partners founded Udacity, which is planning to offer more courses, including a programming course with no prerequisites.

What does all this have to do with the meetings industry? Because Thrun is one of the world's premier scientists, we can expect to see him thinking deeply about the content and delivery of online education.

The first class has already yielded teaching lessons. Students told him that the online classes felt personal, despite the fact they were broadcast to thousands. They felt intimate, Thrun said, because he kept the technology simple, using a camera, a pen, and paper to illustrate course content. Thrun also up-ended the passive lecture model, finding ways to make the course material interactive, so that students were actively engaged.

Udacity is looking to add more instructors from top-tier universities -- in law, business, medicine, and other disciplines. No doubt those individuals will bring their own ideas about online education to the enterprise.

Udacity and its audacious goals were announced just a few days ago. But it does look like the start of something big.

Thanks to Dara at diyscholar.wordpress.com for posting the video.

A Second Chance at San Diego

2012-01-24T17:09:00.001-05:00

Everyone loves a second chance. Here's yours (and mine, too).

On Jan. 31, PCMA is hosting a free virtual extension of several sessions from Convening Leaders, held Jan. 8-11 in San Diego. You can link to register for the virtual extension here. And go here for information about the rebroadcast of the co-located Virtual Edge Summit.

I attended Convening Leaders, and I've already registered for next Tuesday's virtual event. I want to see some sessions I reluctantly missed — including Dr. John Medina's Masters Series, "More Brain Rules for Meetings" — because I was attending others in the same time slot.

I'm also attending because it won't simply be a taped version of the content. There will be a social mediator on hand to keep the virtual group connected through text chats and at least two of the presenters, Sally Hogshead and Mary Byers are taking part in the live chat. It's a safe bet that we'll see more extensions like this in the future, as a way of expanding and extending the meeting experience to more people.

When Convene talked to James Goodman, managing vice president for conference and event services for the 157,000-member American Dental Association (ADA) regarding its decision to expand the virtual component of its annual meeting last fall, Goodman had this to say: "We are not trying to replace the live experience, we we are trying to enhance it."

So whether you are a repeater like me, or haven't had a chance to see any of the sessions, in person or otherwise, I hope to see you online.

According to some sources, it was a pretty good meeting.

Closing General Session

2012-01-12T16:36:00.005-05:00

Photo courtesy NeilsPhotography

After the Beatles broke up, George Harrison's first solo album was titled, appropriately enough, All Things Must Pass. True enough. In the same vein, it's with regret that I — Convene Senior Editor Hunter R. Slaton — must now say the same: For the time being, at least, I'm calling my last general session to a close, and signing off from PCMA, Convene, and the meetings industry.

It's been a good run for me. I joined the meetings industry four and half years ago, when I started working at a competitor magazine of Convene's. When I started, I was given my "beats" — journalist slang for areas of coverage — one of which was an acronym I'd never heard of before: PCMA. Little did I know that in the coming years PCMA would become an even bigger part of my life.

One of the first calls I made on behalf of the magazine was to a major hotel chain, requesting an interview with one of its senior executives. I had assumed that the PR person I'd called to help arrange the interview would be dismissive of me and my relatively low-circulation (at least when compared to a consumer publication like People, or Time) trade magazine.

I couldn't have been more wrong: The PR person was thrilled to hear from me, and quickly arranged for me to speak with the hotel executive, the first of hundreds of interviews that I would conduct. I guess I had just never considered how important group business and the meetings and convention industry is to hotels and municipalities — but now I began to understand.

About six months later, I attended my first PCMA annual meeting, in Seattle. It was an eye-opening experience, to say the least: So many people, so much networking and education, so many elaborate evening events! And I got to hear for the first time, in person at least, from PCMA President and CEO Deborah Sexton, a truly singular and impressive presence in the meetings industry.

From that point on, I have been thoroughly impressed with PCMA. It just seemed to have a professionalism and sharpness that other industry organizations couldn't quite match. The following year's annual meeting, in New Orleans, only reinforced that point of view in my mind.

So it was with eagerness that in late 2009 I applied to, and subsequently landed, a senior editor job at PCMA Convene magazine. I interviewed with Editor in Chief Michelle Russell and Executive Editor Chris Durso on my 30th birthday — no kidding — then also met with Senior Editor Barbara Palmer, and officially joined the team on Jan. 4, 2010. Two days later I got on a plane to Convening Leaders in Dallas — and I actually met my girlfriend of two years now on the plane ride down there (hi, Kim!).

Suffice it to say, PCMA and Convene have been very good to me.

And I'm happy to have continued the learning process that began with that first call to the hotel executive, and to have discovered this vibrant world of meetings and conventions that underpins business, travel, medicine, manufacturing, and science — pretty much everything under the sun.

Another thing that struck me, a couple of years ago, when the meetings-industry backlash was in full swing in the media: People were lambasting meetings and events left and right ... and yet it turns out that virtually everyone attends meetings and conventions as part of their own personal career, and finds them edifying. It was a real, "Well, the meetings I attend are valuable, but the rest are just junkets" mentality.

Perhaps that's a good take-away for meeting professionals, whenever you hear someone going off on your industry. Maybe just take a minute to ask them what meetings or trade shows they attend, and what they get out of them. My hunch is that, if you approach folks in this way, you'll get a positive response.

So much important work and innovations and connections take place at meetings and conventions, that it would a terrible loss for them to ever fall by the wayside. I'm always reminded of this when I read the New Yorker magazine, where it seems that the basis for pretty much every article is — you guessed it — some sort of meeting.

Keep up the great and important work, meeting professionals. I've thoroughly enjoyed being a part of your industry for the last four and a half years — and my ears will forever perk up when, in the future, I hear about a proposal for a new convention center.

All my best,

PCMA Convene Senior Editor Hunter R. Slaton

Global Platform Could Unite, Expand Virtual Events

2012-01-10T13:47:00.000-05:00

Tony Lorenz, left, with industry leaders at Convening Leaders.

The Network.

That’s what Tony Lorenz, founder of bXb Online is calling a new global online channel designed to aggregate content that offers live and on-demand content, primarily from face-to-face events. Plans are to launch the network later this year, but only after gathering information from the events industry. The network, which will be on an open-source platform, will be “for the industry and by the industry,” he said.

Pulling content together onto one network will make it easier for users to find and access the best, Lorenz said. He also expects that by aggregating the content, the network will raise the profile of the events industry in the greater business world, he said.

Plans for the network were announced this morning at the San Diego Convention Center at a press conference held during Convening Leaders. Lorenz was joined by supporting organizations,

including the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA), and Virtual Edge Institute (VEI). The International Association of Events & Exhibitions (IAEE) is also a charter supporter.

Lorenz will be gathering information from the industry in a series of face-to-face events, some tied to large industry events, as well as through an online forum. More details are available here, http://bxbonline.com/blog.

Those interested in participating can also contact bXb by email at thenetwork@bxbonline.com.

Live From Convening Leaders

2012-01-09T19:29:00.002-05:00

Convene is representing at PCMA 2012 Convening Leaders in San Diego this week -- overseeing the PCMA Daily newspaper and maintaining a strong, florally accented presence in the PCMA Partner Lounge. Photo by Andy Chasteen.

Scholarship Funds Support Digital Certification Program

2012-01-06T08:40:00.003-05:00

Meeting professionals eager to develop the skills required in the quickly expanding hybrid and online events arena could soon get support from an industry leader.

Michael Doyle, founder of the Virtual Edge Institute (VEI), announced today that bXb Online has committed $100,000 in support of VEI’s Digital Event Strategist (DES) certification program, the only one of its kind. The financial support offered by bXb Online, a four-month-old marketing agency founded by Tony Lorenz and specializing in hybrid and online event strategies, will sponsor professionals who are pursuing advanced credentials in the discipline.

The DES Certification, scheduled to launch this spring, is designed to help develop the talent that organizations need to effectively engage audiences using online events, Doyle said.

“The digital events community is an important and fast-growing category within event marketing,” he said. “The scale of the industry, when compared to the available talent in the digital events category, calls for investment in the talent base. bXb Online’s commitment will help ensure growth of a robust talent pool in the industry.”

For the second year in a row, VEI's Virtual Edge Summit is being co-located with PCMA's Convening Leaders.

Education is a pillar of bXb Online, said Lorenz. “We want to do what we can to support professional education in the digital event marketing space." The DES certification program starts with best practices around strategy, a characteristic that Lorenz called "embedded in the DNA of bXb Online."

While not a condition of bXb'a commitment, Lorenz is encouraging industry colleagues to consider a match of up to 100 percent of the pledge to further expand VEI’s DES certification program as a critical component of the entire event marketing landscape.

Look for details about the bXb Online DES scholarship program and registration for scholarship applications on January 31, 2012, at www.bxbonline.com/desscholarsship. For now, interested professionals may sign up for scholarship updates by emailing their complete contact information to desscholars@bxbonline.com.

Here We Go Again

2012-01-05T10:38:00.005-05:00

As I picked up this morning's local paper (The Record, serving northern New Jersey), I ran across this front-page headline: "Convention trip cost taxpayers $14,000." My initial concern was that conventions are once again being targeted as junkets, but as I read the more, I learned that those interviewed for the article were not questioning the merit of the conference in question — the New Jersey State League of Municipalities conference in November in Atlantic City — as much as raising the fact that one N.J. city (and potentially 17 other towns) failed to obtain proper state approval before sending 24 employees and officials to attend it. That city and those towns are under state supervision for receiving transitional aid and are therefore subject to a number of requirements regarding expenses — conferences included.

That was a relief, but I still imagined something of a smirk on the face of the writer as he described the conference: "Municipal officials have flocked to the conference for decades to attend seminars meant to improve government practices, schmooze with other officials, and be tempted to buy a wide range of services and products that are offered on the convention floor by private vendors." Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

And in other recent government news in my neck of the woods, yesterday NY Gov. Cuomo announced plans to turn Manhattan's Javits Convention Center into a housing, hotel, and office development, while pushing for a new 3.8-million-square-foot convention center — the country's largest — at Aqueduct Raceway in Queens. Mayor Bloomberg, who supports the proposals, asked: "Could you imagine what we could do if we had a world-class, appropriate-sized convention center?"

It will take grit along with imagination to see the project through, as convention-center expansion is not without its critics. In an unrelated City Journal editorial on Dec. 31, Steven Malanga accuses cities of "squandering money on hotels and meeting facilities" by using public dollars to build convention center space for two decades — "far more than demand warranted."

I think we should all embrace a healthy debate on the topic. At the very least, it keeps our industry on the public's radar.

What's Ahead for Virtual in 2012?

2012-01-04T09:51:00.002-05:00

Image by Solfrost

As Michael Doyle, founder of the Virtual Edge Institute, prepared for the 2012 Virtual Edge Summit next week, co-located with PCMA's 2012 Convening Leaders in San Diego, he took time to look ahead with his top seven predictions for the virtual meetings industry for 2012.

1. Movement toward a simpler “less is more” approach

The trend toward a more simplified, web page-based graphical interface for online events and meetings will continue in 2012. Platform vendors are moving in the “less is better” direction with their new versions.

2. More embedded event and meeting solutions

Events in 2012 will be open and easily accessible to attendees wherever they are located. Many event and meeting producers will want to embed their events and learning programs into their existing websites to simplify the attendee experience.

3. More convergence of event technology

The competitive edge will go to those vendors who have the ability to converge registration, website, mobile, community/networking, and virtual extensions into a single solution. Most digital event solution providers will continue to move toward open architecture and a modular approach that will allow the embedding of elements driven by physical event registration and mobile communication systems.

4. More 365 environments

Although there will always be the need for online environments for single events, the trend will be toward building perpetual environments that are available year-round to allow for better utilization and monetization of content. Users and producers alike will seek easy-to-use solutions that include their history, sufficient storage for recorded materials, and a familiar social network.

5. More shuttering of virtual event platforms

“Currently, there are too many virtual event platforms with too few distinctions,” Doyle explains. “Mobile technology has changed the game and what was a workable platform six months ago is now on the verge of being leapfrogged. That being the case, we will likely see new entrants that come into the market based on the latest web services, mobile and cloud architecture as others continue to drop off the radar screen.”

6. More predictable pricing models and shared risk/reward

In 2012, more simplified and more predictable pricing models will emerge. Some technology providers will choose a true Software as a Service (SaaS) model with limited services, while others will focus more on the services than on the technology platform. Some of these services will be geared toward making the event producer more successful from an ROI standpoint and we’ll see compensation models that reward or share in success.

7. More facilities will bring their Internet costs down while others will go “plug ‘n play.”

Internet charges for streaming content from events and meetings will come down as the strategic value of hybrid events continues to grow. Convention centers will find it a competitive advantage to offer great connectivity packages that enable attendees and event producers to share their event experiences via low or no-cost Internet and Wi-Fi. Some centers will also seek to become leaders in the digital revolution by offering in-house streaming studios, streaming services and built-in virtual presenter solutions. Event producers will need to negotiate the digital elements of their physical events before they sign their facility rental contract to get the best deals.

In summary, Doyle notes, "the theme is ‘more, more, more’ for 2012, though not necessarily more of the same. Experimentation and ongoing adjustment to digital strategies will be with us for the foreseeable future as we strive to add value to event, meeting, marketing and learning programs with an ever-growing arsenal of digital tools."

A Year in Blog Posts

2011-12-28T13:19:00.002-05:00

Photo by Fabrizio Pincelli

There are a lot of ways to mark the end of a year. We decided to look both backwards and forward at the same time, by sharing some of the blog posts we wrote in 2011 that hit on topics or trends that we'll still be talking about in 2012. We chose one for each month:

1. Making Lemonade. Kelly Peacy, PCMA's vice president for meetings and events, took on what could have been a real headache and came up with a solution that was a runaway hit with attendees. (Why it's buzz-worthy now: Her innovation was a keeper, and will return at Convening Leaders 2012 Jan. 8-11.)

2. By the Numbers. When the Convention Industry Council (CIC) revealed the results of the landmark study, "The Economic Significance of Meetings to the U.S. Economy," jaws dropped: Meetings contribute $263 billion in direct spending and 1.7 million jobs to the U.S. economy each year. The CIC study kicked off a wave of new meetings-industry research initiatives.

3. SXSW Cared About Japan. The world watched in sad horror as Japan was devastated in March by an earthquake and tsunami, followed by severe damage at a nuclear power plant. The meetings industry acted quickly, including attendees at SXSW in Austin, who began raising funds to aid in the disaster hours after it began. The Japanese National Tourism Organization reported rising numbers of visitors later in the year.

4. So Long Bubba. It's not really news anymore that iPads can be a meeting planner's best friend. Mandi Kasper, CMP, a member of PCMA's meetings and events team, made this great little video about how she and fellow team members made the leap from paper to tablet.

5. Got Geek? There is a constant churn of new applications created to enhance the productivity and effectiveness of meetings and meeting planners. Planner Liz King hit on a great idea — a meeting! — to test them out. Planner Tech took off in New York, and was repeated in Washington, D.C.

6. Serious Fun. Games, as a way to both connect and educate attendees, came on strong this year, including the pioneering game played by attendees at the Green Meeting Industry Council's annual meeting in Portland.

7. Huyang Is in the Details. Global trends and government policies continue to affect the world of international meetings in big ways, but little things mean a lot, too.

8. Smart Ways to Fight 'Decision Fatigue'. Research into how our brains work has huge implications for how we design and run meetings. (Look for more about brain-friendly meetings in the January issue of Convene.)

9. A Turning Point for Hybrid Meetings? We had it wrong, it turns out, when we predicted that sharing meeting content online would decimate our meetings. Done right, it can have just the opposite effect.

10. "The Future is Crashing Into Us." There was plenty of straight talk when more than 200 attendees gathered at the PCMA Masters Series in Washington, D.C., to discuss what the future of convention exhibits and trade shows might look like.

11. "In Your Mind's Eye." Why meeting planners may be the most imaginative people around, live from our inaugural Convene Forum. Stay tuned for word about where we will meet in 2012.

12. Doing Good by Doing What You Are Good At. CSR is not only not a fad, but is becoming more aligned with business goals. Imagine what could happen if you were to leverage, not just the energy of your attendees, but their deepest expertise. What could they learn from one another while they are giving back?

Doing Good by Doing What You're Good At

2011-12-13T11:06:00.000-05:00

courtesy NONDC

When it comes to doing good, sometimes the hardest part is choosing the right idea. But when a plan to tackle a social problem aligns with a business interest, things start clicking, Margaret Coady, director of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP), told USA Today earlier this year.

It also works that way when an association or organization lines up its public-service projects at the "sweet spots" where their own areas of expertise intersection with social needs. A perfect example was the decision by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to create a project that would address the rebuilding of post-Katrina New Orleans, the site of AIA's 2011 National Convention and Design Exposition.

Knowing the needs of New Orleans, "we can't not do something," Joel Mills, director of AIA's Center for Communities by Design, told Executive Editor Chris Durso, who wrote about the project for Convene. (The project outline is available here.)

Another great example is the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) decade-long commitment to building safe, accessible playgrounds in the cities where they hold their annual meetings. It resonates with AAOS members, public relations director Sandra Gordon told me, because orthopedic surgeons have first-hand experience with injuries that children can suffer on unsafe playground equipment.

Nearly half of all conferences now include volunteer experiences, according to research conducted at the University of Florida. Just think of all that could be done, and the rewarding experiences that could be created for meeting attendees, if conference-related projects unleashed the full talents of their members.

Hybrid Meetings: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

2011-12-02T17:31:00.002-05:00

"Most hybrid events are like bad cable access TV."

That's from consultant Sam Smith, managing director of Interactive Meeting Technology, and a co-founder of the successful hybrid meeting, Event Camp Twin Cities. And I know exactly what Sam means, having suffered through a dismal livestreamed event this week. I actually didn't suffer for long -- after just a few minutes, I turned to something more interesting.

That's one of the points that Sam makes about creating effective hybrid events: People have a lot to distract them, and meeting organizers are not going to engage viewers by simply sticking a camera in the back of the room and switching it on.

For guidance on how you can do a better job, check out the following presentation by Sam and Event Camp Twin Cities co-founder Ray Hansen.

View more presentations from Samuel Smith

Get Out!

2011-11-30T10:12:00.004-05:00

This morning, in the New York Times' Frequent Flier column, I came across a somewhat-more-urban follow-on to Convene Senior Editor Barbara Palmer's recent blog post, "The Nature Break-Out."

Basically, the Frequent Flier column is an "as-told-to" story from a frequent business traveler — in this case, Jennifer Davis, a marketing executive for a digital display company. Davis does signage, and attends meetings. In discussing how to beat jet lag, she suggests taking a walk outside prior to whatever it is, business-wise, for which she's flown to a destination. She relates a great anecdote:

One afternoon in Albi, France, before some meetings on our video wall technology with our European team, I discovered an awesome formal riverfront garden behind the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum. No one told me it was there, and it was so incredibly beautiful that it brought a smile to my face. That’s a great way to start a meeting.

I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, the reality that discoveries such as this aren't often given the chance to occur is a meetings-industry pet peeve of mine: All too often, it seems, the only aspects of a destination you get to see are the inside of the convention center and your hotel, with maybe a token off-site dinner or reception thrown in.

Wouldn't it be nice — and wouldn't your participants be more engaged? — if they were given, or encouraged to take, some time prior to or during the meeting to do a bit of exploring in the place that they are in? This could be on their own, or sanctioned and planned by the organization itself. Either way, I have to agree with Davis that what she experienced is a great — and, unfortunately, all-too-infrequent — way to kick-start or invigorate any meeting.

The Nature Break-Out

2011-11-22T17:24:00.001-05:00

Discovery Green in Houston, Project for Public Spaces

If your meeting is in a destination with ready access to a park or beach, that may seem like a nice frill. (Maybe even too nice of a frill, depending on your industry.)

But being able to get in touch with nature creates tangible benefits for your meeting attendees: Research from the University of Michigan shows that a walk in nature can actually boost cognition by 20 percent.

Nature can offer benefits even if you don't make it all the way outside: Outside Magazine cites a study that reports that office workers who had views of trees and flowers were sick less often.

White River State Park, Visit Indy

In the future, convention centers and other meeting venues could be asked to add another metric -- green space -- to their stat sheets. Houston, for example, would position the 12-acre Discovery Green Park, across the street from the George R. Brown Convention Center, not as an attraction, but as a necessary resource for meeting planners and attendees.

And Indianapolis would list the 250-acre White River State Park, adjacent to Lucas Oil Stadium and the Indianapolis Convention Center, right along with the number of meeting rooms.

All of this is contingent, of course, on planners scheduling meetings that actually give attendees the time to take a restorative break. And on attendees using the time to reconnect with themselves, not with their laptops.

Idea File: Connect Your Speakers With Your Attendees

2011-11-17T14:54:00.001-05:00

Even if you're not a Lyle Lovett fan, there are some great takeaways from this interview, which was conducted by venture capitalist Roger McAnamee, at the 2011 Techonomy conference that wrapped up earlier this week in Tucson.

Talking to Lovett, it turns out, was the sole reason that venture capitalist Roger McAnamee came to the conference, McAnamee told the musician. He'd been to a lot of great conferences and heard a lot of great speeches and great ideas over the years, "but the number of things that are really new are farther apart than you'd like," McAnamee said. "I'm about the experiences in life," and interviewing Lovett was the lure. "But in that classic serendipitous way, I came here for that, but I am also going to get all these other benefits ... I wasn't going to be here, but I am really, really glad I came."

Chances are that some of the entertainers or speakers you invite to your conference are heroes to your attendees. So why not give attendees to interview them, and then post videos on YouTube and your conference website?

If you are a Lyle Lovett fan, like I am, you probably went straight to the video. My favorite Lovett quote: "Technology supports the humanity in all of us -- and makes it more accessible."

In Your Mind's Eye

2011-11-17T14:00:00.009-05:00

This is the image I snapped on my iPhone earlier this week — and the spectacular view the editorial team enjoyed as we mapped out our January issue poolside at the beautiful Le Blanc Resort in Cancun. We were there to help host the inaugural Convene Forum, a hosted-buyer conference with a focus on shared learning. (Look for us to tell you more about our successful forum on upcoming blog posts and in the January issue of Convene.)

I've been to Cancun three times now since I first visited this beautiful tropical paradise 30 years ago on my honeymoon. At that time, there were two hotels in Cancun and a dirt road took us from the airport to ours, a Hyatt. I never could have imagined how this quiet vacation spot would take off to become Mexico's most popular resort destination, and how those two hotels dotting a pristine shoreline would multiply into hundreds, one after the other. But that's only because my capacity for imagination is not so great — because it was clear back then that Cancun's white-sand beaches and emerald-blue ocean were a treasure to be mined.

It struck me that imagination is probably a trait that planners learn to cultivate — to be able to see in your mind's eye how a space can be transformed, set up, or reconfigured to suit your group's needs. That capacity is tested even more when planners book a future meeting at a venue that exists only on a drawing board, the topic of our October issue cover story.

Sandy Biback of Imagination+Meeting Planners read that story and shared with me her own this week: She had suggested to a client several years ago that the Scotiabank Convention Centre of Niagara Falls would be a good place for their January 2012 conference. At that time, it was barely a hole in the ground that she and her client overlooked from a hotel room. She said: "Our sales manager did an excellent job of getting us to visualize the space, using the hole in the ground, actual architectural drawings, and of course a PowerPoint presentation (which today would be on an iPad, I suppose)."

Fast forward to two months from now: "Based on good faith and good financial decisions, our conference will be moving in January 17," Sandy wrote. "It can be done, with a lot of homework." Plus imagination, I'd say.

Extra, Extra!: Convene Newsstand

2011-11-08T09:00:00.006-05:00

Welcome back to Extra, Extra!, PCMA Convene's semi-regular weekly news supplement. Lately it's been more semi than regular, and for that we apologize — the Convene editorial staff have been busy putting together our November and December issues, always the biggest of the year, in addition to helping plan our first-ever Convene Forum, in Cancun next week.

But enough prevarication. On to the news!

When booking flights recently, have you gotten the feeling that more and more seats are off-limits — unless, of course, you're willing to pay an additional fee? Well, it's not just a feeling: According to the Wall Street Journal, airlines are increasingly charging passengers not only for choice seats (such as those in the exit rows), but even pretty much any assigned seat — other than, say, a middle seat in the back of the plane, snuggled right next to the bathrooms. And it's not just comfort (such as it is) that's at stake: As the story reports, passengers who come to the airport with unassigned seats — i.e., those who decline to play the airlines' game of musical chairs and pay the fee — are more likely to get bumped, in the event of an oversold flight.

Joe Sharkey, who writes the New York Times' "On the Road" business-travel column, got an earful from his readers last week, who responded in droves to an earlier column in which Sharkey said that hotel Wi-Fi was deteriorating — as a result of more and more guests using the connection for data-heavy uses such as streaming Netflix — and "that the time may be coming when hotels would purchase a lot more bandwidth from their Internet providers, but then offer Wi-Fi to guests in a tiered-fee system."

On the whole, readers agreed with Sharkey's observation that hotel Wi-Fi was getting worse, but flat-out rejected any suggestion of tiered pricing for improved access. Instead, as more than one reader suggested:

"Why don’t you get mobile broadband via a 4G USB modem from Verizon for $50 a month, and put your on-the-road data needs to rest? 4G is stunningly fast, and you will have access any place within the Verizon phone network.

Seems like a good idea for anyone who travels any significant amount of time each month — not to mention this would also mean no more having to continually enter login info into hotel Wi-Fi systems.

Remember the $16 muffin story from a few weeks ago? Sure you do. Some of you are probably still tossing and turning in bed over it, in cold sweats, up all night. Well, rest easy: The Dept. of Justice's Inspector General has officially retracted the allegation that led to the whole controversy. Of course, shortly after the story appeared in the national news media, many people both within and without the meetings industry pointed out big flaws in the story, effectively debunking it. But the official retraction is still welcome. A statement from the Inspector General says:

After publication of the report, we received additional documents and information concerning the food and beverage costs at the EOIR conference. After further review of the newly provided documentation and information, and after discussions with the Capital Hilton and the Department, we determined that our initial conclusions concerning the itemized costs of refreshments at the EOIR conference were incorrect and that the Department did not pay $16 per muffin. We have therefore revised the report based on these additional documents and deleted references to any incorrect costs. We regret the error in our original report.

Chalk one up for the meetings industry.

A Modest Proposal

2011-11-01T16:16:00.001-04:00

I recently talked to Jane McGonigal, one of the world's foremost experts on games and the author of Reality is Broken: Why Games Makes Us Better and How They Can Change the World. The interview will appear in the November issue of Convene; McGonigal will speak Jan. 9 at Convening Leaders 2012, in San Diego.

I liked a lot of what McGonigal had to say, but perhaps nothing more than what I didn't hear her say: gamification. A quick flip through the index of her book turns up the terms "game communities," "gamer regret," and "gameplay emotion," but if the term "gamification" appears in the book, it's fleeting.

I was happy, because I don't like the word at all. It sounds to me like a chemical process, like liquefication, which happens independently, without human interaction. Or maybe we reach for the machine-like word gamification because the modern focus on games most often seems to be on those played on computers.

But nothing could be more human or deeply rooted in our social natures than playing games. Among the most illuminating pages of McGonigal's book were those in which she retells a story first told by Herodotus, about how the ancient Lydians got through an 18-year-long famine by inventing games that we still play, including dice and ball.

Herodotus tells us that in the past games were created as a virtual solution to unbearable hunger. And, yes, I see a future in which games continue to satisfy our hunger to be challenged and rewarded, to be creative and successful, to be social and part of something larger than ourselves. But I also see a future in which the games we play stoke our appetite for engagement, pushing and enabling us to make stronger connections -- and bigger contributions -- to the world around us.

So my proposal is this: if McGonigal, not to mention Herodotus, can manage to talk about games without using the word gamification, so can we in the meetings industry.

I think it will help us remember that it is we who are playing the games, not the computers, and for what purposes.

Convene On Site: PCMA Masters Series

2011-10-21T16:38:00.002-04:00

Great conversations begin with great questions, and yesterday's PCMA Masters Series program at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., kicked off with 10 of them. Presenters Jeff Leitner and Bryan Campen cut right to the heart of the topic -- "The Bold New World of Convention Exhibits and Trade Shows." Leitner, founder and dean of Insight Labs, which "deconstruct[s] things for a living, and then we reconstruct them," told the more than 200 attendees: "This is a conversation about 2016, and the bad news is that no one knows what is coming in 2016. ... But we have to try, because your companies and clients all depend on you to have a sense of what's coming so you can help prepare them for it."

Why do we need to have this conversation? "To get people to realize that the future" is much closer than it used to be, said Campen, social media director for Manifest Digital, which is conducting the Future Meet project (co-sponsored by PCMA). "The future is actually crashing into us at this point."

Then Leitner and Campen offered a series of quick-answer provocations intended to leave no assumption unchallenged:

The majority of our vendors care or don't care about our association?
Better to have 100 solid leads or five dinner dates?
Trade shows are a must-have or a nice-to-have for our vendors?
More important for our vendors to get leads or to get recognition/thought leadership?
Trade shows are a must-have or a nice-to-have for our attendees?
Better to have more vendors or more compelling displays?
Giving access to the general public increases or decreases the value of a trade show?
In 2016, the best trade shows will be more like work or more like a vacation?
In 2016, the best trade shows will have hundreds of attendees or thousands?
In 2016, attendees will pay more or less to attend trade shows?

Signaling their answers via audience-response software, the more than 200 attendees veered toward the optimistic -- 82 percent said their vendors care about their association; 67 percent that vendors consider trade shows a must-have; more than half that attendees would pay more for trade shows, etc.

Leitner was blunt in response: "I disagree with a lot of where you guys are." The trade-show model worked well for a long time, he said, but is being undermined by exhibitors' ability to "get in front of your attendees" in other ways -- facilitated by social media and online technology.

Can that be fixed or reversed? Maybe. "It is possible to create an experience so profound," Leitner said, "that all business gets done there." To start, you have to think about what a trade show really is. "What you are creating on the trade-show floor," he said, "is the greatest market-research space in existence."

From there Leitner and Campen had attendees break into small groups, aligning themselves with one of five possible models for future trade shows -- from "This is just a downturn, the current model is solid" to "The current model is dead." Tables talked about what a trade show organized around their model might look like in 2016, then reported out their thoughts to the entire group.

"My candid assessment is that as a group, this group is beginning to inch toward the future, but it still looks a lot like what today looks like," Leitner said. "And that's okay." He had three pieces of advice for attendees: First, imagine something you can do with exhibitors that will make both of you money "and has nothing to do with a show floor." Second, reach out to Millennials in a way that capitalizes on the fact that while they probably won't attend trade shows, "they're still going to live events in droves." And finally: "Your challenge is to create something more interesting. ... Your challenge is not to do the same thing more efficiently, because then you're a bank."

Pulling All The Triggers

2011-10-18T09:57:00.078-04:00

Sally Hogshead

In Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation, brand consultant Sally Hogshead examines the meaning and mechanics of fascination, and offers seven ways for individuals and organizations to increase and improve upon their ability to get attention and keep it, as well as to influence others.

Hogshead’s book is the result of multidisciplinary research, but fascination, it turns out, is as much art as science — to be most effective, you have to know how and when to use the triggers. And it is generally best, Hogshead advises, not to use all the triggers at one time.

But there are exceptions, including when Hogshead is speaking and wants to prove her points. When I interviewed Hogshead for the November issue of Convene, she employed me how she uses all seven triggers when she speaks. It's also a sneak preview: Hogshead will speak Jan. 9 at Convening Leaders in San Diego.

1. Passion. “It is very important for the audience to feel that they are bonding with me from the second I walk out on stage, I want them to feel like we are we are doing this together.”

2. Trust: “As soon as I walk out there, [the audience] knows I am a leader in my field, they already know I have done a tremendous amount of research. Trust is not something I can build on stage, trust is something that can be built through experience and repeated exposure. I make sure that audience knows that everything I am saying is not my opinion, but is backed up by research.”

<--!more-->3. Prestige: Every aspect of my keynote is polished to a perfect degree, my slides have all been developed by award-winning designers. I make sure that every piece of the experience, from the way I am introduced, to the way my materials are handed out gives a very high-end experience for the audience.

4. Power. “When I speak, I am in command and control of what I am talking about . That helps {the audience] understand that this is a message that they absolutely need to hear — that this is urgent."

5. Alarm: "I used the alarm trigger to explain what happens if people don’t fascinate. I want them to really understand that it used to be okay to not fascinate ... but today there is too much competition. I use the alarm trigger to get people really plugged into the problem. I need them to be a bit uncomfortable hearing my speech, so I can give them the solution and so they understand that there is a lot at stake here."

6. Rebellion: "This trigger is one of my favorites. Rebellion is about creativity and surprise. While I am talking, I love to give the audience either a surprise or do something in a completely innovative way. I love walking out into the audience and asking people to join me on stage for an exercise or challenging the audience in a way they didn’t expect … I love pushing the boundaries of how a speech would normally go."

Mystique: "When an audience is curious, they want to know more. I give them enough information to understand the insight. But I don’t want to spell everything out to the nth degree."

Find this fascinating? You're in luck: Hogshead is speaking on Jan. 9, 2012 at PCMA Convening Leaders. You can also take "brand personality" test on Hogshead website to find out your our natural strengths and how to use them.

What's Green and 86 Stories Tall?

2011-10-12T09:34:00.000-04:00

Photography by Daniel Schwen

One of New York City's most iconic buildings has now become one of its greenest: the 80-year-old Empire State Building has been awarded LEED-Gold for Existing Buildings certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

But it's also serving as a example for other large and drafty old buildings: the strategies used in the project, which will reduce the building's energy use by 38 percent and save $4.4 million in energy costs annually, have been published as an open-source model so that the results can be replicated in other buildings.

Although the project will reduce greenhouse gases, that wasn't the primary motivation of the building owners. With the help of the Clinton Climate Initiative, they put together an engineering dream team and set out to either prove or disprove the cost-effectiveness of energy retrofits, according to a white paper about the Empire State Building's sustainability program.

The results were definitive: The retrofit will pay back the costs of the project in just three years, making the Empire State Building one of the largest and splashiest examples around of the economic viability of sustainability, even for old buildings.

Information about the project, including the analytical model and specific money-saving projects can be found on the website, esbsustainability.com, created by another of the project partners, the Rocky Mountain Institute.

Wonder what convention center might be up for a similar project?

Extra, Extra!: Convene Newsstand

2011-10-04T09:36:00.000-04:00

Surely most of you read a couple of weeks ago (either with horror or amusement — or more likely a mixture of both) about the now-infamous $16 muffin at a recent Justice Department meeting at the Capitol Hilton in Washington, D.C. Well, the ombudsman for the Washington Post, which brought the Justice Department inspector general's report that cited the costly pastry to the public's attention, recently revisited the issue, and determined that the reporting wasn't entirely accurate.

Patrick B. Pexton, the newspaper's ombudsman, writes: "[A]s a journalist, my instinct tells me that the muffin story was just a bit too good to be true."

Turns out it was. The total cost for F&B at the mandatory five-day immigration-law training conference, which only provided breakfast and snacks for its 534 attendees, was $39,360, or $7,872 a day. "Divide that by 534 people attending," Pexton writes, "and you get $14.74 per person per day for continental breakfast and snacks." Pexton continues:

So why did the IG’s office say the immigration judges were eating $16 muffins? Because the itemized receipts from Hilton are imprecise: The coffee and fruit were provided free, and they allocated all the fees to the muffins, croissants, bagels, brownies and cookies provided for morning and afternoon refreshment. Hence it looks like $16 per morning pastry and $9 for afternoon brownies, cookies, and bags of chips. But really it was $14.74 per head per day.

Sounds like an open-and-shut (and toasted, and buttered) case to me.

Moving on: We talked about pump dispensers for hotel toiletries awhile ago in Extra, Extra! — and it so happens that this is just one of six hotel trends you should expect to see more of in the future, according to the Associated Press. What are the others? Increasing fees, "lobbies as social hubs," "disappearing [bath]tubs," electronic check-in, and locavore food options.

Which of these do you like, and which do you hate? Click here for more detail on each trend.

Whatever you think of the aforementioned lodging trends, the hotel industry seems to be recovering nicely following the Great Recession: Smith Travel Research Global reports that the average U.S. room rate in the first week of September climbed to $107, just $3 shy of the high-water mark set in March 2008. And, according to Mike Kistner, chief executive of lodging firm Pegasus Solutions, quoted in this story in the Los Angeles Times, hotel prices will most likely rise even further in the coming months.

In other hotel news, Nashville's Tennessean newspaper reports that the proposed 1,500-room Gaylord hotel and convention complex outside of Denver has moved one step closer to becoming a reality, after the suburb of Aurora last week approved an incentive package which could add up to more than half a billion dollars.

And finally, for no other reason than fun, check out this story from the New York Times about the World Championship of Public Speaking, put on by Toastmasters International. Who will win!? Will it be the Australian native who previously torched his chances at the title by, in his speech about his pregnant grandmother and a Tasmanian bush fire, using an insensitive term for an overweight person? Or will it be the teddy-bear-toting speech-impediment-surmounter who sang, onstage, the popular Queen song "We Will Wock You"?

That Awkward Stage

2011-09-30T17:03:00.001-04:00

Photograph courtesy USDA

As we lurch forward into the digitally enhanced future in the meetings industry, I keep thinking about a long-ago afternoon when I was working at one of my first jobs, for a magazine published by a state tourism department.

Desktop computers were still rare, and a few of us had gathered in front of a computer to take a look at something then brand-new -- a website created by another state tourism department.

The site itself didn't make a big impression on me, but this did: The state's governor had recorded a personal invitation to visit, which we could listen to only after many long minutes spent downloading an audio file via dial-up access. As I recall, it took longer to download the short message than it did to listen to it. The whole experience was so underwhelming, that we just laughed and went back to work.

Nobody would say now that it is a bad idea to promote destinations on the Web. But initially the technology -- as well as knowledge about how to use it well -- had not yet caught up with the vision for its potential.

I sometimes think of that afternoon now, when I encounter an awkward or frustrating digital meeting platform. Not many are as clunky as that first destination website I saw, but it helps to remember that the individual experience that I am having isn't a reliable reflection of the potential of the medium.

And if you want to do something new, you sometimes have to just keep going through the awkward stages.

Convene Reads: Life Itself

2011-09-28T09:55:00.000-04:00

One of the fascinating things about this industry is that it's seemingly impossible to find its boundaries; there's always another epic, high-profile conference that's gone on for years but that somehow you've never heard of. Such as the Conference on World Affairs, which is the subject of an entire chapter in Roger Ebert's warm, generous new memoir, Life Itself:

For sixty-six years, this annual meeting at the University of Colorado has persuaded a very mixed bag of people to travel to Boulder at their own expense, appear with one another on panels not of their choosing, lodge with local hosts who volunteer their spare rooms, speak spontaneously on topics they learn about only after they arrive, be driven around town by volunteers, be fed at lunch by the university and in the evening by such as the chairman, Jane Butcher, in her own home. For years the conference founder Howard Higman personally cooked roast beef on Tuesday night. The hundreds of panels, demonstrations, concerts, polemics, poetry readings, political discussions, and performances are and always have been free and open to the public.

This reminds me of two things: the cover story in our January 2011 issue, which was all about "big-tent, big-idea conferences"; and the One on One interview with TED founder Richard Saul Wurman in this month's issue, in which Wurman discusses the importance of operating outside your comfort zone, because "you don't get your best work when you pursue comfort." That seems to be the approach that the big-tent, big-idea Conference on World Affairs inflicts on its speakers, and it resonated strongly enough with Roger Ebert that he attended -- and spoke there -- for 40 years.

A Turning Point for Hybrid Meetings?

2011-09-27T12:11:00.003-04:00

The conversation about digital events is making a U-turn, we report in the September issue of Convene.

Instead of fearing that digital extensions will take attendees away from face-to-face events, meeting organizers are beginning to appreciate the ways in which they can bring more awareness -- and ultimately more attendees -- to meetings.

There's a similar shift toward hybrid in higher education, where educators have long debated the effectiveness of online classes vs. traditional classes. A recent study by the Community College Research Center at Columbia University shows that students complete online-only classes as a lower rate than students enrolled in traditional classes.

However, the same study reports that students enrolled in hybrid classes, which mix online and classroom instruction, complete classes at nearly the same levels as students in traditional classes.

The study focused on community college instruction, but elite universities also are experimenting with hybrid models. This fall, students enrolled in an introductory sociology class at New York University will watch lectures online and then use classtime for discussion, the Village Voice reports. (Convene columnist Jeffrey Cufaude wrote about a similar model last December.)

Lesson learned: As part of an overall strategy, digital content is a tool, not a threat. Instead of online vs. face- to-face, the new question is, "How do we leverage the strengths of each?"

Extra, Extra!: Convene Newsstand

2011-09-27T09:00:00.003-04:00

Welcome back to Extra, Extra!, the Convene blog's semi-weekly news supplement. So what's news?

IMEX America, scheduled for this coming Oct. 11–13 at the Sands Expo in Las Vegas, has released its full-show preview. Highlights include 1,800 exhibitors and 2,000 hosted buyers. A fifth of the total space at the show will be occupied by European destinations, including Croatia — which, Convene read elsewhere on the Internet, just founded the new Croatian Meeting Professionals Association (CMPA).

In a pair of news items from IAEE, the International Association of Exhibitions and Events, the association has partnered with Prometric "to develop the exhibitions and events industry’s first definition of core competencies in the exhibition management field." Sounds interesting! IAEE President Steven Hacker, CAE, FSAE (who recently announced that he would be stepping down from his position this month, after 21 years with IAEE), said, "This unprecedented initiative ... will provide thousands of exhibitions and events industry professionals a standard for their chosen careers."

The other IAEE item concerns proposed regulations from the Office of Government Ethics, which would bar U.S. federal government employees from going to "'widely attended gatherings' hosted by lobbyists or companies and trade associations that are registered to lobby," as a journalist for the Washington Post put it. What would this mean? In a statement, Hacker made plain his opinion of these proposed rules:

This reckless intrusion into commerce, if adopted, would further isolate regulators from the industries they must understand. The learning and communications that routinely take place during trade events are among the most important ways that government officials and business leaders can exchange views and ideas.

Now for some quick bits: Are you a fan of "Hell's Kitchen," the reality show wherein Gordon Ramsay screams at some chefs, and also some food occasionally gets made? If so, stayed tuned for the lodging version of the show, which has reportedly (by Entertainment Weekly) been ordered up by Fox: "Hotel Hell."

In a statement, Ramsay said of the new show, "These are stories that everyone can relate to, because virtually all of us have had a bad hotel experience that’s turned a holiday or business trip into a total disaster. It’s time to put the hospitality industry to the test." That's certainly true — now how long do we have to wait for "Airline Hell"?

This past summer (past already — it went by so quickly!), Professor Judi Brownell, of the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, published a paper in which she argued that men and women do business travel differently — "especially," as a journalist for the Chicago Tribune writes, "when it comes to hotels." Click here for a Q&A between the writer and Brownell, wherein the two discuss, among other topics, Brownell's assertion that women business travelers desire above all "to feel safe, comfortable, empowered, and pampered" when visiting a hotel.

Finally, the eco-minded mantra of "reduce, reuse, recycle" is being practiced to a great degree, it seems, by a pair of meetings-industry venues. One, the newly reflagged DoubleTree by Hilton Bloomington Minneapolis–South, which, when it was converted from a Sheraton in July, got rid of all its Sheraton-branded products by basically holding a yard sale. The property donated 2,000 logo-ed pens and notepads to a local high school's special-needs program; donated towels and sheets to a local charity; and sold "two tractor trailer loads of logo-ed and brand-specific products to other Sheratons in the five-state region," according to a story from Hotel Interactive.

The second of the two venues may be more familiar: McCormick Place in Chicago, which is seeking to find some way to get value out of the neglected parts of its Lakeside Center, a portion of the facility which dates from 1971, making it the oldest part of the convention campus. Ideas that have been put forth for Lakeside Center, according to a story in the Chicago Tribune, include "data storage facilities, office space that companies could use in disaster situations, call centers< and research centers."

Meeting in E-stonia

2011-09-22T10:12:00.003-04:00

Wireless sign in Estonia; photograph by Knoerz

Estonia? Really?

That thought crossed my mind last spring, when I overheard IMEX attendees discussing the virtues of the former Soviet bloc country as a meeting destination.

Most of what I knew then about the Baltic country was by way of a former colleague, who spent part of her childhood in Estonia. Lisa talked often about the beauty of Estonia's capital, Tallinn, but also regaled me with stories of her relative deprivation. (For glitter, Lisa told me, her mother saved broken Christmas ornaments and crushed them into shiny bits.)

So how did Estonia become the talk of the IMEX shuttle bus?
One answer: Wi-Fi.

Estonia, a country that is slightly smaller than New Hampshire and Vermont combined, is blanketed in free wireless Internet access. Much of that is due to the work of Veljo Haamer, who founded the nonprofit association WiFi.ee to promote free Wi-Fi access after visiting free Wi-Fi-enabled Bryant Park in New York City.

The successful wiring of Estonia has put it in the digital vanguard -- it was the first country to offer Internet voting to its citizens and gave the world Skype. And it's made it a growing hotspot for IT-related meetings.

Wi-Fi is not just an issue at tech industry conferences, of course. Increasingly, free Wi-Fi is seen by attendees as a necessity, not a frill. But among the biggest challenges reported by the meeting planners surveyed by Convene for our September issue, was the "atrocious" cost of providing Internet services to attendees. Only 37 percent of respondents said that their organizations provided free Wi-Fi to their attendees at their meetings.

The question of who pays for Internet access is a thorny one. But Estonia offers one clear lesson: Free public Wi-Fi is possible.

About Those $16 Muffins ...

2011-09-21T16:22:00.003-04:00

Three years ago it was the AIG Effect. Today it's called Muffingate. Literally today -- with a new report from the U.S. Department of Justice's inspector general decrying "wasteful or extravagant spending" at DOJ conferences, splashed on the front page of this morning's Washington Post. ("Muffingate" comes from a CBS News report on the same topic. Funny!)

Titled "Audit of Department of Justice Conference Planning and Food and Beverage Costs," the report offers an audit of Department of Justice conference planning and food and beverage costs for 10 meetings that DOJ held between October 2007 and September 2009. It follows up on a similar review conducted in September 2007, which found that "DOJ had few internal controls to limit the expense of conference planning and food and beverage costs at DOJ conferences," and which issued 14 recommendations to help "implement stronger oversight of conference expenditures." The new report finds that, as far as the inspector general is concerned, nothing much has changed. Two headline-ready takeways:

"For event planning services, DOJ spent $600,000 (14 percent of costs) to hire training and technical assistance providers as external event planners for 5 of the 10 conferences reviewed. This was done without demonstrating that these firms offered the most cost effective logistical event planning services. Further, these event planners did not accurately track and report conference expenditures."

"Our assessment of food and beverage charges revealed that some DOJ components did not minimize conference costs as required by federal and DOJ guidelines. For example, one conference served $16 muffins while another served Beef Wellington hors d’oeuvres that cost $7.32 per serving. Coffee and tea at the events cost between $0.62 and $1.03 an ounce. At the $1.03 per-ounce price, an 8 ounce cup of coffee would have cost $8.24."

Those $16 muffins are proving to be the real killer, because, c'mon, how can you possibly justify $16 a throw for breakfast pastries? Well, the good folks on the MeCo Google Group have some thoughts on that, in case anyone at DOJ is listening. Their active discussion is here, and includes lots of thoughtful parsing.

Photo by PAUL / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Roger Ebert Finds His Voice

2011-09-20T15:37:00.001-04:00

I just came across a TEDTalk that Roger Ebert gave back in April. It's extraordinary. Ebert, as you might not know, has been left unable to talk or to eat solid foods after complications during surgery to treat cancer in his salivary gland about five years ago. The TEDTalk he wrote was actually read by the computer voice he uses and by his wife, Chaz, by educator John Hunter, and by Dean Ornish, M.D.

In addition to being an interesting story told with skill and sensitivity, Ebert's presentation offers a few relevant points for planners: Don't be afraid to shake up the way you deliver information; understand the importance of your participants' voices (in every sense of the word); and give some thought as to just what virtual and hybrid platforms are bringing to attendees who simply can't join your in-person meeting. "I feel as if my blog, my email, Twitter, and Facebook have given me a substitute for everyday conversation," Ebert said. "They aren't an improvement, but they're the best I can do. They give me a way to speak."

Convene Reads: In the Garden of Beasts

2011-09-19T11:47:00.000-04:00

If you've ever thought that a diplomat's life involves anything besides meetings -- and conferences, receptions, cultural events, and tete-a-tetes -- In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin, by Erik Larson, is here to set you straight. In Larson's telling, William Dodd's time as U.S. ambassador to Germany -- during the beyond-crucial years of 1933 to 1937, when Hitler first came to power and then got busy consolidating it -- was nothing but face time. Ditto for his 24-year-old daughter, Martha, who cut a swath through Berlin's social scene, and was rumored to have had an affair with the head of the Gestapo. Throughout this engrossing, superbly detailed book, Larson uses meetings and other get-togethers to show how the politics of the day were playing out; it's fascinating to see the many different uses to which live events can be put, and how often what's happening publicly on stage can mask or diverge from what's actually playing out behind the scenes. Such as:

Dodd too was fast gaining an appreciation of the prickly sensitivities of the day. No event provided a better measure of these than a speech he gave before the Berlin branch of the American Chamber of Commerce on Columbus Day, October 12, 1933. His talk managed to stir a furor not only in Germany but also, as Dodd was dismayed to learn, within the State Department and among the many Americans who favored keeping the nation from entangling itself in European affairs.

... He gave the talk the innocuous title "Economic Nationalism." By citing the rise and fall of Caesar and episodes from French, English, and U.S. history, Dodd sought to warn of the dangers "of arbitrary and minority" government without ever mentioning contemporary Germany. It was not the kind of thing a traditional diplomat might have undertaken, but Dodd saw it as simply fulfilling [President] Roosevelt's original mandate. In defending himself later, Dodd wrote, "The President told me pointedly that he wanted me to be a standing representative and spokesman (on occasion) of American ideals and Philosophy."

And after reading about the Foreign Press Association's 1933 Little Press Ball, held at the Hotel Adlon, you'll never say that a banquet is "just" a social occasion again:

Shortly before eight o'clock, the Adlon began receiving the first of a long procession of big cars, many with headlights the size of halved melons. Out stepped an array of senior Nazis, ambassadors, artists, filmmakers, actresses, writers, and of course the foreign correspondents themselves, from countries large and small, all bundled in big coats and furs against the damp, near-freezing air. ...

As Dodd was about to find out, in a milieu as supercharged as Berlin, where every public action of a diplomat accrued exaggerated symbolic weight, even a mere bit of conversational sparring across a banquet table could become the stuff of minor legend.

To recap, then: Keynote speakers might just have an ulterior agenda. And seating charts really, really matter.

La Raza Lifts Arizona Boycott

2011-09-14T16:16:00.000-04:00

The National Council of La Raza -- one of the country's most prominent Hispanic advocacy groups -- has lifted the boycott of Arizona that it called for last year to protest the state's then-new immigration law, according to the Greater Phoenix Convention & Visitors Bureau. The CVB reports:

La Raza announced the decision on Sept. 9 in a letter to the Real Arizona Coalition, a diverse collection of businesses, interfaith groups and community leadership organizations -- including the Greater Phoenix Convention & Visitors Bureau -- that had asked for the boycott to be lifted.

In its letter to the Real Arizona Coalition, La Raza stated: " ... We understand and appreciate the reasons why you believe the boycott should end. In that vein, we are also aware of the hardship it has imposed on many of the workers, businesses, and organizations whose interests we seek to advance. We are hopeful that the more respectful and civil tone that you and many others have worked so hard to establish in recent months will continue.

"In that spirit, effective immediately, our three organizations will suspend the boycott and cease all efforts to discourage conventions or meetings in Arizona, or to discourage our partners from participating in such meetings. In addition, we will communicate our decision to our allies and partners who supported the boycott in the hope that they will join us."

In its own statement, the Greater Phoenix CVB said:

"The lifting of the boycott is clearly a step in the right direction. It acknowledges that illegal immigration is not just an Arizona issue but a national one, and it makes it easier for our community to get back to the business of booking conventions."

It's unclear how much the widespread calls for boycotting Arizona ended up costing the Grand Canyon State in lost or canceled meetings business. A report from the Center for American Progress last fall -- which we reported on in Convene -- estimated it could be more than $200 million in direct spending.

Songwriting, Storytelling, and Team-Building

2011-09-14T11:22:00.001-04:00

Billy Kirsch is a classically trained pianist who spent the early years of his career as a jazz pianist in New York City. Now based in Nashville, Kirsch, a Grammy- and Emmy-nominated songwriter, is the president of Kidbilly Music, which creates music-based team-building and icebreaker sessions for conferences and events of all sizes.

I met Kirsch at the PCMA Education Conference in Baltimore, where I was struck by his warmth and intelligence, and intrigued by the range of his musical expertise. I could see a natural link between his skill at jazz improvisation and the collaboration inherent in team building. But where exactly did country music fit in, I wondered?

Kirsch answered that question in a recent blog post. “What sets him and his company apart, he wrote, is “our tradition as Nashville songwriters, hit songwriters who have cut our teeth on the art of telling a story through song … We can rock, we can rap and we can twang. But we’re songwriters first and foremost, Nashville songwriters.”

I caught up with Kirsch between his conference gigs, and we talked about his career and his business by email:

Convene: How did your songwriting career lead to team-building?

I've always had an avocational interest in education and lifelong learning. I helped found a school many years ago, and I just completed a 2-year term as a Parent Teacher Organization president for a high school here in Nashville. Several years ago I had an opportunity to perform at a convention and I spontaneously decided to ask the audience to help me write a song about what they all had in common. It was fun and the experience intrigued me. Fast forward six years and Team Building Through Song has become a passion, an obsession and a full time career.

You and your team have had many successes in the country music world. Does that style predominate in your sessions?

Great question and the answer is no. Even though most of our success has been in the country music world, all of us have varied backgrounds. Some of the songwriter-facilitators who work with us have written songs for diverse artists like Ray Charles and Kenny Loggins and have written for television. So the music we bring into our sessions can include blues, pop, rock, and country.

At the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) ASAP conference earlier this year, you divided an audience of 600 up into groups of 10. What was that like?

That was a large group and the session was a 90-minute energizer. I call it controlled chaos — in the best way. Every table of 10 created a song about their shared experience and then they got up and sang the songs as they were completed. So within that very large group, we were able to get active participation.

But most often we work in more traditional team-building settings in which we divide groups from 30 to several hundred into teams of about 25 participants each. Every team goes into a breakout room and works with a songwriter-facilitator to create a song.

What is your secret to getting participants to engage? How do you stop being a performer and become a co-creator?

We really let our clients, our participants, do the creating and that's why the level of engagement is very, very high. In fact, the comment we most often hear from groups is that they've never experienced so much engagement across the board. Participants brainstorm, come up with themes, and fill flip charts with great information. All we do is keep them on track and help them put their shared story in song format. We keep it fun, musical and we keep it moving - But we're not performing per se, we're just leading the way.

Have you ever encountered a group with which you failed to connect through music?

I hate to sound like I'm spouting propaganda, but honestly this has never failed. I've led programs with physicists, accountants and other supposedly 'left brain' types. As people age, many of us forget how inherently creative we all are and we forget that most of us excelled at creative pursuits when we were children. We haven't lost that creative ability, we've merely ceased to exercise the ability.

But music is an integral part of everyone's life. Everybody has a significant song they relate to from high school, or a first love, or a wedding song etc. So once we tap into the commonality that music provides, inhibitions tend to melt away. People feed off each other's energy and ideas. Once this happens the rest of the session is always easy.

September 2011 Issue: Live!

2011-09-13T12:50:00.000-04:00

Hot on the heels of the cover tease for our September issue, you can now read the whole enchilada -- via Convene's digital edition. For our cover story (and CMP Series feature), Barbara Palmer looks at "the art and science of attendee acquisition" -- with an emphasis on how "the formula for identifying and capturing attendees is changing." Other highlights:

"Destinations Unknown": Hunter Slaton embarks on a globe-trotting tour, talking to planners about what you need to know to meet in Asia, South America, the Middle East, and other hot emerging international destinations.

Industry Report: Our latest-epanel survey tackles AV and Internet services -- and finds that while meeting professionals understand the importance of both, many of them struggle to keep their costs in line.

"A Brainstorming Session, Deconstructed": Reporting from the main session at PCMA's Leaders of Thought Summit, Michelle Russell identifies six elements that kept the small-group brainstorming program from becoming a tired, unstructured mess.

One on One With: Richard Saul Wurman, founder of the world-famous TED conference and next year's similarly ambitious WWW.WWW Conference, explains why he thinks most meetings "are all so terrible."

Plenary: Our lead story looks at Lower Manhattan's revitalized meetings infrastructure 10 years after 9/11 -- symbolized by the opening of the National September 11 Memorial and the ongoing rebuilding of the World Trade Center site. You'll also find a Pre Con profile of Macworld 2012, a Post Con profile of the 2011 National House Directors Conference, Convene On Site reports from IMEX and the French Riviera, eye-catching photos from International Telecoms Week and the World Beard and Moustache Championships, and more.

Innovative Meetings: Michelle Russell plugs in to the high-tech, high-touch world of the ACM CHI 2011 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems -- whose attendees are "the people who make computers less computer-y."

International Meetings -- Perspective: James F. Hollan III, CAE, is back, this time with a bottom-line breakdown of what North American planners expect when it comes to pricing for meetings they take overseas.

Convene On Location: Michelle Russell (again!) shares her impressions from a three-day fam trip to Calgary -- ostensibly to witness the Calgary Stampede, but also to soak up the Canadian city that is "The Heart of the New West."

Other Duties as Assigned: TESOL's Lisa L. Dyson, CMP, on the time her board president's cocktail party got busted by hotel security -- and relocated without missing a beat.

Look for the text-only version of our September issue on Convene's homepage within the next week or so.

Extra, Extra!: Convene Newsstand

2011-09-13T09:00:00.012-04:00

Welcome back to "Extra, Extra!", Convene's weekly news supplement to PCMA's ThisWeek@PCMA newsletter. Let's get right to it, shall we?

It goes without saying that, in the decade since 9/11, many things have changed — especially for the airlines, as Joe Sharkey discusses in this New York Times article. He writes:

Airlines in the United States lost $55 billion and shed 160,000 jobs during that decade. But the industry has worked through the economic tumult. A decade later, the system is smaller in terms of capacity, but it’s still in good working order. Last year, for example, 720.4 million people boarded airplanes in the United States, slightly higher even than the 719.1 million passengers in 2000.

Another thing that may be changing over the next decade — in this case, for U.S. hotels — is something you may have seen already in Asia or certain parts of Europe: Namely, large, refillable toiletry bottles in hotel bathrooms. USA Today's Hotel Check-in blog reports that hotels may begin moving toward this system to be green — apparently it's not any cheaper to refill big bottles than it is to provide individual bottles to each guest; but obviously the refill system produces far less waste.

How would you feel about that? I, for one, would welcome it, as it's that much less trash being sent to the landfill — although I admit that I would A) miss being able to snag those nice little unusued Aveda and L'Occitane soaps for my home and B) be pretty grossed-out if the refillable bottles were anything but hyper-clean and fresh-looking. Of course everyone knows that countless other hotel guests have stayed in the room one is occupying — but no one wants to be reminded of it while in the shower.

In other lodging news, it looks like — according to a study conducted by New York University's Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management, and reported by the Los Angeles Times — that spending on improvements by the U.S. lodging industry is expected to reverse its two-year decline this year, rising by 30 percent compared to 2010, for a total of $3.5 billion in investment.

Another cool piece of hotel news is that the only surviving hotel designed by American architectural icon Frank Lloyd Wright reopened a little more than a week ago in Mason City, Iowa, reports the Des Moines Register. The 27-room Park Inn Hotel got an $18-million renovation before reopening, and apparently now looks amazing — check out the interesting Register story for photos and more history. Perhaps this is the perfect place — it's got an 8,000-square-foot conference center — for your next (small) architects' association meeting?

Last but not least: Quick, what's the worst thing about airport security lines?

For some, I imagine that it is having to remove one's shoes while simultaneously juggling luggage, removing keys and cell phones from pockets, taking off belts and other metal bits, sliding your laptop out of its sleeve, and more, all while shuffling through a moving line.

Well, good news: According to Bloomberg, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said last week at a forum that in the future, travelers would be able to keep their kicks on. She did not, however, specify when the installation of shoe-scanning devices would take place. GE is one company that has sought government approval for its shoe-scanning machines — but no luck yet. So, for now, off with your shoes!

Attendee Acquisition Lessons from Zipcar

2011-09-09T14:05:00.003-04:00

A recent Fast Company blog post about how Zipcar, the web-based car rental company, has zoomed past its competitors by paying laser-like attention to its customers needs hit me where I live -- literally.

A car-free resident of Brooklyn, I have used Zipcars for years, but have only been extremely happy with the service for the last year or so, when the company added cars at a garage that's a 10-minute walk away from my apartment. As I read the post, I realized the company had been working hard behind the scenes to make Zipcar work better for customers just like me -- who loved the idea, but balked at traveling very far to pick up a car.

And Zipcar has fun cars, too.

I am now such a fan, in fact, that it's almost startling to see Zipcar referred to as a "company." I know they charge my credit card, but I tend to think of it as a club that I belong to, a perception that Zipcar cleverly cultivates.

The post also hit me where I live figuratively much of the time -- in the meetings and events industry, where growth and customer satisfaction also are critical.

I was struck by the decision by Zipcar's CEO Scott Griffith to focus on the company's business design rather than relying solely on advertising or other promotions to help it grow.

It reminded me of the professionals I spoke to for our September cover story on attendee acquisition, "Perfect Attendance," available here. One after another, they told me that "attendee promotion" means more than just spreading the word about their meetings.

They work constantly to define and redefine their audiences, and then roll up their sleeves and do what it takes to match the meeting experience to their attendees' ever-changing problems and needs.

And then they bring on the marketing and advertising promotions, using everything from hand-written notes to Facebook campaigns to spread the word.

Convene On Site: HSMAI's MEET National

2011-09-08T18:00:00.000-04:00

Even meetings about meetings have to change how they're meeting. And so yesterday morning, when the doors opened at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, people arriving for Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International's (HSMAI) annual D.C.-based event for meeting professionals found that what used to be called Affordable Meetings National was now called HSMAI's MEET National. That stands for Meetings, Events, Education, and Technology -- pretty well capturing was was happening throughout MEET, which runs through today.

Indeed, the new name was the least of the changes on display yesterday, when I spent several hours looping through the convention center -- catching up with colleagues and contacts, including the folks at Events DC, which is headquartered at Walter E. Washington, and checking out MEET's sharp, trim show floor. During the afternoon, I sat down for coffee with Fran Brasseux, HSMAI's executive vice president, to find out why, after 22 years of Affordable Meetings, HSMAI decided to create MEET.

"Things were changing," Brasseux said. "We were seeing that [when it came to] our original philosophy -- which is to bring bring together our planner members with our supplier members -- we weren't innovating enough in this day and age. We decided we needed to get back to our core." HSMAI huddled with its partners -- led by J. Spargo, its event-management provider -- and came up with a host of new programs and features, including:

That new name. The brainchild of Tom Gibson, CEO of Coulter, HSMAI's management company, the name "MEET" grew out of a realization that "Affordable Meetings" may have pigeonholed the event strictly as "a place to do inexpensive meetings," Brasseux said. "We thought, if we were going to change everything up, we might as well change the name."

Education programs. Asking themselves, "How do you do it a little differently, and how do you make it unique?" Brasseux said, HSMAI introduced speed-learning and peer-to-peer interactive sessions along with an education track for exhibitors.

A show within a show. Actually, it was a "reverse show-within-a-show," according to Brasseux, and involved partners MaxVantage and ITAGroup. Called TEEM Up, the program ran today from 10 a.m. until noon, and reversed the hosted-buyer model by having planners -- sitting at individual tables in a roped-off area at the back of the exhibit hall -- taking 10-minute appointments with suppliers who called on them.

A virtual component. Working with Freeman and INXPO, HSMAI broadcast 12 education sessions live on its MEET On virtual extension -- along with short tips from 25 different exhibitors on the show floor.

Final attendance numbers aren't available yet, but HSMAI did hit its advance goal of 1,500 planner registrants -- all part of its effort to bring together meeting professionals who have something to say to one another. "All of it does not work if the right connection is not made for business," Brasseux said. "You've got to do everything you can to make sure that both sides walk away with business they want to do."

Convene Reads: Ghost in the Wires

2011-09-06T12:18:00.001-04:00

Considering how Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker, by Kevin Mitnick, revolves around technology -- and the degree to which people like the author covet it for no other reason than the challenge of seeing what they can get away with -- it's no surprise that world-famous Consumer Electronics Show makes a cameo appearance here. But it's interesting nonetheless to get a hacker's perspective on CES from 20 years ago, and also to see the role that CES played in one of his scams:

Imagine a trade-show floor filled with 2 million square feet of space, packed with 200,000 people crammed wall to wall, sounding like they're all talking at once, mostly in Japanese, Taiwanese, and Mandarin. That's what the Las Vegas Convention Center was like in 1991 during CES, the annual Consumer Electronics Show -- a candy store, drawing one of the biggest crowds in the world.

I had traveled across town to be there one day during the show, but not just to visit the booths or see the new electronic gadgets that would dazzle buyers the next Christmas. I was there for the background noise. It was essential for an air of believability on the phone call I was about to place.

This was the challenge: I had a Novatel PTR-825 cell phone, which back then was one of the hottest phones on the market. I wanted to feel safe talking to my friends on it, and not have to wonder if somebody from the FBI or local law enforcement was listening in. I knew a way that might be possible. Now I was trying to find out if what I had in mind could really work.

The true revelation in this book is that, for all Mitnick's technical prowess -- in his heyday, he hacked everything from Pac Tel to Sun Microsystems to the California DMV -- his true genius lies in "social engineering," which he describes as "the casual or calculated manipulation of people to influence them to do things they would not normally do. And convincing them without raising the least bit of suspicion." Mitnick would call someone at a company he wanted to hack, ask a few innocuous questions, use the information he learned to call someone else in the company, and so on, until he'd gleaned enough to pass himself off -- always on the phone -- as someone who worked there and could be trusted with a key password or access point.

It's not quite the power of face-to-face meeting, but it would overlap with that on a Venn diagram. You tend to trust people whom you're talking to, whom you've come to know, even over the phone, even for a few brief minutes -- especially if they seem to have something in common with you, such as working in the same field, or for the same company. It's scary and invigorating, and totally something you can leverage -- for good -- at your meetings.

Dog Days of Summer

2011-09-06T07:36:00.006-04:00

My 11-year-old cockapoo, Cocoa, rarely barks and is a calm, gentle dog. That is, until there's a thunderstorm. Then he goes into a full-blown panic attack, panting, pacing, scratching, shaking — and if it's a nighttime storm, keeping us up for hours. Nothing has helped, including trying to coerce him to swallow doggie Xanax prescribed by the vet.

Recently, we found an online ad for a "Thundershirt" — a garment that gets velcroed around the dog's torso, applying constant, gentle pressure, which, according to the ad, has been proven to reduce anxiety — and bought one for our little guy. I can't say that it's a miracle suit, but it definitely has taken the edge off and we can get him to calm down with it on.

What's this got to do with Convene? It's likely that the inspiration for this garment is Temple Grandin, the autistic animal scientist, whom Executive Editor Christopher Durso interviewed two years ago for a Leading by Example profile. Grandin invented the hug machine, or squeeze box, a gentle-pressure device that has the effect of calming hypersensitive people like herself. While Grandin is not directly credited by the Thundershirt Company, its marketing copy alludes to how "thousands of people with autism [use] pressure to relieve persistent anxiety."

So what's this got to do with meeting planning? It demonstrates how you can borrow from one field to benefit another. And it's what we try to do in the magazine, by providing real-life examples of innovation in different areas of endeavor that can be applied to meetings and conventions.

Let Them Eat Bugs

2011-09-02T16:54:00.001-04:00

Coming soon to a food trade show near you?

I've been saying for a while now to my colleagues at Convene that virtually every story I read in the New Yorker or the Atlantic, two of my favorite magazines, either originates with or somehow touches on a meeting or conference — no matter whether it's about asteroid science, rogue waves, climate change, banana blight, or something equally exotic.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I was pleased to have my theory proven once and for all — in an article about, as you might have guessed from the title of this post, eating insects — for fun and profit!

The excerpt that jumped out at me from the story, called "Grub" (subtitle: "Eating bugs to save the planet"), by Dana Goodyear, had to do with a common pest that I'll bet every trade-show organizer has had to deal with: pirate exhibitors. But I'll wager dollars to chocolate-covered crickets that your pirate exhibitors never have peddled wares quite like these:

Insects were among the original specialty foods in the American gourmet marketplace—inspired, impractical provocations that, like runway styles in retail clothing, drove the sales of more basic goods. In the early nineteen-forties, Max Ries, a German-Jewish textile manufacturer, came to Chicago and established himself as a purveyor of imported cheese to an American public that was beginning to be fascinated by exotic food. Ries was slim and dashing; he wore handmade suits and twirled his cigars. Alongside tinned tiger and elephant meat—culled from zoos and sold at department stores—he presented “French-fried ants” from Venezuela and baby bees from Japan, conversation pieces that lent glamour to his company, Reese Finer Foods, which actually made its money selling canned water chestnuts, artichoke hearts, and baby corn. Like fashionistas, gourmets have a sense of theatre. Excluded from the first Fancy Food Show, at the Sheraton-Astor, in New York, in 1955, Ries hired a limousine to shuttle buyers to a nearby hotel, where he had set up his own show, exhibiting only Reese products. (After that, the New Yorkers relented and gave him a booth, which became a mainstay.) When Reese had overstock of its Spooky Foods gift set—chocolate-covered ants, roasted butterflies, barbecue bees—it hired Bela Lugosi to appear in his Dracula costume with the product, which promptly sold out.

That's awesome. And, as we can see, the organizers of the Fancy Food Show employed a tried-and-true method of dealing with pirate exhibitors: bringing them into the fold!

For the full story, click here. Happy Labor Day, everyone!

China Is Zooming

2011-09-01T07:38:00.006-04:00

Convene Senior Editor Barbara Palmer is currently in Beijing, attending the China Incentive, Business Travel & Meetings Exhibition (CIBTM) at the China National Convention Center (CNCC, pictured here). She made time during her hectic schedule to send us this post:

The word of the week? Growth.

No surprise there — in contrast to the U.S., China's economy is booming, projected to grow by 10 percent in 2011, and the meeting industry is expected to increase by 20 percent. The six-year-old show, organized by Reed Exhibitions and sponsored by the China National Tourism Administration and the Beijing Municipal Commission of Tourism, also expanded significantly: the number of hosted buyers increased by 27 percent, as the number of exhibitors grew more than 20 percent.

Also up were the number of education sessions. Many were packed, particularly those discussing the Chinese perspective on domestic and international meetings, where the appetite for knowledge to help professionalize the industry was palpable.

The meeting also marked the first time that the CMP exam was administered in China — 43 people took the written examination. "There were 40 this year," said Craig Moyes, group exhibition director for Reed Travel Exhibitions. "Next year there might be 400."

You've Never Seen Team-Building Like This

2011-08-31T11:43:00.001-04:00

Last week, while on a great press trip to Albuquerque, N.M. — so much cool-looking neon along Route 66! and hot-air balloons! and delicious chilies! — a former meetings-industry writer colleague sent me a link to this bizarre yet hilarious Groupon blog post about, um, clearly made-up team-building activities? Team-building activities are beneficial, writes the Groupon blogger, because they "simultaneously [build] camaraderie and the opposite of camaraderie, loathing." Here are a couple of suggestions:

Bike to Work Week: Over the course of three days, all of which must be within the same week, two companies compete to see which can convince more employees to claim that they rode their bikes to the office. The winning company keeps the other company’s bikes.

Blood Drive: After donating blood, representatives from two companies race to consume the cookie they were given in exchange for their vital fluids. If both finish the cookie at the same time, they must give another quart of blood to earn a second cookie and race again.

Awesome. For the full post, click here.

Sneak Peek: Our September Cover!

2011-08-30T11:39:00.000-04:00

Coming next week -- the September issue of Convene! Coming right now -- the cover of the September issue of Convene! As you can see, our cover story (also our CMP Series feature) is about the evolving practice of attendee acquisition, vividly illustrated by Gordon Studer. And from those teaser lines across the top of the cover, you'll pick up on a few other topics we're covering: hot new international meeting destinations, the results of our recent e-panel survey about AV and technology costs, and Richard Saul Wurman, legendary founder of legendary TED, whom we interviewed at some length. (For a preview of our Wurman Q&A, check out Future Meet's recent interview with, uh, well, me.)

Over the next week or two, look for the digital version of September here, the text-only version here, and the print version in your mailbox. Thanks for reading!

Unmitigated Disasters, Mitigated

2011-08-29T13:13:00.001-04:00

What a week we had here on the East Coast. It started with an earthquake and ended with a hurricane, and if both phenomena weren't nearly as bad as they could have been, they were plenty bad enough. And if any further proof is needed about the extent to which social media has insinuated itself into our lives, how's this: After the earthquake, the only way I could let my wife know that I was safe was via Facebook, because landlines and cell phones were either overwhelmed or incapacitated. And during the hurricane, I stayed in touch with friends and family and monitored Irene's march up the seaboard mostly through Facebook and Twitter.

Do your emergency-preparedness programs include social media? If a disaster were to strike one of your meetings, would Facebook or Twitter or even YouTube be a part of your response? Should it?

Smart Ways to Fight "Decision Fatigue"

2011-08-24T13:03:00.004-04:00

I was excited to read the recent New York Times Magazine article about "decision fatigue," which looks at the research behind the discovery that the sheer number of decisions we make can deplete our ability to make good ones.

There are, to use the scientific term, takeaways galore for the meetings industry.

Here are just a few:

Offer choices in meeting sessions and experiences wisely. One of the researchers mentioned in the story, Convening Leaders 2011 speaker Sheena Iyengar, talked last year with Convene about how exhausting making choices can be. What that means for conference organizers: Don't overwhelm attendees a long list of choices, she advised. Rather, divide choices into categories and then limit choices in each category. (Here's a link to the article.)

Conserve attendees' mental energy for important decisions. Attendees shouldn't be asked to fritter away their brainpower in wondering which hallway might take them to a session, or which building entrance they should use. It's a no-brainer to provide good signage, clear, easy-to-use communications, and lots of friendly assistance

Pay attention to the care and feeding of attendees' brains. One fascinating passage was about the recent discovery that a quick hit of glucose can restore a tired brain's ability to make good decisions. That might make it sound like a late-afternoon cookie is a good idea, but a shot of sugar, researchers say, is not as useful to our brain as giving it stable amounts of glucose over the course of a day with protein and other nutritious foods.

Luckily, Andrea Sullivan of BrainStrength Systems is ahead of the curve on advising meeting planners on how they can support attendee experience through food. She is the coauthor of a white paper that addresses the intersection of performance and food at meetings, published by the The National Conference Center.

There's sure to be many more lessons here that I haven't mentioned -- MeetingsNet Web Editor Sue Pelletier shared some of her insights about the story in a recent blog post.

And I hope you will do the same.

Print Newspapers and the Promise of the Real

2011-08-22T10:00:00.001-04:00

Slate's Jack Shafer explains why, a year after he announced he was canceling his subscription to the print edition of The New York Times in favor of using its newly redesigned website and its Adobe-powered Times Reader, he re-upped for home delivery. Why? "Even though I spent ample time clicking through the website and the Reader, I quickly determined that I wasn't recalling as much of the newspaper as I should be," Shafer writes. "Going electronic had punished my powers of retention. I also noticed that I was unintentionally ignoring a slew of worthy stories."

Shafer's experience is backed up by a new paper on "Newsreaders' Recall and Engagement With Print and Online Newspapers," which finds that people who read print newspapers remember a lot more material than people who read online papers -- and which also has some serious relevance for the question of in-person vs. virtual events. Shafer writes:

The paper explores several theories for why print rules. Online newspapers tend to give few cues about a story's importance, and the "agenda-setting function" of newspapers gets lost in the process. ... The paper finds no evidence that the "dynamic online story forms" (you know, multimedia stuff) have made stories more memorable.

The paper cites other researchers on the subject who have theorized that the layout of online pages -- which often insert ads mid-story or force readers to click additional pages to finish the story -- may alter the reading experience. A print story, even one that jumps to another page, is not as difficult to chase to its conclusion. Newspapers are less distracting -- as anybody who has endured an annoying online ad while reading a news story on the Web knows.

So, print newspapers provide more context and organization -- a better system of cues for organizing the experience -- and also demand a higher level of attention from readers. I'd also add the power of serendipity; you're more likely to browse a print newspaper, to linger over it, and to follow whatever stories happen to catch your eye. Where online, you tend to skim in a very purposeful way, looking for specific bits of information.

All of these advantages, it seems to me, apply equally to in-person meetings, which are rooted in professionally curated programming that is delivered within the context of a tangible space, which encourage attendees to surrender their full attention simply by virtue of being physically present, and which brim with the potential to surprise everyone who is there, because you never know who you're going to sit next to, or run into in the hallway, or share a drink with. It's the promise of the real, the lure of the tactile; also, you know, the power of meetings.

AIHA and the Power to Change

2011-08-19T17:11:00.001-04:00

Manifest Digital's Bryan Campen interviews Peter O'Neil, CAE, executive director of the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) and recently installed 2011-2012 chair of ASAE, as part of the Future Meet project, which is exploring the future of trade shows.

Peter is no stranger in these parts. He turned up in a post I wrote about a similarly themed PCMA Masters Series program last fall that addressed "Associations and Meetings of the Future: A Look Ahead to 2020." Not long after that, I interviewed him for a Convene article about the 2009 American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exposition (AIHce), which lost AIHA nearly a million dollars, and which Peter considers a great meeting experience. "Not that we loved losing almost a million dollars," Peter told me. "It's just that it forced the team and I to think differently -- not better, but differently."

Which reminds me of this takeaway from his Future Meet interview:

Decisions with association shows are made so far out (such as booking a city or venue for x years), it is hard to match that to rapid digital changes.

Hard, but not impossible. AIHA tried all sorts of new things in the months leading up to AIHce 2009 to help close the attendee gap, which suggests that in the battle between booking windows and the unforeseen, you shouldn't underestimate the power of human adaptability.

Social Media, Brooklyn-style

2011-08-19T09:42:00.001-04:00

Patrick McGregor, at work in Brooklyn

I ran into artist Patrick McGregor in my Brooklyn neighborhood the other evening, just as he putting the finishing touches an advertisement he was hand-painting on the side of a wall.

Vinyl and electronic billboards have overtaken painted billboards almost everywhere, of course, but McGregor reminded me that older ways of communicating rarely disappear altogether.

But the immediate lesson for me was the impact that McGregor was having on the environment around him. As I was talking with the artist, others also stopped by, to take pictures of the McGregor at work, or to pet his amiable bull-dog, Boo-Boo.

New interactions were created, bumping up the sense of community there on the corner of Warren and Court streets.

You might even call it a social-media moment.

Happy Birthday, CMP Series!

2011-08-17T14:01:00.000-04:00

The digital edition of our August issue is live, and that can mean only one thing. Okay, two things: First, it's time for our annual Directory of Meetings Sites, Cities, and Services -- the most comprehensive, detailed, and sharpest-looking guide for destinations and venues that you'll find anywhere.

Second, it's the first birthday of our CMP Series, which debuted in the August 2010 issue of Convene. For 12 months now, meeting professionals have been able to earn CEU credits by reading one of our articles (along with some supplemental info) and answering a few questions about the material. The list of topics we've covered is pretty impressive: force majeure, crowdsourcing, ethics, co-locating, innovation, Strategic Meetings Management, fam trips, international meetings, the APEX/ASTM Environmentally Sustainable Meeting Standards, branding, F&B, social media, and, this month, the Americans With Disabilities Act. In terms of preparing you for getting or keeping your CMP credential, it's like a perfect case-study guide for the PMM5. And who doesn't need that?

A Show Without Self Check-In?

2011-08-16T10:36:00.000-04:00

My wife is helping staff her company's booth at a technology show this week. She's an executive in the government- and military-contracting industry -- an attorney by training and a project manager by profession; exhibitions are not in any way a usual part of her job. So it's a kick to be able to share with her some of the things I've learned in the three years I've been covering the meetings industry for Convene, as shown in this IM exchange she and I had yesterday afternoon:

My wife: OMG. The exhibitor registration line is longer than the line to see Santa in A Christmas Story.

Me: Really? Do you have your reg info on you phone? Can you scan yourself in?

My wife: They don't seem to have that.

Me: They should!

I'm right, aren't I? There's no reason that a tech show serving such an important market shouldn't offer self check-in for exhibitors. Or is there? Do you always want to have some sort of high-touch, human contact with your sponsors, partners, etc.?

Convene On Site: Peter Sheahan at ASAE

2011-08-15T17:20:00.001-04:00

Okay, now we're dealing with a full-blown meme. Last week I wrote about Tina Brown's opening keynote at the ASAE Annual Meeting & Exposition, in which Brown said that "the only thing that matters is telling a story clearly and cleanly." At the closing keynote a few days later, business consultant and author Peter Sheahan told his audience of association executives that members' expectations are "going toward narrative and away from facts." He said: "You're in the business of storytelling far more than you're in the business of fact-telling."

The problem, Sheahan said, is that many organizations have lost track of their own story; they're overly beholden to their founding mission and their longtime members, and can't really explain why they exist. "One of the biggest challenges facing you as an association executive," he said, "is, based on your governance structure, you're forced to meet the needs of members who have a legacy interest rather than the needs of members in the next five to 10 years."

There's a reason that Sheahan got a standing ovation from a bunch of jaded association execs when he was done. His presentation was dynamic and funny, and crackling with memorable insights. (My favorite: "Nine times out of 10, it's the unsexy stuff where innovation happens." Check out some of the Meeting Opportunity columns that Sheahan has written for Convene -- here, here, and here.) Now allow me to divine some sort of trend in what both he and Tina Brown had to say about the power of narrative, and suggest that storytelling is the new sliders.

Believe me, I love sliders -- those little sandwiches of goodness that began turning up on bar menus and at networking functions, what, five years ago? But these days, pretty much every single reception at every single meeting and event has some kind of slider: hamburgers, turkey burgers, Jamaican jerk beef, seared ahi tuna, corned beef, portobello, and on and on. It seems that meeting organizers are offering sliders because they feel they have to; because they think they're essential.

As someone who thinks the world of a good story, I hope that storytelling -- as a way to convey best practices, professional values, and more -- becomes as ubiquitous at meetings and conferences as sliders, and just as tender, juicy, and satisfying.

Brené Brown: Talking About What We Don't Talk About

2011-08-11T17:12:00.004-04:00

In our July issue, Don Jenkins, vice president of the National Speakers Bureau, shared insight on choosing discomfort over resentment from speaker Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work.

Brown takes on topics that make us squirm -- she studies the links between vulnerability, shame, courage, and authenticity -- and talks about them in a way that is funny and moving and leads to connection.

And connection, "is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives," Brown says. "This is what it's all about ... neurobiologically that's how we're wired -- it's why we're here."

You can find out more about Brown's work on her blog, and in her books and talks, including at TEDxKC and the UP Experience in Houston.

Bringing Back Starbucks

2011-08-09T17:18:00.002-04:00

It's a rare CEO who doesn't acknowledge the critical role that events can play in creating a shared vision for a company.

But maybe even rarer is the CEO who not only acknowledges the key role of events, but dives into their details, from the psychology of site selection down to the messages sent by the materials used in the exhibit hall.

But that's exactly what Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, does in his book Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life Without Losing Its Soul, as he describes the pivotal role that the Starbucks 2008 North America Leadership Conference played in reviving the then-faltering Starbucks brand.

New Orleans plays a co-starring role in the narrative about the conference, where, Schultz writes, "at this tenuous juncture, our partners needed to connect with me, with other Starbucks leaders, and with ones another, not online, but in New Orleans."

There was the local coffee culture, but also the city's ongoing battle to recover from the effects of Katrina. "At that time, no other U.S. city's experience seemed like such a natural extension of our values as well as our crucible," he writes.

I'll stop there, because Schultz's story about the conference is so well-told, you should read it yourself. And you can, in this excerpt from the book in the July issue of Convene.

Convene On Site: Tina Brown at ASAE

2011-08-07T15:50:00.002-04:00

Tina Brown is probably the most famous magazine editor in the world -- maybe the only famous magazine editor in the world -- having served memorable tenures heading up Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and her own Talk before launching The Daily Beast website and then merging it with Newsweek. But as she talked about her experience transitioning from print to online publications during this morning's opening general session at ASAE's Annual Meeting & Exposition at America's Center in St. Louis, Brown might well have been speaking as a meeting planner. Because two of her big takeaways had no small relevance for our community:

1. Story matters. "Media is always about telling stories," Brown said. "You have to make everything as personal and connected and news-driven as you can." Later, she said: "The only thing that matters is telling a story clearly and cleanly." Forget that she's talking about journalism, and imagine instead that she's telling you about something you know your attendees respond to: storytelling. Making the information and knowledge you share with them -- and they share with each other -- memorable by making it human.

2. Online drives traditional. Brown launched The Daily Beast in 2008; the following year, she created a Beast-backed conference called Women in the World: Stories + Solutions, because "I've always been a major believer in live events if they're fueled by a powerful purpose." And earlier this year, she became editor in chief of Newsweek, and merged the all-but-imploded weekly magazine's news-gathering and news-writing operations with the Beast's. The result has been a revitalized, refocused Newsweek. What does that tell you? That old and new media are neither mutually antagonistic nor mutually exclusive; ditto face-to-face and virtual meetings. "The web can be so incredibly powerful about generating new ideas," Brown said. Thanks to that, the Beast is "now a multimedia effort that can aggregate an enormous amount of attention around a project."

Postcard from the Future of Convention Centers

2011-08-04T15:21:00.007-04:00

Photo by Annie Rose Palmer

Recently, I sat beside my daughter, Annie, as she clicked through her laptop, showing me photographs of a recent trip that included a layover in Reykjavik. I grabbed her elbow as something familiar shimmered by: It was the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre, dazzling like a jewel in Iceland’s summer evening sunshine.

I was struck, not just by its beauty, but the fact that it turned up in Annie’s travel photos at all. She's never been one to take snapshots of statues and landmarks. Her eye tends to look for shapes and textures in her environment, and to illuminate how they combine to create new forms: clouds pooling on the side of a mountain or the afternoon light slicing across a stone floor.

So it was exciting to see the Harpa Centre there, its glass walls gleaming like fish scales and seeming to float in the Atlantic Ocean -- because a seamless environmental fit was exactly what the architects had envisioned as they designed the center.

For our cover story "Show Places," last October, Convene reached out to leading architects, including Peer Teglgaard Jeppesen, of Henning Larsen Architects, which designed the Harpa Centre, to ask, “What will the conference center of the future look like?

Here is part of of Jeppesen's answer:

One important feature will be the inclusion of local characteristics and local identity. The conference center will not be anonymous; rather, it will be characterized by a richness of local spirit, presenting the conference-goer with features and experiences characteristic to the local environment.

We also talked to Mark Reddington, a principal at LMN Architects, which designed the award-winning Vancouver Conference Centre, who said:

The design of convention centers is increasingly about creating an integrated urban experience -- a piece of the city that offers an authentic experience of place and that is connected in meaningful ways to the surrounding urban fabric and natural environment.

The convention center of the future, "first, will be more about making a city," Reddington said, "than making a building."

Check Your Phasers at the Door

2011-08-04T14:36:00.005-04:00

Except for the NRA Annual Meeting & Exhibits (the next edition of which is April 13–15 in St. Louis), most conventions probably don't have a very active "weapons check" desk. Not so at — if you can believe it — Comic-Con International, held every year at the San Diego Convention Center.

You see, at fan conventions like Comic-Con, lots of fans like to dress up as their favorite super-hero or fictional characters, many of which pack various forms of heat (quivers of arrows, handheld cannons, ninja swords) as part of their costume. And Comic-Con doesn't want to discourage its attendees from participating in this way; in fact, every Saturday night at Comic-Con, there's a masquerade competition — and what self-respecting Wolverine would show up to such a contest without his adamantine claws?

Thus, according to this great article in the L.A. Times, every year Comic-Con hires an outside security firm to perform a weapons check on all strapped attendees who wish to enter the convention center. Most fans and their gear get through just fine, but some weapons — real nunchuks, sharp metal swords, and even machetes — justifiably get confiscated.

From the story:

“They wait all year to get to dress up as their favorite character,” [retired police officer and weapons-check-desk staffer Darwin] Bullock said, eyeing the bullets in a steampunk ammo belt. “We’re not trying to ruin their costume, but it’s about risk management.”

July 2011 Issue: Live!

2011-07-22T15:29:00.000-04:00

One of our best covers ever (IMHO, as the kids text today) adorns our July issue, now available in both digital and text-only versions -- a fantastic illustration whose attention to detail is matched by the cover story it serves. Looking for a trade show with something to say about adaptation and reinvention in a turbulent economy, Hunter Slaton walked the floor at BookExpo America in New York City; the result is "Every Year They Write the Book," a deeply reported look at a show whose industry has been in flux for the last 15 years.

CMP Series: And speaking of deep reporting, for this month's CMP Series article, "The Blog That Became a Conference," Barbara Palmer attended SOBCon 2011 Chicago, a social-media conference that is as warm, hospitable, and high-touch a live meeting as you'll find anywhere.

One on One With: Veteran TV journalist Lisa Ling, who recently co-wrote a book with her sister, Laura, about Laura's four-month captivity in North Korea, and who yesterday morning delivered an opening general session at the DMAI Annual Convention that was sponsored by Convene.

"Coffee Klatch": An excerpt from Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life Without Losing Its Soul, by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, that goes behind the scenes at the company's 2008 North America Leadership Conference -- "an event that would educate our partners and reinstill confidence in the company's purpose."

Plenary: Our lead news article this month blows the lid off the price hikes that are afflicting the two most important fuels for meetings: oil and coffee. Beyond that, we've got photos from the International Quilt Festival and the Reality Rocks Expo, a Pre Con snapshot of Kidney Week 2011, a Post Con debrief on the SXSW Trade Show, a What's Your Story? story from Clinton administration director of events Laura Schwartz, and Convene On Site reports from Puerto Vallarta, Virginia Beach, and Milan.

Meeting Management -- Crisis: Continuing our coverage of post-earthquake Japan, we look at the Optical Society of America's 2011 Digital Holography and Three-Dimensional Imaging conference, which convened in Tokyo two months after the Tohoku earthquake.

Giving Back: The silver lining to Minneapolis' Project Homeless Connect, which offers services for homeless people twice a month at the Minneapolis Convention Center? The program left the city -- and the center -- perfectly positioned to help victims of the tornadoes that touched down in the area in May.

Other Duties as Assigned: Cheryl L. Gendron, CMP, remembers that crazy evening on site when she dealt first with a staff member's crazy ex and then with a drunken attendee arguing with police in the lobby. In his boxers.

Could we make this stuff? Would you even want us to?

Convene On Site: DMAI in New Orleans

2011-07-22T13:22:00.002-04:00

For the last two days, I've been on site at the Sheraton New Orleans for the 97th Annual Convention of Destination Marketing Association International, or DMAI. Of course, any time one gets to visit New Orleans is a good one — but it's even more fun to be here with 1,077 travel-promotion and sales executives (and exhibitors) from destination marketing organizations (DMOs)/CVBs from all over the U.S. (and nine other countries besides), and all in one hotel on Canal Street, right on the edge of the French Quarter. On Wednesday night the Convene team had dinner at Dickie Brennan's Bourbon House, where I had some killer (but very messy) peel-'em and eat-'em barbecue shrimp. Delicious.

On the way down to the Big Easy from the Big Apple, I got to see a little case-in-point regarding the importance and uniqueness of face-to-face meetings. As everyone was boarding the plane, a heard a guy behind me run into a business acquaintance he hadn't seen in some time. It turns out that the two of them were both on their way down to a spirits convention/festival called Tales of the Cocktail. The first guy worked at Esquire, and the other was the new publisher at Spin. (I ascertained all this information by using the tried-and-true journalist's method of 1) eavesdropping and 2) smartphone Googling.)

It turned out, in fact, that much of the plane was headed to Tales of the Cocktail. The back of the plane was like a mini-networking reception, with colleagues from various magazines catching up and swapping stories. As we were waiting to deplane, I heard my seatmate and another fellow discussing the hotels they were staying at; how the bar at one was closed for renovation; how the elevators at one property were intolerably slow; and so on. Clearly people were really looking forward to this meeting.

The following day, at DMAI, I attended a session outlining the organization's new Event Impact Calculator, which is designed to help DMOs/CVBs justify to their stakeholders their value — how much tax and other revenue that a meeting they bring to town contributes to the local economy. It seems like this will be a really powerful tool for DMOs to make a case for their funding — or, as the DMAI leadership recommended rephrasing this during a general session yesterday, their "investment."

At the end of that session about the Event Impact Calculator, Denny Edwards, president and CEO of the Greater Raleigh CVB, asked whether the new tool might could cause turbulence, if a meeting planner assumed that the value of his or her meeting in New York City (where costs are of course higher than in most places) would necessarily be the same in a less expensive city like Raleigh. The panelists said that DMOs/CVBs would have to educate their meeting-planner customers about that.

I relayed Denny's question to Michael Gehrisch, DMAI's president and CEO, later that day at the Annual Convention's Media Roundtable. Gehrisch said that, yes, this would be an issue that DMOs/CVBs would have to address as they begin using the Event Impact Calculator and sharing that information with their meeting-planner clients. But, at the end of the day, the tool should help planners as well — after all, if the DMO/CVB they are working with has a better understanding of what their business is worth, that organization will be on stronger footing when it lobbies its board for incentives to bring that business to their city. Thus, a rising tide of more accurate and verifiable data lifts all boats.

The Power of Power Girl

2011-07-20T11:05:00.000-04:00

In honor of San Diego Comic-Con International, which kicks off tonight, take a peek at an actual, industry-relevant comic book: Power Girl #26, in which our heroine knows she's made the big time when she's invited to attend the First Annual Power Girl Convention. There's an exhibit hall, eager attendees, issues of crowd flow -- the whole deal. What's somewhat unusual is that the guest of honor has super strength, heat vision, and the power of flight, but surely that's nothing a good RFP wouldn't have taken into account.

Booking Windows: Small and Smaller

2011-07-19T14:05:00.003-04:00

Salvador Dali clock

We reported in our July issue that more than half -- 56 percent -- of the meeting planners Convene recently surveyed said that their booking pattern had changed in the last year. Those results dovetailed with a recent Zentila survey which showed that, for corporate planners, the average booking window for off-site meetings is now 36 days.

And when it comes to booking event services, that window is getting even smaller.

According to the Congress Rental Network (CRN), a global network of A/V equipment suppliers, simultaneous interpretation specialists, and even support experts, the average confirmation time for events has dropped to two weeks.

“Perhaps a decade ago you could plan events three or four years down the line," says CRN Chairman Panagiotis Podimatas, from PC Podimatas in Greece. But no longer, given the fast pace of business and improvements in transportation and communication.

Panagiotis said his company recently supplied interpretation equipment for the annual EU-GCC conference at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi with only two days notice. "An event of this size is a real challenge, requiring eight large and three standard sized interpretation booths, 400 receivers, and 80 delegate microphones. Due to prior commitments and resource locations these needed to be flown 2,000 miles from Vienna to Dubai, then transported by land to Abu Dhabi for set-up within 48 hours of confirmation.”

Source: Adam Baggs

A People-Based Approach to Virtual Meetings

2011-07-13T12:13:00.009-04:00

Next Monday, PCMA, UMB Studios, and the Virtual Edge Institute, will release a new research report that takes a fresh look at the role of digital technology in the meetings industry.

Instead of the typical "virtual versus face-to-face" approach, this survey took a comparative approach, looking at how digital technologies can best be used within the framework of meeting environments. It delved into the social behavior and business motivations that fuel both in- person and online events, said Michael Doyle, founder and executive director of the Virtual Edge Institute, asking such questions as: Why do people attend in-person and online events? What business goals are being achieved? How are attendees engaging within these environments?

The bottom line: Attendees' business motivations and social behaviors are essentially the same at in-person and virtual events.

The full report, Business Motivations and Social Behaviors of In-Person and Online Events, will be available next Monday, (now available for download here) but as a special sneak peek for Convene readers, Doyle has shared five key findings and recommendations from the report:

Market content before, during, and after events: Respondents seek to access content online or via mobile devices throughout an entire event cycle. Digital channels allow meeting and event practitioners to engage with audiences before, during, and after events, connecting audiences from the physical event to the online channel and back again.

People are social creatures. More than 80 percent of respondents are "comfortable" or "extremely comfortable" connecting and networking with strangers, regardless of whether the setting was an in-person or virtual event.

People seek the same information at exhibitions, regardless of format: Both for online and in-person exhibit halls, respondents cited seeing ‘what is new’ as their number one motivation, followed by gathering relevant product and company information and gaining subject matter expertise. Respondents also noted that the motivation to network and connect is very high.

Exhibitor goals seem aligned with attendees’ needs: The main motivations cited for exhibiting at a conference include: building brand awareness (68 percent), new business development (65 percent), educate market on products/solutions (62 percent), new lead generation (56.9 percent) and thought leadership (51 percent).

Participants are multi-taskers: Compared to their online counterparts, in-person participants are just about as likely to be checking email (81 percent in-person versus 83 percent online) or to leave a meeting/session for some reason (65 percent in-person versus 68 percent online). Online attendees are significantly more likely to take a phone call during a presentation than physical attendees (66 percent online versus 48 percent in-person).

Doyle notes: “From our perspective, this report provides exciting insight on how we, as marketers and event professionals, can approach the use of digital technologies within our larger marketing and events strategies respectively."

Huanying Is in the Details

2011-07-12T12:46:00.002-04:00

Hilton hotel Chinese-language menu

If there is one lesson that can be drawn from Editor in Chief Michelle Russell’s story about the how planning for an international meeting planning threatened to stall over differences in how Japanese and American cultures react to the image of a single cherry blossom, it’s that the little things can turn out to be the big things.

It is in that spirit that Hilton Hotels & Resorts is taking a detail-oriented approach to extending hospitality to Chinese travelers, with the launch of the “Hilton Huanying” program in 30 global hotels. (Huanying means welcome in Chinese.)

The hotel chain Interviewed general managers at Hilton hotels in China, as well as Chinese travel agencies in order to find out what would make Chinese travelers feel most at home.

Based on that research, participating hotels all will have a front-desk member fluent in Chinese language, and in guest rooms, amenities will include tea kettles and Chinese tea, slippers, and a television channel dedicated to Chinese programming. Hotels also are adding Chinese breakfast dishes to their restaurant menus, including congee, dim sum, and Chinese tea and soy milk.

The hotel chain tested the amenities for three months at hotels in the U.S., the UK, and South Korea. Given the importance in Asia of the custom of removing one’s shoes before entering a home, it’s no surprise that supplying slippers in guest rooms was a good move.

They were “a big win during the test period,” said Andrew Flack, vice president, global brand marketing for Hilton Hotels & Resorts. “At Hilton Los Angeles/San Gabriel the hotel ended up placing them beside the bed instead of inside the closet because they were receiving so much interest from Chinese guests.” The hotel recently hired a concierge fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese who will escort Chinese guests to the front desk, Flack added.

China’s enormous expansion means that many in the business world are struggling to learn how to effectively do business with the Chinese. Offering tea, slippers, and a welcome in a familiar language seem like a pretty good place to start.

A Different Buzz

2011-07-06T09:00:00.005-04:00

NYC & Co. at NYSE

Temporary parties in nontraditional party spaces are having a moment, say the style editors at The New York Times.

And NYC-area meeting planners had their own moment last week, when NYC & Company hosted a tri-state event at the iconic New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Wall Street. The evening began with cocktails in the gilded, filigreed Board Room, where part of the fun was considering who else had walked across the elegant carpets over the last century. FDR? Richard Nixon? Ronald Reagan, for sure, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. And were there such gorgeous flowers on the mile-long conference table when Martha Stewart was on the board of directors?

After drinks, we moved down to the trading floor, which was closed for the day but still seemed to vibrate, thanks to the news and financial market tickers which continued to flash above the floor all evening. A jazz trio played standards, as meeting planners visited with 35 local sponsors and dined on New York City–centric hors d'oeuvres.

The trading floor, which holds up to 500 for a reception, has been available to the public for corporate and other events since early 2010. Additional NYSE venues can be used for dinners, meetings, and receptions.

By virtue of their contact with innovative decor, fabulous venues, and the latest food and beverage options, meeting planners can be famously hard to impress. But the buzz proved that an evening at the NYSE can wow even the most jaded — not to mention the line of planners waiting to have their picture taken at the balcony where the opening bell is rung twice a day to signal the start of trading.

The Bell Jar

2011-07-05T11:46:00.005-04:00

I love that New York City event producer David Stark used to be a painter, and that he approaches his work with such an artful eye. I first learned of him when Convene Senior Editor Barbara Palmer interviewed him for our July 2010 cover story, and was happy to find him the subject of a "Tools of My Trade" piece in the July/August issue of Fast Company. In the article, he lists six of his favorite ways to build events "that feel like art installations," saying that "flowers are only one tool in the toolbox. Many instances require different kinds of thinking and materials to bring the occasion to life."

First on his list is the humble glass bell jar (starting at $8 at www.glassdomes.com), which Stark uses to create tablescapes. When filled with item(s) tied to a theme or an organization's mission, bell jars can make creative (and inexpensive) table centerpieces. Stark has filled the jars with fruit for a party at Martha Stewart's home, painted eggs for a Benjamin Moore event, and faux tulips crafted from euros for the Global Volatility Summit — you have got to appreciate the symbolism there.

Part of Stark's genius, I think, is his laser-like focus on specifics — but not in terms of details, as you might think. His approach, he said, is "about creating something event-specific, site-specific, and client-specific." That kind of narrow mindedness can open up all kinds of possibilities. Even if you're not an artist.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Attendees

2011-06-30T14:51:00.000-04:00

Washington, D.C., is a prime-enough meeting destination that it doesn't seem at all unusual that The Washington Post would publish a handy infographic designed to help people, as the headline says, "Know your conventioneer." It's cute and tongue-in-cheek, but also contains large kernels of truth -- or, at least, the names of many eclectic, real-life organizations that meet here, such as the National Association of Church Business Administration, the International Dairy Foods Association, and BioMass 2011: New Horizons of Bioenergy. Walking around downtown, you never know if you're passing someone who's come in for a meeting -- a scientist or a teacher or a business executive or a chef or a government contractor or an artist or whomever. Or, maybe you do know if someone is conventioneering. "They travel in clusters," Events DC President and CEO Greg O'Dell tells the Post. "And their badges give them away."

Serious Fun with Gamification

2011-06-24T14:48:00.001-04:00

Game ON! app

If you liked our June story, "The Play's the Thing," about how the Green Meetings Industry Council used a multi-player game to help attendees engage with content at the 2011 Sustainable Meetings Conference, you're going to love this:

Elizabeth Henderson, chief sustainability strategist at Meeting Change and conference program committee chair, and Mitchell Beer, president of The Conference Publishers, have released a 40-page case study about the experiment.

The case study Game ON! The Gamification of the 2011 GMIC Sustainable Meetings Conference, offers fine-grained detail about the conference goals and the game's design, deconstructing everything from the planning process to the technology used to the onsite experience for attendees. And even as they report that many participants said the conference was the best one they had ever attended, the authors also note that it wasn't an unqualified success. And they lay out the lessons learned with as much care as they take in talking about its successes.

The Game ON! design team was the first to apply the principles of gaming to a meetings-industry conference. So it's very fortunate that GMIC and Henderson are so generous in making their process transparent and accessible.

From the report, here are five key takeaways about the future of gamification at conferences:

1. Game organizers should be clear about the behaviors or knowledge they want to reinforce. Those objectives become the focus of the game design.

2. Successful game design depends on a good knowledge of the target audience. In a game environment, demographics and widely held beliefs merge with psychological and physiological factors to determine level of engagement.

3. Technology is a true enabler of conference gamification. Technology allows individuals to participate, collaborate, and track results in ways that would not otherwise be possible.

4. Leaders are important to the success of the game. Team leaders should be competent, knowledgeable, and comfortable leading a team, but willing to listen to ideas and adapt to new situations.

5. Everyone involved with an onsite game should be prepared for anything. The motto of the onsite team, quoting Samuel J. Smith of Event Camp Twin Cities, was: “Experimentation is our get-out-of-jail free card. If we weren’t having tech hiccups, we wouldn't be innovating.”

PCMA EduCon Wrap-Up

2011-06-23T16:20:00.000-04:00

Just back from the very successful PCMA 2011 Education Conference in nearby Baltimore. Convene kept busy there -- we produced the show daily for AIBTM, which was co-located with the Education Conference at the Baltimore Convention Center, and also blogged and tweeted while on site. (Here are my and Barbara Palmer's Twitter handles. You'll find Convene's Twitter stream in the righthand column of this blog.) In the interest of housekeeping, here's a handy roundup of the links we tweeted for Convene interviews with some EduCon speakers:

* Vernice "FlyGirl" Armour, the U.S. military's first female African-American combat pilot
* Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronic Association
* Jeff Hurt, director of education and engagement for Velvet Chainsaw Consulting
* Chef Jeff Henderson, convicted drug dealer turned five-star chef

All of these links take you to Convene's digital edition, which requires you to register. But it's totally worth it, because you get to read these articles if not the way God intended then something pretty darn close.

Putting Tech In Its Place

2011-06-22T08:05:00.000-04:00

Michael Doyle, director of the Virtual Edge Institute, and Lynn Randall, managing partner, Randall Insights, offered a primer on virtual events and environments at a packed "Virtual Events 101" session Tuesday morning at PCMA's Education Conference in Baltimore.

Some takeaways:

That feeling that you have that virtual events are exploding? It's based on reality: The field grew by more than 50 percent last year, said Doyle.

Fears that virtual events will cannibalize live events are dissolving in the face of evidence to the contrary: An average 18 percent of people who attend conferences virtually opt to attend the next year, he said.

One of the most perplexing areas for many is knowing how to calculate costs and choose vendors. It's not necessary to spend a lot to livestream a session from your event, Doyle said, but adding virtual components to meetings can run into many thousands of dollars, depending on the variables.

Technology is not the first thing that people should think about when considering virtual events, Randall said. Knowing your business goals and your audience should come first.

The 90-minute session was filled with questions and discussion, and Doyle and Randall didn't make it all the way through their presentation. Luckily, there's a (digital) remedy -- the pair plan to continue the presentation in PCMA's virtual environment, PCMA365.

The Buzz in Baltimore

2011-06-21T07:07:00.003-04:00

On Monday afternoon, the exhibition floor at the Baltimore Convention Center was filled with the smell of sawdust and the beeps of heavy machinery on the move, as exhibitions staff readied the show floor for the inaugural The Americas Meetings & Events Exhibition (AIBTM). When it opens Wednesday, it will be the first large-scale hosted buyer event in the U.S.

AIBTM show floor under construction

In the sea of wooden packing crates, stacked furniture, and prefabricated walls and ceilings, there were lots and lots of ladders -- of hundreds of booths, many are two-story creations.

Scott Smith, an exhibits technician for Brede Exposition Services, was at work Monday on the Visit Baltimore booth. The company builds booths of all sizes, Smith said, but was taking the elaborate construction surrounding him as a very good sign of the health of the international meetings industry.

Also noted: the record-breaking attendance at the PCMA Education Conference, co-located with AIBTM this year.

In total, approximately 3,000 meeting planners will be in Baltimore this week. Convene will be here, too -- follow us on @pcmaconvene. If you are not in Baltimore, attend virtually here.

Architecture Is Fate

2011-06-17T17:22:00.000-04:00

"Character is fate," the Greek philosopher Heraclitus is quoted as saying, but when it comes to meetings, I think it's architecture that is fate. I kind of flirted with this idea back when I attended the dinner for ASAE's Summit Awards last fall, but it really cohered for me this past Tuesday, when I attended a luncheon for L'Alliance Francaise de Washington at the Belgian ambassador's residence in Washington, D.C. It's a magnificent property -- a two-story limestone structure built in 1931 and situated on nine wooded acres above the Potomac River. The elegant luncheon -- to which I was invited by the Belgian Tourist Office's Annette Choynacki -- honored the work of the Alliance, a network of French language and cultural centers. And the ambassador's residence encapsulated that perfectly simply by being what it is: a Louis XIV-inspired manor house with crystal chandeliers and parquet floors. In a sense, the venue didn't complement the event; it was the event. Is that an effect that you shoot for when you're scouting locations for your meetings?

June 2011 Issue: Live!

2011-06-17T13:00:00.000-04:00

One of the best things about my job is that it provides me with a lot of opportunities to write about things that interest me -- such as books, comics, and, as you'll see from the cover story (and CMP Series article) in this month's issue, food. The specific genesis of "Menu: Impossible" was my love of the Food Network shows "Dinner: Impossible" and "Restaurant: Impossible," which led us to ask PCMA's own Kelly Peacy to create an F&B challenge that we then presented to seven meeting chefs across North America. And they came back with some great, non-impossible menus.

Other highlights from this issue -- not necessarily an outgrowth of my hobbies and interests, but great content nonetheless:

"Focus Group": A feature article by Barbara Palmer about the use of "mindfulness" practices such as meditation to improve attendee concentration.

Education Conference Preview: A Q&A with Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association and author of the book The Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream, who will present a general session at the PCMA Education Conference in Baltimore next Wednesday! And it's not too late to register!

Convene Salary Survey 2011: Our annual survey of compensation and job satisfaction among meeting professionals -- this year suggesting cautious optimism.

One on One With: Joe Rohde, Disney's chief Imagineer, who discusses the creative development of the company's new Hawaiian resort, which includes some cool meeting facilities.

Plenary: We check in with the president of the Japan National Tourism Organization about the state of his country's meetings infrastructure, and follow that up with a Pre Con report on the International Congress of Human Genetics, a Post Con report on the National Conference on Juvenile and Family Law, fun photos from the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center and the G.I. Joe Collectors' Convention, some serious globe-trotting via Convene On Site, the usual news-and-views-you-can-use from Research, Tipster, and Unconventional -- and yet another new feature, this one a first-person interview called "What's Your Story?," which kicks off with the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority's James Rooney.

Other Duties as Assigned: The lighter side of meetings, courtesy of Flik International's Scott Vollmer, CPCE, who once watched an attendee's hair go up in smoke.

Hypnotweeting, and Other Conference Bizwords

2011-06-15T07:26:00.002-04:00

One of my downfalls as a journalist is that I take terrible notes. I often can't read my own writing. I also find when I interview people that I focus so intently on taking down their quotes verbatim that I'm not thinking ahead to the next logical question to ask. So I rely heavily on a digital recorder.

I've always thought I was a fairly good multi-tasker, but that's just one example that proves I'm not. Here's another: I feel torn listening to a great speaker or participating in a good session. Should I tweet? Or give my full attention to what's taking place in the here and now? So I chuckled when I read this new term and its definition in Fast Company's June issue: "Hypnotweeting: When a conference speaker or presenter's ideas are so powerful that the entire audience stares intently into their computer screens, dutifully live-tweeting everything they're not missing completely."

"Hypnotweeting" comes from Alex Blagg of BajillionHits.biz, and he says it is just one of the "hottest new bizwords blowing up presentations and panels at tech conferences, expos, forums, and fests across the world." See the article for a handful of others.

A Trade-Show Attendee Tells All

2011-06-13T18:46:00.007-04:00

Photo by quinn.anya

When I hear a really good idea at a meeting, I draw a little light bulb in the margin of my notes. And after attending the 10th annual Exhibition and Convention Executives Forum (ECEF) in Washington D.C. on June 1, my notebook was well illuminated.

But one idea in particular deserved a lightning bolt: ECEF producer Sam Lippman invited Amy Nichols, CEO of Dogtopia, to come and talk about face-to-face marketing -- namely trade shows -- and the role it has played in the rapid growth of her business, an upscale pet-care company.

Nichols talked about her experience attending exhibitions and meetings at different stages of her company's growth, from one she attended in 2002 just as she was founding Dogtopia, to a meeting she and her staff organized for the company's franchise owners. (Nichols plans to outsource the planning for the 2012 meeting, because it was so grueling.)

The nine exhibitions Nichols described varied widely, ranging from a pet industry conference that has since folded to the invitation-only INC. 500/5000 conference for entrepreneurs. One thing that stood out in her remarks was how important -- and how often bungled -- were the basics, including seating and meals. As an attendee, Nichols really wanted to have a place where she and others could talk, and she found that often there just wasn't anywhere to sit down. And it turns out that trade show attendees still remember a bad meal for years afterwards.

What about mobile meeting apps? What she would really like to see, Nichols said, are apps in which she could plug in her day's schedule and then have access to information about what's up next, and where she needs to go and how to get there.

It was really no surprise to learn that cost wasn't the biggest factor that determined whether Nichols would attend an event: some of the events that she found most valuable were the most expensive. The factor that most drove her decision to attend events for the first time were personal recommendations from her network, she said.

There is no replacement for face-to-face meetings, and the opportunities for building relationships and encountering new ideas, she concluded. But Nichols urged those at the conference not to lavish all their care on exhibitors. "Why," she asked, "aren't we paying more attention to attendees?"

One Mortgage at a Time

2011-06-10T10:55:00.000-04:00

Interesting report on the "Marketplace" radio show yesterday about the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America's Save the Dream tour, which brings what reporter Tess Vigeland calls "loan modification conventions" for homeowners facing foreclosure to cities across the country. At the Shrine Expo Center in Los Angeles last weekend, about 25,000 people turned out to meet with mortgage counselors and bank representatives; many of them walked away with better terms for their mortgages. It's a story both inspiring and depressing; and, to that end, this exchange between Vigeland and NACA CEO Bruce Marks jumped out at me:

VIGELAND: Why does it take something like this for a homeowner to be able to modify a loan? What's the difference here?

MARKS: There are two differences. We have legally binding agreements with all the major lenders and the investors covering over 90 percent of mortgages in this country where they have to do it. Secondly, there's nothing like that face-to-face interaction. Personal interaction is what gets the results, because you see families, you see the devastation firsthand, and that makes that banker that much more committed to helping the homeowner.

In a world of networks and procedures, bureaucracies and hierarchies, face-to-face interaction can cut through the clutter; it can focus and prioritize things and, more important, people. And it can even help save their homes.

A Stage Appearance in Toronto

2011-06-07T06:13:00.007-04:00

I can now add to my list of accomplishments a stage appearance in Toronto.

Last week, the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (MTCC) and Tourism Toronto, who — along with the Hilton Toronto — hosted the PCMA Leaders of Thought Summit, held our first dinner in the convention center's plush John Bassett Theatre — where we took the stage.

More than 20 of us — 16 meeting professionals from organizations around the country, summit speakers, and several PCMA staff — were treated to an elegant sit-down dinner prepared by the expert MTCC culinary team on a stage bathed in lavender lighting and transformed into an intimate dining area. It was a scene for all our senses and we drank it in — including musical interludes by the four-member a capella group Cadence, whose unique blend of harmonies and instrumental imitation made it hard to believe there weren't a few trombone players and drummers hiding in the orchestra pit.

The two-day summit is a highly participatory program intended to shake up our thinking about face-to-face events. The MTCC and Tourism Toronto took that theme and ran with it, bringing us from the audience to the stage, and delighting us with a truly out-of-the-ordinary experience. (My thanks to Bryan Campen of Manifest Digital for his photo of the stage taken from the audience.)

Hooray for Barbara! Hooray for Convene!

2011-06-02T17:06:00.002-04:00

Last night our own Barbara Palmer took home a Gold Award as part of Association Media & Publishing's EXCEL competition, which every year honors the best in association magazines, newsletters, websites, books, and other publications. Barbara won for "7 Days in Port-au-Prince," the amazing Leading by Example article she wrote about her visit to Haiti with an organization called Healing Hands for Haiti last March.

If you haven't read it yet, do it right now. If you have, read it again. And join us in congratulating Barbara for this well-deserved honor.

And congratulations to our design team -- Mitch Shostak and Roger Greiner of Shostak Studios -- for taking home a Silver Award for the cover of our February 2010 issue. At a time when the Twitter Revolution was already in the rearview mirror, they helped us find something new to say about, as our cover lines put it, #SocialMedia&Meetings. And the package of stories this cover fronted -- collectively headlined "Do We Have Your Attention?"-- was pretty darn good, too. Isn't it great when pictures and words work together like that?

The Rise of the Humans

2011-05-26T10:01:00.006-04:00

There was an interesting story published yesterday on Mediabistro's 10,000 Words blog, describing an ongoing "social experiment" by the New York Times social media editors. Until now, the @NYTimes Twitter account largely has been automated — simply auto-tweeting the headlines of and a link to whichever stories are published on the Times' website.

But for this week, social media editors Lexi Mainland and Liz Heron turned off the auto-tweeter, and instead have been "hand-writing" (as it were) all their own tweets. So how has this experiment been going? 10,000 Words blog author Jessica Roy writes:

As it turns out, the differences between the automated feed and the handwritten one are pretty stark. For avid Twitter users, some of these changes may seem a little duh-worthy, but for a news organization with a notoriously ambivalent relationship with social media, these changes may represent an important attitudinal shift in regards to social networking.

According to Roy — and, really, it's plain to see on the NYTimes Twitter feed — the human-written posts A) have a ton more retweets (that's when another Twitter user passes a tweet of yours on to his or her friends, B) have a ton more @replies (that's when another Twitter user replies to a tweet, typically asking a question or making a comment — chiming in, in other words), C) have a ton more personality, and D) have a ton more #hashtags (these are used to organize tweets by specific topics, and allow for easy searching by other Twitter users).

Meaning? Human-run Twitter feed are a lot more A) communal, B) interactive, C) fun, and D) useful. Maybe something to consider for your association, group, meeting, or convention's Twitter feed?

For comparison's sake, here's a screengrab of an automated portion of the NYTimes Twitter feed:

And here's a screengrab of the human-run portion:

Big difference, no?

Do Incentive Meetings Really Motivate?

2011-05-18T17:58:00.002-04:00

If you were looking for a go-to guy on motivation, you could hardly do better than Dan Pink, author of the bestselling Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.

So we went to Pink, and asked him how effective incentive events are when it comes to boosting employee motivation. Here is his reply:

If the only reason, or the main reason, somebody is selling a product or service is to get a trip, then I think the incentive distorts motivation and might even hurt the company in the long run. (I also think it shows they’ve hired the wrong person.)

What’s more, giving some people a trip can demoralize those who don’t get a trip — and make the recipients fearful of losing the trip the following year.

That said, trips per se are absolutely fine. If they’re part of teambuilding or strategizing, that’s terrific and valuable and worthwhile. That’s true, as well, if they’re offered in a noncontingent, unexpected way as an after-the-fact form of recognition.

In other words, the problem isn’t trips or meetings. They’re great. The problem is using them — or using anything — to control others’ behavior.

Paperlessness, via the Paper of Record

2011-05-16T13:51:00.000-04:00

Big news in The New York Times: Meeting organizers are developing mobile apps for attendees to use on their iPads, smartphones, and other wireless devices. But wait, there's more:

Most bundle a scheduling tool, floor plan and maybe information about local restaurants or a social networking link on their apps. But a handful of organizers have begun to use apps to reduce or even replace the vast amounts of paper they once carried to events.

Where have I heard about this sort of thing before? Oh, right -- at PCMA 2011 Convening Leaders, as reported on this very blog. So not only has our approach to this topic been quite timely, it's also been strictly paperless.

Face-to-Facebook

2011-05-13T14:20:00.000-04:00

The cover story in the latest issue of Bloomberg Businessweek is a profile of Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, who's widely credited with helping the youthful company grow up. And in her free time? She throws meetings at her home:

Every few weeks a few dozen Silicon Valley women—doctors, teachers, and techies—head to the seven-bedroom Atherton (Calif.) mansion Sandberg shares with her husband, Dave Goldberg, chief executive of Web startup SurveyMonkey, and their two kids. The group sits on foldout chairs in the living room and holds plates of catered food on their laps as they listen to a guest speaker. Over the years, Sandberg has lured such luminaries as Geena Davis, Billie Jean King, Rupert Murdoch, Meg Whitman, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). Robert Rubin, the most recent guest, said that 15 years ago when he was Treasury Secretary, it was good for Sheryl Sandberg that she knew him. Now, he quipped, it was good for him that he knows her.

These "Women in Silicon Valley" events, as Sandberg calls them, have become a mainstay in the lives of the women in her personal and professional circle. "I think there are a lot of people who feel they are very good friends with Sheryl, and that's a testament to how much she invests in those relationships," says Marne Levine, a former colleague at Treasury who joined Facebook last year in Washington as its vice-president of global public policy.

Last year a guest speaker at one of Sandberg's home soirees was Cambodian human trafficking activist Somaly Mam. After she discussed her work and shared her personal history of being sold into slavery at a young age, Sandberg stood up and announced her intention to hold a fundraiser for the Somaly Mam Foundation and asked how many of her friends would join her. Everyone volunteered. The fundraiser, held at the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, Calif., in November, raised more than a million dollars for the foundation, a third of the organization's annual contributions.

So in order to effect real change in the world, this business executive -- who is already extremely influential -- turns to meetings. Not too shabby.

Got Geek?

2011-05-11T11:52:00.002-04:00

Technology is supposed to make our lives and jobs easier -- but it doesn’t always feel that way.

Even if you could keep up with all of the latest releases and innovations, it's tough to sort out what is shiny and new and truly useful from what is merely shiny and new.

Liz King, of Liz King Events in New York City, and her partners are here to help, with the June 9 launch of PlannerTech. Their big idea is to bring meeting planners and technology providers together in a relaxed atmosphere, where planners can experiment and learn alongside their peers. They promise to limit the tech-jargon and keep practical solutions front and center.

I recently talked with Liz about what planners -- both in and out of New York -- can expect from the new event.

Why did you and your partners decide to organize PlannerTech?

Liz Mazzei of Pobgy and I realized that the new technologies affecting the event industry far outnumbered the ones we had time to process personally. Who wants to use a new tool with a client before you’ve tested it yourself to see how it works?

We realized that there was a huge need for a venue where planners could gather together to learn about a manageable number of new tools and try each out with their colleagues. With this in mind, PlannerTech was born. We partnered with Christine Upton to put together a unique event that will help better prepare New York planners to update their events and better integrate technology.

We’ll hear from ten companies (Event Farm, SuperPlanner, ShareSquare, Social27 and more) and then have the opportunity to network with our event planner colleagues.

Will planners who consider themselves at a beginner level in event technology feel comfortable?

Absolutely! This event is more about opening our minds to the tools that are available and beginning the process of considering how these tools might enhance the way we plan and implement events.

Each organization will only speak for four minutes so there won’t be a ton of jargon used. We’re going straight to the point - what is the tool and why is it important for event planners? Then, you can use the networking time to ask more specific questions at a level that feels comfortable for you - one-on-one with the organizations.

How did you select the featured technology companies?

Liz, Christine and I took a look at the tools we currently love or want to learn more about and investigated each one. We were looking for companies that were new enough to the game that they may not be well known, yet established enough that they aren’t going to disappear in the next few weeks.

Can planners outside of New York City participate?

In the spirit of leveraging technology, there will be a live stream of the showcase. Just go to www.plannertech.com to register for the virtual event. Thanks to our partnership with Social27, free live streaming will be available for anyone. You’ll also be able to go into the system and familiarize yourself with the ten companies presenting at the showcase and network with your peers virtually.

Will we see more of PlannerTech?

We are taking this inaugural event one step at a time, but we absolutely see this expanding. We’ll post information as they come up, but we would love to see PlannerTech move around the U.S. (and beyond) and occur a few times a year. If you think your area would appreciate an event like this, let us know! You can always email me at liz@lizkingevents.com.

Extra, Extra!: Convene Newsstand

2011-05-10T09:00:00.009-04:00

Welcome to this week's edition of Extra, Extra!.

Plans for the Phuket (Thailand) International Convention and Exhibition Center (ICEC) are being reviewed as a result of concerns over whether the center could survive a hit from a tsunami — like the one that struck the country, to devastating effect, on Dec. 26, 2004. According to the Phuket Gazette (now there's a snappily named newspaper), the project already is under a great deal of time pressure, which will be exacerbated by the review process. Originally scheduled to open in May 2014, the Thai government gave funding to the ICEC on the condition that the center open even earlier, in Nov. 2013. However, "The design and construction of the center’s main building and adjoining facilities should be ‘tsunami safe’ because tsunamis can strike at any time," said a local public-works government official.

The next time you're flying to Phuket for a meeting or convention, you may be able — if you're on American Airlines, that is — to stream a movie or TV show directly to your iPad, according to Wired magazine's Gadget Lab blog. In-flight entertainment will stream via Wi-Fi to Apple's tablet computer, allowing passengers to choose the screen on which they veg out. However, as Gadget Lab points out, it's precisely those passengers who have iPads who are most likely to already have their own content to view while en route; and, as the full Internet will be available over the Wi-Fi connection — well, maybe you'd rather catch up on your Hulu TV shows than watch American's grab bag of sitcoms.

When you get to your destination, what's the amenity you most want to see in your hotel room? There probably are as many answers as there are business travelers — but according to feedback from readers of HotelChatter.com, as reported in the New York Times, the No. 1 amenity that guests want to see is pretty simple: enough power strips and outlets with which to plug in one's myriad tech devices. HotelChatter.com founder Mark Johnson commented, "Guests are bringing more and more hardware to the hotel room, and they're looking to juice it up." Another interesting in-demand amenity that this particular traveler would appreciate is from Westin Hotels & Resorts, which has teamed up with New Balance to loan its guests workout clothes and shoes (don't be grossed out — they come with new socks and disposable insoles). This would be well appreciated, as I've often found it difficult to find room in my luggage for running shoes, alongside one or more pairs of business and/or casual kicks.

Do you feel like you waste too much time playing Animal Farm on Facebook? Well, now you can do something a bit more productive on the ubiquitous social-networking site: According to USA Today's Hotel Check-in blog, Omni Hotels has launched a way for travelers to book rooms right within the hospitality company's Facebook page. Sure enough, right under the Omni "profile picture" on the top left of the page, with Facebook's standard-issue "Wall," "Info," and "Photos" links, is a link to "Book a Room," complete with fields for corporate or promotion codes. Could this possibly be a way, in the future, for meeting planners to have attendees book rooms within their block, right inside Facebook?

Here's a screen grab of Omni's Facebook hotel-booking page. Looks good!

If They Build It, They Will Come

2011-05-06T17:09:00.002-04:00

image courtesy Walker Art Center

The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis is among the nation's most celebrated contemporary art museums, with one of the largest urban sculpture parks in the U.S., filled with works by leading American and international artists.

How could it possibly get any better?

Last summer, a team of more than 30 architects, designers, and artists crowdsourced the design of the four-acre "Open Field," a grassy community commons where the public is invited to create and schedule their own events.

Residents can teach a class, create experimental art, play music, or simply spread out some blankets and host a book club meeting. There's free wireless, and food and beer are available for purchase.

The Center enabled the community to self-organize and schedule events using a combination of Google apps and Wordpress software. The Center also creates its own programming -- the crowdsourced events ensure that the public gets exactly what it wants, too.

Last year was Open Field's first events season, but not the last. It returns in June.

Thanks to Utne Reader for the tip-off.

Extra, Extra!: Convene Newsstand

2011-05-03T09:00:00.009-04:00

Welcome to this week's edition of Extra, Extra!, wherein we round up the most interesting meetings-industry news from around the world.

It used to be said that, "As General Motors goes, so goes the nation." Is the same true for Orlando and the meetings industry? According to the Orlando Sentinel newspaper, the city filled eight out of every 10 hotel rooms in March, logging 80.6 percent occupancy. The last time that happened? March 2008. Big trade shows and conventions held at the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) helped: In March, the OCCC hosted the comic-book/sci-fi convention MegaCon, which drew 40,000 fans; CTIA Wireless, with 39,000 attendees; and the Heli-Expo International, which choppered in 15,000 people.

VISIT DENVER and its Blue Bear have launched a new website for meeting planners. Check it out at www.visitdenver.com/conventions. Among a host of other features, the new site has a simple RFP form; detailed info on the Colorado Convention Center; a list of Denver-area meeting hotels; and a section covering the city's environmental resources.

It seems that government employees in California will no longer be meeting face-to-face to figure out a solution to the state's fiscal woes — or for any other reason, for that matter. By virtue of an executive order from California Governor Jerry Brown, "Travel to attend conferences, networking opportunities, professional development courses, continuing education classes, meetings that can be conducted by video or teleconference or other non-essential events will not be permitted or paid for by the state." You can read more on this matter, and the full executive order, at the Sacramento Bee newspaper.

Clean the World, a nonprofit organization that takes used hotel bath products and distributes them to those in need (about which Convene has written previously), has signed a corporate agreement with Starwood Hotels & Resorts. The agreement, the first of its kind for Clean the World, will involve up to 500 North American Starwood properties, representing 176,000 guest rooms — and an estimated 1.6 million pounds of soap. That's great news not only for the needy recipients of these cleaning products — more than 9,000 children die each day from diseases which can be prevented by washing with bar soap, according to a Starwood press release — it's also great news for the Earth, as the program will keep approximately 550 tons of hotel waste out of landfills. If this country's hospitality industry cannot move toward using bulk dispensers of shower gel, shampoo, and conditioner — as many hotels in Europe and around the world do — then this is undoubtedly the next best thing (and maybe even better, if all North American hotels can get on board with Clean the World's program).

Finally, Convene hears that Disney World's 655-room Contemporary Resort — next door to the 115,000-square-foot Contemporary Convention Center — has some restful new "health and wellness suites" coming this fall. Each room will sport its own cardio equipment; guests will be able to choose from seasonal and organic foods at their concierge lounge; and yoga classes and spa sessions will be available at a "wellness studio." Each suite will have bamboo flooring, 100-percent cotton linens, and hypoallergenic mattresses, while the bathrooms will each have rainwater showers and tea tree oils. Here's a preview of what the rooms will look like. They do look tranquil!

'Conference Addicts'

2011-04-29T17:11:00.005-04:00

"Hello My Name Is: Conference Addict" — that's the headline for a one-page infographic in the May issue of Fast Company. The wheel, resembling an LP, showcases the "swankiest" conferences — including Davos, TED, and Sun Valley — attracting movers and shakers. Fast Company calls it the "cozy conference club." Sarcasm notwithstanding, the graphic shows how these conferences result in deals and relationships between the who's who of social media, technology, and politics. Proof again that in our high-tech, complex world, to have a meeting of the minds, well, you need to have a meeting of the minds.

Convene On Site: Phillip Island and Sydney, Australia

2011-04-28T17:45:00.007-04:00

A resident of Koala Conservation Centre on Phillip Island
Photo by Alan Kleinfeld, CMM, CMP

In our latest issue, Alan Kleinfeld, CMM, CMP, writes about the 2011 Asia-Pacific Incentives and Meetings Expo (AIME), which he attended on behalf of Convene this past February. Held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, AIME is owned by the Melbourne Convention + Visitors Bureau, which before this year's show hosted some attendees, including Alan, for a "pre-touring program" to "showcase the best of Melbourne and regional Victoria." Here's Alan's account of his experience:

As part of the Asia-Pacific Incentives & Meetings Exhibition (AIME) in Melbourne, members of the media were offered pre-fam tours of several cities. I picked Phillip Island, southeast of Melbourne, in Western Port Bay, because it was easy to get to and the description sounded like a blast.

It was.

Even the 90-minute coach ride south from Melbourne kept us entertained as Ben Roulston from Be Challenged put us through team-building and networking games.

Our first stop was our home for the night, the Silverwater Resort, a three-year-old property that looks brand new and feels like an upscale American apartment complex. The 170 guest rooms have dens, kitchens, and up to three bedrooms.

But probably my favorite thing about Silverwater was the landing pad for helicopter rides. Phillip Island Helicopters offer groups and individuals five different flight options; for our pre-fam group, they used two crafts, each taking turns carrying three of us for 10-minute rides.

A sweet spot at the Phillip Island Chocolate Factory
Photo by Alan Kleinfeld, CMM, CMP

Stops at Churchill Island Heritage Farm, the Phillip Island Chocolate Factory, the Purple Hen Winery, and the Koala Conservation Centre helped make our journey more memorable. Churchill Island, which offers function space for groups, is a working farm with milking, sheep-shearing, and whip-cracking demonstrations (yes, like Indiana Jones). The Chocolate Factory, aside from concocting scrumptious confections, allows visitors to see how the goodies are made, surrounded by little chocolate villages and fun music. (I couldn’t help but hum the Willy Wonka song.) At the Conservation Centre, wild oalas had everyone snapping photos of the adorable furry creatures as they sat in trees just a few meters above our heads.

Our day came to a close at the famous Phillip Island Penguin Parade, the nation’s most popular wildlife attraction. Each night at dusk, hundreds of wild Little Penguins, the world’s smallest penguin, emerge from the sea and trek across the beach in search of sand-dune burrows, in which they will they will rest for a day or two, after having just gorged on fish in the ocean. This natural phenomenon is the largest Little Penguin colony in the world. Although no one is allowed to touch or even photograph the weensy waddlers, visitors can get an arm’s length away as the penguins search for their burrows.

* * *

The bright lights of Sydney Harbour.

After AIME, Business Events Sydney hosted a three-day post-fam trip during which Alan and other participants stayed at the Shangri-La Hotel Sydney, a luxurious property in the heart of downtown that offers 563 guest rooms and suites, 18 conference rooms — and truly breathtaking views of Sydney Harbour. The post-fam's action-packed itinerary included a tour of the magnificent Sydney Opera House, which is available for private events; a climb up the Sydney Harbour Bridge, culminating in a panoramic look at the city more than 450 above the water; a sunset cruise on Sydney Harbour; a visit to an authentic Australian farm, where stockmen on horseback maneuvered around livestock; a traditional barbecue in the outback; and world-class shopping, dining, and nightlife.

Another Convene freelancer, Maureen Littlejohn, attended an equally fabulous fam trip to Sydney last year, and wrote about it for our July 2010 issue. We featured her Sydney Harbour Bridge climb in a blog post — because, apparently, there's nothing quite like being so far up when you're so far down under.

Off to the PCMA Prom

2011-04-27T15:00:00.000-04:00

The Washington Hilton's International Ballroom, leading up to showtime.

Just about every association I've worked for has had an awards gala or other annual celebratory event that you might just as well call the prom, and that in fact is called the prom by staffers like me who aren't nearly so clever as they like to think. PCMA's 2011 prom -- officially known as the PCMA Education Foundation Dinner Celebrating Professional Achievement -- is happening in just a few hours at the Washington Hilton here in Washington, D.C. It's always a swell time, with people dressing up and coming together for top-flight food and drink and networking their way from one side of the Hilton's famous International Ballroom to the other, all in the name of honoring three dedicated industry veterans -- this year, Gregg Talley, CAE, Talley Management Group; Brian Stevens, ConferenceDirect; and Glen Ramsborg, Ph.D., CMP, Kendall College.

In Convene we approach the industry from something of a big-picture or deep-thought perspective, because our readers are senior-level professionals and that's the sort of thing they're looking for. But sometimes, it's nice to be reminded of the glamour and excitement and simple fun of what we do; and how nice that the PCMA prom is about all of those things even while remaining a serious industry event. And check out that photo above, taken in the International Ballroom just a few minutes ago by fellow PCMA blogger Christine Melendes, CAE. When the curtain goes up at 6:30 tonight, that space will have been transformed into a carnival of light and sound, color and rhythm -- a living celebration of the transformations that meeting professionals create in similar spaces for similar events every day. See you there, I hope!

McSweeney's Takes Aim at TED

2011-04-26T16:03:00.006-04:00

If you don't know by now (which apparently many people don't!), the independent publishing company McSweeney's, founded by author Dave Eggers, has a bunch of hilarious content on its website — or "Internet Tendency," as the company cheekily puts it. Best of all are its "Lists," which incredibly are archived — together on one long, long page — all the way back to 1999.

Anyway, here's a great meetings-related one I read yesterday, gently tweaking the super-popular TED Talks, and also the oftentimes labored, over-serious titles for various conference educational sessions:

TED Talks Throughout History

By John Cafiero

Have We Been Worshiping the Wrong Sacred Tree?

The Wheel Will Change the Way We Live Forever, Once We Turn It on Its Side and Attach It to Something, But What?

Global Initiatives for Making God Less Angry

How "Coins" Are Revolutionizing Bartering

Dragon Lairs, Leprechaun Hoards, and Other Promising Sources of Wealth in the New Economy

Great stuff. Click here for the full list, with four more hilarious fake TED Talk titles.

Bonus info: In doing research for this post, I discovered that Eggers actually won a TED Prize in 2008 for his public-school advocacy work. Read more about the prize and Eggers' passion for schools here.

Convene Reads: The Facebook Effect

2011-04-26T09:59:00.000-04:00

There's no way that a book about social networking and technology and social-networking technology wouldn't unfold in and around a bunch of meetings, and, boy, is The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World, by David Kirkpatrick, ever the mother lode. Beginning with late-night brainstorming and coding sessions when Mark Zuckerberg and Co. were still at Harvard, through sitdowns with potential investors in Silicon Valley, to internal meetings and industry conferences and Facebook's own events -- the world's biggest virtual-communication company is all about the face-to-face.

Indeed, the book begins with the story of a civil engineer in Colombia who used Facebook to arrange a protest against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that was attended by millions of people worldwide in February 2008. As Zuckerberg tells Kirkpatrick: "We did some thinking and we decided that the core value of Facebook is in the set of friend connections. We call that the social graph, in the mathematical sense of a series of nodes and connections. The nodes are the individuals and the connections are the friendships. ... We have the most powerful distribution mechanism that's been created in a generation."

Extra, Extra!: Convene Newsstand

2011-04-26T09:00:00.003-04:00

After a bit of a hiatus, welcome back to Extra, Extra! — Convene's online supplement to the association's ThisWeek@PCMA newsletter.

Hilton Hotels & Resorts last week unveiled its new lobby design, as part of a $40 million renovation of the Hilton McLean Tysons Corner hotel in McLean, Va. The new design fits into what's become or becoming the dominant mode in hotel-lobby functionality: the living room or "great room" format, with lounge areas, a bar/restaurant, and an open-air business center–type area. According to the company, the design "offers a flexible layout with a living room feel that encourages a social atmosphere where guests can interact, work, and collaborate." Here's a video intro to the new lobby:

Typically, hotel rooms don't have much in the way of reading material — that is, beyond a Gideon Bible, the phone book (which can be interesting!), and an advertorial-heavy magazine about the city in which one is staying. But Manhattan's hip boutique Standard Hotel is changing all that, giving each of its rooms one of 13 books from a list curated by world-famous novelist (and former fatwa fugitive) Salman Rushdie. What's on the list? Some great stuff: everything from classics including Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury to more modern titles such as Michael Chabon's love letter to New York City, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

Earlier this month, Harris Interactive released its Travel Brands of the Year, as ranked in its "2011 Harris Poll EquiTrend." Topping the list in the airline category (for the second year running — or, rather, flying) was Southwest, with JetBlue landing at No. 2 and Hawaiian Airlines touching down at bronze. Other poll winners, reflecting a consumer preference toward "brands that offer choice and flexibility" and "are seen as delivering value," as Harris Interactive Executive Vice President of Brand Consulting Jeni Lee Chapman put it, were Hilton (full-service), Omni (luxury), Holiday Inn (mid-market), Homewood Suites (extended stay), and Red Roof Inn (economy). Non-hotel winners included Enterprise for rental cars and Disney World for amusement attractions. Congrats!

Finally, YouTube recently began gradually rolling out YouTube Live, its new, "self-service live-streaming ... platform," allowing for live-streaming of events. Event Manager Blog has a good post on the new offering, noting that "the wide majority of event professionals ignore [the fact that] YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world!" For now, though — the service is still in beta — there is no way to request live-streaming functionality; instead, an announcement on YouTube's Partner Communications Hub asks for its partners to be patient, and to "make sure that your account is in good standing and that you remain an active uploader." Event Manager Blog editor Julius Solaris writes:

This could be a great opportunity to go back to your YouTube channel (because you have one, right?) and populate it with great content from previous events or to think about interviewing your speakers/performers about what their performance will be.

Not a bad idea at all, regardless of whether or not doing so prompts YouTube to grant your group live-streaming capability during the new service's beta-testing period.

Snapshots From Spring Break

2011-04-25T13:56:00.003-04:00

Last week it was spring break for Arlington Public Schools, meaning our two daughters were home all week. Meaning we needed to come up with things for them to do. And my wife, ever the organizer, rose to the challenge, creating an action-packed itinerary: Luray Caverns! The National Aquarium, Baltimore! Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus! Gettysburg! Hershey Park!

A stagehand on alert during Ringling Bros.' Spherical Miracle.

I joined the family for the aquarium, the circus, and, as part of a three-day Easter weekend, Gettysburg and Hershey Park. It was all a lot of fun, and, as you might imagine, not completely irrelevant to meetings -- especially when it comes to the different ways that a live event or destination is experienced. At the circus, for example, it was interesting to watch the many stagehands needed to produce the three-ring spectacle -- sticking to the sidelines and (of course) wearing black, but otherwise a visible component of each performance, and for the show's more death-defying acts, quite a prominent one. During the super-cool Spherical Miracle (pictured above, hazily), stagehands with fire extinguishers were stationed around the attraction's 16-foot ball-cage as seven motorcycles zoomed around inside it.

In Hershey, Pa., I was conscious of the attention that's gone into providing an overall experience throughout the properties that make up Hershey Entertainment & Resorts -- including Hershey Lodge, where we stayed, and Hersheypark and Hershey Gardens, which we visited. The attention to detail and the customer service on display at every level, in every corner, combined for an impression of seamless, effortless welcome -- a testament, I think, to the potential impact of a well-conceived, well-coordinated meeting, even one that's not based around a nonstop infusion of process cacao seeds.

And, by the way, Hershey is certainly no stranger to our industry -- from the 100,000 square feet of event space at the Hershey Lodge, to a plaque installed in a lovely corner of Hershey Gardens nearly 25 years ago, during the 1987 convention of the Penn-Jersey District of the American Rose Society. Chocolate World, it seems, is also Meetings World.

Shaping A Sustainable Path

2011-04-22T12:10:00.002-04:00

Port-au-Prince, March 2010

I took this picture last year in Haiti, ten weeks after the earthquake that filled Port-au-Prince with rubble, killed thousands and left thousands more homeless and living in tents. This river, filled with discarded plastic bottles and trash, runs through downtown, and I remember thinking as I clicked the shutter that I was looking at two kinds of disasters, one natural and one man-made. In that instant, I pledged to myself that I would never, ever drink water from disposable plastic bottles again.

I wish I could say that I have lived up to that promise, but I can't. For lots of reasons, including the fact that it's hard to change.

Doubletree Hotel Portland

Which leaves me grateful this Earth Day for event organizers that make it possible, and even easy, to make a more sustainable choice. These water stations at the 2011 Green Meetings Industry Council annual meeting in Portland, are a gorgeous example.

In their book Switch, authors Chip and Dan Heath talk about "shaping the path" -- the idea that one can encourage change by making it easier and intuitive to do the right thing. "What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem," they write. "When you shape the path, you make change more likely."

Event organizers have an incredible opportunity to shape a sustainable path for their attendees, creating an environment where constructive, life-affirming actions are not just possible, but a pleasure. The upcoming APEX/ASTM Environmentally Sustainable Meeting Standards, which we wrote about in the May issue, offer planners a road map, but they still have to put their hearts into it.

This Earth Day, I am recommitting to that smallest of changes -- avoiding plastic water bottles. I've tried this no-brainer before and failed, so if you have any suggestions or encouraging words, please send them my way.

April 2011 Issue: Live!

2011-04-21T16:32:00.000-04:00

One of the things we work hard at with Convene is trying to make the abstract more concrete. A great example of that (I'm comfortable saying, since I didn't write the article) is the cover story in our April issue -- the digital edition of which is now available -- in which Hunter Slaton digs into the oft-discussed, oft-misunderstood health-care law to find a very tangible relevance for the meetings industry. Seriously. Do you know about the impending law's "Sunshine" provision? And the cover story has two more components, both related to continuing medical education: "Proof of Learning," about the growing emphasis on demonstrating that CME participants are learning what they're supposed to be learning; and "Do You CME What I CME?," which traces the evolving missions of the Alliance for CME and the Global Alliance for Medical Education.

Also in this issue:

CMP Series: "Going for Green," Barbara Palmer's preview of the long-awaited APEX/ASTM Environmentally Sustainable Meeting Standards, which are scheduled to be released later this year.

One on One With: Gloria Guevara, Mexico's secretary of tourism, who sat down with Michelle Russell during PCMA 2011 Convening Leaders for a frank conversation about her country's meetings business -- and the realities of its ongoing drug war.

Plenary: We begin by checking in on life in the global meetings industry a year after the eruption of the Icelandic volcano, and continue with some great photos from Toy Fair 2011 and the Laura Ingalls Wilder-themed LauraPalooza 2010, plus a Pre Con profile of the National Contract Management Association's World Congress 2011 and a Post Con profile of the 2011 Biodiesel Conference & Expo. All that, and two new bite-size Plenary departments: Tipster and Unconventional.

Working Smarter: Are you holding onto your meeting binder? You might not be for very long, once you read about planners who have made the switch to the iPad -- on site! (That camp includes PCMA's own meetings team, as you may remember.)

Other Duties as Assigned: The Tax Executive Institute's Mike Lowery remembers that time he roughed up NBA great Isiah Thomas.

As always, look for the text-only version of this issue on our homepage sometime in the next few days.

So long, Bubba!

2011-04-19T09:54:00.000-04:00

When Apple opened a pop-up shop in Austin during the 2011 SXSW@Interactive Festival as part of the launch of the iPad 2, the first in line was -- not a gadget-crazed techie -- but event planner John Muehlbauer.

Among the many reasons that meeting planners are embracing the iPad is its ability to store massive amounts of information in pixels, rather than paper, and still fit under your arm. In our April issue, we talked to meeting planners who have made the jump from using traditional binders during conferences to storing information on iPads and tablets -- and who aren't looking back.

PCMA's meetings and events team -- Kelly Peacy, CAE, CMP; Sarah Corrandino, CMP; Mandi Kasper, CMP; and Dyan Couch, CMP -- is part of that trend: The team used an iPad during 2011 Convening Leaders in Las Vegas.

How did it go? See Mandi Kasper's video report above to find out.

Mexico's Perspective on Mexico

2011-04-14T13:06:00.000-04:00

More than a half million more Americans visited Mexico in 2010 compared with 2009 and, since 2008, the number of visitors from Brazil increased 100 percent. Those facts -- as well as news about the robust growth of Mexico's economy -- tend to get overshadowed by concern over the country's drug violence, Gloria Guevara, Mexico's secretary of tourism, told Editor in Chief Michelle Russell in an interview.

In the past, Mexico has made the mistake of "leaving a gap in information," Guevara said. "When you are not actively providing information, what happens is that that [gap] is filled up with bad news."

For Mexico's perspective about the violence -- and some good news about meeting in Mexico -- the complete interview in the April issue of Convene.

Switzerland up Close

2011-04-14T07:08:00.005-04:00

The Switzerland Tourism media event I attended last night at the Helen Mills Theater in New York City featured a presentation by award-winning National Geographic Traveler photojournalist, Catherine Karnow. With such a visually stunning country to capture, I had assumed the photos that she was going to share of her assignment in Switzerland would be of crystal-clear lakes, picturesque villages, and of course, mountains. Lots of snow-capped, majestic mountains. And that was the gorgeous backdrop of the photos she presented to our group. But what drew us in to those photos were the people — the young cheese-maker who felt he had a "calling" to go to the mountains to make cheese, the woman who drives a postal bus over winding mountain roads and through tiny Swiss villages to Italy every day, and the salesperson showing a customer a $400,000 Patek Philippe watch.

The best photos, Karnow said, should make you want to linger, to learn more. What captivated the audience last night was hearing those simple stories that went with some incredibly scenic photos. Of course, it didn't hurt that sparkling blue lakes, white-capped mountains, and alpine villages were our visuals. But storytelling really is at the heart of every memorable presentation, no matter the meeting's industry or topic. Even if the Matterhorn isn't a backdrop.

'Can Meetings Save the World?' Yes.

2011-04-13T17:11:00.000-04:00

A terrific cover story by Barbara Palmer in our January issue asked a simple question: "Can Meetings Save the World?" Barbara presented many examples suggesting that the answer is yes -- from PopTech and the Women's Conference to the Creativity World Forum and the Clinton Global Initiative. Here are two more:

High-Level Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety: In response to the nuclear disaster resulting from last month's earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is convening a meeting of foreign ministers and nuclear-agency officials in Vienna on June 20-24 -- according to IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, "to learn the right lessons from what happened on 11 March and afterwards."

Fighting Childhood Obesity: Slate magazine's crowdsourcing project -- called The Hive -- uses the collective wisdom of its readers to generate solutions to some of the world's most vexing problems. Capping off an ongoing discussion about childhood obesity, next week Slate and the Cleveland Clinic are hosting an "all-star conversation" with "the top thinkers, scientists, doctors, political leaders, and policymakers in the field" at the Bank of America Conference Center in Cleveland. It seems that vigorous online debate is one thing, but to get really serious about something, you need to talk it over face-to-face.

Themed: Bags of Ice

2011-04-08T09:55:00.002-04:00

The satirical newspaper The Onion had a great little story yesterday about the events industry. The headline?

Lazy Event Planner Throws 'Bags Of Ice'–Themed Party

Too funny. Here's an excerpt (click the link above for the full story):

Lacking the time, energy, or initiative to prepare anything better, Hollywood-based event planner Frankie Haines spent roughly 20 minutes last week organizing a 'Bags of Ice'–themed celebrity birthday bash. "I figure it makes sense: Parties and bags of ice, those are two things that go together," said Haines, describing his inspiration for the hastily created, half-million-dollar soiree, which will feature five massive columns of ice bags stacked throughout the space, ice bags leading up the driveway, and possibly an ice-bag sculpture centerpiece, "if there's time."

What's the most out-there (or quickly slapped-together) theme you've ever used for an event?

It All Began With a Tweet ...

2011-04-07T10:39:00.001-04:00

I can't get enough of this story about the world's first flight to be initiated via Twitter. In a nutshell, a group of Dutch house music fans successfully lobbied KLM to add a flight from Amsterdam to Miami, so they could attend a music festival. (The flight also has been designated by Guinness World Records as the world's "Highest Altitude Dance Party.")

It's true that the stars lined up to make the flight happen: there was a cohesive dance community with a defined need, and, in KLM, a company that was already committed to using Twitter as a way to better serve customers.

It's a fantastic example of what can come from listening to customers and being open to new ways of doing things. And how a tool like Twitter can supercharge communication.

"When we change the way we communicate," Clay Shirky wrote in Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, "we change society."

Meetings as Structures

2011-03-31T16:00:00.004-04:00

Sustainability in architecture is not a trend, it is now a given -- like inside plumbing, New Yorker architecture critic Paul Goldberger said last night at the Tenement Museum in New York's Lower East Side. Goldberger also shared his top two favorite places in New York -- which turned out to be not buildings at all, but Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge --- as well as his views on "starchitects," the function of memorials in American culture, and the transforming power of architecture.

The evening made me think. About the built environment of New York City, but also about the parallels between events and buildings, how meetings can be seen as structures for creating community. They can play a role -- if a much more temporary one -- similar to that of architecture in shaping our social environment and interactions with each other.

Goldberger appeared at the museum as part of the "Tenement Talks" series, which occur every week, and sometimes more often. The events are far from fancy -- participants sip inexpensive wine from plastic cups, and sit on folding chairs. The main thing, however, is talk -- the series brings in an fascinating array of authors, academics, artists, and performers to speak about everything from historic waterfront strikes to Jewish cooking to Civil War history.

I love the museum, but I became a member because of Tenement Talks -- even though admission to them is almost always free. I want to support them, because they connect me to people who share my interests.

Goldberger's 2009 book, Why Architecture Matters, has just been released in paperback. One passage in particular struck me as having relevance to the challenges faced by meeting organizers wondering how to measure the value of creating opportunities for people to come together:

Architecture ... is the making of place and the making of memory. The urban impulse is an impulse toward community -- an impulse toward being together and toward accepting the idea that however different we may be, something unites us. But what do we do in an age when every force pushes us away from cities, pushes us apart rather than together? And how we we make valid, lasting memory when it becomes so easy not to see the familiar, when we take it for granted and no longer even notice it? ... We have to think hard about how the experience of being together will come to pass and how architecture can express a sense of community, a sense of common ground ...

And this:

Architecture represents the real, and is ever more precious in an age of virtual. Every piece of architecture is an opportunity for real experience.

I could have stayed home and read Goldberger's book, or hoped the museum would archive the talk. But I went and had an experience that I will remember.

Don't Let Takeaways Get Away

2011-03-30T12:05:00.001-04:00

In Convene's March issue, we talked with executive coaching firm Building Champions about a common problem: attendees whose personal and professional lives are moving so fast, they have a hard time absorbing the new ideas they encounter meetings. Notes taken with great enthusiasm and the best of intentions end up tucked into files, and then ... nothing.

There's even a name for it: The Law of Diminishing Intent -- the longer you wait to implement an idea, the less enthusiasm you will have for it.

Building Champions CEO Daniel Harkavy has hit on a way to interrupt that pattern: last fall, a few weeks after the World Business Forum, Harkavy conducted a post-conference coaching call for attendees. In 45 minutes, he pared down two days of information to a succinct list of takeaways, with concrete suggestions on how to put ideas into action.

PCMA's Christine Melendes

Over the last weeks, Christine Melendes, CAE, PCMA’s director of member relations, has been guest blogging about her experience at the second annual Event Camp National Conference, held in Chicago February 11-13. Today, Christine also is acting as "guest executive coach," stirring up the pot, and sharing her list of takeaways from the meeting. Here's her list of standout points:

Hybrid Events

* Nobody has all the answers. Find a technology partner that you feel comfortable working with and put together a program that fits the needs of your organization.

* Bring in more people to work on the virtual end than you think you’ll need – because you’ll need them.

* Adding a camera facing the audience will help the virtual audience get a better sense of what it feels like to be at the meeting, interacting with F2F attendees

* Adequately communicate the link needed to join online in advance. Make sure you help people get to the party.

* Build your event with a virtual audience in mind.

* Give the virtual audience tasks that keep them engaged

* Be authentic when interacting with virtual audience – don’t use a script

Community

* Concentrate on the people who already are your fans – start letting them help tell your story

* Develop relationships built on trust

* If you are in sales, don’t push a sale before a relationship is formed – it’s insulting to everyone

* Change the way you see relationships – relating is an attitude and an action. Use relationships to build your connections, your caring, and your community.

* Open up listening labs to learn how to serve our customers/members

* Loyalty is a relationship. Campaigns may make sales, but community-building makes long-term relationships

Events

* Look at how to keep the stragglers and lonely people going/moving/engaged -- find a community solution

* Take photos of everyone – everyone wants to see photos of themselves

* Attendees want to feel special – TALK TO THEM

* Require speakers to hang out with sponsors so they get entrenched and embedded within your event

* Integrate the “local” into your events

In general

* Pursue progress, not perfection

* Speak with substance, sizzle, and soul. Ask yourself: What will you make happen going forward (that's the substance). How will you make it happen (sizzle)? Why is it important to you (soul)?

* Make desire more important than fear

* Connect people to people with the solutions they are looking for

* You want to be with people who are like you!

* Come out from behind the curtain (from out of your office, out of your website) – bring yourself online to meet the people online; meet the people offline – we need both!

Says Christine: "Attending EventCamp this year for my first time was a joy and recharge of my batteries. If you want to continue the conversation you can find me on Twitter: @camelendes."