ISSUE
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TECH CONNECTS ACROSS SPACE & TIME
+
EVENTVIEW 2009
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April 2009 • Volume 2 • Number 4
In It Together
EDITORIAL STAFF
EDITOR IN CHIEF David R. Basler, dbasler@mpiweb.org
MANAGING EDITOR Blair Potter, bpotter@mpiweb.org
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Michael Pinchera, mpinchera@mpiweb.org
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Jason Hensel, jhensel@mpiweb.org
ASSISTANT EDITOR Jessie States, jstates@mpiweb.org
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jeff Daigle, jdaigle@mpiweb.org
DESIGN AND PREPRESS Sherry Gritch, SG2Designs, sherry@sgproductions.net
Finding Success In
Spite of Challenges
DESPITE ALL OF THE CHALLENGES WE FACE IN THE WORLD TODAY,
there are just as many new opportunities for success and there are definitely
a plethora of lessons to be learned from those who have experienced gamechanging business downturns before and come out better for it in the end.
A great example of someone who fits that bill is Ebby Halliday, our leadership profile this month (Page 80). Ebby is a living legend—an icon in the U.S.
real estate world—and has been for more than 60 years. She has seen her
share of challenging economic climates and has figured out how to “survive
and thrive,” and her secret to success is one from which we can all take away
a valuable lesson.
Our own Jessie States had the rare opportunity to sit down for an afternoon
with Ebby to discuss her longevity, and her success story through decades of
economic booms and busts will definitely make you sit up and take
notice. Her secret? She has built a community of strong employees
and repeat customers while focusing on the importance of strong
human connections.
Building connections: whether it’s the real estate industry, the
meeting and event industry or any other, it’s a great lesson.
Long-term success is all about the human connection. The
relationships we build in person and online (see our
cover story on Page 62) now allow us to define our
own destinies—to find new opportunities and new
successes despite the challenging times.
So, despite the challenges, keep
Ebby’s secret in mind—remember how important it is to connect with your peers at conferences and meetings, and online
in blogs and other social
media outlets. Keep connecting and you’ll find yourself enjoying success in spite
of the challenging times.
David R. Basler is editor in chief of One+.
He can be reached at dbasler@mpiweb.org.
COVER DESIGN Jason Judy, jjudy@mpiweb.org
MPI ADVERTISING STAFF
Dan Broze, dbroze@mpiweb.org, Phone: (702) 834-6847
(AK, AZ, CA, HI, ID, NV, OR, WA)
Yvonne Christensen, ychristensen@mpiweb.org, Phone: (952) 938-5281
(CT, DC, DE, IN, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, VA, VT, WI, WV)
Antonio Ducceschi, Director of Sales/Partnership Development-EMEA,
aducceschi@mpiweb.org, Phone: + 352 26 87 66 63
(Europe, Middle East and Africa)
Katri Laurimaa, klaurimaa@mpiweb.org, Phone: (817) 251.9891
(AL, AR, CO, IA, IL, KS, KY, LA, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NM, OK,
SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, WY)
Mary Lynn Novelli, mnovelli@mpiweb.org, Phone: (214) 390-8858
(FL, GA, Canada, Caribbean, Central America, Mexico, South America)
Carolyn Nyquist, Manager of Client Services,
cnyquist@mpiweb.org, Phone: (972) 702-3002
Cassondra Posey, Publications Coordinator, cposey@mpiweb.org
MPI EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT
Bruce M. MacMillan, C.A., President and CEO
Katie Callahan-Giobbi, Executive Vice President, MPI Foundation;
MPI Chief Business Architect
Meg Fasy, Vice President of Sales and Marketplace Performance
Trey Feiler, Chief Operating Officer
Vicki Hawarden, Vice President of Knowledge and Events
Diane Hawkins, SPHR, Director of People and Performance
Greg Lohrentz, Chief Financial Officer
Sandra Riggins, Director of Governance and Chief of Staff
Didier Scaillet, Vice President of Global Development
Junior Tauvaa, Vice President of Member Care and Chapter Business Management
INTERNATIONAL BOARD OF DIRECTORS
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Chairman of the Board
Larry Luteran, Hilton Hotels Corp.
Chairwoman-elect
Ann Godi, CMP, Benchmarc360 Inc.
Vice Chairman of Administration
Eric Rozenberg, CMP, CMM, Ince & Tive
Vice Chairman of Finance
Sebastien Tondeur, MCI Group Holding SA
Vice Chairwoman of Member Services
Alexandra Wagner, SunTrust Banks Inc.
Immediate Past Chairwoman
Angie Pfeifer, CMM, Investors Group Financial Services Inc.
BOARD MEMBERS
Marge Anderson, Energy Center of Wisconsin
Matt Brody, JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort and Spa
Luca Favetta, SAP SA
Caroline Hill, Carhill Associates
Kevin Hinton, hinton+grusich
Kevin Kirby, Hard Rock International
Karen Massicotte, CMP, CMM, BA, PRIME Strategies Inc.
Carole McKellar, MA, CMM, MCIPD, HelmsBriscoe
Patty Reger, CMM, Johnson & Johnson Sales and Logistics Company, LLC
David Scypinski, ConferenceDirect
Ole Sorang, The Rezidor Hotel Group
Carl Winston, San Diego State University
Paul Cunningham (Europe Middle East and Africa Advisory Council
Representative), IIMC International Information Management Corporation
Rita Plaskett, CMP, CMM (MPI Foundation Board Representative), agendum
Katherine Overkamp, CMP (ICLC Board Representative), US Airways
Jonathan T. Howe, Esq. (Legal Counsel), Howe & Hutton, Ltd.
POSTMASTER: One+ (ISSN: 1943-1864) is published monthly by Meeting
Professionals International (MPI), a professional association of meeting + event
planners and suppliers. Send address changes to One+, Meeting Professionals
International, 3030 LBJ Freeway, Suite 1700, Dallas, TX, 75234-2759
SUBSCRIPTIONS: Members receive One+ as a membership benefit paid for
by membership dues. Nonmembers may subscribe to the publication for $99
annually. “One+” and the One+ logo are trademarks of MPI. © 2009, Meeting
Professionals International, Printed by RR Donnelley
CONTACT ONE+: Contact us online at www.mpioneplus.org or e-mail us at
editor@mpiweb.org. View our advertising, editorial and reprint policies online
at www.mpioneplus.org.
MPI VISION: Build a rich global meeting industry community
GLOBAL HEADQUARTERS:
Dallas, TX
REGIONAL OFFICES:
Doha, Qatar
Ontario, Canada
Luxembourg
Singapore
The body of One+ is printed on 30 percent post-consumer-waste
recycled content and is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified.
Please recycle this magazine or pass it along to a co-worker when
you’re finished reading.
One+ is a proud member of
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SSUE
ISSUE
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Humanology +62
Tech continues helping people
connect across space and time.
Still Rising +68
+62
An increasing recognition of value
highlights the current state of event
marketing worldwide.
Reducing Spend,
Growing Green +72
Moving toward a more
comprehensive carbonmanagement strategy.
Getting Through the
Red Tape +76
Planning your event on foreign
soil: the good, the bad and the
government.
Happy Days are Here Again +80
Real estate icon Ebby Halliday
has guided businesses through
economic tumult and can help
meeting professionals do the same.
+68
+60
+80
A Responsible Group +52
+72
The Southeast Tourism Society exemplified
its commitment to the environment at its
March conference in Asheville, N.C.
Change You Can Believe In +56
The economic recession has taken its
toll on many events, but sales
have held steady for the
New York International
Numismatic Convention.
Little Big City +60
+52
Geneva’s impressive
infrastructure and head for
business make a
last-minute meeting a success.
+56
mpiweb.org
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E
ISSUE
04
09
CONVERSATION
In It Together +2
Editor’s Note
The Energy of Many +12
Global update from the
COO of MPI
Impressions +14
Letters to One+
Overheard +18
Rumblings from the industry
Irrelevant +42
Squirrel Briefs
IGNITION
Survive, Get Prepared
to Thrive +44
Paul Bridle
Global View
Meet Frequently,
Live Longer +46
Tony Carey
Across the Bow
Vegan, Vegetarian,
Macrobiotic—Oh, My! +48
Katja Morgenstern
Open-Source Everything
+40
Save It Forward +50
INNOVATION
Tim Sanders
Transform the World
Agenda +21
Where to go, in person and online
Art of Travel +34
The latest in transportable
technology
RECOGNITION
Top Spots +22
New venues + re-openings
Focus On... +24
Stephen Shanahan gets wet
Spotlight +26
Industry leaders announce job
advancements
Your Community +36
Poland chapter, The European
Meetings and Events Conference,
WestField bailout, lifetime
members, Got a Minute?,
San Diego golf tourney, CIC Hall
of Leaders
Meet Where? +92
Wow us with your knowledge
+24
+22
CO-CREATION
Hot Buzz +28
Smart Travel from the Business
Travel Show, ACTE CSR,
Middle East growth, AIME for
success, new green magazine,
Thoughts+Leaders, turn off the
lights, Mexico resort town, Plus/
Minus, Meetings Mean Business
Making a Difference +38
BTC partners with MPI
Foundation to finance scholars
Connections +40
Industry Leader + Non-Profit
mpiweb.org
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+
www.mpioneplus.org
online
Trade Show Success
Mining creative and cost-effective solutions, exhibitors are working harder than ever to create the
right booth environment to meet their marketing
objectives and to stay on the floor.
By Lisa Plummer
+
European
Conference
Delivers
Deborah Gardner, CMP, of the
MPI Arizona Sunbelt Chapter
experiences truly global
connections at the European
Meetings and Events Conference
in Turin, Italy.
Blowing Smoke
Appropriately pairing cigars with your attendees and event is not
unlike pairing a meal course with a suitable wine—chemistry,
personal tastes and opinions abound in both situations. One+
Associate Editor Michael Pinchera offers options and etiquette,
the basics for incorporating cigars with your next event.
Join a conversation about the
meeting and event industry with
the editors of One+ on their blog,
PlusPoint—consistently updated,
always relevant, sporadically funny.
Complete issues of One+ are available
in digital flipbook and PDF formats!
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Contributors
KATJA MORGENSTERN is a senior project manager for Meeting Consultants Inc. in Atlanta, and is an
active member of the MPI Georgia Chapter. She has
written for BreakOut—the chapter’s regular publication—and is currently working on a risk management
handbook for meeting planners.
She has been nominated for numerous business and
meeting industry awards. Having never won any of
these awards, Morgenstern finds hope in actress Susan
Lucci’s infamous awards nominations battles and
believes she will eventually win.
When Morgenstern is not working, she can be found
at one of the many beautiful parks or hiking destinations in Georgia with her 12-year-old lab mix, Cody.
NAOMI HULBERT is
a freelance journalist
and radio broadcaster from Australia. She has written
on everything from
business innovation
to shoe fetishes;
interviewed politicians about issues
ranging from genetically modified organisms to football; and conducted live interviews with Australian leaders trapped in the Pentagon during
Sept. 11, 2001.
She spent several of her teen years living in the bush
with no electricity, telephone or running water and wrote a
book about it, in addition to a textbook on business writing.
In 2008, Hulbert moved to New York, where she intends to
finish a novel about wine. She hopes this will require a lot of
research. Visit her Web site at www.naomihulbert.com.
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Prior to starting a career in tech
journalism in 2002, RYAN SINGEL
worked for several search engines
during the dotcom boom and bust.
He currently covers tech policy,
security and privacy as a staff
writer for Wired.com.
A member of Twitter since
2007, Singel has always been
interested in the hot gadget’s
smarter friend. As a kid, he
supported the Intellivision game
console, not Atari. Nowadays, he
sports a smart phone, but not an
iPhone. And he built his own home
media network, rather than opting
for Apple TV or Windows Media
Center.
CELESTE
LECOMPTE
is a freelance
writer/editor
based in San
Francisco. She
primarily covers business
and sustainability and was previously the managing
editor of Sustainable Industries magazine and a
consultant for Portland, Ore.-based Ecotrust. As
the special projects editor for the GigaOM Network,
LeCompte has been actively involved in the conference planning activities for her company. During the
company’s inaugural green technology conference
this year, she got a firsthand look at the challenges
organizations face when trying to “do the right
thing” regarding global warming and was inspired
to see how other groups have tackled alternative
strategies to purchasing carbon offsets.
LeCompte’s work has appeared at Business
Week.com, NYTimes.com and The Economist
online. Outside of work, she can often be found biking or cooking food for a houseful of friends.
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The Energy of Many
You Are the Solution
Having joined MPI nearly four months ago as chief
operations officer, I’d love to think I brought the tools
and knowledge necessary to resolve our industry’s current challenges. After all, I arrived with more than 20
years of executive experience in an array of industries,
from real estate and finance to restaurants and retail.
But even if I could bridge the gap between media and
public perception and the reality that events do indeed
mean business, I wouldn’t need to.
I have found an industry that has embraced the
challenge to prove its worth, brimming with professionals who are highly educated, vocal and ready to
share their stories. The meetings and events
sector has rallied like no other I have
seen—its associations and foundations
agreeing to put aside differences as “competitors” to accept a leading role together
as collaborators. In February, these same
organizations united and formed a set of
best practice guidelines for U.S. companies
receiving bailout funds in a mere three days,
setting aside the partisan politics
of a once-divided industry.
Our partners at the U.S.
Travel Association
have met with U.S.
President Barack
Obama and key
legislators to share
the true worth of
meetings to economic recovery,
but this is just
the beginning.
It’s an
exciting time
for meetings, and I
am fortunate
to be part of
shaping this
industry’s future. Here at MPI, we launched a strategic
Web site for the care and support of the growing grassroots movement, www.meetingindustrycrisiscenter.org,
where our community members and outside industry
practitioners can find up-to-date information as well as
solutions and guidelines to address current challenges—
and, more importantly, opportunities. Here, meeting
and event professionals can learn about the current
crisis, find out how to survive and thrive in the current
economy and arm themselves with tools to make their
own impact.
Meanwhile, our chapter leaders are working hard
to ensure that our global community members are
equipped with the resources they need to fight local and
regional public perception and rebut naysayers with
facts about the tens of millions of jobs tied to meetings
and events worldwide. MPI chapters are holding rallies,
gathering support from local and regional politicians,
bombarding the media with letters and phone calls and
ensuring a robust future for global meetings and events.
We also remain committed to providing our
members with leading industry research, arming them
with hard facts to lead their businesses. EventView, for
example, reveals that face-to-face meetings, including
conferences and events, are the most effective in accelerating and deepening relationships for economic stimulation, according to top corporate marketing leaders.
As a long-time believer in the value of face-to-face
business, I can attest to the impact meetings have had
on my own business success. There is a perception
that meetings and events can be cut from budgets with
impunity. Quite the opposite is true. Organizations that
cut meetings during this down economy will lose competitive advantage, future profits and client relationships—very likely overtaken by those who didn’t cut
their meetings. Now is not the time to sit passively by.
The message is clear: Meetings mean business.
TREY FEILER is chief operations officer for MPI.
He can be reached at tfeiler@mpiweb.org.
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Impressions
March on Washington
I say let’s put our money where our mouth is and do what
we do best and have a meeting. Let’s converge in Washington, D.C., for a forum and a march. Using our own
principles that say meetings make a difference and using
our one voice by having a march on the very mall where
U.S. President Barack Obama laid out his vision for our
country, we too can make an impression and at the same
time educate. Let this be the official “meeting guideline”
meeting for TARP [Troubled Asset Relief Program]!
—Joe Doyle, CMP
AV Rental Depot
MPI South Florida Chapter
Eco-Friendly MPI
EDITOR’S NOTE: We appreciate
the feedback on MPI and your
magazine, One+. Your ideas
and thoughts are important to
us. Let us know what you think.
E-mail the editorial team at
editor@mpiweb.org.
You Tell Us
What steps does the industry
need to take to ensure a
successful future? Send us an
e-mail at editor@mpiweb.org.
I am writing to congratulate
MPI on the recent endorsement and demonstration of
sustainable event management in achieving the BS
8901 standard for the European MPI conference. I was
a long-time MPI member and
educational committee member
while in the events industry and
left when I moved to the U.K. to
join the higher education/international education industry. One
of my contacts forwarded me
an article about this achievement, and I was very pleased to
see the leadership taken by MPI
in sustainability matters. Keep
up the good work!
—Kristen Kalbrener, CMM
University of California, Davis
Meetings Mean
Business
[Re: “A Defining Moment,”
March 2009] Hooray for your
article in the March 2009 issue
of One+ magazine! All of your
opinions were clearly stated
and made sense. I think this
article should be sent via
press release to all the major
newspapers and publications.
Perhaps then the average person will be able to understand
14
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how important meetings are
and the impact they create.
Thank you for setting the
record straight.
—Lois A. Vining, CMP
Event Planning Services
MPI Indiana Chapter
Technology Works
With regards to your “Prove it
or Lose it” column in the February issue of One+, I think you
really missed the mark. Anyone
who is part of this century
should completely disagree
with you on your point of flying
across the country rather than
using e-mail (or other forms of
electronic communication) to
brainstorm or have “legitimate
conversation.” In today’s
“super-capitalistic” business
environment and economy,
trying to devalue these
types of communications
immediately alienated me as
a reader. One would guess
that you do not have to pay
for your own flights or travel
to accomplish your face-toface goals, or that you are not
heavily scrutinized with regards
to your travel budget and per
diem. That being said, I have
been in the hotel and meeting industry for more than 20
years, and do agree with the
second portion of your message. There is a true value
to face-to-face relationships
in any business environment,
and unique and creative conferences and meetings can
go a long way towards realizing this value.
—Jim Jachimiak
Kalahari Resort, Sandusky, Ohio
Remember to
Comment
I very much enjoyed the article
“Dip a Toe Into Some Hot
Technology” in the March One+
issue. The content was very
up-to-date and submitted in an
understandable manner. However, I wanted to add onto the
Blog It Up section. In addition
to getting your own blog up and
running, a very important step
is to make sure to comment on
other people’s blogs. Contribute a relevant and insightful
perspective or comment,
then provide your signature
and include a link back to
your blog to really take
advantage of the 2.0 movement. Again, great article!
—Jenny Munn
dynami group
MPI Georgia Chapter
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Meet in Budapest, at the heart of Europe
This world class city now offers top-notch hotels
in renovated palaces with state-of-the art A/V and
convention facilities. It is not only breath-takingly
beautiful, it is also hospitable, hip and exciting.
Budapest and Hungary is the place where
meetings and traditions, serious conferencing and
casual evening entertainment go hand in hand.
• Easy access from US cities by Delta or oneworld
partner carriers
• Abundant deluxe hotel space in historic settings
• State-of-the-art, on-site convention facilities
• EU-member: yes. Euro: not yet. Great value for
the money!
• Professionalism and hospitality
Your one stop information source:
Hungarian National
Tourist Office
Peter Gomori, director
tel:
(212) 695-1221, ex 23
e-mail:
gomori@gotohungary.com
web:
www.gotohungary.com
Hungarian
Convention Bureau
Dora Kiss, director
tel:
(36) 1 488 8643
e-mail:
kissd@itthon.hu
web:
www.hcb.hu
Planning a
meeting in
Europe?
With offices in
the United States,
European
countries are within
easy reach for
“One-Stop Shopping”
A renowned international destination on
the majestic Mediterranean, with extensive
meeting facilities, world-class service and
accommodations, modern infrastructure
and accessibility, the Principality of
Monaco is ideal for corporations seeking
a sophisticated venue.
Its unparalleled amenities and US$
guaranteed packages for corporate
events and meetings, ensure an
affordable, yet unforgettable journey
to the “gem of the Riviera”.
(800) 753-9696
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Overheard
Not Ashamed
“Our business is unashamedly international, and we should
be proud of this. We are making valuable new connections,
bringing together doctors, lawyers, scientists, investors, academics, government officials, business leaders and others
who would otherwise not have a chance to work together
to share knowledge and find solutions to challenges, which
are blind to national boundaries.”
—Martin Sirk, CEO of the International Congress and
Convention Association, in an open letter to the meeting industry
Sensible Guides
Pay Toilet
Eco-Finnish
“The [U.S.] administration
announced that the recently
signed economic recovery
legislation would create or
save nearly 500,000 jobs in
the travel industry. That goal
will not be reached unless
you calm the marketplace by
immediately devising sensible
travel guidelines for companies receiving emergency
government lending.”
—Roger Dow, president and
CEO of the U.S. Travel
Association
“One thing we have looked at
in the past and are looking
at again is the possibility of
maybe putting a coin slot on
the toilet door so that people
might actually have to spend
a pound to ‘spend a penny’ in
the future.”
—Michael O’Leary, chief executive of Ryanair, on the possibility of charging passengers
for using the toilet while flying
(Ryanair says the possibility
is very unlikely)
“We want to take our responsibility for the environment,
and as the market leader
in Finland we want to show
other actors in the field an
example. Clients value venues
that give due consideration
to environmental aspects of
the business. Environmental
friendliness is an important
competitive asset.”
—Lasse Willberg, real estate
director for the Finnish Fair
Corp., which recently received
the ISO 14001 certificate
Rising Stress
“While our greatest sympathy
should be reserved for those
who are losing their jobs during the recession, the effects
on surviving employees should
not be overlooked. Individual
workloads and stress levels
look set to rise during the
course of the year, placing a
greater onus on managers
and leaders to communicate
regularly and check that
workloads do not become unmanageable.”
—Gerwyn Davies, public policy
adviser for the London-based
Chartered Institute of Personnel
and Development
Best of the Blogs
Meetings in China
Posted by Ken Yang
MPI Houston Area Chapter
The Big Solution
Posted by Edgar Valdmanis
MPI Norway Chapter
Rush to Judgment
Posted by Blair Potter
One+ Managing Editor
What the Chinese industry needs is international communication between different
countries. The Chinese marketplace will be
the largest and most active one worldwide.
Meetings and exhibitions are not only the communication bridge, but also the cornerstone
of middle- and small-sized companies, as well
as the [best] opportunity for the international
meeting and exhibition practitioner.
Many people do not realize the importance
of meetings. You need to cut costs, so you
go for the quickest, easiest options. The only
thing needed is NOT to have a meeting or
NOT to send people to seminars or other educational events. Well, not really. We need to
meet, to exchange knowledge and spur new
ideas. From new ideas come new business
ventures. From new business ventures come
new workplaces. New workplaces need employees and services.
I flipped by the Rush Limbaugh radio program
at lunch today and caught a rather fervent
defense of the meeting industry. He noted
that meetings and conferences are inspirational and demonstrate the strength of the
free market system. It’s undeniable that a LOT
of people listen to Rush, and it’s nice to hear
someone with a massive audience defend the
important work of this industry.
▲
Find out what the editors of One+ think about the industry’s
hot trends and late-breaking news on the One+ blog,
PlusPoint. Share your thoughts at www.mpioneplus.org.
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Agenda
JUNE 11-12 EXPOMARKETING
BUCHAREST
EXPOMARKETING will attract global meeting professionals who wish to share
their experiences as well as companies that use event marketing. In addition to
a diverse trade show, the event will offer a training series on exhibition stand
success and the maximization of existing events. Visit www.expomarketing.ro.
JUNE 11-14 International Travel Expo Hong Kong
HONG KONG
The 23rd annual International Travel Expo offers an ideal opportunity for international planners to learn more about meeting opportunities in Asia Pacific. Organizers have increased floor space by 30 percent over last year, when the trade
show attracted more than 650 exhibitors, nearly 13,000 buyers and 57,500
visitors. Visit www.itehk.com.
JUNE 15 -19 U.S. Virgin Islands Destination Symposium
ST. THOMAS
The Destination Symposium invites meeting professionals to renew relationships
and engage in dialogue with their peers at the area’s largest annual meeting.
Attendees also have the opportunity to explore St. Croix during the final days of the
show while meeting with hoteliers and touring properties. Visit www.usvihta.com.
JUNE 21-24 TTRA Annual Conference
HONOLULU
The Travel and Tourism Research Association’s 40th annual conference will
address best practices for destination brand research, relational marketing,
disaster preparedness and new technologies. The program will also feature a
number of outlook reports from various industry sectors. Visit www.ttra.com.
Connected
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Make a difference through travel with
help from i-to-i.com, which has been
sending volunteers to Africa, Asia,
Australasia and Latin America since
1996. All projects are based in local
communities and encompass local initiatives. Travelers will stay in locally run
accommodations and travel on locally
owned transport, so that their money
goes directly into local economies.
MeetingsReview.com is a Web TV
and news resource for the international meeting industry. The site delivers dynamic content to corporate,
association and incentive travel planners with local versions covering the
Americas, Asia, Australasia, Europe,
India and the Middle East. By logging
onto the site, viewers can list their
companies for free, comment on
news and destinations and access
the job bank.
mpiweb.org
pp 21 Agenda 0409.indd 21
21
3/20/09 5:08:58 PM
Top Spots
N E W VEN U ES + RE-O P ENING S
1. Sanctum Soho Hotel
Sanctum Soho Hotel, one of the
newest members of Design Hotels,
opens this month in London. The
30-room property reflects the vision
and sensibility of its owner, Mark Fuller, a former music manager turned
nightlife impresario. Located in West
London’s Soho district, two Victorian
townhouses have been transformed
to create a hotel that pays homage
to Soho’s history as a center of
artistic activity and bohemia. The
hotel’s 45-seat Cinema at Sanctum
room will be for residents and their
guests or private parties. With its
own bar, the room can be converted
into an event space for up to 100.
No20, the hotel’s restaurant, will
serve modern British cuisine in a
casual-upscale setting and provide
24-hour room service.
2. Mandarin Oriental, Sanya
The Mandarin Oriental, Sanya resort
opened in China’s Hainan province
in February. Sharing the same
latitude as Hawaii, Sanya offers a
tropical climate, beaches, cultural
activities and golf and water
sports facilities. Set on a private
beachfront site, the Mandarin Oriental, Sanya is situated in the sheltered
Coral Bay near the shopping and
entertainment area Dadonghai, with
views of the South China Sea. The
resort features private low-rise and
villa accommodations with ocean
views, some featuring individual
pools, patios and gazebos. There
are 11 restaurants and bars, an
extensive spa village with private
treatment suites and gardens and
indoor and outdoor event space.
22
one+
3. Hard Rock Hotel &
Casino Las Vegas
The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Las Vegas is amplifying its focus
on business travel and meetings
this year with the completion of a
US$750 million expansion. Opening
this month, the expansion includes
the addition of 75,000 square
feet of full-service meeting and
convention space, with event
and simulcast capabilities in The
Joint, the hotel’s new concert and
entertainment venue. Later this
year, two new guest towers will
open, adding 860 guest rooms, including the 17-story Paradise Tower
directly adjacent to the new meeting
space and the 15-story, all-suite
HRH Tower, offering a separate,
private entrance and spa. With the
completed expansion, Hard Rock
will have more than 1,500 guest
rooms available to accommodate
large groups.
1.
2.
3.
4. The Resort at
The Mountain
The Resort at The Mountain, a
golf and ski resort located in the
western highlands of Mount Hood
southeast of Portland, Ore., recently
completed Phase 1 of its US$17
million renovation and now features
remodeled meeting facilities for
business events, corporate retreats
and social gatherings. The resort
offers 20 meeting rooms comprising 18,000 square feet of flexible
meeting and event space. The
Cascades Ballroom, located on the
second floor of the Main Lodge,
provides a private, multifunctional
space for up to 500, while outdoor
venues include tent, picnic and
recreation areas offering views
of the surrounding mountains.
6
4
3
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pp 22-23 Top Spots 0409.indd 22
3/24/09 12:12:25 PM
4.
5. The Augustine
5.
4.
6.
5.
Located in Prague’s Malá Strana
district, The Augustine—created
from a complex of seven buildings, including the 13th-century
Augustinian St. Thomas’s
Monastery—will open in May and
offer 101 guest rooms, all with
views of Prague Castle, the city, the
monastery church or courtyards.
The Augustine will feature The
Monastery, a 90-seat restaurant
housed in a glass-covered courtyard; Tom’s Bar, located in what was
the monastery’s vaulted doubleheight hall with outside seating in
the cloister terrace during summer;
and The Brewery, a bar housed in
the cellar, which features stalactites
and stalagmites dating to the 17th
century. The hotel will offer four private rooms and a ballroom as well
as direct access to neighboring St.
Thomas’s Church and Wallenstein
Gardens for events.
6. Hyatt Regency Toronto
On King
1
5
2
“We are very pleased to be expanding Hyatt’s Canadian portfolio, and
having a strong presence in Toronto
has been a priority to the company
for quite some time,” said Sulynn
Jew, general manager of the new
Hyatt Regency Toronto On King,
which opened last month with 394
guest rooms and a VIP Floor. The
hotel’s showpieces are the King
Street Social Kitchen and Bar
and the Regency Lounge, featuring
panoramic views, an outdoor rooftop patio and a Zen-style outdoor
fire pit. With 25,000 square feet of
meeting and conference space, the
hotel caters to both Toronto’s social
elite and the international business
community.
mpiweb.org
pp 22-23 Top Spots 0409.indd 23
23
3/24/09 11:31:10 AM
Focus On...
Stephen Shanahan darted
around the dinner tent as
panic exploded, covering
dozens of sprinkler heads
with plastic road cones.
“The event was on the Grand
Lawn, and the president of the
company was about to unveil his
new product when all the sprinklers went off,” said Shanahan,
president of Brea, Calif.-based
Infinity Lighting. “Everyone scattered. The sprinklers were everywhere—even under the tables. We
were all drenched, despite the fact
that management had assured us
the sprinklers would not go off.”
Stephen Shanahan
But as Shanahan says, “stuff
happens.” Good planners just
have to be ready to deal with
Infinity Lighting
challenges—like an unforeseen
shower. Shanahan
“The MPI Orange
“Steve is always
“Steve was a formerly carried
County Chapter did
the first to ask,
production consulcaution cones with
a fundraiser at a
‘How can we make
tant for my sister’s
bowling alley. A couthis better?’ It’s
wedding. An hour him in case he had
ple of hours before
refreshing and
after meeting him, to move traffic or
it began, the deejay
truly appreciated.
I was starving, but create barriers, now
fell very ill. Steve
Considering all that didn’t want to leave, he brings them along
stepped right into
he has on his plate,
so I asked him if he
in case the sprinkler
the role, and I think
it’s a wonder that had anything to eat.
system unexpectedly
he was also bowlhe gets so much
He brought me a
ing and making anaccomplished and peach yogurt (I hate fires up.
An acting and
nouncements at the
remains cool and
peach yogurt) and
same time. He had
collected all the
a straw. I sat there design student at
no advance notice,
time. He is one of
for the remainder California State Unibut that’s his forte.
the most patient
of the meeting
versity, Fullerton,
It probably didn’t
and considerate slurping yogurt, and
even phase him.”
people I know and each time we looked Shanahan quickly
is one of my most
at each other, we found his niche in
—Kathy (Brandon)
important
role
laughed.” lighting, and after 12
Raymond, friend and
models.”
colleague
—Cori Shanahan, years servicing the
—Mark Lorimer,
wife meeting and event
industry, he founded Infinity
Lighting in 2004.
He says disaster doesn’t have
to ruin a client relationship, even if
it causes US$20,000 in equipment
damage and drenches 200 guests.
“To this day, I am closer with
that client than I ever was before,”
he said. “In one of their newsletters, they wrote that we had saved
the day. Every company has its
own version of a nightmare story
that ends in a learning experience. Just be prepared and ask
questions—but never fully trust
the answers.”
Shanahan says he shares his
experiences in an effort to educate
the younger generation of meeting
planners. And he has never been
shy about volunteering time to
help others. He has been an MPI
member for just seven years, but
has spent the last five on the MPI
Orange County Chapter board
of directors (currently as president). Shanahan’s civic service has
landed him on the La Palma City
Council, where he serves as mayor
pro-tem.
As for business, Shanahan says
he is hopeful for success again this
year—even if the sprinklers go off.
—JESSIE STATES
CMP, friend
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04.09
pp 24 Focus On 0409.indd 24
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0409_025.indd 25
3/18/09 9:34:56 AM
Spotlight
MGM MIRAGE has
added three executives to its U.S. sales
team. An 18-year
industry veteran,
Siri Gawecki (right)
will serve as West
Coast-based regional
sales director, responsible for securing group bookings
and raising awareness for the brand.
Amy Huff will focus
on group and lead
generation on the
East Coast as an assistant regional sales
director, while Megan Archambeault
fills the role of Midwest-based regional
sales manager.
John Gonzalez has been
promoted to event services
director for the George R.
Brown Convention Center
in Houston. He joined the
center’s team in 2004 as
an event manager and previously served as an event
coordinator at sister facility
the Wortham Center. Gonzalez has also worked for the
Greater Houston Convention
and Visitors Bureau.
26
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The Goodstone Inn & Estate in
Middleburg, Va., has named
Sheree McDowell pastry chef.
McDowell previously held the
same position at the Woodlands
Resort & Inn in Summerville,
S.C., and the Port Bakery in
Kennebunkport, Maine. As chef
de partie for The Inn at Little
Washington (Va.), McDowell assisted in the creation of a 90th
birthday celebratory dessert for
the revered Julia Child.
Inge Tremmel, CMP,
has joined International
Conference Services (ICS)
as the managing director of European efforts.
Tremmel started her
career as a conference
planner in Austria before
joining the Vienna CVB,
where she eventually
attained the title of vice
president. Later, she
worked for the Austrian
Business and Convention
Network, establishing
eight international target
markets and managing
branch offices across
Europe and the U.S.
The Hyatt Regency Austin Downtown, On
the Lake welcomes Eric Love as sales and
marketing director. Love brings more than 20
years of hospitality experience, ranging from
travel agencies and airlines to conference centers and luxury hotels. Love holds a degree in
economics from East Stroudsburg University,
with an emphasis on hospitality management,
as well as certification from the Southeastern
Academy of Travel & Tourism.
Visit the careers blog at www.mpiweb.org by clicking
“resources” and then “career connections” to tell the
meeting community about your recent job change.
04.09
pp 26 Spotlight 0409.indd 26
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0409_027.indd 27
3/18/09 9:35:36 AM
HOT BUZZ
+
Know Where
to Look
Many small businesses don’t know how
or where to book business travel, says
David Chapple of the Business Travel
Show, and more often than not end up
booking their travelers onto the same
airlines and into the same hotels and
meeting venues through the same consumer Web sites.
In fact, small to medium enterprises
in the U.K. are wasting up to £500
million a year by booking their own business travel and failing to adopt company-wide travel policies, according to a
survey by the Business Travel Show,
which was held Feb. 10-12 in London.
“By doing this, rather than using
specialist online suppliers, they remain
oblivious to an untapped pool of products and services, miss out on corporate user discounts and reward programs, take a lot longer than a
specialist and, most importantly, spend
up to 20 percent more than they need
to,” Chapple said.
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pp28-33 Hot Buzz 04-09.indd 28
3/24/09 11:56:31 AM
CSR
Survives
Corporate social responsibility
(CSR) is no passing fad,
according to a poll by the
Association of Corporate
Travel Executives (ACTE)
and KDS, a France-based
supplier of travel and expense
systems. However, certain
CSR aspects such as green
business travel are suffering
in the recession. Nearly 80
percent of companies said
that cost cutting is their top
business travel concern, while
sustainable travel is a high
priority for only 17 percent.
Overall, environmental
sustainability rated as a
mid-level priority for business
travel.
Still, the study found that
companies have not been
blown off the CSR course
by the global recession.
More than 60 percent of
organizations now have a CSR
charter and 27 percent prefer
to do business with suppliers
and partners that have the
same. Nearly 30 percent of
corporate travel departments
are required to report to
management on carbon
emissions performance.
Middle East Growth Stalls
Following a five-year run of double-digit revenue per available
room (RevPAR) increases for hotels in the Middle East,
growth dipped into the red during the month of December
(down 3.2 percent), according to advisory firm Deloitte.
When looking at full-year data, the region achieved the
highest occupancy and average room rates in the world.
Middle East RevPAR rose 18.3 percent and occupancy
increased by 1.2 percent to 68.8 percent. Beirut achieved
the strongest growth in 2008, reporting a staggering 101.1
percent leap in RevPAR. The city saw strong growth last year
as it bounced back after suffering from political tensions with
Israel in 2006 and 2007.
AIME
for Success
In defiance of the current economic
climate, the 17th Asia-Pacific Incentives & Meetings Expo (AIME) was a
record-breaking event this February in
Melbourne, Australia, with both visitor
and exhibitor numbers up from last
year’s showcase. Exhibitor numbers
rose to 868, a 5.5 percent increase,
and unaudited attendance figures
were up by 9.6 percent over last year,
with a record 3,584 trade visitors,
including 467 hosted buyers.
“When you consider the current
economic
situation and
the devastating local
bushfires,
these results
are really incredible and reflect the
resilience of the meeting and incentive
industry,” said Paul Kennedy, MBE, of
Reed Travel Exhibitions, which plays
host to the event.
Hosted buyers represented 25
countries, with more than 340 from
Australasia, 70 from Asia and around
40 from other international destinations. AIME 2010 will be held March
2-3 at the Melbourne Exhibition
Centre.
Green ‘Zine
EcoTourism USA will launch in May as the first U.S. magazine dedicated to sustainable tourism and the philosophies, principles and
practices that shape one of the fastest-growing segments in travel. The bi-monthly magazine will bring real experiences and travel
ideas from the professionals that are succeeding in the eco-tourism industry. Visit www.ecotourism-usa.com.
mpiweb.org
pp28-33 Hot Buzz 04-09.indd 29
29
3/24/09 12:03:34 PM
HOT BUZZ
Tony Lorenz, CMM
President
ProActive
The global meeting industry has longed for
the attention of the c-suite. We now have it.
The emotional reaction to the power of
meetings has been visceral. It has also been
light in answering the question global businesses are asking, “Where is the relevant
data that tells me I should make an investment in meetings and events?”
Thoughts+Leaders
What is the next major
challenge/opportunity for
global business in 2009?
+
Roger Helms
Founder and CEO
HelmsBriscoe
Businesses in this environment
have to figure out how to effectively reach their goals and satisfy the
expectations of their customers
with less money—to provide service
and support with less people and
razor budgets. Successful companies will be able to adapt and innovate without losing their culture or
eroding their value propositions to
the extent they lose their core
customers.
Successfully negotiating this
balance will take hard work. That’s,
however, where the opportunity
lies. Leaders need to evaluate their
options and make hard choices, but
those that do so with an eye toward what makes them special in
the first place will be positioned to gain market share and
weather the storm with the best possible outcomes.
These times will pass, and those that can avoid the
bunker mentality, and seek to become more efficient, more
nimble and find ways to reinvent themselves in alignment
with what really matters to today’s global customers will be
the winners of tomorrow.
30
one+
As we inevitably come out of this downturn,
there will be a global mandate that meeting and
event spend is justified by measurable business
results. Stakeholders will no longer accept a proposed investment in an event without targeting
substantive and measurable return on key business
objectives. Meeting professionals will be required to
employ strategic thinking and solid measurement
practices to deliver on this expectation.
That is new territory for many and an old industry challenge that has held us back from our rightful
place in the business community. Fortunately, our
industry now has a myriad of resources in our arsenal. Meeting professionals have what they need to
survive and thrive in the “new normal.” As these
practices are employed, our industry will become
increasingly powerful in its ability to move business
forward on a global basis. Necessarily, we will have
the data to back up our premise.
Charles Massey, CMP
Founder and CEO
SYNAXIS Meetings & Events Inc.
Having been in the industry for almost 20
years, I have faced many challenges including two Gulf wars, a major earthquake in
Los Angeles and, of course, Sept. 11, 2001, all of which impacted
business in the short term. None of these events impacted our industry
globally in the same way that the current “market correction” has.
The next major opportunity I see encompasses several areas. Planners and other buyers now find themselves in a buyer’s market for the
first time in years. Even major destinations that would normally say no
to requests for lower rates or other concessions are now willing to
negotiate. Additionally, as corporate planning departments begin to
downsize, even temporarily, doors are opening for third-party planners
and other intermediaries to fill the gap—events that have been previously contracted and committed to still need someone to plan and
organize them.
Now is the time when planners and suppliers need to work together
as a team—both “sides” are under immense pressure to maintain an
equitable balance of business and revenue and save money at the same
time. And the U.S. government’s TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program)
regulations are going to force us into a position to do what we’ve been
attempting to do for many years—regulate ourselves and create additional measurement tools to do so. Now is the time when our industry
needs to begin to “behave” like an industry; we are under the microscope on an unprecedented level.
0 4.09
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You Can Help
The U.S Travel Association launched its Meetings
Mean Business campaign (www.meetingsmean
business.com) last month to encourage the U.S. Congress and
the media to tone down their criticisms of meetings and events
and embrace travel as a solution to current economic woes. But
the travel organization is relying on its member base and industry
practitioners to serve as grassroots leaders for the critical campaign. U.S. Travel has issued a list of ways you can help.
Activate Your City Council. Work with members of your city council to pass resolutions
that call on Congress to embrace meetings
and events.
Build Coalitions. Assemble at least 25 business leaders, local government officials and
labor leaders in your community to gather
anecdotes and data about the importance of
meetings and events to your community.
Contact Representatives. Co-sign a letter
with your local coalition and send it to members of your congressional delegation. (Find
out who your representatives are at www.con
gress.org.) Send copies of your letters to
grassroots@ustravel.org.
Educate Your Peers. Challenge coalition members to call employee meetings to educate
their workers and mobilize grassroots advocates.
Enter the Blogosphere. Get to know a local
blogger. They are increasingly influential in
their communities. Comment on their blogs,
and start shifting the debate and making our
story the headline.
Generate 1,000 Letters. Your local coalition
and its supporters should send at least 1,000
letters to your congressional delegation. By
way of the Meetings Mean Business Web site,
you can e-mail letters to U.S. Congress members with just a few clicks. The hope is to
generate 385,000 letters—that’s just 5 percent of the nation’s 7.7 million travel and
tourism workers.
Generate 500 Calls. Organize a phone blitz
to generate 500 calls from your coalition and
its supporters to your congressional delegation. Visit the Meetings Mean Business Web
site for talking points.
Meet Publishers. Advertise with local papers
and business journals. Visit the Meetings
Mean Business Web site and use the national
ad. Ask for advertising space to help spread
our important message. Local newspaper
publishers are business people, too. They will
be impacted when hotels, restaurants and
other local businesses become targets of the
rhetoric.
Recruit Five Spokespeople. In order to
change the face of this issue, we must take
action. CEOs are not impacted by the downturn in meetings and events, but the bellmen,
maids, florists and audiovisual technicians are.
Encourage these workers to talk with the
media and members of Congress about the
impact on them.
Set the Record Straight. Inform your local
media that there is another side to this story—the 2.4 million Americans employed in the
meeting and event industry. Write letters to
the editors of local newspapers.
Sign the Petition. Sign the petition on the
Meetings Mean Business Web site and alert
the White House, Congress members and Fortune 200 business leaders to the importance
of meetings and events. Let’s get 1 million
signatures to convey the importance of our
cause.
Town Hall Meetings. Assemble members of
your coalition and its supporters to attend
town hall meetings when your members of
Congress are home for recess.
Turn Mayors into Champions. Activate your
local coalition and its supporters to write, call
and meet with the mayors in your communities. They need to alert Congress to the local
pain that is caused by the rhetoric in Washington, D.C.
Meet Politicians. Act now to schedule an
appointment with your congressional delegation when it is home for the April 6-17 recess.
mpiweb.org
pp28-33 Hot Buzz 04-09.indd 31
31
3/25/09 10:52:55 AM
CSR Day at ITB
In addition to its aviation and hospitality days, the ITB
Berlin Convention introduced Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Day this year. The trade show presented the first empirical survey on CSR and travel
on March 12 in collaboration with GfK. Industry leaders then spoke about their practical experiences,
including keynotes Erika Harms, executive director of
sustainable development for the United Nations
tions F
Foundation, and Fritz Pleitgen, general manager
age for
Ruhr.2010 GmbH.
Indigenous Rights?
Huge tracts of public and privately owned land are being
“grabbed” and sold off to real estate developers by governments keen to expand tourism in pursuit of economic
growth, according to U.K. nonprofit Tourism Concern, and
little of the profit from new internationally managed resorts
stays in the local economy. The organization reports that the
global trend in large-scale resorts has led to widespread
alienation and displacement of people from their lands.
Mother Earth
The World Travel & Tourism Council
has committed to a 50 percent reduction in industry carbon emissions
by 2035 (over 2005 levels). Its
report, Leading the Challenge on
Climate Change, also touches on
drivers of change for the industry including
accountability and responsibility, local community growth and capacity building,
educating customers and stakeholders, the greening of supply
chains and capital investment and
infrastructure.
Rallying Support
The Spokane Regional CVB is standing with its partners regionally and nationally to protect the positive
reputation of the meeting industry. The organization
played host to a rally in downtown Spokane on March
6 with the support of more than 200 elected officials,
business owners and frontline employees wearing pins
and carrying banners with the Meetings Mean Business message.
Bad Choices
While corporate travel budgets are often the first target of
cost-cutting measures, most companies believe that increased travel budgets during an economic downturn build
competitive advantage, according to a March study by the
U.S. Travel Association. The findings illustrate that many companies sacrifice long-term strategic initiatives and competitive
advantage for short-term travel cuts. Visit www.tia.org.
Flight
Delays
Flight delays caused byy air
traffic congestion at the
he
New York area’s three major
airports were responsible
ible for
more than US$2.6 billion in
losses to the regional economy in 2008,
and—if no action is taken—will total a staggering $79 billion over the 18-year span between 2008 and 2025, according to Grounded:
The High Cost of Air Traffic Congestion, a report
released by the Partnership for New York City.
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HOT
Turn
urn Off BUZZ
the Lights
Ligh
Turn Off the Lights
Utah Liquor Laws
The state of Utah announced significant
changes to its tough liquor laws in March,
eliminating the need for dining or social
club memberships and fees for bars and
restaurants.
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts committed to participate in Earth Hour 2009, a global environmental
awareness event organized by the World Wildlife
Fund. At 8:30 p.m. on March 28, all 56 of
Fairmont’s hotels and resorts went dark by turning off their lights for one hour—Earth Hour—and
in doing so reinforced the company’s commitment
to operational sustainability and drew further
attention to one of the world’s single largest
environmental issues: climate change.
In addition
to switching
off principal lighting, a number of Fairmont’s properties also marked this eco-friendly event with
creative and innovative programming in an effort
to involve hotel guests in this global phenomenon.
For example, The Fairmont Dubai shared facts
and figures about lighting usage and tips on
energy conservation with guests and local businesses alike.
No Last Resort
Mexico is moving forward on a new, US$500 million resort
development to attract tourism to its Pacific Coast. Construction began this week on the country’s newest resort town, expected to be its biggest project in the last 25 years. Twice the
size of Cancun, the resort town aims to be one of the best destinations in Mexico featuring top-notch infrastructure including
highways, hotels, golf courses and marinas. Although it has yet
to be named, the master-planned resort has made an environmental commitment to maintain the ecological balance in the
area within its more than 5,800 acres. It will be located in
Escuinapa, about 65 miles south of Mazatlán.
mpiweb.org
pp28-33 Hot Buzz 04-09.indd 33
33
3/25/09 7:47:27 AM
ART
of Travel
Dream Away
Long Flights
with Balm
For travelers who find
Fo
it difficult to sleep
while flying, Badger
S
Sleep Balm uses precious oils to calm,
encourage, cheer
and relax. Rub the
ba under your nose
balm
or on your lips and
ttemples. Sleep Balm
doesn’t make you
s
sleepy. It helps quiet
your thoughts so that
you fall asleep naturally. (BadgerBalm.
com, US$10)
Alarm Clocks
Glow All
Night Long
Pack a Night Glow
travel alarm clock
and never wake up
in a pitch-black hotel
room or fumble
around trying to find
the time. The clock
stays lit and visible
all night, letting you
see the time with just
a quick glance and
providing a gentle,
reassuring glow.
Night Glow travel
clocks display time,
date, alarm time and
indoor temperature.
(Brookstone.com,
US$30)
Digital Book
Makes Travel
Reading Easy
Bring a library of
books with you on
your next business
trip with the new
Kindle 2, which
weighs less than an
average paperback.
More than 240,000
books are available,
plus access to newspapers, magazines
and blogs. The Kindle
2 can hold 1,500
books, and most
new releases are
just US$9.99.
(Amazon.com,
US$359)
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Your Community
European Conference:
Leading by Example
For the second year
running, the 2009 MPI
European Meetings and
Events Conference (EMEC)
has been planned and
implemented in compliance
with BS 8901 Phases
1 and 2, the world’s
only sustainable event
standard. Phase 3, the
post-event phase, will be
evaluated early this month
by U.K.-based certifier BSi
Management Systems. The
conference focused on all
related areas of environmentally sustainable meeting practices as defined by the Convention
Industry Council: destination, meeting
venue, accommodation, food and beverage,
transportation, communications and onsite
operations.
Nearly 500 meeting and event professionals attended the European event
(March 1-3 in Turin, Italy), connecting with
their peers in an open forum designed to
facilitate dialogue about and solutions to
current challenges facing the industry.
To that end, MPI revealed its new Web
resource, MeetingIndustryCrisisCenter.
org, at the conference. MPI developed
the site to keep community members
aware of up-to-date information and
provide solutions and guidelines to address
questions about the value of meetings,
given global bad press and potential
government regulations.
MPI also unveiled findings from its EventView 2009 study, revealing that 23 percent of marketing executives choose event
marketing as the discipline that provides
the greatest ROI. The research shows that
companies that measure ROI are three
times as likely to expect increases in their
marketing budgets than those that do not
undertake any form of measurement.
“These findings, more than ever, prove
that meetings are the solution, not the
problem, at a time when the industry is
facing challenges,” said Bruce MacMillan,
CA, president and CEO of MPI. “Meetings continue to be a powerful marketing
tool that can directly impact the business
bottom line. It is crucial for us, as the
industry’s largest and most vibrant global
community, to equip our members with
the solutions and appropriate tools to help
them succeed and thrive.”
Lifetime of Sharing
The MPI International Board of Directors has approved two members
to Lifetime Membership. Dick Hall of the MPI Tampa Bay Area Chapter
joined MPI on July 18, 1979, and Susanne Buyck, CMP, CAE of the MPI
Dallas/Fort Worth Chapter joined MPI on March 28, 1983.
Now in Poland
MPI has announced the formation of a new club in Poland, its first community in
Central Europe. The announcement, made at the MPI European Meetings and Events
Conference in Turin, Italy, highlights a year of efforts by
meeting industry leaders in Poland who recognized the
need for local professionals to advance their career development and make a connection to the global meeting and
event industry.
Krzysztof Celuch, a former folk dance instructor who
received a grant from the MPI Foundation to pursue his
career in the meeting industry, leads the club. Now a
senior project manager at the Poland Convention Bureau,
Celuch has been the lynchpin in building a strong student
community through the IMEX/MPI Future Leaders Forum
in Warsaw.
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European Meetings
and Events Conference
Sponsors
Official airline
Lufthansa Airlines
Host Sponsors
Citta’ di Torino
Regione Piemonte
Turin Convention Bureau
Turin Olympic Park
Platinum Level Sponsors
EIBTM
IMEX
Malaga Convention Bureau
Gold Level Sponsors
Canadian Tourism Commission (Tourism Toronto,
Tourism Vancouver, Travel
Alberta International,
Ontario Tourism Marketing
Partnership Corp., Québec
City Tourism, Ottawa Tourism, Caesars Windsor)
CMC - Content Management Corp.
Hail Oracle Events
SPOT ME
Ventana Group
Silver Level Sponsors
ENIT
Il Melograno Catering &
Banqueting
Red Travel - Italia in Ferrari
Sicilia Convention Bureau
Turin Chamber of Commerce
Vancouver Convention and
Exhibition Centre
Bronze Level Sponsors
Atahotels S.p.A. - Principi
di Piemonte
BTC International
CAT Publications
Fiera Milano Congressi
The Rezidor Hotel Group
Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc.
TUO LOGO SRL
Contributing Level Sponsors
Alba e Bra Convention
Bureau
BePalacongressi Rimini
Birrificio Turin
BSI Management Systems
Climact
CP Centro Pilota
Ediman
Eurac Convention Center
Gruppo Torinese Trasporti
S.p.A. - GTT SpA
Moodgate
Parente Fireworks
Parliament Speakers
Parthen, the meeting service company
Showcare Event Management Inc.
Speakers with Content
Symposium
Thought Leaders International
Turin Incontra Conference
Centre
Got a Minute?
Update your member profile! MPI
needs your current information,
employer, position and industry to
help us personalize the content
and information on MPIWeb and
better serve your needs with new
products and tools. To update your
member profile, visit www.mpiweb.
org and click on the link “My Account” next to your name. While
you’re at it, add a photo of yourself.
04.09
pp 36-38 Community Foundation 0409.indd 36
3/25/09 9:13:56 AM
Chapter Spotlight
In the Long Run…
Interest in the MPI San Diego Chapter charity golf tournament
had been waning for years, and, in 2008, the event attracted
fewer than 50 golfers. The charity was the Monarch School,
which provides an accredited education to homeless and atrisk children while caring for basic needs such as healthcare,
food, clothing and personal hygiene. And chapter leaders
knew the charity deserved better. The golf tournament just
wasn’t delivering.
Chapter President Bill Yahres coordinated a sit-down with
his San Diego peers during the Chapter Leadership Conference in Dallas last year to brainstorm the future of the
tournament. The consensus? The tourney was outdated and
uninspiring. What the chapter needed was something exciting
and active—a fun run at De Anza Cove.
Of course, no one in chapter leadership had ever planned a
race before, but Team Flock & Rock (Amy Flock and Elizabeth
Rock) took over, dressing up as joggers at chapter events
and promoting the run to just about anyone who would listen.
Their efforts were met with great success; more than 250
people participated in the Give Your Heart To Monarch 5K
Run/Walk, two-thirds of whom were not even MPI commu-
nity members. The entry fee was US$35, but many runners
found sponsors and raised much more.
“For a first-time event, we were floored by the results,”
Yahres said. “The great thing about the event was that we
not only got to help a fantastic group of young people at the
Monarch School, but we were also able to share the chapter
with a group of people who knew very little about it or MPI.”
Throughout the event, the chapter played host to a health
and lifestyle expo with food vendors, entertainment, awards
and a silent auction, which alone raised US$1,500. The Monarch School provided entertainment: three steel drummers
and an inspirational performance of the national anthem.
Volunteers manned a chapter registration booth to recruit
new members and reconnect with old ones. The chapter collected all plastic water bottles from the run and recycled them
as part of its internal environmental program. And, according
to Yahres, the event embraced some of the organization’s
most important missions: relationship building, social and ecoresponsibility and promotion of the industry.
WestField Bailout
The MPI WestField Chapter has rolled out the MPIWC
Bailout Plan, a comprehensive economic recovery
program for its members. The multipronged financial
approach to member assistance includes membership
renewals, chapter meeting/event fees, MPI international
conference costs, industry-related educational opportunities, CMP/CMM fees, business coaching services and
job recruiter/professional resumé services.
“With so many in our region either losing their jobs or
their employers’ financial support for MPI membership
and attendance, our leadership felt it 100 percent necessary to reach into our chapter’s pockets and give back
to the lifeblood of our chapter—our members,” said Rick
Weaver, MPI WestField Chapter president. “We wanted
to reach out to our members and let them know that as
Americans face one of the most difficult times economically in recent years and while unemployment is higher
than it’s been in a long time, association memberships
such as the one they have in MPI can be an enormously
valuable tool to have in times like these.”
CIC Hall of Leaders
In January, past MPI Chairwoman M. Theresa (Terri) Breining, CMP,
CMM, president and CEO of Concepts Worldwide, and past MPI
Chairman Jerry A. Wayne, vice president of sales and marketing at
The Greenbrier, will join three other inductees (Thomas M. Mobley
Jr., Steve Porter and Preston Robert Tisch) into the Convention Industry Council’s Hall of Leaders.
Make sense of the current business economy and
its effect on the meeting industry with essential tools
to help you survive and the industry thrive with MPI
webinars beginning on April 15. Look to MPIWeb.org
for more information and to register.
mpiweb.org
pp 36-38 Community Foundation 0409.indd 37
37
3/24/09 7:13:52 PM
Making a Difference
European Progress
Italian trade fair BTC International has reinforced
its partnership with the MPI Foundation Europe,
offering scholarship programs in Italy, sponsoring the IMEX/MPI Future Leaders Forum and
financing new memberships. The partnership
reinforces MPI’s commitment to an ambitious
global strategy to build an international industry
community and create new marketplace opportunities for its members.
“This strategic agreement reinforces our
existing commitment to the Italian meeting
industry and demonstrates our wish to establish
strong partnerships with major players in key
countries such as Italy,” said Didier Scaillet, MPI
vice president of global development. “Our alliance with BTC generates considerable marketplace opportunities for all our members, and we
are delighted to have teamed up with them.”
BTC Managing Director Paolo Audino says his
organization is thrilled to partner with the MPI
Foundation Europe, especially since the alliance
will grow the Italian meeting industry community
and the MPI Italia Chapter. By sponsoring MPI
planner memberships, scholarships and the Future Leaders Forum, BTC attracts new players
to the ever-growing meeting marketplace.
“This alliance is the first step to increase
the international visibility of BTC and a path to
a complete strategic vision,” Audino said. “We
are sure that this partnership will help Italian
companies strengthen their business ability in
this important field.”
FOCUS ON FOUNDATION
Did You Know?
In 1993-1994, the MPI Foundation held
its first Rendezvous fundraiser, sponsored
by Sonesta Hotels and Resorts. That was
the same year that saw the launch of the
meeting and event industry’s first online
network, MPINet.
To contribute to the
MPI Foundation, visit
www.mpifoundation.org.
February 2009 Contributors
The MPI Foundation thanks the following organizations and individuals for their generous support.
U.S. CORPORATE
Platinum Donors
AT&T Park
Carlson Hotels
Dallas CVB
Detroit Metro CVB
Fairmont Hotels
Hilton Hotels
Hyatt Hotels
IHG
Las Vegas CVA
Loews Hotels
Marriott Hotels & Resorts
Omni Hotels
Starwood Hotels & Resorts
The Venetian
Wyndham Hotels
Gold Donors
American Express
AV Concepts
Bloomington CVB
Maritz
MGM Mirage
ProActive
Silver Donors
Aimbridge Hospitality
Anaheim CVB
Aramark
Atlanta CVB
The Broadmoor
Fort Worth CVB
The Greenbrier
Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
hinton+grusich
LA Inc.
LXR
Meet Minneapolis
Millennium Hotels
Park Place Entertainment
Pier 94
PRA
PSAV
Puerto Rico CVB
St. Louis CVB
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Weil & Associates
Bronze Donors
Associated Luxury Hotels
Benchmark Hospitality
Destination Hotels & Resorts
Dolce
Experient
Gaylord Opryland
Global Events Partners
Hard Rock International
HelmsBriscoe
PC Nametag
Philadelphia CVB
SearchWide
Seattle CVB
Walt Disney World Resorts
Walt Disney Swan and Dolphin
Wynn
Small Business Donors
4th Wall Events
Attendee Management Inc.
Best Meetings
Concepts Worldwide
Creative Meetings and Events
Dianne B. Devitt
InnFluent, LLC
Kinsley & Associates
The Laureli Group
Meetingjobs
Meeting Revolution
Meeting Site Resource
One Smooth Stone
OnTrack Communications
Song Division
Spets
SYNAXIS Meetings & Events Inc.
Special Donors
Blumberg Marketing
Boca Resorts
Katie Callahan-Giobbi
CVent
David DuBois, CMP, CAE
Folio Fine Wine Partners
David Gabri
Jonathan T. Howe, Esq.
George P. Johnson
Carol Krugman, CMP, CMM
Little Rock CVB
Kevin Olsen
Pasadena CVB
Production Plus Inc.
SAS Institute
Ken Sanders
Dave Scypinski
Mark Sirangelo
Visit Raleigh
Friends of MPI
7th Wave Communication
Balance Design
Michael Beardsley
Mitchell Beer, CMM
Jennifer Brown, CMP
Tim Brown
Ivan Carlson
Vito Curalli
Marianne Demko Lange, CMP,
CMM
Gaylord Palms
Gaylord Texan
William Gilchrist
Richard Harper, CMP
Hattiel Hill, CMM
Hattie Hill Enterprises
Interactive Visuals
Dave Johnson
Beverly W. Kinkade, CMP, CHME
Leadership Synergies
Tony Lorenz, CMM
Larry Luteran
Margaret Moynihan, CMP
National Speakers Bureau
Joe Nishi
Didier Scaillet
Linda Swago
Melvin Tennant, CAE
C. James Trombino, CAE
Helen Van Dongen, CMP, CMM
Jerry Wayne
CANADA CORPORATE
Platinum Donor
Fairmont Hotels and Resorts
Starwood Hotels & Resorts
Gold Donor
Caesars Windsor
Convention Centres of Canada
Delta Hotels
PSAV
Silver Donor
AV- Canada
AVW-Telav
Calgary Telus Convention Centre
Cascadia Motivation
Coast Hotels & Resorts
Evolution
Hilton Canada
IHG
Marriott Hotels & Resorts
Canada
Ottawa Tourisim
Stronco
Tourism Calgary
Tourism Toronto
Tourisme Quebec
VIA Rail Canada
Bronze Donor
The Conference Publisher
D.E. Systems Ltd.
Destination Halifax
Direct Energy Centre
IncentiveWorks
Tourisme Montreal
Tourism British Columbia
Tourism Vancouver
Special Donor
Accucom Corporate Communications Inc.
ADMAR Promotions
Calgary Exhibition & Stampede
Cantrav
Centre Mont-Royal
Destination Winnipeg
Exposoft Solutions Inc.
Fletcher Wright Associates Inc.
Gelber Conference Centre
Groupe Germain Hotels
The Great West Life Company
Investors Group Financial
Services
Mendelssohn Livingston
Naylor Publishers Inc.
The Planner
EUROPE CORPORATE
Heritage Club
EIBTM
IMEX
Diamond Club
MCI
Platinum Key Donors
BTC International
EIBTM/RTE
Starwood Hotels & Resorts
Gold Key Donors
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts
Malaga CVB
The Rezidor Hotel Group
Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre
VisitDenmark
Silver Partner Donors
ExpoForce
RefTech
Bronze Friend Donors
Amsterdam RAI
Hotels van Oranje
Ince&Tive
Visit London
CHAPTER DONORS
Chapter Donors
Arizona Sunbelt
Atlantic Canada
British Columbia
Carolinas
Chicago
Georgia
Greater Edmonton
Greater New York
Gulf States
Heartland
Houston
Japan
Kansas City
Kentucky Bluegrass
Indiana
Manitoba
Minnesota
New Jersey
Northern California
Ohio
Oklahoma
Orange County
Oregon
Ottawa
Philadelphia Area
Potomac
Rocky Mountain
Southern California
St. Louis
Tennessee
Texas Hill Country
Toronto
Virginia
Washington State
Westfield
INDIVIDUAL DONORS
Three-Star
Bruce MacMillan, CA
Fellow
Barbara Cummins, CMP, CMM
Neil Melanson
Lesly Rehaut
04.09
pp 36-38 Community Foundation 0409.indd 38
3/24/09 1:12:31 PM
0409_039.indd 39
3/18/09 9:41:54 AM
WHO:
Connections
Elias Messinas,
ECOWEEK founder
and president
Industry Leader + Nonprofit
Just four miles south of downtown Athens the vestige of
Ellinikon International Airport
blights the foothills of the
soaring Hymettus Mountains.
And while the northwest acres were redeveloped as sports facilities for the 2004
Summer Olympic Games, the majority of the
site—including the terminal building and thousands of feet of runway—remains untouched,
bare and rotting in the heat of the Athens sun.
Some years ago, the government promised to
develop the site as an expansive urban park (to
combat the city’s decided lack of green space),
but no definitive plans have been announced.
“As the years go by, there is less and less
park,” said Elias Messinas, founder and president of non-profit ECOWEEK. “Now the plan
is for about 70 percent development. What
we will have is little patches of green between
buildings—and no one is talking about what
we will do with all the concrete.”
To Messinas, the languishing site poses an
interesting question for a new wave of architects and urban planners: Can the old airport
be repurposed as a park or zero-emissions
neighborhood expending materials already
there with no waste leaving the site?
Messinas presented the topic to 150
international college students during his nonprofit’s annual conference March 31-April 6.
The students—split into three groups and led
by leaders in architecture, design and urban
planning from across the globe—determined
a future for the site as an eco-hood, an urban
park and a combination of the two.
“The choice of this site is about collaboration,” said Nataly Gattegno, a lecturer at the
University of Michigan, who helped design
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Nataly Gattegno, University of Michigan
lecturer and founding
partner of the Future
Cities Lab
EVENT:
ECOWEEK
Athens, Greece
March 31-April 6
the event’s curriculum. “The point is to share
knowledge among an array of disciplines from
urban planning and architecture to environmental engineering and landscape design. We
want to see a new culture form, a culture of
collaboration that builds ideas and generates
energy.”
Gattegno is a founding partner of the Future Cities Lab (www.future-cities-lab.net), an
interdisciplinary design and research collaborative that bridges architecture and landscape
urbanism with material sciences, robotics and
engineering. It is that kind of forward thinking that Messinas hoped to foster during the
ECOWEEK event.
Fifteen of Gattegno’s University of Michigan students attended the conference. Their
ideas were bold and inspiring: create a massive
urban garden with integrated housing, retain
and clean all onsite water, flood the area into
the Aegean Sea.
“We pushed the boundaries of what is
possible and provoked discussion between the
students and the world’s design leaders,” Gattegno said. “The airport was a way to get that
conversation started.”
But there is much more to the annual conference than the airport project and more to
ECOWEEK than the annual conference. Messinas established the nonprofit on the island
of Aegina, Greece, in 2005, to raise public
environmental awareness and involvement,
especially among young people, encouraging the adoption of simple daily habits such
0 4.09
pp040-041 Connections 0409.indd 40
3/24/09 12:19:04 PM
as recycling, organic composting and energy
conservation.
ECOWEEK operates year-round, wherever
and whenever partners can be found, at cinemas and schools and parks. In 2008, Messinas
took eight eager learners to Israel, where they
studied leadership and the environment. Each
returned to Greece and went to 10 schools,
discussing new environmental efforts and ideas
with students and providing information packets to teachers, creating an open dialogue for
the nation’s youth.
Meanwhile, the ECOWEEK annual conference is ever evolving. Past speakers at the event
have included former U.S. Vice President Al
Gore, polar explorer Robert Swan, Malaysian
architect and writer Ken Yeang and internationally renowned designer Julie Bargmann.
But for Messinas, the most important aspects
of the event are the workshops where students
met with industry leaders and “anything was
possible.”
“We have created a platform for young
people, so they don’t have to go through hierarchies to speak with the leading authorities
in architecture and design,” he said. “The idea
is to become a catalyst for these students. Our
intention is not to make nice portfolios. We’re
trying to open the minds of people.”
—JESSIE STATES
mpiweb.org
pp040-041 Connections 0409.indd 41
41
3/25/09 7:51:30 AM
IRRELEVANT
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like tiny, furry perverts. Protect
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nudity with Squirrel Underpants.
Little “y” fronts make them look
just like people briefs! These
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last for years, offer a “seal of
quality” and are endorsed by
Smallanimaldecency.com.
These underpants are a perfect,
simple solution to a big, complicated problem. (Squirrel
underpants.com, US$9.50)
42
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0 4.09
pp042 EMEA Irrelevant 0409.indd 42
3/20/09 5:30:49 PM
0409_043.indd 43
3/23/09 8:32:26 AM
Paul
Bridle
Global View
Survive,
Get Prepared
to Thrive
THE WORLD IS EXPERIENCING AN
ECONOMIC SHAKEUP, THE MEETING
44
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04.09
pp 44 Global View 0409.indd 44
BIO
INDUSTRY IS FEELING THREATENED and
companies are cutting back and downscaling their operations. But once it’s over, the
best companies will be the ones that positioned themselves to take advantage of the
upswing.
Why are businesses not taking the
opportunity to position their companies
and preparing their people so they can take
advantage of the situation when it arises?
Now is the time to focus and get businesses
and people ready. However, I hear companies cut back on things that have the potential to get them in the right place to be able
to respond to opportunities.
There should be three questions on the
mind of every business at this moment:
“Have we got an outstanding product or
service?” “Have we got an outstanding
delivery mechanism?” and “Do we have the
cash flow to make it happen?”
Successful organizations across the globe
should be thinking about these questions
every moment of the day and working to
answer them positively. Those that have
taken the approach that cutting back is
what’s important now will realize they are
not capable to respond to opportunities
when they arise.
While it is important to ensure that your
business survives, it is also important to consider in what state your business will be after
the economic crisis is over. It seems pointless
to survive the current climate only to then
be outmaneuvered by competitors. Do you
really want to live through this to then be
destroyed by a lack of customers? It is about
quality of life after the illness has been cured.
During this time, relationships are being
formed, impressions are being made and
your customers are forming opinions that
will guide their thinking in the future. I
spend a lot of time in hotels, on planes and
visiting events and conferences. I understand
businesses need to do more with less, and
there’s pressure on people.
However, I can also tell the difference
between that type of organization and a
company that is still customer focused and
makes every effort to ensure that I get as
much value as possible from them.
I can tell the difference between an organization where the leadership at the top is
focused on making cuts, driving down costs
and squeezing every drop of possible profit
out of the business, compared to the business that is thinking about thriving in the
future.
Making a difference to our customers is
so much easier at a time when they understand the issues you face. Are you taking
advantage of that?
My experience with your business tells
me who you are as a leader—what experience do you think I’m having?
PAUL BRIDLE is a faculty member of the Institute of Management Studies,
a fellow of the Institute of Business Consulting, a fellow of the Professional
Speaker Association and a Certified Speaking Professional. E-mail him at
paulbridle@paulbridle.com.
3/25/09 7:52:59 AM
0409_045.indd 45
3/18/09 9:44:41 AM
Tony
Carey
Across the Bow
Meet Frequently,
Live Longer
EVERY SO OFTEN OUR INDUSTRY
PROVES THAT IT IS AHEAD OF THE
CURVE. For years we have been preaching
the benefits of conferences to the unconvinced and have been forced to suffer our
critics who claim that meetings are, at least,
a waste of effort or, at worst, a health hazard. (The side effects of damage to the bank
account, exposure to infectious diseases and
terminal boredom are most frequently cited.)
But now we have the ultimate riposte.
It’s official: Meetings are good for you!
The more time people spend
alone, the less they are able to
face the rough and tumble of
social interaction.
46
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0 4.09
pp46-47 Across The Bow 0409.indd 46
BIO
A leading psychologist, Dr. Aric Sigman,
a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine
and an associate fellow of the British Psychological Society, has declared in an article
in the journal Biologist that we are all
jeopardizing our health by communicating
through social networking sites instead of
face-to-face.
He explains that physical contact triggers
the release of the hormone oxytocin, which
is believed to lower the risk of heart disease.
He says that research has shown that people
who mingle regularly with others are also
less susceptible to colds and flu.
So, while “an apple a day keeps the doctor away,” a meeting a quarter is better for
the aorta, it seems.
What are the implications of this revelation? Well, for a start, there is a new tool
in the event marketing locker that smart
planners will use to attract attendees. I can
see the headlines: “This meeting might save
your life,” “Get extra health protection by
registering for the annual convention” and
“Share your oxytocin with friends at next
month’s conference.”
So, while I may still pick up a virulent
virus being spread by a delegate, it is reassuring to know that I am less likely to suffer a
coronary.
But it is the good doctor’s sideswipe at
social networking sites that intrigues me,
since he endorses my view that, as remote
communication is unfulfilling, we need to
meet face-to-face to really understand each
other.
What then is the future for the likes of
Facebook, LinkedIn and Plaxo (and new
kid on the block Twitter)? These sites would
appear to be the antithesis of the physical
get-together—providing personal contacts
without personal contact.
Will they have to carry a health warning?
“This site may damage your health—get out
more!” “Don’t just tweet him—meet him!”
Nevertheless, Facebook and its ilk
provide a service that we didn’t know we
needed until they were invented, and now
they are indispensable.
TONY CAREY, CMP, CMM, is an award-winning writer and past member
of MPI’s International Board of Directors. He can be reached at
tonycarey@psilink.co.je.
3/20/09 7:08:07 PM
Well, almost. I think they may be
responsible for my high blood pressure and
frequent spasms of crankiness in the office.
I have been on Facebook for about two
years and my friend count has grown almost
exponentially. Not a day passes without the
distraction of several inconsequential messages from well-meaning friends.
To save my sanity and keep my network
manageable, I have a rule: I will not accept
requests to be friends from people I have
never met. This means that I ignore requests
from the cute babies of friends and their
family pets.
And as for Twitter, who has time for it?
Do I really need to know—by e-mail and
phone—that Joe Donut was suffering from
indigestion six minutes ago?
“Carey doesn’t understand the philosophy of social networking sites,” I hear you
mutter. Maybe not, but I do accept that they
have a role to play and that meeting professionals would be foolhardy to ignore them,
especially when it comes to marketing.
But let’s return to the health benefits
of events. In the U.K., a third of adults
live alone (the figures for the U.S. are, I
understand, similar), and research shows
that lonely people are more likely to suffer
from health issues than the more gregarious
among us. Increased tele-working can only
exacerbate this problem.
Already, the time that we all spend in the
company of others has declined, in the 20
years up to 2007, from six hours per day to
two. Most of us spend double that watching
television.
And the more time people spend alone,
the less they are able to face the rough and
tumble of social interaction. We have all
encountered asocial geeks only capable of
communicating their feelings via a screen.
But all is not lost. As meeting professionals, we can now truthfully point to the
health benefits of events and be proud of the
fact that we knew all this before the boffins
proved it for us.
Agree? Disagree?
Share your thoughts with
other readers at
www.mpioneplus.org.
mpiweb.org
pp46-47 Across The Bow 0409.indd 47
47
3/20/09 5:33:18 PM
Katja
Morgenstern
Open-Source Everything
Vegan,
Vegetarian,
Macrobiotic
—Oh, My!
PEOPLE CHOOSE TO PRACTICE DIET
LIFESTYLES FOR A VARIETY OF REASONS: health, environmental protection,
48
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04.09
pp 48-49 Open-Source 0409.indd 48
BIO
animal rights, spiritual cleansing. With a
quick Internet search, you can find countless
testimonials and articles on the healing powers of eating a vegan, vegetarian or macrobiotic diet. Many of these article subscribers,
testimonial writers and Web site readers are
the same people who will be attending your
conference. So how do you plan a menu
that satisfies their needs?
The first step is determining your
attendee food base, and the easiest way
to do this is to ask your attendees. During the initial online registration process,
include a question that asks about special
meal requirements. Limit the options to
only those you can provide. If you leave
this an open field, you will get everything
from gluten intolerance to berry allergies.
When you are meal planning for an event,
you cannot make each attendee happy;
however, you can provide a broad spectrum
of food options to make most attendees
happy. Once you have your food base
demographic, you are still faced with this
question: How do you plan a menu that will
appeal to vegan, vegetarian, omnivore and/
or macrobiotic diets?
Many of the meeting planners I spoke
with said they usually start with the executive chef for the program. Most chefs welcome the opportunity to come up with
unique menu items that appeal to multiple
palates. Collaborating with the chef to
develop creative menu ideas can be rewarding for the planner and the chef. It gives the
chef an opportunity to go “off script” and
perhaps recommend some local or seasonal
options.
It is helpful to know the subtle differences among vegan, vegetarian and
macrobiotic diets. All three diets focus on a
well-balanced meal with few to no animal
products. The difference between a vegan
and a vegetarian diet is simple: A vegan
will not consume dairy products, eggs or
foods that are cooked in animal byproducts.
Vegan and macrobiotic diets are similar, but
the macrobiotic diet allows the consumption
of hormone-free poultry and fish. Veganism and vegetarianism are becoming more
popular as the mental and health benefits of
these diets are increasingly touted.
Bear in mind that most vegetarians will
still drink milk and eat cheese, but when
planning for a vegan diet, you must eliminate any type of traditional dairy and any
food product that may have come from
or been in contact with animal products,
including eggs. You can use soy- or ricebased products such as soy or rice milk and
soy-nut cheeses. You can also use tofu as a
main course. When planning for multiple
KATJA MORGENSTERN is a senior project manager for Meeting Consultants Inc. She is an active MPI member, industry speaker, writer and
industry veteran. She can be reached at kmorgenstern@meetingcon
sultants.com.
3/20/09 5:04:40 PM
dietary restrictions, avoid all gelatin-based
products. Gelatin is usually made with
animal byproducts, and eliminating gelatinbased food from your menu will appeal
to vegetarian, vegan, kosher and halal
diets. While you cannot create a meal plan
tailored to each attendee, you can provide
a well-balanced menu that will appeal to
many types of diets.
The easiest way to include vegan-, vegetarian- and macrobiotic-friendly items in
your menu is to offer your meals in a station format, which allows people to pick
and choose their food items. If you have
salad stations, include soy-based salad
dressings as well as vegetable additions such
as chickpeas, fresh corn, seaweed, kale and
mushrooms. If you have a soup station,
include Miso soup or a squash-based soup
as one of your options. When planning a
full dinner or lunch buffet, include hearty
vegetarian side dishes such as fresh whole
grains, brown or wild rice, spinach, eggplant, root vegetables or buckwheat pasta.
Portobello mushrooms can be roasted for
a vegetarian main course option and can
easily replace meat in many dishes. If you
have breakfast stations, include oatmeal, a
tofu scramble, vegetarian sausage and soybased milks to appeal to both vegan and
vegetarian diets. If you are playing host to a
reception, include
hummus, a TexMex station offering bean burritos,
olive tapenade
or a fruit-based
salsa and chips
among your hors
d’oeuvres. Be sure
that the vegetarian options you
provide are welllabeled and that the servers are familiar with
the contents of each dish.
Planning a well-balanced menu for
your attendees can be a challenge, but very
rewarding if you succeed. One thing that we
can all learn from attendees with specialized diets—balance. These specialized diets
promote a healthy balance in what and how
much we consume. If we are honest with
ourselves, we could all use a little balance in
our lives.
The easiest way
to include vegan-,
vegetarian- and
macrobiotic-friendly
items in your menu is
to offer your meals in
a station format.
mpiweb.org
pp 48-49 Open-Source 0409.indd 49
49
3/19/09 3:19:19 PM
Tim
Sanders
Transform the World
increasing their requirements or asking us to
cut our ad rates. After all, it was common
knowledge that we online advertisers were
under attack and desperate to keep customers happy. To this day, I’ll never forget the
customer who emerged as a partner during
our time of greatest need.
These days, I’m working hard to save
I WORKED AS AN EXECUTIVE AT
my
business partners’ money. For speakYAHOO! DURING THE DOT-COM CRASH
ing event customers, I’ve trimmed back my
DAYS (2000-2002) BEFORE I WAS AN
reimbursable expenses dramatically. No
AUTHOR AND SPEAKER. Those were
more first or business class, unless it is a bardark times indeed. We suffered through a
nosedive in market valuation, layoffs and an gain. In fact, Southwest Airlines and JetBlue
Airways are looking pretty good these days.
exodus of our best customers.
No more upgraded hotel rooms—standard
One customer, though, decided to
works fine for me. Yesterday, I drove my car
save-it-forward on our behalf. We had just
to the airport, because it will save today’s
finished our 2001 advertising campaign
customer US$100 over a taxi or car service.
for his online brokerage firm in St. Louis.
Customarily, the end of an annual campaign The meal I had last night was under $20.
This sends a signal to my customers that
required the entire team to take a trip to his
“we are in this together.” By cutting my
headquarters and have a lavish dinner with
costs to the customer, I’m helping them get
his team on our dime. We were tight on
by with less during these tough times. That
budget, but wouldn’t ever think of cutting
is one of the most socially responsible habits
our level of service to a loyal client.
we can develop over time.
He saved us the trouble and, most
For my supplier partners, I’m cutting
importantly, the expense. He called me one
back on requirements that cost them money,
morning to express his ongoing support for
Yahoo!, as well as his concerns for our long- too. Gone are overnight packages (ground
or regular mail now works fine). I’m happy
term survival. He told me that we didn’t
to receive all communications via e-mail, so
need to make the trip, and for that matter,
very little paper or plastic needs to be bought
didn’t need to overnight professionally
or shipped. I’m not asking any of my
bound campaign reports. He suggested we
put it into a spreadsheet and e-mail it to him. service providers to cut their prices
either. I want them to remember my
The total savings for our company was in
the thousands. At the end of the call he said, loyalty for a long time.
Whether you are a supplier, service
“You know, I’m cheering for your guys.”
provider or meeting planner, you can
Those weren’t empty words.
do this, too. First, put yourself in your
Meanwhile, other customers were
50
one+
04.09
pp 50-51 Transform World 0409.indd 50
BIO
Save It
Forward
TIM SANDERS, one of the top-rated speakers on the lecture circuit,
is the author of Saving the World at Work: What Companies and Individuals Can
Do to Go Beyond Making a Profit to Making a Difference (Doubleday, September
2008). Check out his Web site at www.timsanders.com.
3/20/09 9:02:53 AM
partners’ shoes for a minute, pretending that
their expenses are your expenses. During
tough times, that’s not how we think. Generally, we focus on our bottom line, extracting
more value from all of our partners without
much regard to their longevity. Review or
plot out all the expenses your partners have
to shoulder to do business with you. Take
a hard look at every one of them, and slash
them as if you were their CFO.
Following are some specific areas to
focus on.
Eliminate required travel. Don’t require
your partners to travel to your location
or event unless it is absolutely necessary.
You’ve already learned to cut your travel,
so apply that frugality on behalf of your
partners.
Stop needless overnight shipping. Did
you know that overnight shipping is about
four times more expensive for your partners
than ground or regular standard service?
With a little time management, you can lose
the overnight shipping habit quickly.
Digitize all information. Words, pictures,
sounds and videos should all be digitized
and sent via e-mail or parked at a Web site
for pickup (check out YouSendIt.com).
Give partners permission to skip swag
or entertaining you. Go dutch the next time
you have a meal together.
Share your cost-cutting innovations. By
now, you’ve learned how to squeeze value
out of your shrinking budgets. It’s likely
you’ve come up with a few techniques that
your partner could take advantage of, too.
If you focus on your partner’s bottom line with the same fervor you focus
on yours, you obey what I call the Law of
Interdependence, which
states that our success
depends on the success of our
business eco-system (partners, providers and customers). If they fail, we fail. If
they thrive, we thrive.
I’ll never forget the
customer who emerged as a partner back in
2001. I still keep up with him and owe him
a boatload of gratitude—for the money he
saved my struggling company and the lesson
that his gesture taught me.
If you focus on your partner’s
bottom line with the same fervor
you focus on yours, you obey what
I call the Law of Interdependence,
which states that our success
depends on the success of our
business eco-system (partners,
providers and customers). If they
fail, we fail. If they thrive, we
thrive.
If all of our customers and suppliers
acted like partners, we wouldn’t have let 20
percent of our workers go in 2001-2002.
Layoffs are usually cost-cutting measures,
driven by profit-and-loss statements, which
are heavily impacted by the actions of partners (good and bad). Saving a partner a
buck may save a stranger a job. So do the
right thing, and save it forward.
Have you witnessed
something that will
transform the world?
Tell us about it at
www.mpiweb.org.
mpiweb.org
pp 50-51 Transform World 0409.indd 51
51
3/20/09 5:03:54 PM
Asheville’s local farms provide fresh produce to 36 area markets
and numerous local restaurants.
+
What’s New
in Asheville
The Bohemian Hotel
Asheville opened in
March in historic Biltmore
Village with 104 guest
rooms, a 2,200-squarefoot ballroom, 1,000
square feet of pre-function space and an outdoor
rooftop courtyard. It is
located across the street
from the Biltmore Estate.
ASHEVILLE CVB
A Responsible
Group
The Southeast Tourism Society exemplified its commitment to
the environment at its March conference in Asheville, N.C.
BY KEVIN WOO
ASHEVILLE
IS
NORTH
CAROLINA’S
DESTINATION. Its collection
of Art Deco buildings (the largest outside
of Miami), vibrant art scene and historic
estates (including the famed Biltmore)
draw worldwide visitors to this relatively
small city located in North Carolina’s Blue
Ridge Mountains.
Each year the city receives accolades
from travel magazines around the globe.
Over the years, Asheville has been called
one of North America’s “Top 25 Arts Destinations,” a “New Age Mecca” and “One
RESORT
52
one+
of the top must-see destinations.”
In 1889, George and Edith Vanderbilt
and family visited Asheville and became so
smitten by the area that they built the Biltmore Estate, the United States’ largest privately owned home. Their dedication and
commitment to the area attracted other
well-to-do families, and the area flourished
until the Great Depression.
The past quarter-century has seen a
dramatic rise in tourism, and because of
that, the Southeast Tourism Society (STS)
held its semi-annual conference for 370
Hotel Indigo Asheville—
a boutique hotel with
100 guest rooms, 12
condominiums, a small
boardroom and a café/
bar—will open this summer. The hotel will be
located downtown near
the Grove Arcade.
The Hilton at Biltmore
Park will open in late
2009 with 165 guest
rooms and 4,000 square
feet of meeting space.
The hotel will be located
in a town square shopping and entertainment
development that includes
P.F. Chang’s, REI, Barnes
& Noble, a cinema and
other retail/restaurant
options.
0 4.09
pp 52-55 Destination Asheville 0409.indd 52
3/19/09 3:51:57 PM
T
Much of Asheville’s Grove Park Inn Resort and Spa was built from
materials taken from the mountain on which it stands.
ASHEVILLE CVB (4)
ASHEVILLE CVB
Outside magazine rated Asheville the No. 1 white-water
town in the U.S.
The Basilica of Saint Lawrence
members in Asheville in March 2008.
“The much sought after destinations
such as Asheville work for us because
we attract more attendees,” said Suzanne
Moon, STS vice president of operations.
“Asheville is a great destination—eating,
dining, shopping, culture, the Biltmore
Estate and the Grove Park Inn all made
the city an attractive destination for our
members.”
Based in Atlanta, the STS promotes
leisure travel, sustainable tourism and
the importance of the travel industry in
12 Southeastern U.S. states. The group’s
mission is to strengthen and advocate for
the southeastern region as a travel destination. The STS also encourages partnerships
between the public and private sector of
the tourism industry in order to promote
sustainable economic growth but in an
environmentally responsible way.
STS exemplified its commitment to the
environment on the first day of the conference. Moon says that after Hurricane
Katrina STS has undertaken voluntourism
projects in cities where the society holds
Fun Facts
+
Asheville luminary E.W. Grove made
his fortune selling cure-all tonics
including Grove’s Tasteless Chill
Tonic. After arriving in Asheville,
Grove built the historic, architectural
icons Grove Arcade, Grove Park Inn
and Battery Park Hotel.
Asheville is home to the Basilica
of Saint Lawrence—the largest
unsupported tile dome in the
United States. The famous architect
who built the basilica, Signor Rafael
Guastavino, is interred at the rear of
the chapel.
Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald spent
time at the Grove Park Inn while his
wife Zelda was being treated at Highland Hospital. Zelda and eight other
patients perished in a 1948 fire that
destroyed the hospital.
mpiweb.org
pp 52-55 Destination Asheville 0409.indd 53
53
3/19/09 3:52:04 PM
+
Transportation
Tip
conferences. The first voluntourism project
took place in Biloxi, Miss.
In Asheville, approximately 25 STS
The Asheville Regional Airport
members
volunteered to clean up and colis a 15-minute drive from downtown Asheville. Continental, US lect trash along the French Broad River.
“Our association is regional, and we
Airways, Northwest Airlines and
Delta serve the Asheville market want to do something to give back to the
with nonstop service to Atlanta, communities that we visit,” Moon said.
Charlotte, Cincinnati, Detroit, “Our voluntourism started out at the JackHouston, Minneapolis and son Library in Biloxi, which had a lot of
Newark, N.J.
damage from the hurricane. Now when we
visit a city we try to give back and leave the
city a little better than we found it.”
The host hotel was the Grove Park Inn
Resort and Spa. The resort—which is set
on 140 acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains
and 1.5 miles from downtown Asheville—
first opened in 1913. At its opening dinner,
former U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan declared to the guests assembled that the property had been “built for
pp 52-55 Destination Asheville 0409.indd 54
the ages.”
Fully renovated in 2002, the resort
offers 510 guest rooms, 42 meeting rooms
and 50,000 square feet of meeting space,
a 40,000-square-foot spa, a golf course,
six tennis courts, two pools and an indoor
sports complex.
Moon says that because each STS member pays individually for accommodations,
it was important to find a hotel that could
offer a competitive rate. Moon adds that
the meeting space layout was particularly
appealing because all conference activities
(meals, trade shows and meetings) could
take place in the same area and were not
spread all over the resort.
Local Eats
Asheville has a vibrant food scene that
includes not only a bustling restaurant
community but a thriving local farming
3/20/09 7:08:49 PM
community that supplies fresh fruits, vegetables and locally raised, free-range, hormone-free beef, pork and lamb to the area’s
chefs.
“Western North Carolina has many
things to offer visitors, not least of which is
a vibrant and prolific local food industry,”
said Allen Dye, executive chef at M7 Event
Solutions and caterer for the STS event. “As
a foodie, I often think of places in terms of
the food products that are available. For
example, when visiting Alaska one thinks of
king crab and wild salmon. In Maine, one
thinks of lobster and blueberries. In Louisiana, one thinks of crawfish and redfish.
“Visitors to Asheville will find it easy
to locate organic pork, goat’s cheese dairies, rainbow trout and some very fine local
wines during a visit,” Dye continued. “Not
only do these and other products grace the
tables of local restaurants, but the farms,
pp 52-55 Destination Asheville 0409.indd 55
dairies and wineries can also serve as special
event space for groups.”
The Asheville CVB maintains a close
relationship with M7 Event Solutions, and
when the STS event began to take shape in
early 2008, Dye and his staff were asked to
create a special meal featuring products that
were grown or produced locally.
“We invited several local producers to
join our staff to serve the food and meet the
guests,” Dye said. “This allowed the attendees to not only taste the items, but also to
meet and talk with the people who actually
produced them. Afterward, many attendees
told me that they made contacts that will last
for many years.”
Dye and the team created a menu that
included black-eyed pea cakes with Lee
County corn relish, fried green tomato
finger sandwiches, mini trout cakes and
venison kabobs. The entrees were equally
adventuresome—grilled sunburst trout
tacos, grilled sausages that were made from
various kinds of locally raised game and
farm-raised deer on a skewer served with
moonshine onions.
For STS guests, the dinner served as a
way of putting a face to the food that they
were enjoying.
“Too often in today’s world we think of
food as arriving at our supermarket wrapped
in plastic and comfortably nestled on Styrofoam trays,” Dye said. “It was a unique
experience to have food served by the very
people who grew it, and many guests commented to me about how much they enjoyed
that experience.”
KEVIN WOO is a San Francisco-based
freelance writer.
3/20/09 5:02:55 PM
Change You Can
Believe In
+
The economic recession has taken its toll on many
events, but sales have held steady for the New York
International Numismatic Convention.
BY AMANDA MANN
EACH JANUARY, THE CITY OF NEW YORK
AND THE WALDORF=ASTORIA HOTEL ON
PARK AVENUE PLAY HOST TO THE NEW
YORK
INTERNATIONAL
NUMISMATIC
CONVENTION (NYINC). The convention
draws experts in ancient and rare coins and
features dealers and speakers from Austria,
Germany, Italy and Russia, as well as U.S.based numismatists. More than 140 coin
dealers from around the world reserve individual display booths in addition to Professional Preview attendees (who pay US$100
each to get first look at a dealer’s wares) and
the general public, which is invited to attend
the coin shows for a $10 entry fee. The logistics, though, are not simple by any means.
“The NYINC is a year-round project,
with organizational activities reaching out
several years in advance for the planning and
contracting phases and accelerating just after
each year’s event as plans unfold for the next
year,” said Kevin Foley, NYINC bourse (or
56
one+
general public area) chairman. “The NYINC
is unique in the world of numismatic conventions in terms of having not only a world-class
bourse, but a series of auction presentations
by various companies lasting a full week and
sometimes longer.”
So to recap, that’s a year’s worth of preparation in the most expensive U.S. city going
into one week-long convention. What could
go wrong? It’s not like the country is struggling financially amidst what some particularly panicky journalists are officially calling
an “economic meltdown,” right?
The economic recession has taken its toll
on many shows and conventions, but while
attendance is down, sales have held steady.
The Waldorf=Astoria also had little problem
filling the hotel rooms reserved for convention attendees and dealers who still prefer
the luxury of a hotel that offers more than
off-brand bar soaps and a make-your-ownwaffles breakfast bar.
What’s New
in New York
City
VU hotel opens this
month in midtown Manhattan. The 222-room
hotel features 5,000
square feet of meeting
space, a rooftop bar and
in-room spa services.
With 1,900 square
feet of meeting space,
the 217-room W NYC
Downtown will open this
fall in the financial district.
Seafood restaurant The
John Dory opened in November and has received
rave reviews widely.
The New York Times
describes it as “a visually
frantic, kaleidoscopic riff
on a chowder house with
an open kitchen and two
dining areas divided by an
enormous fish tank.”
0 4.09
pp 56-59 Destination New York 0409.indd 56
3/19/09 3:57:08 PM
Transportation
Tips
But that doesn’t mean that the world of
coin buyers and collectors is totally immune
from the economic woes of today.
“Both the numismatic marketplace and
the larger economy of which we are a part
tend to move in broad cycles of prosperity—
sometimes exceptional prosperity—followed
by periods of correction and contraction,”
Foley said. “The marketplace that the
NYINC functions in has traditionally been
driven by collectors, i.e., individuals acquiring items because of their cultural or historical interest and then tending to hold them for
an extended period. The NYINC has always
striven to help create its own future through
its educational programs to foster future collector interest and provide a basis for the
marketplace in which it functions to continue
to grow over the long term.”
An early highlight for convention attendees were the Heritage Auction Galleries auction sessions in the hotel’s fourth floor suite.
Heritage Auction Galleries, an international
leader in coins and currency, has held auctions in conjunction with NYINC since January 2004, but its participation in the show
goes back many years prior. Echoing many
of the sentiments of NYINC’s Foley, Danita
Glenn of the Heritage’s World Coin Auction
says that preparation on her company’s part
begins in mid-September and becomes its sole
focus during the months of November and
December.
“Literally thousands of hours are put in to
prepare for the auction,” she said. “It takes
individuals from seven different departments
to prepare for the auction.”
This preparation can include everything
from catalog creation and production on
the part of the consignment directors and
marketing department to arrangements for
packing, shipping and viewing the coins to be
auctioned. Needless to say, the security and
logistics involved with transporting millions
of dollars in rare coins and currency goes a
little beyond taking grandma’s Gone With
The Wind collector’s plates to the family
reunion.
While all involved in the NYINC are
reticent to go into too much detail about the
security measures taken to ensure the safe
transportation of such precious cargo as rare
world coins, all parties agree that the city and
hotel offer fantastic resources to make the
arrangements possible. The breadth of coins
displayed, auctioned and sold is perfectly
showcased in the Waldorf=Astoria’s recently
added 18th-floor Executive Meeting Center,
where the event’s bourse rooms are located.
The center features 13 contiguous rooms
with cityscape and river views. It’s a fitting
surrounding in which to hold what is widely
accepted to be the premier annual world currency show.
“There is no show in second place,” Heritage’s World Coin Auctions Assistant Director Scott Cordry said. “The attendance by
foreign dealers is key, and the proximity of
New York to Europe is highly important.
There might be hundreds of foreign dealers
and collectors at the New York show and the
various auctions throughout the week, while
a typical show elsewhere might only have five
to 10 foreign dealers attending.”
He adds that having the convention in
New York allows attendees and dealers to
+
For those traveling by air, New
York is served by LaGuardia
Airport (LGA) and John F.
Kennedy International Airport
(JFK), both in Queens, and
Newark Liberty International
Airport (EWR) in neighboring
New Jersey. LaGuardia primarily
serves domestic destinations,
with a small number of flights to
and from selected Canadian and
Caribbean destinations. Kennedy
and Newark airports each serve
domestic and international destinations. All three airports provide
access to the city via taxis,
buses, subways and trains.
New York City has two main rail
stations: Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station. Grand
Central is on the East Side in Midtown, and Penn Station is on the
West Side just below Midtown.
Both are served by numerous bus
and subway lines.
Purchasing a MetroCard is the
first step to getting around on
the subway or bus. They can be
purchased at subway stations,
from either automated machines
(which accept cash, ATM bank
cards and regular credit cards)
or from booth attendants. A
single subway or bus ride is
currently US$2. Riders have the
choice of buying a pay-per-ride or
an unlimited MetroCard.
mpiweb.org
pp 56-59 Destination New York 0409.indd 57
57
3/20/09 5:00:33 PM
0409_058.indd 58
3/18/09 9:49:46 AM
Fun Facts
New York’s Bayonne Bridge is almost identical to the world-famous
Sydney Harbour Bridge, but it is
actually two feet longer. Completed
a few months before its Aussie
counterpart, rumor has it that the
only reason for those two extra
feet was to beat the Australians.
Take that, Crocodile Dundee!
More than 47 percent of New
York City’s residents over the age
of 5 speak a language other
than English at home.
New York’s Yellow Cabs are
yellow because John Hertz, the
company’s founder, learned from a
study that yellow was the easiest
color for the eye to spot.
+
better put their fingers on the pulse of the
world coin market and has positively affected
the company’s visibility in the coin world.
“Having the auction in New York and
our bourse table at the coin show allows us to
interact with the most influential numismatists from around the world,” Cordry said.
“We get to sense the market trends and solicit
consignments for our upcoming sales. Being
very visible in New York has definitely contributed to our growing market share.”
This year’s NYINC was a success, with
Heritage alone seeing a realized value on
coins at auction of more than $7 million from
the event. And while attendance to the coin
shows was down from 2008, it was consistent with the attendance records from 2007
and years prior. All involved in this year’s
gathering were pleased with the event’s attendance, quality of speakers and the general
organization of the convention on the part
of the city, hotel and NYINC, as well as the
city’s inexhaustible choices of ways to gorge
yourself on the best food, drink and places to
spend your hard-earned money.
The convention and its participants hope
that an upturn in the world economy and a
growing interest among the newer generation
of numismatists—fueled by the convention’s
Young Numismatist Program—will make
next year another unqualified success.
“[The Young Numismatist Program]
is one example of our educational initiatives to make the NYINC something more
than simply a wholly commercial event, by
introducing newcomers to the many satisfactions offered by the numismatic hobby,”
Foley said. “At the same time, we endeavor
to help these future consumers become
educated in their quests and understand
the importance of acquiring a basic body
of knowledge about the material they may
acquire in the future.”
AMANDA MANN is a Dallas-based freelance writer.
mpiweb.org
pp 56-59 Destination New York 0409.indd 59
59
3/19/09 3:57:25 PM
Geneva, capital of the Canton with the same name, is
on the shores of Lake Geneva and the Rhône River.
+
Little Big City
Geneva’s impressive infrastructure and head for
business make a last-minute meeting a success.
BY ANGELA CHIARELLO
THE RFP ARRIVED THE WEEK BEFORE
CHRISTMAS FOR A MEETING IN LATE
JANUARY—six weeks to bid on and execute
a meeting for 1,000. Not only was Ovation
Switzerland competing with other vendors,
but also with other European destinations.
The Bâtiment des Forces Motrices (BFM) first
opened in 1886 as a factory.
“We went out [to the prospective client]
with good value for the money, a high-level
of service and a very convenient and accessible city,” said the meeting’s Project Director Renato Grieco of Ovation Switzerland,
part of Ovation Global DMC. “This was an
important piece of business for all of us.”
On Dec. 28, 2007, the contracts were
60
one+
signed, and a major financial company was
having its meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, in
less than a month. Several factors gave Grieco
and his company the edge—not the least of
which included a great city and a remarkable
venue. He also knew his team could get the
job done in such a short period of time.
“We knew we could count on very good
partners in Geneva—the hotels, venues,
transportation companies, etc. Our agency
has the know-how,” he said.
An unbeatable destination, Geneva’s
appeal certainly helped win the bid. Known
as “Europe’s downtown,” the city is accessible from almost anywhere in the world. Adding to that accessibility is the city’s welcoming
spirit and its many languages. Global organizations such as the United Nations’ European
headquarters and the World Health Organization are here, along with the Fédération
Internationale de Football Association, the
Union of European Football Associations
and the International Olympic Committee.
The country’s political and economic stability and first-class infrastructure make the city
desirable for businesses and organizations—
whether it’s for an international headquarters
What’s New
in Geneva
Centre International
de Conferences Genève
(CICG) was completely
renovated and expanded
in late 2005. Located
near the Place des Nations, its various spaces
and arrangements can
accommodate up to
2,200.
The Four Seasons Hotel
des Bergues completed
a renovation in 2005; the
Grand Hotel Kempinski
Geneva, on the shore
of Lake Geneva, recently
completed a massive
renovation; the historic
Swissôtel Métropole
Geneva (built in 1854)
underwent a total renovation and modernization
in 2004; the Hotel
InterContinental Geneve
completed a refurbishment of guest rooms and
conference facilities in
2005; and Manotel’s six
Geneva properties are all
newly renovated.
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+
Transportation Tips
Geneva-Cointrin Airport is one of
Europe’s major air hubs and offers
direct flights throughout Europe and
North America. Only a 15-minute ride
by car—six minutes by train—the airport
is close to Geneva’s city center. The
city also offers free airport transfers to
passengers staying in Geneva.
Direct train connections are available
from Paris and Milan.
Geneva is the birthplace of the International
Red Cross and features a related museum.
Geneva’s Jet d’Eau was originally a simple
security valve for a hydrolic factory.
or a large-scale congress.
“Geneva is very important in Europe and
on the international stage,” Grieco said. “We
have a lot of international organizations here
and it’s a very famous financial city—a lot of
banks and insurance companies are here. The
client appreciated that and knew we would
all be speaking the same language. Accessibility was also important—it’s an international,
multilingual city. That’s why Geneva was
selected.”
The unique Bâtiment des Forces Motrices
(BFM) venue also played a role in landing the
gig. Jutting out into the middle of the Rhône
River, the BFM was a 19th-century factory
that delivered water under pressure to the
homes, fountains and businesses of Geneva.
The factory’s pressure release valve also created the city’s first Jet d’Eau—now an icon.
Decommissioned in the 1960s, BFM
gained historic building status in 1988, and
in 1997 the building began its second life as
a special event venue. The L-shaped facility—
which appears to be floating on the river—
includes a reception foyer in the smaller wing
and a 1,000-seat theater in the larger wing.
“The building is special,” said Didier
Bron, BFM’s events manager. “It’s quite
unique that we have this much room in one
building. Here you can do your presentation
or entertainment followed by a reception or
dinner all under one roof.”
Even with the major players in place, creating a successful, multi-day event in less than
a month is a challenge. But from the moment
the RFP arrived, Grieco was confident that he
and his organization were up to the task.
“We’ve done huge events, so we had the
background and knew what was important
and what we needed to do to be successful,”
Grieco said. “We started with a huge brainstorming session to determine our goals and
identify our challenges. Next, we communicated with the client about what might work
and made suggestions to ensure success.”
That ethos of good communication was
present in all aspects of the event. Grieco
maintained what he called “crystal clear communications” with his four-person team and
the event’s partners. He says that by keeping
everyone involved in the communications
there were no misunderstandings and everyone worked toward a single, unified goal.
“At this time, more than ever, we have to
come in and identify ourselves as a good partner. We can be a cost-effective, one-stop shop
with the added value of experience, local
know-how and attention to detail.”
It also didn’t hurt to have a desirable
destination such as Geneva in his arsenal.
Fun Facts
+
Geneva is the birthplace of the
International Red Cross and houses
approximately 200 international
government and independent organizations.
Geneva’s Jet d’Eau is a large fountain at
the spot where Lake Geneva empties into
the Rhône River and is one of the city’s
most famous landmarks. The present jet
was installed in 1951.
Because Switzerland is so small, diverse
and exciting, side trips are easy—mountains, lakes and vineyards are only moments away. Groups can even cross the
border for quick trips into Italy and
France.
ANGELA CHIARELLO is a New York-based
freelance writer.
mpiweb.org
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In With the Old
In With
the New
TECH
CONTINUES
HELPING
PEOPLE
CONNECT
ACROSS
SPACE
AND
TIME.
B Y RYA N S I N G E L
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ON JANUARY 8, 2008, THE U.S. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS UPLOADED A FEW
THOUSAND COPYRIGHT-FREE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS FROM ITS
archives to Yahoo’s photo-sharing site
Flickr, hoping to see what the unwashed
masses of Web 2.0 would do with the
photos.
One of the images was a 1940s photo
by Jack Delano that captured a wet street
corner in a small industrial town somewhere in Massachusetts. There’s a luncheonette on the corner called Sylvia
Sweets Tea Room and a law office on the
second floor, announced on four windows
with gold-leaf lettering.
The original title for the image was “Street
in Industrial Town in Massachusetts.”
The first commenter, a user known as
BiPolarLawyerCook, quickly identified
the town as Brockton at School Street and
Main Street. The next commenter noted
its appearance in a movie poster advertising The Thief of Baghdad, which opened
in New York in December 1940, helping
to date the photo.
=
▲
➡
➡
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TRACKING TWITTER’S
2008 RISE TO POWER
IN THE PAST YEAR…
Twitter Traffic Saw Immense Expansion
517.9%
Australian Traffic
974%
U.K. Traffic
300%
U.S. Traffic
Who’s Tweeting?
Up
7.4%
Up Almost
45%
Up More Than
14%
Up Almost
14%
Age 18-24
Age 25-34
Age 35-44
Age 45-54
Up More Than
20%
Age 55+
Searching The Twitterverse
Visits to the site’s search page are up more than
Data taken from January 2009 Hitwise studies
64
one+
700%
Soon others chimed in, remembering the
spot since the bus to Boston used to start
and stop outside the Tea Room. William
Wainright, an attorney, wrote to say that
he watched the victory parade for professional boxer Rocky Marciano through the
upstairs windows of his father George’s law
practice.
Then in late summer, Elaine Dayos, the
daughter of the owners of Sylvia Sweets,
stumbled across the picture. In the comments, she then told the story of how her
Greek father had started off selling newspapers on that block, how he wouldn’t let her
mother speak Greek in the store and how
the mahogany was replaced in the 1950s to
make it into a diner.
That information—along with crowdcontributed research on more than 500
other images—has already been verified
and added to the Library of Congress’ catalogue, with more information just waiting
to be checked and added to the nation’s
official photo archive.
In less than a year, the photos have
drawn more than 10 million views and
7,166 comments. Users have added more
than 67,000 tags. Sixteen other institutions from around the globe took note, and
started sharing their photos as well, in what
has developed into The Commons project.
That’s the power of Web 2.0, one of the
ongoing tech trends that has dominated the
technology world in the last two years and
which will continue to permeate the Internet and the global meeting and event industry in 2009.
THE FUTURE IS NOW
Though the term’s meaning is widely
debated, Web 2.0 generally refers to Web
sites that emphasize user-generated content, interactivity, collaboration and mashups of data and services.
While the meeting and event industry
isn’t on the forefront of technology, it’s not
too far behind, according to meeting tech
experts.
The industry is fairly conservative in
adopting new technologies, since planners
won’t take risks, especially with “missioncritical” components of a meeting, according to Corbin Ball, CMP, CSP, a prolific
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writer and industry tech beacon who runs
Corbin Ball Associates.
Still, Ball lists some 1,500 technology
offerings on his own Web site, and notes
that Web 2.0 technologies are undoubtedly industry hot spots.
“Web 2.0 is definitely taking hold,”
Ball said. “[For example], a year ago, there
were no meeting planning rating venue
sites—now there are four.”
Following the model of restaurantrating site Yelp.com, sites such as Meeting
Universe and Meeting Collaborative allow
users to create profiles and rate hotels
and properties where they’ve held events.
These aren’t just forums to vent about an
incompetent audiovisual team, they have
the potential to become communities
where people can speak about their experiences and gain a measure of fame inside
the industry.
In fact, Nathan Torkington, a New
Zealand tech trend watcher and AsiaPacific tech consultant, says that Web
2.0 technology won the election for
U.S. President Barack Obama. Obama’s
my.barackobama.com was a social
networking application, not unlike
Facebook.
It made it simple for people to create
affinity groups and self-organize. Obama
had more than 1 million friends on the
most popular social networking sites,
and his campaign used viral videos on
sites such as YouTube to reach millions of
young people.
“Technology let him fire up people,
and then channel their energy into productive get-out-the-vote actions,” Torkington
said. “I hope we’ll see it trickle down to
state and local elections.”
Perhaps just as importantly, Obama
introduced many non-techies to Web 2.0,
according to Elizabeth Churchill, a longtime researcher in Silicon Valley.
“People I know who are not tech geeks
were excited about looking up Obama on
Flickr, even though they’d never heard of
Flickr before,” Churchill said. “Web 2.0
tools have moved from the domain of selfobsessed techies like me into the hands of
normal people.”
Meeting planners were among those
finally figuring out social networking,
according to Jim Spellos, a technology
trainer for the meeting industry and the
president of Meeting U.
“People are getting more comfortable
with social networking tools and will figure out how to integrate them into their
events,” he said.
That’s especially true, Spellos says, for
events that are more cross-generational—
where event marketers try to reach Baby
Boomers through traditional means and
Gen X and Gen Y through new social
media tools.
“We are entering a time in which e-mail
is less of a choice for people as their primary communication tool,” Spellos said.
New media strategist Amber MacArthur agrees that planners need to adapt.
“I don’t think that it’s good enough
anymore to simply put people in a room
and expect them to listen passively,” MacArthur said.
Echoing Spellos’ recommendation
that Facebook and other tools be used to
promote an event, MacArthur says planners need to be more proactive in their
online social network involvement (see
“Requested to be Your Friend,” on Page
82 in the February 2009 issue of One+).
“At the actual event, these tools can be
used to facilitate conversation among the
audience and with individuals who could
not make it to the event in person,” MacArthur said. “Following the event, Web
2.0 technologies are an easy way to take
event-related content and distribute it to a
wider audience.”
MacArthur predicts that meetings and
conferences will get more competitive, and
proper use of technology will make the
difference.
“Planners who take advantage of social
meeting technologies throughout the life
of the conference will have better results
with more engaged audiences,” MacArthur said.
European organizers behind the innovative LIFT technology conference are
showing the way.
LIFT participants suggest presentations
and vote on the most interesting ones.
Space gets allocated based on what the
THOUGH THE
TERM’S MEANING IS WIDELY
DEBATED, WEB
2.0 GENERALLY REFERS
TO WEB SITES
THAT EMPHASIZE
USER-GENERATED CONTENT,
INTERACTIVITY,
COLLABORATION
AND MASH-UPS
OF DATA AND
SERVICES.
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SMARTPHONE WARS
171 MILLION SOLD IN 2008
The Race to Sell 1 Million Units
72 Days
BlackBerry Storm
(available in U.S. and U.K. at launch)
61 Days
GADGETS!
G1 Android
(only available in U.S. at launch)
3 Days
iPhone 3G
(launched in 21 countries simultaneously)
74 Days
iPhone (original)
(only available in U.S. at launch)
NETBOOK GROWTH
56
11
%
%
participants want.
“LIFT is totally built by user-generated content,” Ball said. “It’s a kind of
un-conference.”
LIFT now draws some of the biggest
names in new technology and has seen
substantial growth. The conference had
more than 750 attendees in 2008, and has
expanded its annual lineup from its original Geneva show to include LIFT Asia in
Korea.
“In general, the Web 2.0 paradigm is
increasing attendee and user input on how
things are run and what is going to be said,”
Ball said.
But more immersive and interactive
software tools won’t be the only tech trend
defining 2009.
Netbook sales increase in the fourth
quarter 2008 versus the third quarter.
Percentage of U.S. computer
users using netbooks as the
primary computer.
Ubiquitous computing is on the rise thanks
to increasingly popular gadgets.
While iPhones dominated the news, a
new category of notebook known as netbooks outsold the iPhone in the third quarter of 2008—5.6 million to 4.7 million.
Companies had tried for years to convince consumers they wanted a small, ultraportable laptop, according to Boing Boing
Gadget’s Rob Beschizza, but companies
such as Sony stuffed them with the latest
and most expensive processors and memory, leaving sub-notebooks with a niche
audience.
But after Asus unveiled the Eee PC,
a stripped down laptop with a nine-inch
screen, not much memory and a workaday
processor, other laptop manufacturers came
out with their own. People flocked to the
Eee PC, which now costs as little as US$250.
With decreasing consumer sales demand,
netbooks can be found even cheaper than
that—the Acer Aspire One netbook sells for
US$99.99, with a two-year mobile broadband plan.
They are small and lightweight with
batteries that last a few hours. They sport
nearly full-size keyboards, connect to the
C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 8 6
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0409_067.indd 67
3/18/09 9:52:09 AM
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68
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g
Question:
Why does Event Marketing provide the greatest ROI?
Other 28%
In-Person Contact
(face to face) 72%
Key Take-away: 72% of respondents consider event
marketing to provide the greatest ROI because it includes
opportunities for in-person (face to face) contact.
mpiweb.org
EventView Feature 0409.indd 69
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Event Marketing Institute and marketing
firm George P. Johnson (GPJ). This figure is
up over the previous year’s survey results, in
which 21 percent of respondents cited event
Other 6%
Event
marketing as providing the greatest ROI.
Direct Mail 9%
Marketing
Looking at potential budget adjust47%
ments, a large percentage of respondents
Web Marketing
(31 percent) said they expect any budget
10%
increases this year to go toward event marketing. Yet, 37 percent believe that event
marketing will be the first marketing function to be hit by budget cuts.
Published annually since 2002, EventView
is the longest-running study of the
Public
Relations
event-marketing industry. Respondents
21%
are sourced from around the world, and
consist primarily of top-ranking marketing
Print Advertising
4%
Broadcast
Print Advertising
4%
Broadcast
executives at companies with US$250 milAdvertising
3%
Advertising
3%
lion to $5 billion in revenue. In the survey, everything from trade shows to road
Key Take-away: Event marketing is the overwhelming choice as
shows to sponsored concerts and intimate
the discipline that best accelerates and deepens relationships.
client meetings are classified as events.
While in the past the survey served
primarily as a way for marketing execuOne of the top reasons slightly compared to the prior fiscal year, tives and event planners to learn about the
quickly developing field of event marketand has not been cut so far.
executives say event
“Events are going to be critical for us ing, this year it provides valuable insight
marketing is so effec- in this economy, both in terms of reaching into how the event industry will weather
out to new customers and deepening rela- the economic recession.
tive is because it brings tionships with our core franchise,” said
“We wanted to give voice to the value
of
event
and experience marketing, and we
Andrews,
who
manages
a
budget
worth
customers and compahundreds of millions of dollars within IBM’s thought the best way to do that was to surnies face-to-face. And marketing department and dedicates up to vey senior sales and marketing executives,”
that, in turn, helps foster 40 percent of it to event-driven marketing said David Rich, senior vice president of
each year. “Events are a critical aspect of worldwide strategic marketing at George
relationships more effec- face-to-face marketing. They enable us to P. Johnson. Today, the purpose of the surtively than any other connect our salesforce with our customers vey is a little more acute. “When marketand help us better understand their needs ing budgets are under fire and when people
form of interaction. and explain our products.”
without data are left to make assumptions,
The good news is that Andrews is not understanding the role of meetings and
alone: A growing number of top-level events in the marketing mix is absolutely
executives at the world’s largest compa- critical.”
nies believe that using events to market
their products is one of the most effective Face-to-Face Value
forms of marketing out there and expect The top reason (72 percent) executives say
any potential marketing budget increases event marketing is so effective is because
this year to go toward events.
it brings customers and companies face-toTwenty five percent of marketing man- face. And that, in turn, helps foster relaagers said event marketing provides the tionships more effectively than any other
greatest ROI, according to preliminary form of interaction.
findings from the EventView 2009 sur“It’s like dating,” said Kerry Smith,
vey, published by the MPI Foundation, the executive director of the Event Marketing
Question: Of these marketing elements, which would you say
is best for accelerating and deepening relationships?
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Institute. “Face-to-face is the most efficient
way to create and deepen relationships
with people.”
The numbers concur: 47 percent of
those surveyed said that event marketing is
the marketing discipline that best accelerates and deepens relationships, trailed by
a wide margin by public relations at 21
percent.
For companies that sell complicated
and expensive products, such face-to-face
meetings are especially crucial.
“The nature and cost of what we sell
lends itself more to face-to-face interactions,” said Nancy Neipp, senior director
of global event marketing at Cisco Systems, who heads a division that covers all
meetings between Cisco and its customers,
prospective customers, analysts and journalists. “For the most part, the people who
buy our products are technical decision
makers. These are not the type of people
you can entice over TV or print with some
flashy ads. These are people who want to
dig in, ask questions and put their hands
on the products.”
Face-to-face meetings
Experience Marketing
consumer product or ser-
But face-to-face meetings also work wonders for consumer product or service companies trying to build brand loyalty. Many
of these companies refer to “event marketing” as “experience marketing,” because
the events allow prospective customers to
live and breathe the brand.
While GPJ was one of the first companies to insist that offering an “experience”
to consumers is the most effective form
of marketing, the move toward experience marketing is beginning to take hold
as a major trend in the event marketing
industry.
“Experience marketing gives people an
unprecedented opportunity to look a brand
in the eye and decide how closely they
want to affiliate with that brand,” Rich
said. “What happens in print and broadcast is a statement of claims. In experience
also work wonders for
vice companies trying to
build brand loyalty. Many
of these companies refer
to “event marketing” as
“experience marketing,”
because the events allow
prospective customers
to live and breathe the
brand.
C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 8 8
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Reducing Spend,
GROWING
GREEN
B Y
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L E C O M P T E
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Moving toward a more
comprehensive carbonmanagement strategy.
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Last year was the time of all things green
at the Consumer Electronics Association’s
International Consumer Electronics Show
(CES): Exhibitors used recycled or environmentally preferable materials, the program featured green technology tracks and
organizers boasted that trade show attendance consolidated as many as 11 separate
meetings into one trip. But the biggest,
greenest news of the year was that the
Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)
darker, CEA opted to entirely forgo its
carbon-offset purchases, choosing instead
to spend its green investment cash on longterm carbon management strategies.
“There was a feeling here at CEA that,
given the current economy, a better strategy would be to look for ways to reduce
carbon emissions first,” said Jennifer
Bemisderfer of CEA earlier this year.
It’s an approach that more and more
companies and event planners are starting
to evaluate, especially as
budgets shrink. The
economy has put a
crimp in the travel
budgets of many
potential attendees,
and planners are
responding by curtailing unnecessary
expenses. For many
groups, green initiatives are one potential casualty. A shift
toward long-term planning and a reduced focus on carbon offsets
could be just what the doctor ordered for
planners who want to keep their eye on
the environment while reducing costs and
boosting meeting profiles.
Over time, it seems likely
that more offset marketers
will get into the event
carbon-footprint
consulting business.
also spent US$110,000 to offset 20,000
tons of carbon emissions associated with
this, the world’s largest computer tech
show, through Carbonfund.org.
The purchase aimed to offset the carbon
emissions associated with exhibit space
and hotel rooms at the conference, as well
as emissions from the show’s shuttle buses
and freight. But the CES green agenda
turned out to be somewhat lackluster. One
media report estimated that, if attendee
travel was included, 20,000 pounds of
carbon represented just 15 percent of the
show’s total emissions, and Consumer
Reports panned many of the exhibitors’
green offerings as a light improvement
over previous years.
In 2009, CEA decided to pursue an
alternative strategy: a full carbon footprint
analysis, conducted by San Francisco-based
startup Planet Metrics. For the 2009 CES
conference in Las Vegas, CEA decided carbon offsets needed to be part of a far more
comprehensive emissions reduction program. And, as the economic climate turned
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TAKING STOCK
Part of the reason carbon offsets have been
a popular option for event planners is that
they’re easy—even for events that haven’t had
a strong environmental focus in the past.
Still, some event planners are redirecting funds that they once would have spent
on carbon offsets toward more detailed
analysis and longer-term carbon reduction
strategies. While offset providers might
cringe at the impact of such a shift on their
business, most say they prefer to work with
clients who put emissions reduction first.
“Efficiency and reduction is paramount,” said Stephanie Berner, senior
manager of climate and energy services
for carbon offset provider 3Degrees Inc.
“That’s very important to all of us.”
Carina Bauer, marketing and operations
director for Regents Exhibitions Ltd., the
U.K.-based host of IMEX, says cost is an
issue with most environmental initiatives,
and working with a partner to help identify big-impact issues can help manage carbon management costs in the long run.
“It can be a minefield,” she said of analyzing the IMEX carbon footprint. “There
can be so much to look at, you don’t know
where to start and where to stop.”
Partners well versed in carbon assessment and management can suggest priority
areas and help find cost-effective strategies
that have substantial impacts on an event’s
carbon bottom line as well.
Like CEA, IMEX has opted to do a deep
dive on its carbon footprint, rather than
pursuing carbon offsets for emissions associated with its operational and programmatic decisions. In 2008, IMEX partnered
with the U.K.-based Carbon Consultancy
to provide a more rigorous, detailed carbon accounting strategy and to help identify opportunities for improvement.
Over time, it seems likely that more
offset marketers will get into the event carbon-footprint consulting business. While
3Degrees hasn’t yet had event clients seeking
more detailed footprint analysis, the company recently launched a carbon footprint
consulting business that aims to do just that.
And Planet Metrics says that, while events
won’t be a core market going forward, it’s
currently in discussions with meeting industry partners to offer services based on its
Rapid Carbon Assessment tool.
Not everyone is sold on the idea, however. The Cleantech Group, a Brighton,
Mich.-based company that provides media,
consulting services and events for investors
and entrepreneurs, plans five events each
year; two Cleantech Forums are held in
North America, one in Europe and two
in Asia. Each market presents different
opportunities and challenges for carbonconscious event planners.
Jeff Pinegar, events manager for the
Cleantech Group, does an internal carbon
audit for the organizations’ events and ties
specific initiatives to bottom-line benefits
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for the company—but a third-party audit
like those provided by Planet Metrics or
The Carbon Consultancy “isn’t in the
cards” for now.
“If I can find a way to equate that into
our bottom line, I think I could make a
much stronger case for it,” Pinegar said.
Unlike the work he does internally, a
third-party audit wouldn’t necessarily translate into higher profits or lower expenses.
“That’s a pretty obvious cost savings,
there,” he said. “I haven’t been able to
make that leap yet into how that would
translate to more revenue.”
It’s a fair point. Depending on the provider, such consulting services can cost a
pretty penny compared with run-of-themill offsets and internal emission-reduction strategies, particularly for smaller
events. Planet Metrics says its services
could run $10,000 to $30,000 for a smallto-medium-sized event. While larger events
may have the budget to accommodate such
a hefty charge, smaller events—like those
put on by Cleantech Group—may not see
enough ROI even over time.
LEADING THE CHARGE
For the smaller organizations, implementing
green conference practices without the thirdparty analysis may be the way to go. Despite
their different perspectives on third-party
partners, both IMEX’s Bauer and Cleantech
Group’s Pinegar say they do a lot of brainstorming about how their events impact the
environment, globally and locally, and about
ways to lessen that impact.
For IMEX, an annual event held in
Frankfurt, Germany, Bauer says she works
to grow the low-carbon claims of her conference over time.
“We talk to the venue every year and
say, what can we do this year?” she said.
“We get lots of ideas on the table and see
what’s possible.”
Small efforts that started internally may
be rolled out to exhibitors or attendees,
expanding the impact of an initiative that
worked well previously.
Pinegar points out that event planners
working in less developed regions may
have greater opportunities to influence
their partner hotel’s environmental practices—in both the short and long run—
because they’re starting from scratch. For
instance, he says venue options are limited
in India and groups have to basically take
what they can get.
If a venue doesn’t have the environmental programs in place that you might like,
“you try and step up your efforts as much
as possible.”
It’s a useful thing
to consider, even in
more-developed settings. Events that
take a long-term
approach to managing
greenhouse
gas emissions may
have opportunities
to work with vendor
partners in inventive ways. Carbon mitigation isn’t something that an event planner
can tackle alone—the volume of greenhouse gases emitted depends on the entire
chain of suppliers and vendors involved
with putting together an event.
Currently, the Cleantech Group focuses
exclusively on environmental practices for
its own events. They range from the standard green conference activities—substituting pitchers for bottled water, ensuring that
the hotel offers reduced laundry services to
conserve water and energy—to more complex options that involve suppliers and
strategic planning, such as encouraging
use of locally sourced food and beverages,
reusable signage on environmentally preferable materials and more. While Pinegar
says he’s not been focused on carbon management, most of the choices he’s made
have carbon benefits, both for the event
itself and along its supply chain.
Pinegar says he’s also considered ways to
use the company’s conferences as consulting opportunities. The Cleantech Group
already offers a program called “Cleantech
Accelerator,” which helps companies find
suppliers with environmentally preferable
products and practices. It’s a for-profit
program, but Pinegar says he’s interested
in finding ways to offer similar support
to event venues where Cleantech Forums
are held, ensuring that any environmental
practices adopted for the event were part
of a longer-term shift towards green hotel
management at the venue.
COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT
Looking beyond the venue itself, many
At the local level, nonprofits
are engaged in raising funds
to help weatherize homes
and other buildings.
events, particularly in a time of economic
hardship, are focused on providing positive benefits to local communities. Carbon
offset providers, despite their best efforts,
typically aren’t able to offer high-quality
carbon offsets from small, local projects.
When event planners purchase carbon offsets, they are sometimes given the option to
specify the source of those offsets, by geographic location and type of offset (wind,
solar, biomass, geothermal, small hydro,
forestry). However, most of the available
projects are large-scale renewable energy
projects far from the local communities in
which events are held.
For planners hoping to localize their
carbon footprint reduction activities, those
projects may have limited appeal. But
Berner says 3Degrees hasn’t purchased
credits from any small-scale offset projects,
in part because large-scale projects offer
more tangible accreditation than community-based projects.
“That’s not to say that we haven’t
looked very hard,” she’s quick to point out.
“But the challenge is finding a reasonable
C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 9 0
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RT
BE
UL
H
I
M
O
A
N
BY
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n Jan. 12, Kaj Arnö received an unexpected lesson in international relations and the power of blogging.
It was the eve of the 10th annual
Linux.conf.au, a weeklong technical conference among the largest of
its kind in the world—this year scheduled to take place
in Hobart, the capital city of Australia’s island state of
Tasmania—and Arnö and his Sun Microsystems colleagues looked forward to the gathering. That is, until
one of them was denied an entry visa.
This had never been a problem before,
and Arnö—vice president of database
community for Sun Microsystems based
in Munich, Germany—speculated that
the reason his colleague had been refused
entry to Australia was because they were
seen by the Australian government to be
competing unfairly with local businesses.
Frustrated, Arnö posted a blog titled
“On Open Source and Open Competition in a not-so-Open World,”
voicing his belief that unfair competition was behind the visa refusal, and
lamented that this work was frequently
hampered by international legislation.
The blog inspired a barrage of protests—
more than 50 comments on his blog,
including one direct from Australian
immigration authorities (explaining the
rejected applicant’s options). The incident
caught the attention of media worldwide
and culminated in Arnö posting something of a retraction.
But for the planners and would-be
delegates of Linux.conf.au, the damage
was already done. Before the conference
had even started, negative stories were
streaming across the world about border
control, business competition laws and
international access to the Linux.conf.au
conference. At least one delegate, according to Arnö, was issued a visa in August
but feared it would be revoked so “did
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not dare go try his luck.”
“By now,” Arnö said a few days after
his initial post, “Linux.conf.au is so close
that we can’t appeal this. Flights have had
to be cancelled, and are now either full
or horrendously expensive. So the harm
has been done (for whatever the reason
may be) and Sun…won’t be represented
at Linux.conf.au at the level originally
intended. Some of us will still come,
though.”
Barrriers an
nd Bo
order Contrrol
Planning an international event is fraught
with complications. It is not always easy
to navigate complex bureaucratic mazes,
and these challenges heighten if you are
planning the event in a foreign country.
Visa applications, for example, are frequently tricky. According to a 2007 report
by Linda Costelloe Baker, U.K. Independent Monitor for Entry Clearance, many
people wishing to enter the United Kingdom on tourist visas are being refused for
“ridiculous” reasons, such as they have
never undertaken foreign travel in the
past or do not speak English.
Then there are the local customs to
decipher on behalf of delegates. Souvenir shopping has its limits in Myanmar;
exports of antiques are prohibited. In the
United Arab Emirates, visitors should be
especially careful if traveling with their
partners, as there have been recent arrests
for kissing and other public displays of
affection. Hotels can help in this regard—
late last year the popular Madinat Jumeirah hotel began offering etiquette guides
to guests.
Often, the legislative obstacles to meeting planning are unintentional byproducts
of other important issues. The current
tight visa conditions for entry into the
U.S., for example, were implemented for
important national security reasons. But
International Congress and Convention
Association (ICCA) CEO Martin Sirk
says they are causing problems for international meeting planners and attendees.
“Associations and planners cannot be
certain that all their legitimate delegates
will be able to obtain visas in time to
attend a congress if it is held in the U.S.,”
Sirk said.
Igno
orance,, Not Obstrructio
on
In our increasingly open-source world,
growing numbers of association congresses and exhibitions attract international delegates and seek global destinations. So it is important that we learn
from these experiences and work with
destination governments to plan any
overseas events.
Which begs the question, how do
professional meeting planners work
with overseas governments to avoid the
bureaucratic pitfalls and plan successful
international events?
According to Sirk, they don’t, and that
goes a long way toward explaining the
root of the problem. While governments’
entry, customs and taxation policies have
far-reaching implications on the success of
events, Sirk says they rarely involve themselves in the logistics of hosting international conferences on their soil.
“It is rare for governments to be
‘hands-on’ or for their policies to be
directed specifically at the needs of the
meeting industry,” he said. “Visa and customs-related policies will affect the meeting industry, but they are not designed for
our industry’s needs.”
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Sirk believes this stems more from
many governments’ ignorance of the
value of the global meeting and event
industry to their countries—and of the
problems their policies are causing—than
deliberate obstruction.
“Our industry can be extremely valuable to governments in terms of direct
expenditure and the impact on areas like
education, trade development, medical
research and scientific advancement,” he
said. “But we still have a long way to go
before we appear on the political radars
of many countries.
“Visa costs and hassles, airport taxes
and security delays have increased in quite
a few countries around the world. It is a
worrying issue, but it is our responsibility as meeting professionals to constantly
remind legislators of the unintended
impact of their policies on our business.”
links to the embassies and explaining the
visa application procedures. And if a visa
application is not absolutely clear, the
Austrian government asks the relevant
embassies to contact either the bureau or
the meeting planner directly, to help with
the process.
But the point Mutschlechner is making
is that while some bureaucratic support is
available, the meeting industry in Vienna
has to take its chances with the legislation
that exists alongside all the other industries in the city. Business events in Vienna
can expect no special treatment.
If your city is among the most popular
business event destinations in the world,
there is probably little need for you to
convention visitors to the country that
year.
It is surely no coincidence that in 2004,
the Mexico Congress authorized radical
changes to its taxation laws that made it
possible for business meeting delegates in
Mexico to access significant savings.
The Mexican government abolished
value-added tax on international meetings-related business, a strategic move
specifically designed to boost international congress business in Mexico. Not
long after that, the same government
introduced tax-free shopping for attendees and their spouses, bringing Mexico
into line with other forward-thinking destinations, such as the European Union.
VISA APPLIC
CATIIONS
S ARE FREQUE
ENTL
LY TRICKY
Y.
No Speciall Trrea
atmen
nt
The top city in the world for international
meetings, according to the latest available
ICCA rankings, is Vienna, Austria. Vienna
has topped the ICCA list for playing host
to the greatest number of international
meetings for the past three years. But the
local government gives its business events
industry no special treatment.
“There is nothing like tax breaks, help
at customs or visa assistance,” said Christian Mutschlechner, a spokesperson for
the Vienna Convention Bureau. “There is
the general view that meetings are businesses like many others.”
That’s not to say the federal government in Austria doesn’t support the meeting industry. Mutschlechner says the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Austrian
embassies worldwide work closely with
the Vienna Convention Bureau to provide
logistical support for meeting planners,
particularly to ease the visa application
process.
They pass information about important meetings from the bureau to relevant
embassies throughout the year. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs maintains a Web
site for meeting planners, providing direct
According to a 200
07 repo
ort by Linda Costellloe Ba
aker,
U.K. Indepe
endent Monitor for Entry Clearan
nce, many
people wisshing to enter the Unitted Kiingdom
m on tourist visas arre being refused
d for “rridicullous” reason
ns.
provide additional incentives to attract
international meetings.
On the other hand, this gives governments in less-accessible or less-popular
meeting destinations all the more reason
to build innovative and powerful incentives to entice major international congresses to their shores. And that’s great
news for meeting planners.
Watch for the 2008 International Congress
and Convention Association ranking of top
worldwide meeting destinations soon at
www.iccaworld.com.
Gove
ern
nme
ent on
n Boarrd
Take Mexico, for example. In 2003, the
country ranked 27th on the ICCA’s international conventions list. Just three years
later in 2006 it had catapulted nine places
to 18, making it into the coveted Top 20
and more than tripling the number of
C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 9 1
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Happy Days are
Interest rates stay low again
It’s a buyer’s market once again
Happy days are here again.
BY
JESSIE
S TAT E S
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Here Again
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E
bby Halliday cuts a regal frame behind her cluttered and papered
wood desk, her black and white scarf tucked precisely into her pinstriped suit, her thick, coconut hair put up just so.
Behind her, shelves and cubbies wear the
secrets of her life: a box of White Cloverine
Salve, a ukulele from her late husband, books
and letters, dozens of photos. She leans forward when she speaks, slow and eloquent,
each word crisp and almost a whisper, as if
what she says is just between us.
I have seen Halliday captivate an audience despite her size (she can’t be more than
five feet tall). She plays her ukulele for the
crowds, strumming her favorite song—one
she has used to introduce some of the state’s
most glorious modern heroes at Texas Association of Business (TAB) meetings.
TAB honors an honorable Texan
His name is H. Ross Perot
Who has done so much for so many
He might’ve even won the Alamo
But look at me, carrying on as if she needs
no introduction. Meet Ebby Halliday, 98,
the first lady of Texas
real estate, who started
a one-person residential sales firm in 1945
and now oversees an
empire of more than
1,600 sales associates in
30 offices serving more
than 12,000 square
miles. Do not underestimate what Halliday can
teach meeting professionals about business
longevity and surviving uncertain economic
times—after all, her
sales career has withstood the stagflation of
the 1970s, the savings and loan crisis of the
1980s and the dotcom boom and bust of the
turning century…not to mention the Great
Depression.
MAKE THE SALE
Halliday’s sales acumen traces to 1922, when
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she was known as Vera Lucille (Ebby) Koch,
a clever girl living on her stepfather’s Gypsum, Kan., farm. When wheat prices fell to
less than a dollar a bushel, she began selling
cloverine salve to friends and neighbors to
supplement the family’s income.
Halliday recalls farmers piling parched
stalks on the road, waiting for them to blow
away and leaving the plains for the allure of
California. She learned early to meet difficulties head-on—“as long as you have your
health, all else can be handled.” She also
learned how to watch overhead and covet
repeat business
In 1925, Halliday moved to Chapman,
Kan., to attend high school and later transferred to Abilene, Kan., where she took on
a job as a sales clerk at the J.B. Case & Co.
department store. She was 16 and alone, balancing classes and business. Her assertiveness
and ambition did not
go unnoticed, but by
1931 the population
was broke, sales were
scant and Halliday
was told to move on.
A superior knowledge of ladies hats
landed her a position
in Kansas City, Mo., at
The Jones Store’s hat
department, owned
and managed by Consolidated Millinery—
a company to which
she would remain
loyal for years, transferring to Nebraska in
1934 and to Dallas in 1937. After six years
at the W.A. Green Department Store, Halliday and hat maker Pearl Kemendo founded
Ebby’s Hats, and no stylish Dallasite could
possibly do without at least one of the boutique’s original designs.
Halliday’s favorite customer was Virginia
Murchison, whose husband, Clint, was an
oil magnate with heavy real estate investments just north of Dallas. In 1944, he began
building homes on the land, but no one was
buying. Halliday could see why. The cement
houses were stark and severe: no paint, no
drapes, no carpet. The lawns weren’t even
sowed. She told Murchison what the problem was; he asked her to sell his homes.
Halliday leans back and smiles, perhaps
remembering that long-ago moment. Then
again, I have worn a hat today to impress her.
I think she must be impressed. She reaches
out and gingerly takes my hand in hers; it’s
time for a secret. The only way to be successful, she says, is through service: service to
your clients, service to your community and
service to your industry.
LEND A HAND
Dorothy Killebrew’s husband died in 1963.
Nearly 40 years old and with no job skills,
she was left to support six children alone.
A friend encouraged her to meet with Ebby
Halliday, who took one look at Killebrew
and saw something she liked. She hired the
widow at first meet and offered to train her.
Years later, Killebrew sent a heart-wrenching
letter to her mentor.
“You taught me humanity in the workplace, kindness and empathy. I saw for myself
that compassion and fulfillment were core
business ideals and the outcome of a job well
done. You modeled humor, and when events
conspired against me, I learned to take the
day’s happenings with a grain of salt.”
Such stories are not uncommon; after all,
Halliday has been in business for more than
63 years.
“We have been in a position to help a lot
of people,” Halliday says as if it’s really no big
deal. “My late husband Maurice always said
to do something for someone every day. That
applies to my life and my business. Every sale
is done with great knowledge and feeling.”
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Ebby’s Recipe for a Meaningful Life
1. Maintain your health. With health all
things are possible.
2. Keep learning. Go to college, take
special courses, listen, read, observe
and participate.
3. Choose a career wisely. Try something
that makes economic sense, but is
something you enjoy.
make good eye contact and show
genuine interest in their needs.
6. Create good business habits.
7. Observe company policies. Know and
understand company objectives. Be
prompt. Keep a positive attitude.
East Africa to build a hospital for refugees,
the Ebby Builder Services Division donates
thousands of dollars to children in need.
Just last year, the McKinney (Texas) office
raised US$5,100 so that 7-year-old Jordan
Johnson could go to Walt Disney World
through the Make-A-Wish Foundation,
which benefits children with life-threatening
illnesses. Halliday herself has been depicted
as a fairy godmother in a Make-A-Wish ad.
“The need is there, as is the recognition of
that need and the ability and desire to help,”
Halliday says and pulls close. Here it comes.
“I must add, it is good business. You have
no idea the wonderful reputation a company can gain because it contributes to the
community.”
8. Express gratitude by thanking people.
KNOW THY INDUSTRY
4. Learn to communicate. Lead group
discussions and preside at committee
meetings.
9. Contribute to your community. Choose
one or two outside interests, a service
club, a nonprofit organization or a
sport and get involved.
5. Build your self-confidence. People are
impressed by what they see, what they
hear and what they feel in your presence. Dress appropriately and be well
groomed at all times. Focus on clients,
10. Choose your partner carefully. List
your general criteria for a life-long
partner, and then take your time finding that person.
When Halliday smiles, her eyes sing warmth
and wisdom. She shares her story and the
knowledge it brings openly; she doesn’t know
how precious it is. She tells me that her dedication to the real estate industry has led to
her success. It has certainly kept her on the
road. Halliday has spoken to thousands (yes,
thousands) of real estate boards, describing
her career’s momentum, sharing new technologies and encouraging audience members
to get involved.
She speaks from experience. Halliday has
been an ardent supporter of the National
Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB)
and the National Association of Realtors
since the late 1940s. She chartered and served
as inaugural president for the Dallas NAREB
Women’s Council in 1954 and served as the
council’s national president in 1957. She lobbied for and won the 1960 NAREB annual
convention for Dallas and served as chairwoman of the event committee. In 1961,
she accepted a three-year directorship for the
American Chapter of the International Real
Estate Federation.
And she has always spoken of the
But it’s not all cerebral. A woman called
Halliday’s office several years ago complaining of arthritis pains. “Ebby, I need a soft
mattress,” she cried. Halliday sent her a
mattress.
“You are very good to your clients,” I say
to her, laughing until she tells me the woman
wasn’t a client. She was just a lady who
needed a mattress.
Halliday takes her commitment to the
community as seriously as she does her commitments to business and family. Her company’s offices choose annual fundraising
projects for nonprofit United Way. Halliday
herself dedicates money and time to Happy
Hill Farm, an academy and home for disadvantaged youths. Several years back, she single-handedly financed the institution’s library.
The list of community organizations that have
benefited from Halliday’s generosity numbers
no less than 125—from the Dallas Symphony
Orchestra to the St. Paul Medical Center to
the Dallas Independent School District.
And her devotion to the community is
addictive. The pages of her company’s quarterly newsletter are filled with stories of community service: associate Patricia Massey
participates in a race benefitting the Suicide
and Crisis Center of Dallas, associate Colin
Lardner travels to the Republic of Burundi in
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empowerment of women, not just in real
estate, but in business and industry—which
hasn’t always been a popular stance. At a
conference in Indianapolis years ago, she
asked a fellow attendee if he was enjoying
the presentations. He told her everything had
been swell, but that the evening’s speaker
would be a woman.
“I just had such a wonderful time at the
podium watching him as he slid under the
table,” Halliday recalls.
But supporting the industry doesn’t just
mean volunteering on local, national or
even international levels, she insists. It means
cooperating with competing companies for
the good of all. Halliday tells of a Kansas
farmer who raises corn and always wins the
blue ribbon at the county fair, only to share
the prize seed with his neighbors. One day, a
friend asks him why he shares his seed, is he
not afraid someone will snatch his prize? The
farmer answers, “I do it because the wind
carries pollen, and unless your corn is of
good quality, it will blow into my fields and
contaminate my crop.”
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Halliday says agencies must share the
seeds of good business practices and mutual
aid. She good-naturedly refers to her competitors as “collaborators,” and points out that
50 percent of her company’s transactions are
cooperative sales between her agents and the
agents of other companies.
She has a story (as she is wont to have).
Charles N. Chadbourn, an early 1900s
residential salesman in Minneapolis, was
appalled by news reports that a widow had
been swindled in a real estate deal. In 1916,
he devised the Realtor® designation, identifying real estate professionals who subscribe to
the national association’s code of ethics. Ethics, Halliday says, sets Realtors apart from
curbstone operators.
“Agents should never badmouth each
other,” Halliday says. “It’s just not good for
the industry, because we are all certified as
ethical and knowledgeable and fair.”
lips purse and her cheeks flush. Dishonesty,
she says, is an unforgivable character flaw.
She recalls the days of the Resolution Trust
Corp., which liquidated the assets of defunct
financial institutions during the fallout of the
savings and loan crisis. Dallas office buildings were selling for 50 cents on the dollar,
she says. Seller and secondary financing were
exceedingly popular—albeit buyer risky—
sales tools.
Halliday wanted none of it.
“We funded our own mortgage company,
assuring our agents of honest financing, and
we have never done any subprime lending,”
she says passionately. “All you have to do is
read the newspapers and look at what happens to people who are not honest. A home
is oftentimes a person’s one major financial
investment. It takes a person of honesty
and industry and knowledge to handle that
properly.”
But honesty is not enough. You have
to know your clients, Halliday says introPUT CLIENTS FIRST
I ask how ethics and honesty fit into her busi- spectively. You must not just show interest,
ness policies. Halliday shakes her head, her but be interested, in their needs, wants and
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desires. Clients aren’t stupid. They intuit your
involvement.
Years ago, a family working with Halliday’s relocation department based its move
on whether or not the children could get on
a baseball team. So, Halliday did what any
good saleswoman does—she made it happen,
organizing a little league team with the slogan, “We’re big on little folks.”
“I went to Texas Instruments years later
to solicit its relocation business,” she recalls,
smiling. “The head of the department had
once been our third baseman. You can bet
we got the account.”
RECOGNIZE GREATNESS
Above all, Halliday says, acquire good people, promote from within and honor your
associates. She teaches by example. June
Feltman, vice president of projects, enlisted
as a sales agent 35 years ago. Mary Frances
Burleson joined the team part time in 1958
for $2.50 an hour. Now she is the company’s
president. Last year, Ebby created an alumni
group, so that her former agents can retain
their licenses and receive referral fees for any
business they direct to the company.
Halliday refers to her organization as
the Home Team, and is quick to praise and
recognize greatness from within the company. The quarterly Scoreboard newsletter
highlights top producers, offices and award
winners, but also honors associate weddings,
anniversaries and birthdays.
In 1992, she gave 49 percent of her company to her employees. I ask her why. “We do
it because they earn it,” she shrugs, as if every
corporation operates this way.
Halliday also understands the importance
of equipping her staff and associates with
the tools they need to succeed. In 1953, she
participated in the first cooperative Multiple
Listing Service (MLS) transaction in Dallas.
She was also the first area agency to install
a computer modem and teletype machine.
Even today, Halliday is working to embrace
technology as it arrives, recently updating
Ebby.com with Google maps. The features
on the Web site are free and include all local
MLS listings, so clients can search homes
offered by any agency in the area, not just
hers.
“We put the bottom line into the tools to
help our agents list and sell properties,” Halliday says. “That is the difference between
having a private and a public company. We
make our own decisions here. Technology
helps us retain and recruit agents.”
But Halliday’s real message to her associates is simple: please your clients.
“We don’t sell properties,” she says. “We
present ones that fit the needs and the emotions of our customers, and that’s why we are
a success.”
She won’t let me leave without a song,
though she leaves her ukulele on the shelf.
Her voice is strong but quiet and she grins
widely before she begins.
Happy days are here again
Interest rates stay low again
It’s a buyer’s market once again
Happy days are here again.
JESSIE STATES is assistant editor of One+.
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C O N T I N U E D F R O M PA G E 6 6
Internet via Wi-Fi and run Windows XP or
Linux on 1GB of memory. Most are lighter
than Apple’s famed MacBook Air, and can
be carried in a backpack or purse.
Netbooks dominated the top selling laptops on Amazon.com in 2008, and at the
end of the year occupied every spot in the
top 10, except for No. 7—that belonged to
the MacBook.
“They are cheap enough that you don’t
worry about breaking them and you can get
a half day of work out of the battery,” Beschizza said. “The idea of having a laptop
with you everywhere you go finally makes
sense with netbooks.”
That’s even more true in Europe where
cellular carriers are in price wars over 3G
USB dongles which come standard on cheap
Euro netbooks such as the Eee PC Go.
Expect this to mean that more and more
event and meeting attendees will be at events
with full-functioning laptops, participating
in back-channel conversations, looking up
information on Wikipedia in the middle of
presentations and having access to the conference’s Web site—and expecting updated
information at all times.
Of course, the other real story in the
ongoing gadgetry revolution is next-gen
mobile phones, the iPhone and phones using
the Android operating system. The former
put smartphones in the pockets of millions
of non-executives, while the latter promises
to create a universal operating system that
will let handset makers create an explosion
of smart phones.
John McConahy, a technology consultant for the meeting and event industry and
president of Ontario, Canada-based Imagination Plus Inc., says the new devices are
so powerful that event planners need to
take the new wave of mobile devices into
account for any event.
About 10 years ago, McConahy was
teaching an industry tech course—mostly
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teaching planners how to use Microsoft
products. A long-time Trekkie, McConahy
says he started envisioning Star Trek scenarios for the future.
“I went on this whole diatribe, telling
them that someday they would be able to
pull out a mobile phone from their pocket
and find their friends, etcetera,” McConahy said. “They are all available today, but
back then everyone thought I was out in left
field.”
Meeting U’s Spellos says planners need
to take advantage of phones running on 3G
data connections
“You will start to see unique apps that
are downloadable when event attendees get
TWITTER QUICKLY
BECAME THE BACKCHANNEL COMMUNICATION METHOD OF
CHOICE FOR TECH
CONFERENCES, LETTING AUDIENCE MEMBERS QUICKLY SHARE
THEIR THOUGHTS AND
SNARK WITH EACH
OTHER AND EVEN
THOSE ON STAGE.
to the hotel,” Spellos said.
As a template he points to Hotel Evolution, a downloadable iPhone app created by
RunTriz.com.
The stunningly clever and obvious application lets hotel users order room service,
find nearby restaurants, contact the concierge and schedule room cleaning.
Corbin Ball says he knew something had
changed when he was walking in Barcelona in December and saw a construction
worker put down his jackhammer and pull
out an iPhone.
“The iPhone made it cool to carry
around a smartphone,” Ball said. “It’s not
just business people using these phones,
but there’s a big hole at events. You can get
all sorts of feedback from rich Web pages,
and attendees have all sorts of tools in their
pockets.”
Smartphones also played a key role in
the explosion of the micro-communication
service Twitter, since they allowed people to
quickly publish, search for and read short
notes online.
In December, Nathan Torkington began
getting more Twitter subscribers every three
days than he did in the entire month of January 2008.
“2008 was definitely the year of Twitter,” Torkington said. “Twitter feels very
much like blogging did in its infancy—
exciting, rapid uptake, lots of exposure to
interesting voices.”
Elizabeth Churchill notes that Twitter is
applied to all sorts of uses.
“Twitter has been used to disseminate
information in disasters and for citizen
journalism in situations such as the Mumbai attacks, as well as telling friends you are
about to take a shower,” Churchill said.
Twitter also quickly became the backchannel communication method of choice
for tech conferences, letting audience members quickly share their thoughts and snark
with each other and even those on stage.
As Spellos notes, back-channel conversations at tech conferences are nothing new,
but the persistence, ease and popularity of
Twitter promise to make the back channel
far more prominent and popular than ever
before.
“It’s a tool that event planners can’t
ignore,” Spellos said.
Event managers should harness Twitter
to their own advantage, using it to announce
room changes, hot topics and reminders.
“It really becomes your instant update
system to let people know what’s next,”
Spellos said.
Twitter has the smell of inevitability,
according to Corbin Ball.
“People are going to use these things
whether you like it or not,” Ball said. “Planners need to think about how to control it.
One way to harness it is to ask for polls,
which is one way to use it and not lose
control.”
Meeting planners are also likely going
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to turn to tools like Pathable to harness,
nurture and keep some control over cybersocial networking at events.
Pathable’s technology combines event
registration with social networking and
recommendations. The software lets event
goers tag themselves with their interests,
send messages to everyone who lists similar interests and even shows the profiles of
other attendees who you probably would
like to meet, based on shared interests.
These kinds of tools will grow even
more powerful when they allow people
to use identity management services such
as Facebook Connect and Google Friend
Connect to let people quickly populate an
event’s social network with the pictures and
interests they already have online.
At the end of an event, those same tools
also let attendees import their new contacts
quickly into their more permanent social
networks such as LinkedIn or Facebook.
Planners will also find themselves turning to collaborative online tools this year,
according to McConahy.
“The meeting and event industry will be
a much more collaborative process between
planner and supplier,” he said.
With online documents, negotiations
can happen simultaneously, letting a catering manager, sales manager, the sales director and the audiovisual crew collaboratively
edit a bid in real time.
Such software interactivity is going to
become even more common in 2009, as
companies turn from expensive, licensed
software to open-source and online software, thanks to the economic downturn,
according to Torkington.
“In the downturn, cloud computing and
open source are going to be big,” he said.
“Nobody has big budgets for software purchases and data center buildouts.”
Companies such as online office tool
provider Zoho and customer relations management software maker Salesforce.com
will steal customers from Microsoft Office
and Oracle, since a low monthly payment
looks hugely attractive compared to a company-wide, big-ticket upgrade, according to
Torkington.
It’s those cloud software tools—also
known as Software as a Service—that also
make it simple to simultaneously edit documents, share calendars and collaborate in
new ways.
THY TIME HAS COME
who says that being in one of the conference
rooms with huge panels on the wall makes
it feel like you are in the same room, even
when you are talking to a board of directors
located in five different cities.
Ball notes the idea of video conferencing as a replacement for meetings is not
new, but thinks there might be more adoption in 2009 in part because tech giants HP
and Cisco are investing heavily in the new
technology.
“The bandwidth and infrastructure are
there now,” Ball said. “You are going to see
more use of it, especially in this economic
downturn.”
Ball doesn’t think that video conferencing (however high-definition it is) or online
tools (however hip they might be) will
eclipse the power of people meeting in the
same physical space together, adding that
humans are social animals after all.
“Meetings are the original social media,”
Ball said.
This year may see videoconferencing take
off, though the technology always seems to
be perpetually on the cusp.
In the downturn, however, companies
may find that the latest generation of videoconferencing makes sense as a good enough
replacement for expensive travel.
Proctor and Gamble has already invested
significant sums into building videoconferencing rooms in order to cut down on travel
expenses for internal meetings.
Meanwhile, high-end hotels such as the
Taj chain have installed virtual boardrooms
that connect with other boardrooms. They
cost as little as US$300 or so per hour to
use, which can easily cost a company far less
than sending even a single person across the
globe for a two-hour meeting.
The high-definition quality of the video
RYAN SINGEL is a staff writer for Wired.
is quite amazing, according to McConahy, com.
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C O N T I N U E D F R O M P A G E 71
marketing, you can actually give people
an experience of the brand’s values and
attributes.”
In effect, he says, the events allow
potential consumers to experience how
their lives will be improved if they affiliate
themselves with a certain brand. A couple
of years ago, for example, GPJ helped Jeep
produce events for its “Trail Raider” campaign. While Jeep had been telling potential customers in print ads and television
commercials that Jeep cars drive well in
five kinds of terrain—ranging from deserts to swamps—the company wanted to
cement its claim as fact. So that year, the
company built two-mile paths outside all
of the major auto shows, recreating the
five terrain tracks.
“Instead of telling people that Jeep was
a trail raider, people could actually ride the
track themselves,” Rich said.
The events not only generated huge
buzz with hundreds of people lining up for
the rides, but it also created a noticeable
bump in sales.
Happy Returns
It’s such results that are converting a growing number of marketing and sales executives into event aficionados. While just 22
percent of companies’ marketing budgets
were spent on events in 2005, that figure is
now up to 27 percent.
This growing understanding of event
marketing’s value has led to a growing
awareness of the need to measure ROI,
and the financial pressures caused by the
recession have only accelerated this trend,
says Event Marketing Institute’s Smith.
“When times were good, companies
would hold an event because they always
have. But now companies are asking ‘What
is the ROI we’re getting?’” Smith said.
“We’re seeing a very strong movement
toward measuring the impact of events.”
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According to EventView, 67 percent of
respondents engage in some form of postevent ROI measurement, a figure consistent
with the previous year. More interestingly,
companies that measure post-event ROI
are nearly three times as likely to expect
an increase in their event marketing budgets than companies that don’t measure.
Respondents say they measure ROI for a
wide variety of reasons, ranging from justifying expenditure to improving attendee
experience to influencing procurement.
But because ROI is still an emerging
field, there is little consistency within companies in how they measure the efficacy of
events, let alone consistency across industries. Metrics also vary widely depending
on whether an event is meant to spark
sales, generate publicity or just educate
consumers. Another problem with measuring ROI is that it takes a long time—
sometimes years—to build up a meaningful comparison base.
“The difficulty of measuring is that you
can’t start measuring on Monday if you want
the results on Tuesday,” GPJ’s Rich said.
Companies are slowly beginning to take
a closer look at their measurement strategies. Like many other companies, Cisco
only started gauging event ROI 10 years
ago. For the most part, the company simply counted invitation response or attendance rates or surveyed attendees about
their expectations.
“Today, while we do measure consistently on a global basis, it’s a little bit of
‘every man for himself,’” Cisco’s Neipp
said. “While I might measure customer
satisfaction, someone else might measure
‘time online,’ and someone else might ask
‘Did you like the lunch we served you?’”
Now the company is trying to make
more qualitative assessments and over the
past year has put tremendous effort into
developing a better program. In the coming year, Cisco will launch a uniform event
measurement system across all business
lines and global regions in an effort to get a
better company-wide perspective of event
ROI. The project has been in the works for
five years.
“If we’re doing an event to drive
customer loyalty, it’s not enough for people
to just show up,” Neipp said. “We want
to know if we’re driving them down that
progression to get them to become a loyal
customer.”
Consistency, of course, is key to meaningful ROI measurement. But industry
leaders in event marketing are taking the
process one step further. They say that
events are almost pointless unless they are
designed to fulfill a particular strategic
objective. And in order to fulfill objectives,
event planners must measure very specific
results.
“Event marketers are doing a better
job at understanding up front why they
are doing an event and designing an event
that delivers on that,” Smith said. “If the
purpose of the event is to generate sales,
then you’d better set up an event that’s a
conduit for sales.”
Into the Future
Not surprisingly, the drive to prove ROI
has produced another pleasant side effect:
innovation. As event marketers experiment
with ways to produce better results, they
find it necessary to break obsolete barriers.
Many companies are experimenting with
new event formats, for example, or broadening the life of an event by focusing more
on pre- and post-event activities.
Companies known for technological
savvy in particular are feeling the push
toward creating richer experiences. IBM,
for one, has begun to experiment with
different forms of events, with a focus on
helping customers co-create the experience. Recently, the company has increased
its use of the unconference format, which
allows event attendees to pick the topics
they would like to discuss. The company
has also been holding more workshops or
interactive sessions in museums, say, as a
way to spark customer engagement and
responsiveness
“When customers feel they’ve had a
hand in shaping the agenda, they’re much
more likely to attend an event,” IBM’s
Andrews said. “Because as much as events
are a key driver of revenue, that only works
if you can get people there.”
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IBM has also been making a big effort
to involve potential customers in an ongoing conversation, in which a single event
is just part of the larger picture. Consequently, the company has increasingly been
promoting Web-based activities—such as
Webinars and podcasts—that relate to an
event, months before it takes place or even
months after it has ended.
“We find that if you really want to
ensure you’re going to have a full house,
you have to do some pre-event activities,”
Andrews said. “It begins the conversation,
gets people excited and knowledgeable and
gets the right people to come.”
After an event has taken place, IBM
follows up extensively, offering customers
everything from case studies, references,
technical support, white papers and even
specific purchase offers: anything that
will help a customer make a favorable
decision.
“Not everybody leaves an event and
signs on the dotted line,” Andrews said.
“This is a journey. It’s about progressing
an opportunity through the sales cycle.”
marketing strategy. As a result, successful
meeting planners must become strategic
players who understand a company’s business goals and help achieve them.
“When I joined Cisco, event marketing had a bad rep—they were known as
the party planners,” Neipp said. Now the
process has become more thoughtful as
the firm’s event marketers focus more on
which audience is being targeted by an
event and why. “It’s grown into more of a
science and less of an art.”
Event planners who can position themselves accordingly have a rare opportunity
to rise up the corporate food chain. Instead
of simply being viewed as logistical wizards
who can smoothly pull off complex events,
they are being welcomed to the decisionmaking table along with heads of marketing and advertising.
However, to make that transition, planners must be willing to show they can supply results.
“The last thing you want is to get a call
from above, saying that you’ll lose your
budget if you can’t prove how your department is contributing to the bottom line,”
Smith said.
And while this need for measuring ROI
is especially acute today, don’t expect it to
disappear any time soon.
“We’ve been asked to be more strategic, more clear about outcomes and more
accountable for back-end reporting,” Cisco’s Neipp said. “We will never go back to
the way we were before, and be permitted
to do anything less than measure and build
that into how we invest.”
DALIA FAHMY is a New York-based freelance business writer.
Download the complete
EventView 2009 report at
www.mpiweb.org.
What This Means For You
It’s interesting, that despite all the gloom
and doom that dominates headlines these
days, so much innovation is taking place
within the event marketing industry. If the
results of EventView 2009 are any indication, this year presents a rare opportunity for event planners to advance their
careers.
“Companies recognize the importance
of events,” Event Marketing Institute’s
Smith said. “Even though the marketing
pie might be getting smaller because companies are being really careful with their
pennies, event marketing still makes up 27
percent of their marketing spend.”
For event planners, all this leads to several conclusions. This is a good time for
planners to position themselves as strategic
partners.
Gone are the days when companies
could afford to hold conferences and trade
shows just for the sake of showing up.
These days, companies want to make sure
every event has a clear place within a wider
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In addition to the Solar 4R Schools
program, Martin says BEF can help partC O N T I N U E D F R O M P A G E 75
ners find existing projects that will provide
additional benefits—for example, creating
educational materials or an online monitoring system for a community-based solar
price point and a standard for quality.”
For event planners willing to forego project.
accreditation and formal offsets, there
may be additional opportunities to help SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL
finance, install or otherwise support local When it comes down to it, there are many
renewable energy projects (or otherwise opportunities for smaller events to spend
reduce carbon) in their host communities. money that they might have invested in
For now, it’s largely unexplored territory. carbon offsets on additional projects, even
One organization that has found ways to at a smaller scale—but they’re going to
incorporate local, renewable energy into take a little more work.
For a one-day event with just a few
its program is the American Solar Energy
hundred attendees, carbon offsets can cost
Society (ASES).
ASES has partnered with the Bonneville as little as $500, depending on how farEnvironmental Foundation’s (BEF) Solar flung the audience is. In that price range,
4R Schools program to offer solar instal- planners may be facing more modest budlation workshops and demonstrations as gets with which to explore carbon offset
part of its annual conference program on alternatives. Investing in local projects,
several occasions. In 2007, ASES’s Women with the help of nonprofits and community
in Solar group worked with Solar 4R partners, can stretch those dollars further.
Energy-efficiency projects are one
Schools and Cleveland-based solar installer
RePower Solutions to erect a solar-electric opportunity event planners utilize to
go beyond traditional offsets. Typically,
system at a high school.
While the project may not have offset energy-efficiency projects are challenging
the entire carbon footprint of the school, for offset providers. Because there’s typiMichele Martin, climate business group cally a strong ROI for large energy-effisales rep for BEF, says such projects have ciency projects, they usually don’t qualify
additional benefits that go beyond one-to- as credible offsets (which, by definition,
are projects that require additional fundone carbon accounting.
“There’s also the intrinsic value of ing to become feasible). But small-scale
reaching out to the community about the efficiency projects may be good candidates
for small-event organizers.
message of renewable energy,” she said.
Low-income home weatherization serFor ASES, the cost of the project fits
nicely into program expenses, as well as its vices are one example. Weatherization
programs help seal drafts; insulate doors,
solar market development mission.
Organizations such as BEF may be ideal windows and water heaters; and provide
partners for entrepreneurial event planners other energy-efficiency improvements to
willing to take on a lot of legwork to find help reduce the percentage of income that
interesting local opportunities. While BEF families spend on energy bills. In the U.S.,
offers a range of traditional carbon offsets, for example, homes spend about 5 perMartin says the organization is open to cent of monthly budgets on utilities; lowhelping partners develop or support other income families spend disproportionately
more—about 19.5 percent, according the
local activities.
“Depending upon the size and scope of U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
The DOE also reports that its weaththe event, we can put into play some kind
erization activities can cut heating bills by
of reinvestment opportunities.”
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about 32 percent ($358 per year). At the
community scale, DOE’s Weatherization
Assistance Program Technical Assistance
Center estimates that its programs have
a net energy benefit of $1.65 for every $1
spent. Donating money to the program can
have long-term impacts, both environmentally and economically.
At the local level, nonprofits may be
engaged in similar activities. While volunteer- and donation-driven programs don’t
provide the sort of thorough, contractorintensive insulation activities that federally
supported programs do, they provide other
benefits, and other opportunities for event
attendees to engage with the local community. Organizations such as Community
Energy Project, People Working Collaboratively and The Sustainability Institute all
accept monetary and time donations for
weatherization.
Weatherization is just one example,
however. In the U.S., national organizations such as the United Way can help
planners find unique local opportunities
to make community impacts with energy
or environmental benefits. Still, most planners who have been working on alternative
green ways to give back to host communities say it takes a little creativity and a little
awareness.
Cleantech Group’s Pinegar says he’s
constantly gathering inspiration and is
considering having Cleantech Forum
attendees bring old blue jeans for recycling into low-cost, non-toxic insulation.
The project would have two-fold carbon
benefits, in terms of both waste reduction
(denim that’s not discarded) and insulating
homes.
While it’s not likely that those benefits
would be easily quantified into an offsetlike number, its the kind of creative thinking that will best serve event planners who
want to provide cost-effective, carbon-conscious events for their attendees.
CELESTE LECOMPTE is a freelance
environmental business writer.
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C O N T I N U E D F R O M P A G E 79
The Mexico Tourism Board used this new
legislation at the forefront of its promotional
efforts, and if ICCA rankings are anything to
go by (and the vast majority in our industry
treat this list as the crème de la crème of destination success indicators), it worked.
Meeting planners quickly picked up on
the value of these initiatives and publicized
them in event advertising and press releases
as well as in their direct contacts with associations and delegates.
In Singapore, the meeting and event
industry enjoys a much closer relationship
and alignment with the nation’s overall business and economic agenda.
“One of the advantages of Singapore
being a small city-state is that the economic
development priorities of the government are
reflected in the structure and priorities of the
Singapore Exhibition and Convention Bureau
(SECB),” Sirk said. “Singapore is therefore
able to pull in government support when it
is bidding for international conventions that
are high on the strategic hit-list for inward
investment and trade development.”
The SECB is Singapore’s lead government
agency for the business events industry. It
assists meeting planners with comprehensive and, it insists, impartial information on
Singapore’s meeting and exhibition facilities,
incentive venues and industry partners.
This is invaluable to professional conference organizers (PCOs). Australia-based
PCO Tour Hosts, for example, handles highprofile business events all over the world but
singles out the Singapore government as one
of the most helpful destinations for planning
events.
“The Singapore Tourism Board is very
helpful in terms of sending out letters of invitation to delegates so that they can apply for
their visas,” said Rachel Walker, Tour Hosts’
business development and marketing manager. “As an Australian-based company planning an event in Singapore we are not able to
do that. This is one of the restrictions or laws
you face when you plan an event overseas.”
But well beyond visa assistance, the Singapore government gets involved in the physical
running of business events on its shores in a
much more innovative—and hands-on—way.
The SECB, for example, offers business event
coordinators, corporations and associations
customized financial support.
“In one of our events, they offered monetary value-per-delegate to raise the quality
level of the social functions,” Walker said.
“[They] also provided volunteers to help on
site at the meeting. With the monetary incentive program, the entire congress program
was enhanced, and this helped enormously. In
return, we put together a cultural dinner for
delegates which helped Singapore Tourism.”
In addition, the government also provided
more traditional assistance, helping Tour
Hosts with marketing, tourism information
and access to local venues and attractions.
Not as Bad ass it Appea
ared?
for delegates, understanding requirements
and time frames, notifying overseas offices of
event details, resolving visa application problems and providing bid support letters.
In addition, planners use Business Events
Australia for more traditional government
assistance, such as accessing appropriate
attractions and facilities.
The bottom line is that when an international meeting comes to town, the local
government pockets a tidy profit. The global
meeting and event industry is worth more
than US$122 billion annually, and host cities can generate millions of dollars from a
conference.
So it stands to reason that it is in a country’s best interests for its government to
smooth the path for meeting planners. And
while some governments may be a little slow
on the uptake, it’s likely that we can expect
more innovations to come.
“Most governments now recognize the
value of attracting international business
events to their countries and are increasingly
offering some very good packages as incentives,” Walker said.
Meanwhile, Ben Powell, one of the coorganizers of the now infamous Linux.conf.
au, says government policy in Australia
helped more than it hindered the conference.
“The IECN was quite helpful in providing letters of introduction for us and other
documentation, although the Department
of Immigration could have made its procedures a little clearer,” he conceded. “And the
Tasmanian government was exceptionally
helpful.”
And even Kaj Arnö, post-Linux.conf.au,
agrees.
“Australians are friendly,” he blogged
at the end of January. “I knew that already,
but getting a comment from the immigration
authorities on my blog … was a lot more
than I had expected.”
Even in Australia, target of the blog debacle,
meeting planners now have access to a heavy
toolbox of support, if only they know where
to look.
Joyce DiMascio, head of the business
arm of Tourism Australia and the statutory
authority of the Australian government, Business Events Australia, says a range of Australian government agencies get involved in
supporting business events.
This involvement can range from organizing group visa applications to working with
international media to promote the event
worldwide.
The Australian government’s Department
of Immigration and Citizenship maintains
an organization specifically designed to support business events. Called the International
Event Coordinator Network (IECN), the
service provides free advice and guidance on
visa requirements and actually facilitates the
visa application processing for international
travelers who are invited or registered to
speak at, perform in, compete in or attend an
event in Australia.
Meeting planners use the IECN service
NAOMI HULBERT is a freelance journalist
for help identifying the most appropriate visa and radio broadcaster.
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Meet Where?
S UB HEAD ?
When We Meet,
We Change the World
It’s time to be bold, take a stand and write our
own destiny. Join us in Salt Lake this July for
the 2009 World Education Congress as we
rally the industry and put the focus back on
the true nature of meetings—and change the
world once again.
Five Fun Facts about
Salt Lake City
• Salt Lake’s mountain range, the Wasatch
Mountains, stretches 160 miles from North
to South. It’s highest peak, Mount Nebo, has
an elevation of more than 11,800 feet.
• The Great Salt Lake is the largest remnant
of ancient Lake Bonneville. The Great Salt
Lake is second only to the Dead Sea in salt
content.
• Utah is the No. 1 per-capita consumer of
Jell-O brand gelatin. The dessert was recognized in 2001 as the “Official State Snack.”
• Temple Square, located in the heart of
downtown Salt Lake, is Utah’s most popular
tourist attraction with an average of 5
million visitors per year, and ranks No. 16
on Forbes’ list of the Top 25 Most Visited
Tourist Attractions in America.
• Salt Lake is a mecca for outdoor recreation:
30 golf courses, seven major ski resorts
and countless hiking and biking trails are
located within 35 minutes of downtown.
Utah is also home to 21 national parks and
monuments.
CONTEST!
UTAH ARTS FESTIVAL
Correctly identify this specific venue and its precise name, and
you could win a WEC 2009 prize package including a ticket
to Rendezvous, a suite upgrade and more. One winner will be
randomly selected from all eligible entries. Submit entries to
jhensel@mpiweb.org by May 1.
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