February 2010
Current Issue

On the Move

Today’s successful meetings and events incorporate five distinct mobilities, stretching well beyond simple physical travel.

By Elizabeth Henderson, CMM, CMP, M.E. Des.

Mobility—the ability to move—defines much of our present society, and without it, the traditional structure of meetings and events dissolves. In many countries, we take the freedom to move as a basic right, whether within our communities, our countries or across international borders. Destinations, convention centers, hotels and the other meetings infrastructure would no longer be important if people could not get there or if they thought they no longer needed to make the trip. There are alternatives to physical travel, of course—“hybrid meetings” is a term that is entering the vocabulary of many meeting professionals.

While meeting professionals may think of conferences and other business events as the simple travel of people to destinations and back, today’s conferences are much more complex than that. What may not be familiar is that researchers in the field of sociology—the field that encompasses meetings research—argue there are five distinct mobilities (see sidebar). Today, meetings and events involve all of these.

Network Capital Creation
Increasingly, business events are all about networks. Organizers might like to think that they are all about education, product launches or whatever the primary purpose is for which the organizers have created and delivered the event. But humans are social beings; the measure of their network is the measure of their personal and professional success. Networks are therefore one of the primary reasons for people to attend. The creation of network capital—the capacity of someone’s network to correct problems and to communicate effectively—is enhanced through face-to-face meetings, which serve to create or strengthen existing bonds.

This emphasis on network creation is already being felt in the industry. Jeff Hurt, director of education and events with the Dallas-based National Association of Dental Plans, wrote in October on his blog, Midcourse Corrections, that “spending dollars on content and connecting people creates success.” He goes on to recommend planners “put money toward helping people connect with each other and extending the conference experience before and after the event (webinars, blog posts, conference social community, virtual experiences). A conference social community is a must!”

Mary Boone, president of Boone Associates, agrees.

“The whole purpose of the onsite event is to build relationships, and that is accomplished through purposeful conversation,” she said. “By creating a design for the meeting that maximizes those purposeful interactions, you will go beyond improving quantity and quality to actually improving the results of the face-to-face networking.”

While technology has created a world that is flat, it involves an extensive network accessed through the Web, whether through the Internet in general or specific social networking sites such as Facebook. Events using technology have the ability access networks and enormous amounts of information. But while these events eliminate many physical barriers, they are poor in what makes face-to-face meetings rich: the ability to communicate in person through not only speech but through body language.

While virtual events have an extensive scale, physical meetings have a correspondingly intensive scale that humans find unmatched in effectiveness. This is why meetings are called performing networks, ones which contribute to the creation of collective effervescence, where the generation of trust, ideas and personal networks create something akin to a chocolate layer cake: a rich, dense, multiperforming layered network. To put this into industry terms, the long-term ROI of a face-to-face meeting may not be primarily how many sales leads you get; it is the enlargement of your network capital and the intensity, cohesion and performance of that network. This is what makes people successful. Meeting professionals will increasingly need the experience, skills, confidence and standing within their organizations to drive events using both live and virtual formats.

Ib Ravn, associate professor at the Danish School of Education, offers practical strategies to create network cohesion at conferences and events.

“The old style of conference is to have longer sessions with a presenter delivering content, punctuated by breaks,” Ravn said. “A more effective structure has shorter sessions, followed by facilitated interactions of groups of two to four people, interacting on topics most interesting to them.”

One specific technique he uses is to allocate five minutes for each participant to think of two action items they will implement after the conference. These two then pick two other people in the session with whom to share these actions.

“The intended actions are something meaningful to each person, and by articulating and verbalizing them, they move from passive to active,” he said.

You have also created the possibility of a post-event connection and continued discussion.

Environmental and Economic Impact
Physical movement of people and objects may get increasingly challenging no matter the value of the network. Convincing decision makers of the benefits of face-to-face meetings may be the next greatest challenge for the meeting and event industry to overcome, given the increased focus on the environment and economy in business and government.

“Peak oil—the fact that oil will become more expensive, and the fact that our travel systems are based on oil—means that ultimately cost will be the biggest challenge in movement,” said Fiona Pelham of U.K.-based Organise This. “Companies are already making commitments to decrease their travel to cut costs and meet carbon targets, and face-to-face meetings could be greatly affected.”

Harry Lewis, attorney advisor for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, views this as both a challenge and an opportunity.

“From an environmental point of view, certainly a major challenge is the production of greenhouse gas emissions and finding ways to meaningfully reduce them,” he said. “This entire area of concern is in a great moment of innovation…the key to these efforts, I believe, is maintaining—and growing—the demand and incentive for their investment and use.”

Planners can mitigate potential scrutiny using techniques designed to limit environmental and economic impact.

“Choose a destination with good public transport infrastructure, good walking access between hotels/venues and good flight direct connections, as well as one that is closest to the bulk of delegates,” said Guy Bigwood, sustainability director at MCI.

The use of standards also helps planners identify and mitigate possible impacts.

“A management system such as BS8901 (future ISO 20121) is a framework for an organization to identify and address their key sustainability issues,” Pelham said.

Imaginative, Communicative and Object Movement
Three other mobilities—imaginative, communicative and the movement of objects—are also significant for meeting professionals, as they are elemental to the events cycle, taking place before, during and after the event.
Imaginative travel is what planners and destinations want to invoke in the potential conference attendee. This is why avalanches of glossy brochures are sent to the marketplace, extolling the virtues of the destination, the five-star hotels and the unique special event experiences. “Early bird special!” “Last chance!” “Don’t miss out!” screams the printed text or the advertisement on the Web site.

The point of inducing imaginative travel is the chance of making actual travel a reality and attracting one more attendee to the event. Of course, imaginative travel also happens after the event, when attendees have returned home and think, “What a great event!” Imaginative travel results in events with purpose for Todd Gehrke of Dream Outdoors.

“There are many ways to creatively incorporate business objectives and participant interests into travel experiences,” he said. “Location, daily format, onsite activities, delivery medium, addressing generational gaps and even food and beverage should be a result of proper planning and alignment.”

Communicative travel is the hallmark of the late 20th and early 21st century. BlackBerrys, iPhones and other personal devices allow us to communicate (or at least to send information) with our networks 24/7. Over the last two years, conferences have seen an explosion of communicative travel before, during and after events. Some of this is encouraged (for example, using a specific Twitter hash tag) by event sponsors, and some is not. It is this uncertainty of real-time, extensive-network feedback that has some organizations leery of fully exploring the power of social media.
“Communicative travel can enhance actual experiences, for example, through creating a pre-event blog site which has a treasure hunt including a map that is from the destination you will be visiting,” Gehrke said. “A treasure hunt can incorporate pre-event learning development, team building and goal setting, which inspires excitement and camaraderie before leaving for the outing.” Alternately, planners can utilize social media to create a campaign and introducing participants to local culture prior to voluntourism experiences.

The power of social networks is through communication that people in the community (not necessarily even attendees) use to keep in touch with their personal and professional networks; sometimes there is a blurring between the two.

This reflects a shift from the dominance of the organization to the dominance of the network—the conference has become merely a node in the network. Hurt blogged in October that, “It’s time to view the annual conference within the context of a larger community ecosystem.” Meeting professionals should take note of this shift, as it will likely be one of two significant, defining changes in the way a successful event will be executed in the future. The second significant, defining change is our fifth mobility, that of the physical movement of objects.

Conferences depend on objects to an amazing degree—objects that create venues, such as building materials; objects that are for specific events, such as trade show booths, trinkets and registration bags; and the movement of airplanes to and from destinations. The movement of objects to a conference venue is akin to a powerful magnet. Where people go for business events, so do objects.

Objects, however temporary, have a lasting impact on the environment. That glossy conference brochure that was created from Canadian pulp, turned into paper in a U.S. mill and printed in bulk in China now resides in a (insert destination here) landfill. The oil used to cut down the tree, run the mill and the printing presses and ship both the raw and finished materials from Canada to the U.S. to China to the final destination also produces a negative environmental by-product or pollution.

Increasing scrutiny on the meeting and event industry, along with legislation in various countries and the development of sustainable events standards, make this mobility the second important shift in the industry that will be essential to future meeting design. It is not all about environmental impact; much of the concern will be the efficiency of meeting design, including process improvements that benefit the profitability, cost-effectiveness, reach and transparency of events.

Game Plan
Meeting professionals have the opportunity to design effective events using the concepts discussed around these five mobilities. First, recognize that there is both a cost and a benefit to meeting face-to-face. The cost is environmental (movement of people and things), economic (registration, airfare, meals, hotels) and even social (barriers to participation of certain social groups through economics or physical disability).

Start by considering the average cost of the event for the attendees and do what you can to reduce both the economic and environmental cost. It is also important to know the value of meeting face-to-face. How can you design the event to enhance the creation of network capital for your attendees?

Second, how can you incorporate the extensive network that people have through technology? Can you have people indicate the top five people in their networks they would fly across the country to see, and then notify the prospective attendee when one of their “top five” registers for the event, creating a compelling “pull” factor to attend? How can you utilize technology in a way that reinforces the network capital formed through face-to-face meetings?

Third, how can you use imaginative travel to enhance the desirability of attending? For most of us, this is not a glossy brochure that gets thrown in the recycle bin 20 seconds after landing on the desk. While that might work for vacation travel to a certain extent, for a business event it needs to be something that recognizes that the conference is just a node in a personal communication network. It is not necessarily the where factor or even the what (e.g., education, product launch, etc.) that is the defining element—it is the “who” factor. In this context, those designing imaginative travel may want to focus less on destination and more on key people who will be attending. A good fit may also be experiential events, such as community service projects, a “volunteaming” project or a FAM trip.

Finally, how can you create process efficiencies around the movement of people and things that will help meet the expectations of legislators, standard-makers and stakeholders? This might include transparent processes such as standards that increase cost-effectiveness while decreasing environmental impact. It will certainly entail taking a look at the physical movement of both people and things and creating strategies to enhance network capital. Concrete actions include incorporating standards, such as the new APEX green meetings standards (logistic efficiency) and the BS8901 for sustainable event management (process efficiencies).

The past has seen a great divide between meetings practitioners and meeting researchers. We are now at a crossroads: The intersection of five mobilities and traditional conference design. Incorporating these concepts into future meeting design may go a long way to reconciling the two. One+

ELIZABETH HENDERSON, CMM, CMP, M.E.Des., is part-time director of corporate social responsibility for MPI and an independent consultant. She can be reached at ehenderson@mpiweb.org or at evalestukhenderson@gmail.com.

An Interview with Harry Lewis
Harry Lewis is an attorney advisor with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He is involved with the creation of green meetings standards through the APEX-ASTM process. Mitchell Beer, president of The Conference Publishers, asked him about aspects of mobility relating to the movement of people and things around conferences and events on behalf of One+.

One+: What do you see as the biggest challenges in moving people and things to and from meetings?
HL: From an environmental point of view, certainly a major challenge is the production of greenhouse gas emissions and finding ways to meaningfully reduce them. This entire area of concern is in a great moment of innovation. New technologies in mechanical efficiency and the use of alternative and renewable fuels which are clean burning are coming online, or will soon. The key to these efforts, I believe, is maintaining—and growing—the demand and incentive for their investment and use.

One+: Are the expectations for process efficiencies changing, and if so, how do you think the change will affect meetings?

HL: With the rise in fuel costs in recent years, together with the growth in public awareness of global warming, I think there is generally a great interest on the part of consumers in efficiencies which will 1) save them money and 2) reduce the production of greenhouse gases leading to climate change. This focus by service consumers looking toward ways to reduce their carbon/financial footprints must certainly be having the effect of taking a fresh look at meetings and conferences—understanding what they are and when we need to engage in them and how. These considerations are no longer the sole province of environmental thinkers, but those of a new breed of green-oriented managers and finance officers in both corporate and government offices who are striving to meet increasingly austere bottom lines while enabling low-impact, efficient and satisfying professional interactions.

One+: How prepared do you feel the meetings industry is to respond to this shift?

HL: The meetings industry, particularly in the last two years, has taken tremendous strides toward re-inventing itself in a green way. Today, there is hardly a forum devoted to this industry which does not include heavy emphasis on environmental sustainability and how to get there and still be successful in the business. I see meeting professionals expressing deep commitment to the work of making real change in their industry, and it’s beginning to pay off with an increase in consumer demand and a virtual explosion of related products and services oriented toward the new paradigm.

One+: How do you see expectations for more efficient transportation factoring into green meeting standards, based on what drivers and on what time frame?

HL: As standards for green meetings are being developed largely by stakeholders in the industry, I really can’t say what they will look like in the end or exactly when that might be (though I hope very soon). On the question of expectations for more efficient transportation—and understanding this refers to transportation having a lower environmental impact—I would say many travelers (including those who travel to meetings and conferences) are only beginning to be aware of sustainable alternatives. Travel Web sites and booking agents are beginning to consider, or are already using, online carbon calculators to be used in making lower emissions itinerary decisions to the extent they are available—rental cars, hotel and airline purchases, ground transportation, etc.—rather than simply buying offsets. But sustainable services demand seems lower on the transportation side right now than in such talked about areas as green buildings management and events—with already well-developed standards highlighting energy, solid waste and water efficiencies. The size and complexity of the technology in transportation has required more time to adjust toward efficiencies, perhaps due to the great expense in investment (e.g., airplanes, trucks and buses, automobiles, trains). But, certainly, change is well underway.

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