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Professional Development
  • Posted by Theresa Davis at
    12:00AM 01/06/2011 • 0 Comments

    2011: The Year Events Get Smart

    When I start to write anything for Engage of course I have something at MPI I want to tell our readers about, so I always have a topic in mind.  But I'm a very visual person, and to kick start my storytelling I like to have an image that represents the topic.  While searching for an image to represent the latest edition of FutureWatch I came across the image above - a dictionary entry.

    It reminded me of my 7th grade student council campaign speech that - like every other candidate's speech that day - started with a quote from Merriam Webster's Dictionary that defined some aspirational word we had chosen to represent ourselves.  So, even at the risk of sounding like an aspiring young student council candidate, I think the definition of "future" I found today is worth quoting to kick off this post.

    Future - an expectation of advancement or progressive development (thank you Merriam)

    That really is what the newly redesigned and evolved FutureWatch study is all about - defining the expectations that meeting professionals have around the advancement and progressive development of our industry. 

    In collaboration with Association Insights who conducts the research and compiles the data, our team here at MPI decided to take a new approach to FutureWatch this year.  While the study still provides hard data on the predictive direction of business in the year ahead, it now provides more insight into the "Why". 

    By utilizing real answers from real research participants in interview excerpts, readers can now gain insight into the deeper details behind the numbers.  Additionally, the new format breaks out the critical data on major trends that indicate meetings are going to get smarter and be more strategic. The study also breaks out trends in enhancing supplier and planner relationships and a provides separate section on technology trends. 

    I also think the team did a great job at connecting the dots from the trends back to applicable tools that are available through MPI that can actually help readers take this data and do something about it.  For example, one of the top trends identified is that SMM is now critical, not optional.  So in addition to outlining what respondents say, the report then provides additional links to webinars that provide guidance on how to get an SMM program started.

    In this new edition of FutureWatch you'll not only find predictions on advancements- but also tools for how to progressively develop skills to adapt to them.  I'm really hoping that savvy speakers out there will dig into FutureWatch and develop new presentations around these progressive and trending topics.  And smart suppliers or destinations (both big and small) can really dive in and get inside the modern planner's head when it comes to decision making.  Anyone in the tech sector who wants to break into the meeting and event industry should also be turning a critical eye to the statistical data on technology integration into face-to-face meetings (i.e. 72% of planners anticipate digital event strategies).

    So if all of this has piqued your interest and you'd like to learn more about the study (of course you do), I'm going to encourage you to spend some time with Bill Vogelei in a webinar on Jan. 19.  You can find out how to register here.

    Our team here at MPI and Engage would love to hear how you've used data from FutureWatch or other MPI research to conduct business in a smarter or more strategic way.  What have you done?



  • Posted by David Basler at
    12:00AM 12/22/2010 • 0 Comments

    Execs See Emerging Markets Growth

    This time of year brings anticipation, expectation and for many of us, it's a time for planning. With FutureWatch 2011 launching in our upcoming January issue, this time of year has most of us keeping our pulse on the industry and watching the trends even more.

    I am a subscriber to McKinsey Quarterly and much like MPI's FutureWatch and Business Barometer products do for the meeting and business events industry, McKinsey's Global Economic Conditions Snapshot sheds an interesting light on how execs around the world are looking at the state of things.

    The highlight of the survey results for me was that now more than half of respondents say they are positive about the state of their nations' economies and that they are seeing improvement and 63 percent say their economies are now in recovery. Unfortunately that leaves the others feeling glum—including 35 percent who say they do not expect an upturn in 2011.

    At the corporate level, execs are expecting profits to rise along with consumer demand, both of which increased slightly in the last quarter, and most respondents reported that their companies were not going to postpone or cut investments for growth—also a good sign.

    A staggering number of respondents (more than 75 percent) said the expect the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) to gain serious influence on the global markets in the next five years and most feel that this increase in influence will come at the expense of the world's developed nations.

    The reason? Most feel that more than a quarter of their companies' profits in the next five years will come out of these BRIC nations. 

    When asked simply how the influence of the economies of these BRIC nations would be different in five years, it was a resounding response that these economies would be stronger—China (92 percent), India (85 percent), Brazil (75 percent) and Russia (46 percent).

    The question for me is, of course, what does this mean for the meeting and business event industry?

    More delegates from these countries branching out and attending more events around the globe? Probably. Will we see more of a presence from these countries at trade shows around the globe? I hope so. More business being done in these BRIC nations than we've ever seen before? Definitely.

    It's a shifting world, and the globe is much smaller than it used to be.