Meeting Professionals International, the premier global association community for meeting and event professionals, believes in the unequalled power of events and human connections to advance organizational objectives.

Performance Matters

2010 WEC Sneak Peek

MPI unveils a conference that will equip you with better designs, more efficient practices and ROI that’s clear and measurable. Bring this valuable knowledge home, and everyone in your organization will reap the benefits of your attendance. The World Education Congress (WEC), July 24-27 in Vancouver, will enable you to develop performance-based objectives, relationships and new ways to do business. Through collaboration with top industry minds, discover the future of events and how to not only work smarter, but be smarter.

Join your community for an engaging exploration of new growth and performance strategies. Ask tough questions most people avoid and breathe life into learning. WEC will demonstrate how events shape business—and leave the world in better shape.

Corporate Social Responsibility
The CSR includes three levels: basic (green meetings), measurement (carbon footprint, economic and social issues) and strategy (using CSR to increase brand awareness, increase profit, increase effectiveness). Through sessions at WEC, reinforce your knowledge of basic green meetings. Then we'll explore other CSR elements such as measurement and strategy, increasing your level of CSR awareness and competency.

“Guests may not pay more for an eco-conscious hotel experience, but their attention to our environmental practices will push demand until green becomes ‘table stakes,’” said Dennis Quaintance, CEO and chief design officer for Quaintance-Weaver Group. “[We should] implement a ‘sustainability filter’ on decision making, just as we now apply a ‘cost filter.’”

Strategic Meetings Management
The Strategic Meetings Management (SMM) track includes content to reinforce your understanding of SMM and knowledge, awareness and skills related to implementing, growing and managing an SMM program. MPI’s SMM content focuses on disciplined approaches to managing enterprise-wide meeting and event activities, processes, suppliers and data in order to achieve measurable business objectives that align with an organizations’ strategic goals/vision and delivers value in the form of quantitative savings, risk mitigation and service quality.

“Take control and turn meetings into business investments,” said Tim Sanders, a top-rated speaker, author and past MPI general session presenter. “Talk the language of business and help your corporate or association stakeholders succeed as they get you incremental meetings and budget. Remember: Your sales VP loves the national and international sales rally. It’s the only way to introduce product and people and get that big boost in confidence. Your membership director loves meetings as a way to provide education services, network members together and market new products. Your HR group loves their annual planning offsite as well as what the incentive meetings do for the retention of top sales talent. So you have friends in high places—they just need proof that your meetings are money in the bank.”

Value of Meetings
The Value of Meetings track will include sessions addressing the effectiveness of meetings and what value meetings bring to attendees through advanced meeting design and effective adult learning practices. With the growing need to prove the value of meetings, we will highlight session information that makes a strong case for meeting and business events.

“For meetings to be strategic, they have to be positioned with the end-game in mind,” said Patti Phillips, Ph.D., president and CEO of the ROI Institute. “That end is results. Today more than ever, progressive meeting professionals are building a business case for their meetings by clarifying stakeholder needs; positioning meetings to meet those needs by designing them around clear, specific objectives; and measuring the success of those meetings—including, in many cases, calculating ROI.”

Future of Meetings
The Future of Meetings track will focus on emerging issues facing our industry. As the sector evolves, MPI will provide the latest and most cutting-edge information to attendees. This track will examine trends in meeting design, content delivery and effective measurement. MPI will provide the information and tools needed to achieve success as we evolve toward the inevitable future of meetings.

“Event planners need to learn the language of the CEO and understand the goals he or she is trying to accomplish,” said Michael Hitt, a professor of management at Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School. “They have to show how they can help create value for stakeholders and they need to be talking in those terms.”

Core Meeting and Event Skills
The Core Meeting and Event Skills track will provide information and instruction regarding core competencies of meeting professionals. These sessions have been designed for the novice to intermediate meeting and business event professional and will offer a wide variety of information on specific topics to help improve and enhance the necessary skill set of industry planners.

“There are legions of people wanting to be meeting planners, calling themselves meeting planners or functioning as de facto meeting planners within their companies with no training and no support,” said Carol Krugman, CMP, CMM, industry consultant and educator with Denver-based Krugman Maller LLC and member of the MPI Body of Knowledge Task Force. “Providing them with the means to acquire the knowledge, skills and confidence to coordinate successful meetings increases recognition and respect for the industry.”

Personal/Professional Development
The Personal/Professional Development track contains sessions that focus on improving personal wellness and professional development. The information provided will focus on helping you as you progress in your career.

“Recent economic challenges have created a tipping point in the meeting and event industry,” said Dr. Graydon Dawson, MPI’s director of global training systems. “And because of the negative attention meetings have received, a paradigm shift in our industry is occurring and there is no turning back. Delivering real value is a renewed focus. Although we hear that the recession is over, because of the impacts of the economy on meetings and events, there are still difficult times ahead. Within this environment, it is absolutely critical that all meeting professionals take every advantage to equally retool their skill sets.”

But Wait, There’s More!

• The Contracts and Legal Concerns track will answer legal questions as well as outline regulations and rules that are imperative to meeting and business event professionals. Led by leading industry experts, these sessions will alert you to recent changes and updates in legislation and legal issues affecting our industry.

• The Small Business Owners track will provide useful and timely information for independent meeting professionals and those working on opening a small business. Using industry research and recent lessons, the sessions have been created to provide helpful information for entrepreneurial meeting professionals.

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