Meeting Professionals International
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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, [...]
A Quiet Sense of Duty
Saturday, July 18th, 2009Late last month, I received a surprising email that will shape the lion’s share of the volunteer time I devote to our industry over the next two years.
I wouldn’t normally be quite this excited about an opportunity to pack dozens of extra hours into a schedule that is already overloaded. But this isn’t just any [...]
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 [...]
What Are You Waiting For?
Thursday, April 9th, 2009In 1968, while most of his classmates were playing ball or watching Gilligan’s Island or sleeping, one 13-year-old boy was programming his heart out on a powerful (for its day) mainframe computer. It was a unique and improbable opportunity and he took full advantage of it. Reflecting on the experience today, Bill Gates says, “I [...]
Solutions in the Eye of the Storm
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009An interesting thing is happening on the way to the economic recovery.
We certainly aren’t there yet—in the economy as a whole, or in meetings and events. The sheer, accumulating weight of cancellations is setting off alarm bells across the industry, and the U.S. Center for Exhibition Industry Research has just reported the first decline in [...]
A Couple of Million Jobs at Stake
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009BREAKING NEWS:
On March 10, The Huffington Post published my blog item on the meetings industry crisis and the Kerry bill now before the U.S. Congress.
The central argument, drawing on data from MPI Foundation Canada’s study of the economic impact of meetings and events, was that the attack on meetings in the U.S. could touch a [...]
Linking on the links in Atlanta
Friday, February 20th, 2009On a lighter note, I managed to play a round of golf when I was in Atlanta last week. I went down a day early to try to arrange some meetings with prospective clients for the firm. That didn’t work out, so I had time to play golf. (Okay, so maybe I didn’t try all [...]
A Moment of Clarity
Thursday, February 19th, 2009There was a quiet moment of realization that I took away from MPI’s MeetDifferent conference in Atlanta.
One of the Monday morning breakouts was an Unconference session, where participants facilitated table conversations on the topics of their choice. As part of the coverage we were producing for MPI, I sat down at a table discussion on [...]