Business Issues
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Tuesday, September 1st, 2009At our regular staff meeting last week, we introduced a standing agenda item that will be a part of our working lives for the foreseeable future.
Our COO, Woody Huizenga, unveiled an advanced draft of our pandemic preparedness plan, and summarized the best available information on what we can expect during this year’s flu season: On [...]
Fight Like Hell for the Living
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009SAN FRANCISCO – In the week since Terri Breining announced the closure of Concepts Worldwide, the San Diego County firm she built into a meetings industry icon, I’ve been thinking about the capriciousness of a market that rewards the most arbitrary successes, while devaluing or ignoring the most genuine achievements.
When we celebrate flash over substance, [...]
Why We Don’t Upsell
Saturday, August 1st, 2009When we discuss our services with prospective clients, we don’t upsell. Not ever.
For some time, I felt this was a matter of basic principle, that the practice of trying to bundle a second sale on top of a first one was simply abominable. I still think it’s wrong for our kind of service. But a [...]
The Next Level of ROI
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009Meeting professionals have made great strides over the last few years in measuring the return on investment (ROI) that clients and participants receive from some types of meetings.
But solid as that work has been, the limited scope of the analysis is coming back to haunt the industry, at a time when any meeting might come [...]
The Meetings that Elected a President
Sunday, July 12th, 2009SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH – Meeting Professionals International (MPI) kicked off its 2009 World Education Congress today with an opening general session that cemented the organization’s focus on the threats the meetings industry has faced over travel, incentives, and the value of meetings.
But along the way, participants heard some ideas on the structure and purpose [...]
Can a Value-Add be Free?
Saturday, July 11th, 2009Recently a lot fingers have been doing a lot of typing regarding the Virtual Access Pass as proposed by Meeting Professionals International (MPI) for the upcoming World Education Congress (WEC). The dedication and earnest concern of the various bloggers should be commended, for this debate about using the Internet to extend the reach of conferences [...]
The Tempest Over MPI’s Virtual Access Pass
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009There’s quite a tempest brewing over the Virtual Access Pass that our professional association, Meeting Professionals International (MPI), has introduced for its 2009 World Education Congress (WEC), which gets under way this weekend in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The conversation is an echo of a wider debate about when it’s legitimate—or whether it’s ever legitimate—to charge [...]
Why I Consider My Golf Club an Essential Business Tool
Friday, July 3rd, 2009Call it an age thing.
I realized the other day that I spend an inordinate amount of time playing golf, or attending golf tournaments, or talking about golf, or organizing my own golf tournament just so I can play golf. And I don’t even golf all that well!
But when I look around at a [...]
A Line Drawn in Time
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009CHICAGO – My, how the face of meetings and events has changed in the last five years.
Last spring, the Accepted Practices Exchange (APEX) set up a permanent council to review and periodically update the procedures and definitions that help our industry stay consistent, relevant, and professional. APEX is a project of the 34-member Convention Industry [...]
Pandemic I
Friday, May 1st, 2009So this is what a Level 5 pandemic alert feels like.
I walked home along Ottawa’s scenic Rideau Canal Wednesday afternoon, just hours after the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the global pandemic threat level to five on a six-point scale. In WHO parlance, Level 5 means a global pandemic is imminent.
For practical purposes, the [...]