Thinking Outside the Room
The Energy of Many
By Bruce MacMillan, C.A.
IN THE PAST MONTH, THE WORLD HAS WATCHED WORLD-CLASS ATHLETES COMPETE AT THE 2010 OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES IN MY HOMETOWN OF VANCOUVER. Spectators and athletes alike were thrilled and inspired by their agility, precision and creativity. As many of our members at MeetDifferent 2010 watched the games from Cancun in the Olympic lounge hosted by our Vancouver/Whistler partners, we were emotionally connected to home and country (especially during a spirited U.S. vs. Canada hockey game). The connection to this glowing-heart spirit of competition thousands of miles outside the venue was made possible because of technology.
Whether it was high-definition satellite imagery of the games, regular prods from iPhone apps or onsite attendees connecting via Twitter to chat or heckle friends back home, powerful connections were happening well beyond the competition venue itself.
And while we will always focus on unleashing the power and potential that is the face-to-face experience, increasingly we need to expand our vision to what connections and results we can deliver “outside the room.” It’s through technology that our realm of attendee opportunity, our ability to make a powerful performance difference and even our ability to change the world is made possible. That’s why it is critically important to look strategically at how and where technology can deliver these connections to accomplish our objectives—financial, emotional and spiritual.
Outside our industry, Google launches Wave and Buzz, and Apple debuts the iPad. All the while, Twitter’s explosive global growth begins to wane just as LinkedIn and Facebook find ways to interface with it. It goes on and on. The pace of technology often outpaces the normal course of planning events. For organizations that select venues three to four years in advance, the idea of reacting to emerging technology that can be the hottest thing a month before your event can be daunting.
I still hear and read debates about the role of connection/collaboration technology in the meeting and event world. While the concept of hybrid events is getting lots of profile these days, we need to get comfortable with the fact that technology is forever taking meetings and events beyond the room rather than creating different classes of events. The performance continues to play itself out.
During MeetDifferent we took the unprecedented step to actively engage and connect our virtual and onsite audiences in social media before, during and after, and I have to tell you, the response has been overwhelming. While the final numbers are not fully audited, the efforts of our 1,100-plus attendees connected another 200-300 participants to the energy and conversation in Cancun. Cisco’s 2009 global sales meeting (http://ow.ly/Tab6) was moved into a virtual environment, allowing more than 19,000 salespeople from 89 countries to attend. Harvard Business Review called the 2010 Olympic Winter Games “...the largest ever social media experiment” (http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/02/welcome_to_vancouver_the_world.html). The Games' Opening ceremonies were attended by more than 60,000 people, and another 3 billion were connected by broadcast and Web connectivity.
The list goes on. These are not anomalies. They are realities. Remember, though, one thing: While technology was the critical enabler, it was and always will be the content and experience “in the room” that made these connections valuable and remarkable. One+
BRUCE MACMILLAN, C.A., is CEO and president of MPI. He can be reached at bmacmillan@mpiweb.com. Follow him at www.twitter.com/BMACMPI.