Sweating the Small Stuff on Sustainable Hotels
By Mitchell Beer | August 24, 2010
I’ve just recently returned from a month in Western Canada, about half of it spent onsite. It was a good trip, but I have a quibble with one of the hotels where I stayed.
It’s a small quibble, as quibbles go. You wouldn’t be wrong to conclude that if this was my only complaint, I actually had a pretty good stay.
But this is a small quibble with bigger implications. It’s something that should have been easy to correct, and the facility’s inability to solve it through most of a six-day booking speaks volumes about whether our industry is up to the bigger sustainability challenges.
The quibble is about…a newspaper. Three newspapers, actually, one delivered to my door each morning over the first half of my visit.
Sustainability in hotels and meeting facilities depends on a series of large issues like the design of the building, the efficiency of the equipment, whether lighting units have been fitted with compact fluorescent bulbs, whether electricity is supplied from renewable sources.
But there are dozens of smaller things that hotels can and should do to reduce their footprint. They can save water, energy, and money by taking guests at our word when we insist that we don’t need our linens changed every day. (Most major chains advertise towel reuse programs, but very few hotels actually deliver on them.) And they can stop wasting paper and ink, along with the toxic heavy metals the ink may contain, by making it easy to opt out of daily newspaper delivery.
When I arrived at this particular hotel, I went through the check-in routine that’s become my onsite standard. I instituted my own linen reuse program by putting out a Do Not Disturb sign, and after a stack of newsprint arrived on the first morning, I called the desk to unsubscribe. On Days 2 and 3, I brought the newspaper down to the desk and explained why I didn’t want it, and a very patient clerk promised to pass the information on to the outside contractor who does the deliveries. After Day 3, I started drafting this post. On Day 4, the deliveries stopped—but by then, most short-run travellers would already have left the building.
My objection was mainly about the environmental footprint of a printed format I haven’t used in years, though partly about the content of the publication itself. You see, the paper the hotel delivered most mornings was the National Post, a nasty piece of advocacy reporting that drives many Canadians to distraction with its deliberate political slant.
I didn’t want any newspaper delivered, but I certainly wasn’t happy to see a publication that has so little use for the principles of balance and fairness that I learned in journalism school. Every time a newspaper lands outside your guest room, it’s added to the circulation figures that help that publication justify its advertising rates. I don’t want to be deemed a part of the National Post’s audience base, not even for a few days.
(For readers south of the Canada-U.S. border, imagine if a media baron with a grudge built a major news outlet in your country for the express purpose of pushing public discourse in a particular political direction. Oh, wait…)
I’m not suggesting that a facility should boycott the Pest just because I do, or that hotels should suspend newspaper delivery for guests who want it. But at a time when personalized service is an industry mantra, it shouldn’t be so hard to accommodate a simple preference—without it having to be explained three times. Hotels can track the type of pillow a guest uses and whether they prefer a room on an upper or lower floor. If they expect to be taken seriously on sustainability, a good first step is to ask the right questions…and listen to the answers.
The problem is that this isn’t just about newspapers (or political screeds masquerading as newspapers). Getting the small stuff right—whether it’s newspapers, towel programs, or in-room recycling—is dead easy, and should have been standard industry practice a decade ago.
If we’re still having this conversation, do we really think hotels—or any other corner of the meetings industry—will be ready for an 80% cut in carbon emissions over the next 15 to 30 years? And if customers see us tripping up on even the most basic green initiatives, will they even believe us when we claim to be tackling the bigger issues? At the moment, I’m not so sure they should.
Topics: Carbon Footprint, Corporate Social Responsibility, Green Meetings, Greenwashing | No Comments »
General Session Design 3.0: Keys to Your Organizational and Personal Success
By WEC10 Reporter | August 16, 2010
Fusion Productions collaborated with Meeting Professionals International (MPI) to produce the general sessions for the 2010 World Education Congress (WEC 2010). To demonstrate its “meeting of the future” design strategy, Fusion brought in a team of world-class partners and continued to co-create through the entire production process—before, during and after the WEC.
During a Monday morning knowledge session, representatives from each of the partner organizations talked about what and how they contributed, and demonstrated ways that event planners could implement similar strategies.
Jamie McDonough, Knowledge Architect with Fusion Productions, asked participants to think about what meetings are all about, and what people should do after attending them. “From our perspective, meetings are about building a community of ideas,” he said. A well-planned combination of design ideas, digital tools, hybrid communities, documentation strategies, and audiovisual components is integral to helping participants retain knowledge and achieve conference objectives.
The WEC 2010 general sessions were planned with the intention of telling people why meetings matter. “The value of your meeting will be measured by the changes you effect, the ways in which your attendees internalize your messages, and the degree to which you achieve your business objectives. You can’t get any of that unless you can engage your attendees emotionally,” McDonough said. “That’s why it’s so critical that you tell a quality story.”
Fusion Productions and its partners created an online community for WEC 2010. McDonough said meeting planners can use this type of interface to combine up-to-the-minute onsite content, including videos and text summaries of general sessions or panels, with case studies, blog entries, and Twitter feeds. An online community is especially useful for members of an organization or community of interest who can’t attend a meeting, and it can be used to show clients a new way of engaging with their members and stakeholders.
Fusion Productions President Hugh Lee said a conference that delivers on its goal of creating lasting impressions for participants begins with focused, strategic design. For the WEC, MPI and Fusion spent significant time collaborating on the design of messages, graphics, media, and conference flow. “Probably 40 to 50% of the time on a project will be spent up front,” he said. “Here’s the key: you have to look at the first step and say, ‘Who are we targeting? What message do we want to deliver?’”
A thorough understanding of a meeting’s goals, focus, and audience lies at the heart of designing an effective program and maximizing its impact. “Do your research and find out the story your client has to tell,” Lee advised. Production design and a sequence of other decisions will be based on that story.
Nick Wilson, founder and CEO of Clever Zebra, said a virtual component increases the value of a meeting by allowing participants to “attend” remotely. Wilson demonstrated an immersive web application where avatars interacted by walking, waving, meeting, shaking hands, sitting down, and chatting in a virtual convention center. He presented the online virtual environment Clever Zebra created for WEC 2010 as an example, and some participants had a chance to try it themselves.
Wilson said the digital tool, created in conjunction with A World For Us, allows users to log in from anywhere using any browser, operating system, or platform. A small (3 MB) plug-in is the only special equipment needed to interact in the immersive environment. A virtual meeting can be modified for any client, and participants can decide the appearance of their avatars. One hundred users can log in at one time.
A virtual environment can include a Twitter feed and relevant links, and can incorporate advertising, messaging, branding, and sponsor logos to generate revenue. A matter of weeks is all it takes to create a virtual environment to suit a meeting’s needs, Wilson said.
Mitchell Beer, president of The Conference Publishers, said meeting planners and participants need a way to take knowledge home, so his firm produces written session summaries that are “more detailed than a PowerPoint presentation, but less detailed than a transcript.” He said the ultimate purpose of a session summary is to “give voice to the conference theme by telling participants’ stories,” in a way that makes pertinent session information easily accessible after the meeting is over.
Before WEC 2010, The Conference Publishers produced blog entries, testimonials, and case studies for Fusion’s online community site. Onsite, a team of writers prepared online news reports on more than a dozen selected sessions and posted 145 live “news tweets” during the two general sessions. After the conference, the firm will deliver more in-depth white papers on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and strategic meeting management (SMM).
“But why bring in any form of content capture when social media coverage is free?” Beer asked. He explained that when a host organization hires a team of independent writers whose work is aligned with the conference message, the resulting “cornerstone content” balances the user-generated material in the blogosphere and on Twitter—just as factual reporting and reader opinions complement one another in a daily newspaper.
“The key here is the integration across all communication elements and platforms, and between live and virtual audiences, before, during, and after the conference,” Beer said.
Innovative Event Production (IEP) is a full-service production company that provides efficient, versatile audiovisual support for events. Vice President and Executive Producer Mark Spector listed video conferencing, webcasting, and web conferencing, as well as a variety of audiovisual tools and high-resolution graphics, as some of the key elements required to deliver a meeting message.
IEP has partnered with Fusion on five other MPI international conferences. For the general sessions at WEC 2010, the company supported Fusion’s set design, graphics, and media production through their highly skilled technicians and state-of-the-art equipment. IEP worked with Fusion on the formulas necessary for Fusion’s HD video, allowing for projection distance, lensing, rigging points, and other key technical details. The result was an interactive set, personalized for each speaker, produced by Fusion and executed flawlessly by IEP.
Spector recalled another recent project where webcast participants logged in from four sites: London, New York, Dallas, and Bangalore, India. The event was orchestrated from Dallas, but each city had its own stage and local presenters. The webcast drew more than 5,000 viewers around the world and saved IEP’s client “a fortune in travel costs,” he said, while delivering one of the highest returns on investment the client had ever seen.
Glenn Thayer, a professional master of ceremonies who specializes in strategic content delivery, said the first step in optimizing a meeting’s impact is for planners to put themselves in audience members’ shoes. He invited participants to think about meetings they’d planned that represented a departure from traditional conference design. Although there was strong interest in pre-conference interaction, rapid-fire roundtable discussions, and formats based on the popular TED Talks series, very few WEC 2010 participants reported introducing new formats with the conferences they planned.
“Does anyone do pre-engagement with their speakers to engage attendees before the conference?” Thayer asked. A few participants raised their hands. “As attendees, how many of you would like to engage with the presenters and content before you show up onsite?” Everyone raised their hands. “How come you’re not doing it with your sessions?”
Most participants cited budgets as the main barrier to innovative conference design. When Thayer invited them to set that limit aside, they came up with a wide variety of ideas for increasing audience engagement, interaction, and value, including 3-D environments and live Twitter feeds on general session screens. Thayer encouraged participants to consider:
• A talk show format for general sessions
• Keynotes modeled on the TED Talks series
• Executive interviews using questions from the floor
• Facilitated roundtables and scheduled “white space,” where participants can discuss the content they’ve just heard
• Foyer discussions, where participants can discuss content informally while a general session is under way.
“Look at how people take in different information. Your attendees are no different,” he said. “What engages you as an attendee? If you’re not engaged, you can’t expect that your attendees will be.”
McDonough recalled an early planning meeting for WEC 2010, where MPI President and CEO Bruce MacMillan stressed that “we need to be storytellers.” With that mandate, Fusion and its partners approached a selection of MPI members in the weeks before the conference and asked them why their meetings matter. Highlights included:
• Ed Simeone, executive director of the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry: “When I plan AACD’s annual meeting, I help restore smiles to survivors of domestic violence.”
• Dennis Bassett, director of sales and customer programs, Bausch + Lomb Inc.: “When I plan the Bausch + Lomb North America national meeting, I help people regain their sight.”
• Nancy Reese, marketing events manager, Pictometry International Corporation: “When I plan the Pictometry FutureView users’ conference, I help save lives.”
• Cheryl Russell, director, convention and meetings, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association: “When I plan the ASHA’s convention, I help facilitate effective communication [that is] accessible and achievable for all.”
• Fred Schwartz, president, Asian American Hotel Owners’ Association: “AAHOA members represent an annual US$9.4 billion in payroll. When our members meet, they create jobs, support communities, and enhance the lives of families across North America.”
The examples demonstrate that “people listen to, and connect with, stories,” McDonough said.
McDonough described another project where Fusion worked with Bausch + Lomb to design a launch meeting for a new bio-product. As a tangible teaching tool for attendees who were unfamiliar with the new product line, Fusion distributed free briefcases that contained a number of more familiar bio-influenced products.
Fusion also designed a series of interactive games, in which participants were invited to answer a series of questions at the end of each session. Later, by visiting a supplier’s booth and answering a question correctly, participants could obtain a key, and the conference distributed more than US$30,000 worth of prizes to key-holders. The technique ensured that people retained relevant information, and they also widely concluded that the conference was a huge success.
For more information on these general sessions or how you can create your meeting of the future, contact
Jamie McDonough
Knowledge Architect, Fusion Produtions, LLC
jmcdonough@fusionproductions.com
www.fusionproductions.com
Topics: Case Studies, Conference Content, Future of Meetings, Meeting Design, Meeting Professionals International, Meetings Technology, Onsite Learning, Social Media, The Conference Publishers, Virtual Meetings | No Comments »
Meetings that Changed the World
By WEC10 Reporter | August 16, 2010
Anyone who has ever worked as a meeting professional can tell you about their favorite meetings and proudest moments onsite. When planners and suppliers begin swapping those war stories, they’re usually talking about meetings that changed the world.
When Fusion Productions and The Conference Publishers set out to gather testimonials in advance of MPI’s 2010 World Education Congress, they received a small deluge of stories and memories from some of the world’s leading meeting professionals. Here’s what some of them said:
“As a supplier to a global leadership meeting like the G8/G20 Summit, you see first-hand the interactions among the various country delegations and leaders. Without the opportunity to meet, it would be difficult if not impossible to accomplish anything. Whether it is world leaders or boardroom meetings, it’s much easier to reach consensus when you are face to face.”
- François Brunet, D.E. Systems Ltd.
“When our group brought together 40 tobacco control researchers from developing countries, we changed the world by finding ways to prevent a new epidemic of cigarette addiction before it starts.”
- Claire Fitzpatrick, CMP, CF Conference & Event Management Services
“When our client, Zonta International, held its 2010 convention in San Antonio, they raised well over $110,000 to help end human trafficking, combat violence against women, and support many other social projects around the world.”
- Jeff Rasco, CMP, Attendee Management Inc.
“The small changes that builders and contractors made to their construction practices add up to big energy savings, greenhouse gas reductions, and delay the building of new power plants. For attendees, the business and green building skills they develop at the conference also give them a competitive edge in generating new projects and creating jobs.”
- Marge Anderson, Energy Center of Wisconsin
“When we meet, we help millions of people live longer, healthier lives. In the last century, Canadians’ lifespans have increased by 30 years, and 25 of those years are due to advances in public health.”
- Sarah Pettenuzzo, Canadian Public Health Association
“I work with a group that changes lives though high school, middle school and elementary school programs. There are 3,800 teachers and administrators preparing to change the world as a direct result of a single meeting. Over a series of eight summer institutes, our client will train more than 18,000 teachers who will return to their districts and schools and affect the future of more than 400,000 students in the next year.”
- Doug McPhee, CMM, CMP, Experient
“When I plan the American Heart Association’s annual Scientific Sessions, I help to further our mission to build healthier lives by preventing, treating, and defeating heart disease and stroke, America’s No. 1 and No. 3 killers.”
- Jason Ware, American Heart Association
“When our members meet, they learn how to keep children and adults physically active through the events they ultimately host…Sports as a whole keep kids on the straight and narrow, and can often lead to college scholarships, a chance to represent their country in a major international event like the Olympics, or a career as a professional athlete or coach. Even for those who don’t make sports their career, participation in sporting events provides invaluable life lessons.”
- Beth Hecquet, CMP, National Association of Sports Commissions
“When our group meets, we share strategies to make women around the world more economically independent, educated, and secure.”
- Joan Eisenstodt, Eisenstodt Associates, LLC
“When we met, our goals were to emphasize the huge opportunities for improving the lives of people with Lupus by maximizing the potential in Lupus research, education and care. While the overall focus is to update every aspect of all three, there are major attempts to narrow the gaps of Lupus world-wide, support the next generation of Lupus scientists and reduce barriers between lay and professional, different disciplines, and different cultures.” Quote from Dr. John M. Esdaile MD, MPH, FRCPC, FCAHS, Chair, 9th International Congress on Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.
- Carol MacKenzie, Advance Group Conference Management Inc.
“Nothing will ever replace the interaction of a face-to-face meeting, where ideas are spawned and generated into a reality that makes our world better—whatever that world may be. For the American Association of Corporate and Public Practice Veterinarians, this approach has reenergized the organization.”
- MaryAnne P. Bobrow, CAE, CMP, CMM, Bobrow & Associates
Topics: Case Studies, Corporate Social Responsibility, Economic Impact, Green Meetings, Meeting Design, Meeting Professionals International, Meetings ROI, Onsite Learning, Value of Meetings | No Comments »
SMMP: Finding the Best Fit for Your Organization
By WEC10 Reporter | July 29, 2010
“There’s no-cookie cutter process for an SMMP [Strategic Meetings Management Plan],” said Ross VanDooser, director of value analysis at StarCite, during a panel at MPI’s 2010 World Education Congress. “The idea is to examine your organization’s culture and pick out what will work best.”
“Before you can begin any SMMP program, you need to go back to consolidation,” said Amy Doty of Doty Consulting. Kimberly Meyer, president of Meetings Analytics, added, “You have to start with reporting in mind. If you can’t report it, it doesn’t count.” Progressive organizations are incorporating corporate social responsibility (CSR) scores and meeting effectiveness into SMM reporting.
VanDooser highlighted the importance of an online tool for managing attendees and purchasing. “Most of the value in SMMP comes from sourcing,” he said. Meyer agreed that preferred vendors are very important: “It’s the only way you can begin to track and leverage your spend.”
Measuring meeting effectiveness is an important thread of SMMP, along with managing finances, risk and cost savings, said Ira Kerns, managing director of GuideStar Research. Pre-meeting research can be used to identify issues that should be emphasized at the meeting, and post-meeting research can track the meeting’s success at addressing targeted issues. “We call that ‘return on event,’” Kerns said.
Assessing the maturity of an organization’s SMMP “boils down to visibility and having a structured program in place,” said VanDooser. Not every meeting will follow the same workflow. “If you put an electronic workflow in place, the system will force them through the right process based on the registration numbers,” he said.
For a program of moderate maturity, “executive sponsorship is where you need to start,” said Meyer. Developing the components of SMMP is a matter of “baby steps,” VanDooser said, “and there will always be evolution.”
Topics: Corporate Social Responsibility, Meeting Design, Meeting Professionals International, Meetings ROI, News Capsules, Strategic Meetings Management | No Comments »
Out of Chaos: SMMP at Microsoft
By WEC10 Reporter | July 29, 2010
To move from “a state of chaos” and implement strategic event management at his organization, Jeff Singsaas, general manager of Microsoft Studios and global event marketing for Microsoft Corporation, said he focussed on building partnerships.
“We can’t do it all, and don’t want to do it all,” Singsaas said at a session Tuesday afternoon at MPI’s 2010 World Education Congress.
Staff from different areas of the corporation—all involved in event planning—were pulled together to form the central event marketing group. Moving toward a hub-and-spoke model, each product group is identifying a senior individual responsible for events who coordinates with the central group.
For the Microsoft central event marketing group, “we had to find the right people,” Singsaas said.
Kati Quigley, director of event marketing at Microsoft, said that in addition to event marketing experience and skills, the most important qualifications are broad experience and competence. In the future, Singsaas said, “the skill set will be about interpreting data effectively and then acting on it.”
Implementing a process to ensure a consistent and reliable approach to events “was the hardest thing I had to do,” Singsaas said. “They really loved the heroics required during an event to ensure it didn’t fall on its face. . . . I thought that was insane.”
A scalable event metrics tool, along with a heat map that’s currently in development, provides important software support. Sustainability is integrated into the tool and is on the project dashboard. A Microsoft event was the first in North America to earn certification under BS 8901, a sustainability standard developed for the events industry.
“We rely heavily on partnerships,” Quigley said, noting that she maintains a list of three to five of the best suppliers in each category. “When you have a complex business like events, at a certain point, nobody does it all well,” Singsaas said.
Topics: Green Meetings, Meeting Professionals International, News Capsules, Strategic Meetings Management | No Comments »
Green Meeting Standards Mark Industry Transformation
By WEC10 Reporter | July 29, 2010
After three years of rigorous debate and extensive input from more than 200 volunteers and pan-industry experts, a uniform set of green meetings standards is set for release before the end of this year.
A joint project of the Accepted Practices Exchange (APEX) and the American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM), the APEX/ASTM Green Meeting and Events Standards will articulate a set of policies and procedures for meeting planners and suppliers to implement sustainable practices in their business.
Green Meetings Industry Council (GMIC) Executive Director Tamara Kennedy-Hill and Convention Industry Council (CIC) APEX Director Lawrence Leonard introduced the standards’ key objectives at a Tuesday afternoon session during MPI’s 2010 World Education Congress.
Green meeting standards mark a first for the meetings industry, following the tradition of other green measurement standards adapted by fields like the building industry, which uses the now-ubiquitous Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) certification to classify green buildings. Meeting planners and suppliers have previously lacked the tools and formal policy framework to measure event sustainability.
“We haven’t been able to measure what a green event looks like,” said Kennedy-Hill.
The APEX/ASTM standards will be voluntary, not mandatory for meeting professionals. They consist of four levels that measure sustainability. “It creates an entry point for everyone,” Leonard said. “We don’t say ‘this is the standard and you either adhere to it or you don’t,’ because we recognize [sustainability] is a journey.”
The consensus-based approach to developing the standards has resulted in slight delays in their release—the green standards were originally intended to be unveiled at #WEC010—but they’re close to completion. Leonard intends that they be adopted as practice shortly after their release.
“The commitment we have is ensure it’s implemented into practice,” he said. “It’s going to help organizations like MPI and GMIC.”
Topics: Corporate Social Responsibility, Green Meeting Industry Council, Green Meetings, Meeting Professionals International, News Capsules | No Comments »
Building an SMMP: Partnership, Collaboration Needed on All Levels
By WEC10 Reporter | July 29, 2010
Collaboration is essential to implementing a Strategic Meetings Management Plan (SMMP), so “don’t try to do it yourself,” warned Carolyn Pund of Cisco Systems in a Tuesday morning session at MPI’s 2010 World Education Congress.
“Change occurs when people believe change is necessary,” Pund said. “If you can make a value proposition that’s strong enough, they will come on board with you.”
Betsy Bondurant of Bondurant Consulting agreed that “you need to reach out to stakeholders who could easily stop your progress with a phone call.”
The 2008 economic downturn was “the megaphone for cost savings,” Pund said, and “SMM was given a platform.” She provided participants with lessons learned from her work integrating an SMMP at Cisco.
Internal collaboration is critical: “You’re always more powerful together than apart,” Pund said. To launch her plan, she targeted in-house departments responsible for travel, procurement, legal affairs and sales with SMMP education, and created “evangelism campaigns” that brought the message to regional offices.
“Change management is what you’re all about in SMMP,” Pund said. Aligning the global meetings and events and event marketing teams in a new collaborative group, titled the Global Meetings and Events Network, allowed for data sharing, while helping to build essential executive support. “You need to have executive air cover,” Pund said.
Changing general ledger (GL) codes is like moving the Rock of Gibraltar, she noted, but the new categories allow for the generation of specific reports on the spend in any one area. Pund also created an event approval tool for senior vice presidents which specifies event details, budget, and any areas where a program is non-compliant with policy.
“SMMP is not for wimps,” Pund said, but Bondurant encouraged participants to “be the one to raise your hand.”
Topics: Business Issues, Meeting Professionals International, News Capsules, Strategic Meetings Management | No Comments »
Tread More Lightly on the Planet: Advice for Meeting Planners
By WEC10 Reporter | July 28, 2010
Planning a sustainable event is about doing more with less, said Andrew Walker, Toronto-based founder and managing director of Eco-Efficient Events, who led participants in an interactive Tuesday morning session at MPI’s 2010 World Education Congress.
Participants discussed strategies for reducing the carbon footprint of the meetings industry, which has a reputation for unsustainable practices. Walker quoted environmental leader David Suzuki, who said the meetings industry leaves a heavy footprint on the planet.
“Planners can either try to lighten each footprint or try to reduce the number of footprints,” Suzuki said.
“Although we know [climate change] is a social issue and an environmental issue, it’s also a business issue,” Walker said.
He invited participants to identify areas of their work that could benefit from reducing carbon emissions. Energy, travel, waste and shipping were named as four key areas. Hiring local speakers, for example, can cut travel costs and reduce carbon emissions, while composting food reduces waste on site.
While most participants expressed interest in these and other initiatives to reduce their carbon footprints, they said their clients posed the most significant barriers to implementing green strategies.
“This is the biggest challenge we’re having on CSR (corporate social responsibility) with our clients,” a participant said. “Some are terrific, and others don’t care.”
Agreeing that not all clients are green, Walker highlighted the importance of communication and educational strategies to get reluctant clients on board with sustainable planning.
To get started with measuring and reducing a meeting’s carbon footprint, Walker recommended the online Zero Footprint Calculator, which can help planners set green goals and educate clients on why carbon emissions matter.
Topics: Carbon Footprint, Corporate Social Responsibility, Green Meetings, Meeting Professionals International, News Capsules | No Comments »
Action Against Carbon Emissions will Raise Travel Costs
By Mitchell Beer | July 28, 2010
The end of cheap oil could affect the meetings economy in a number of different ways, but panelists in a Tuesday morning breakout on peak oil agreed that the industry must adapt to an era of volatile energy prices and drastic reductions in the carbon emissions that cause climate change.
Economists may debate whether oil prices will hit US$150 or US$200 per barrel—and if they do, whether they’ll stay there—but meeting and travel costs will be affected either way.
“We’re going to destroy the planet long before we run out of fossil fuels,” said economist Mark Jaccard. “If we don’t, it will be because we take severe action, not against the use of fossil fuels but against emissions from fossil fuels. That action is going to drive up the cost of travel.”
Marge Anderson, associate director of the Energy Center of Wisconsin, said meetings must generate the greatest possible value from every activity that relies on fossil fuels. “When we do hop on a plane or burn up something to get somewhere, we [have to] actually get the results. This is a huge charge that only we can carry out.”
She suggested a hub-and-spoke model of regional meetings as an alternative to large global events, noting that Cisco Systems, Inc. had replaced a single, 19,000-attendee meeting with three continental hubs linked by technology. Details were presented at a breakout session earlier in #WEC10.
“I think that’s really, really cool, and it might be where we’re going,” Anderson said. “The economy is going to push us into that, fuel prices are going to push us into that,” but if meeting professionals can adopt hybrid meeting strategies and relentlessly measure their return on investment, “I think we’ll be okay.”
Former British Columbia Premier Mike Harcourt traced the growing shift to sustainable cities, with “dead downtowns and sprawled ‘burbs” giving way to communities that have “re-energized downtown and reinvented the idea of suburbia.”
For meetings, the difference shapes what a destination can offer when participants come to town. “We’re really talking about what choices we want to make into the future—as cities, as nations facing the peak oil challenge and the whole issue of climate change, and as event organizers and planners.”
Topics: Airlines, Carbon Footprint, Future of Meetings, Meeting Design, Meeting Professionals International, Meetings ROI, News Capsules, Oil Prices, Strategic Meetings Management | No Comments »
Gutsche Shares Secrets of Irresistible Meetings
By WEC10 Reporter | July 28, 2010
“You don’t need people to go to more meetings,” Trendhunter.com founder Jeremy Gutsche told participants in Tuesday morning’s general session at MPI’s 2010 World Education Congress. “You just need them to go to your meeting.”
Noting that “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” Gutsche gave participants a series of tips to make their meetings and events stand out from the crowd. “What will take you an extra mile is the culture you have at your events,” he said.
“Change equals opportunity,” Gutsche said, noting that many companies were founded and thrived in times of economic uncertainty. For instance, during the Great Depression, Kellogg’s surpassed Post Cereals by doubling its advertising budget. To take advantage of the opportunity created by the global financial situation, Gutsche said “you need to become irresistible to a specific group of people.”
He encouraged participants to concisely articulate the specific goals of their meeting. “How you articulate this will have an impact on all the decisions that make your event happen,” he said. Careful word choice attracts attention and empowers word of mouth. “Relentlessly obsess about your story.”
Presentation style is important, he said, suggesting planners should book engaging keynote speakers rather than “boringly brilliant” ones.
“Portray your event as average, and that’s all it will ever be,” Gutsche said.
Earlier, participants heard from Ken Cretney and Dave Gazley, co-chairs of the WEC 2010 host committee, and Ken Sanders, chairman of the MPI Foundation Board of Trustees, who thanked attendees for their support of the Foundation. Rick Antonson, president and CEO of Tourism Vancouver, thanked Bruce MacMillan, MPI president and CEO, for suggesting that Vancouver bid to host the 2010 Olympic Games.
Topics: Meeting Professionals International, News Capsules | No Comments »
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