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  • Posted by Jason Hensel at
    12:00AM 06/18/2013 • 0 Comments

    How Large Events are Game Changers for Communities

    The city of Honolulu—and in fact the entire tourism industry of Hawaii—felt that it had more or less dodged a bullet in March when the National Football League (NFL) announced that it was not going to relocate the annual Pro Bowl game from the Aloha State in 2014. The internationally televised game would return to Aloha Stadium, at least for another season.

    “This is really important to the tourism industry and indeed the entire community in Honolulu, because it is not just an event that produces US$25 million to $30 million in direct revenue in tourist spending, but it is something that has been part of the fabric of the community for 30 years now,” said Michael Story, the Hawaii Tourism Authority’s (HTA) sports tourism brand manager. 

    Story says that while Hawaii pays the NFL $4 million a year for the rights to host the Pro Bowl and received $3 million in tax revenues from what the tourists and the visiting news media spent there during Pro Bowl week, the destination gets what the HTA estimates at as $200 million worth of TV, Internet and print media exposure from coverage of the event.

    “And then there is the incalculable value you get when NFL players visit children’s hospitals in our community, and the players and the cheerleaders hold workshops for our local youngsters—that’s something of huge value,” Story said.

    One reason the NFL had been talking about leaving Hawaii is that as football games go, the Pro Bowl is not exactly an advertising revenue cash cow for the league—it draws lower TV ratings than regular-season games. That is in part because although the players enjoy the limelight of being selected for the Pro Bowl, as the Associated Press wrote, they tend “to hit like they were in a pillow fight instead of a football game.” The players are incentivized not to risk being hurt, which could potentially end their individual, multimillion-dollar careers in a game that does not count against any championship.

    That situation would not, of course, be any different if the location of the game was changed.

    The HTA is making every effort to keep the game permanently and, as Story says, is in “negotiations with the NFL to see what makes the most sense for both sides of the partnership in our ongoing relationship with the NFL.”

    The Pro Bowl discussion and Hawaii’s efforts to keep it for years to come serves to underscore just how important special events that draw national and international participation and media coverage are to the communities in which they occur.

    No one is in a better position to have an insider’s perspective than Tracy Halliwell, director of business tourism and major events for London and Partners. The 2012 London Olympic Games are currently the biggest revenue-producing event for a destination’s economy in world history, having added £10 billion (the equivalent of $15.7 billion) to the British economy by most estimates.

    Halliwell, who was a key player in the team that conducted four years of preparation leading up to the 2012 Olympics, says a major focus of that preparation was crafting plans to make the London Olympics an event with a permanent impact on the tourism economy going forward.

    “There is no question that it has been,” she said. “Before the Olympics, we had about 87,000 hotel rooms in London, and now we have about 105,000, with still another 6,000 under construction as we speak. By 2015, we will have about 120,000 hotel rooms in London, and that would not have happened without the impetus provided by the Olympics.”

    She says the 2012 Olympics provided a stimulus for both private investors and government to come forth with the requisite money to make transportation and communications infrastructure capital investments that have allowed London to land major future events such as the 2017 IAAF World Championships in Athletics.

    “The Olympics more or less made us raise the bar for ourselves and think outside the box as a community,” Halliwell said.

    That is exactly how Irene Caban—president of Savvy Events and Entertainment, a Tampa (Florida) DMC—felt about the 2012 Republican National Convention (RNC), which brought an estimated $153 million to Tampa’s local economy.

    “[It was] something that made us change our game not only as meeting professionals and participants in the tourism industry, but as a community as a whole,” said Caban, a past president of the MPI Tampa Bay Chapter. “Not only did we have to up our game to meet the requirements of events at an RNC level, but the community had to up the ante, with renovations and improvements and upgrades of the infrastructure. Both of those efforts will serve us well going forward.”

    —By Rowland Stiteler

    (Photo via Flickr: Department of Defense/U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Michael R. Holzworth/Creative Commons.)



  • Posted by Jason Hensel at
    12:00AM 06/17/2013 • 0 Comments

    Conferences Provide Career Boosts for Women

    Kristen Van Nest recently wrote an interesting article for VentureBeat called “For Women, Conferences can be a Powerful Career Booster.”

    Van Nest wrote that the women she has spoken with have found “models and mentors within their fields” through conference participation.

    The downside, though, is that “they also spoke of how few women are taking advantage of these opportunities.” 

    That’s unfortunate, because “conferences provide great opportunities for women to share advice, forge supportive relationships and build their network,” Van Nest said.

    In fact, columnist Tim Sanders says sharing knowledge is one of the five best gifts for others. 

    “Knowledge is a resource that grows as you give it away,” he wrote in our June issue. “Too often, we think of generosity in material terms, but in fact, one of the most generous things you can do is to mentor someone during his or her time of opportunity. You should always have an active mentee. Look for someone in transition, usually taking on a new task or role, where your insights can help.”

    Conferences provide an excellent opportunity to share knowledge, become a mentor or mentee and educate yourself. 

    “Education is, by far, women’s most powerful secret weapon, and we have been preparing for a sneak attack for at least the last decade,” said educator and author Katharine Hansen, Ph.D. on Quintessential Careers. “In 1975, a majority of the college degrees awarded went to men. This was true at the associate, bachelor’s, master’s, first professional and doctorate levels. By 2000, a majority of the associate, bachelors and master’s degrees were awarded to women, according to the Postsecondary Education Opportunity Research Letter.”

    Hansen says that women are making serious inroads in the knowledge is power equation, and their best hope to crash through the glass ceiling is to keep doing what they’re doing.

    “Consider informal ways of educating yourself through, for example, joining professional organizations, attending conferences and keeping up with trade publications in your field,” Hansen said. 

    Well, now, I believe we here support all three of those strategies. Won’t you? 



  • Posted by Jason Hensel at
    12:00AM 06/17/2013 • 1 Comments

    What’s Better for Creativity: Beer or Coffee?

    Ernest Hemingway once said, “Write drunk; edit sober.” I’m beginning to think he had beer and coffee in mind. 

    For you see, the two elixirs have their benefits, depending on what you want to accomplish. Knowing what works best is crucial to staging a productive meeting or event. Let’s say you plan a meeting that depends on the exchange of knowledge like bees exchange pollen. Beer is your best bet then. Or perhaps you plan a meeting that has a lot of to-do items that attendees need to blaze through. Coffee is your choice for that type of meeting. 

    Why does beer (alcohol) affect creativity? Sian Beilock, Ph.D., offers a reason. 

    “The answer has to do with alcohol’s effect on working memory: the brainpower that helps us keep what we want in mind and what we don’t want out,” wrote Beilock, author of Choke. “Research has shown that alcohol tends to reduce people’s ability to focus in on some things and ignore others, which also happens to benefit creative problem solving.”

    Coffee, though, works differently. 

    “Caffeine blocks adenosine receptors, preventing adenosine from binding to its receptors and tricking your brain into thinking you have lots of energy,” wrote Mikael Cho, co-founder of the online talent creative marketplace ooomf, in an insightful article on Medium.com. 

    Adenosine, by the way, is a neurotransmitter that helps tell your brain that it’s running low on energy.

    “Adenosine is kind of like your brain’s battery status monitor,” Cho wrote. “Once your energy levels get low, adenosine alerts your brain and starts to slow down brain functioning. This is why after a few hours of intense work, you begin to feel tired, like your brain has run out of juice.”

    Thus the ubiquitous coffee break found in between conference sessions. What better way to stimulate an attendee than a shot of caffeine? Is that the best way, though? With more sessions becoming interactive and relying on the exchange of information to increase knowledge, perhaps a Fosters instead of Folgers is the best choice. 

    “When thinking of this, I immediately thought of the one country [Italy] that doesn’t have a Starbucks franchise on every other street corner,” said Ruud Janssen, CMM, managing director and owner of The New Objective Collective in Basel, Switzerland. “Yet it inspired Howard Schultz (CEO of Starbucks) to create a new category across the world around coffee and ambiance (and free Wi-Fi).”

    Janssen, a member of the MPI France-Switzerland Chapter, is co-founder of the Solution Room, a peer-to-peer session held during MPI conferences. 

    “Thinking of the Solution Room—the epic closing general session format that I have the pleasure of crafting with my good colleague Mike van der Vijver (a fellow Dutchman who happens to live in Italy) in collaboration with MPI—prompted me to think what would happen if you offered beer in the Solution Room,” Janssen said. “Interesting thought, and I must admit that when the Solution Room format was cooked up in Dusseldorf, the paper cloths and atmosphere in the social event (think a carnavalesque beerfest atmosphere on the Monday evening at MPI’s EMEC 2011) must certainly have played a serendipitous role in bubbling up the right components and (with coffee the next morning) aligned the thoughts that made up this thrilling experiment.”

    Then again, Janssen says, coffee could provide what’s needed at meetings.

    “I think back to a recent MPI Italy board retreat where I had the pleasure of facilitating in Pisa, Italy,” he said. “Coffee is infused into the meeting at all opportunities, and the ritual has led, in the case of the real coffee brewed in Italy, to some pretty phenomenal creations. Top of mind, I could think of a string of legacy products and services the Italians have created over time. Are they infused by their unparalleled barista coffee culture or was it the Tuscan wine and exquisite food that seems to be ingrained into the creativity process?”

    I think Janssen’s comments reinforce the idea that beer is better for certain sessions compared to coffee. A session such as the Solution Room lends itself to beer (or at least you could decorate the room like a beer hall). Board retreats, though, where agenda items need to be checked off, should feature coffee at every elbow. 

    “The best time to have a beer (or two) would be when you’re searching for an initial idea,” Cho wrote. “Because alcohol helps decrease your working memory (making you feel relaxed and less worried about what’s going on around you), you’ll have more brain power dedicated to making deeper connections.”

    Coffee, Cho writes, won’t help gain access to your brain’s more creative parts like beer will.

    “If you’ve already got an idea or an outline of where you want to go with your project, a cup of coffee would do wonders compared to having a beer to execute on your idea,” he wrote.

    A last item to add: Consume beer and coffee in moderation. Once you drink too much, you lose the benefits of both. You don’t want to be that attendee. 

    “When the body feels well, the mind feels well, and in that respect, the level of activity in the room is a key performance metric in my book,” Janssen said.

    Have you ever served beer or thought about serving it before an interactive session? Please share your stories with us in the comment section. 

    (Photo via Flickr: Guillermo Ruiz/Creative Commons.)



  • Posted by Jason Hensel at
    12:00AM 06/17/2013 • 0 Comments

    Meeting Planner Named a Top 5 Job for 2013

    Well now, look at this. CareerBuilder and Economic Modeling Specialists Intl. recently named the job of meeting, convention and event planner as one of the top five jobs of 2013. Ah, but we already knew that, didn’t we?

    Top Jobs in 2013
    Top Jobs in 2013 infographic by CareerBuilder.


  • Posted by David Basler at
    12:00AM 06/11/2013 • 1 Comments

    6 Tools for Industry Advocacy

    As meeting professionals, we recognize that face-to-face meetings and events play a critical role in connecting people and driving business results. We know the work we do as an industry is important. Our industry is not only an agent of change and progress, but it is also a powerful economic driver. 

    Many outside of our industry still don’t fully understand the value of meetings. This is evident by the criticism found in several recent news stories about improper spending by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for a conference in 2010. We should not let misrepresentations like this diminish the perception or the reality of the social and economic value that business meetings provide.

    The U.S. Travel Association just released a great video called "The Business Travel Effect." We encourage you to view and share it.

    So, we thought it may be helpful and timely to share a list of resources that can help you advocate for our industry. Check it out below.

    Tools for Advocacy and Education

    The “One Industry, One Voice” campaign urges meeting professionals to show solidarity and speak louder, together. Visit www.mpiweb.org/oneindustryonevoice to participate in industry actions and stay educated on this important topic.

    MPI’s Business Barometer research, with bi-monthly and annual editions, provides an inside look at the state of the meetings business. Download it at www.mpiweb.org/Portal/Research/BusinessBarometer.

    The U.S. Travel Association’s grassroots coalition at www.travelcoalition.org offers resources, news and contact forms to help you get active—right now—in voicing your support and expressing the value you and the meeting industry bring to business in the U.S.

    A vibrant toolkit to educate peers, clients and the government on the value of meetings can be found at www.mpiweb.org/bvom, an initiative supported by the MPI Foundation and AIBTM.

    The Convention Industry Council funded a survey of corporate and association meeting planners as well as industry executives on the importance of face-to-face meetings. The result was Face-Time. It Matters. Read it at www.conventionindustry.org/ResearchInfo/FaceTimeInternal.aspx.

    The American Society of Association Executives Center for Association Leadership helps you stay tuned in to the value of associations through its site www.thepowerofa.org.



  • Posted by Jason Hensel at
    12:00AM 06/05/2013 • 0 Comments

    The Citizen Cosponsor Project

    A wise person once said, “Go to where the fish are.” Today, those fish are on Facebook. It’s the one place where the most engagement happens, whether that’s through likes, comments or shares.

    Members of the U.S. Congress know that too and now we have Cosponsor.gov. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) launched it as an app last year, and now it’s a Facebook-based website. 

    Through the site, you can attach your name as “cosponsor” and follow a bill as it winds its way through legislation. There are currently 2,529 bills—introduced by Democrats and Republicans—you can cosponsor. You can search by title, sponsor and bill number or browse broad issues such as “economy and jobs” and “education and workforce.”

    For example, you can cosponsor and follow H.R. 1354, “Jobs Originated Through Launching Travel Act of 2013,” or maybe you’re more interested in following H.R. 859, “Taxpayers’ Conference Overspending Prevention Act.” There you will learn that it has been referred to the subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security and its congressional sponsor is Joseph Heck from Nevada.

    Check out Cosponsor.gov and let us know what you think in the comments.

    (h/t Dan Parks over at the MeCo's PoliticsHQ Facebook page.)



  • Posted by Jason Hensel at
    12:00AM 05/31/2013 • 1 Comments

    Political Leaders Show Support of the Meetings & Events Industry

    Twenty-five barons signed the Magna Carta in 1215. Fifty-six men signed the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1776. Fifty-one representatives signed the Charter of the United Nations in 1945.

    Add to that list 27 political leaders around the world who signed the “Declaration of Support for the Meetings and Events Industry” at IMEX 2013 in Frankfurt, Germany. The leaders (listed below) put pen to paper and agreed with the following statement.

    “In a critical period of global economic transition and recovery, I believe that creating jobs and retraining work forces, increasing trade and inward investment, spreading knowledge and improving professional practices, enhancing innovation and creative development, nurturing community awareness and advancement and stimulating business regeneration are all essential factors in sustaining long-term economic growth and stability. 

    “I further acknowledge the key role that meetings and events play in delivering these important objectives by instigating and facilitating the critical interactions required to exchange information, share knowledge and achieve consensus while at the same time enriching the visitor economy and raising the profile of the host destination.” 

    Destinations will now be encouraged to use the declaration as a way to open up dialogue with their local politicians and help solicit their public support for the meetings and events industry locally. IMEX and its partners are aiming to secure 100 signatories for the declaration by the end of the year, and the document is also being used by the Joint Meetings Industry Council as part its new “Speak Up” advocacy campaign.

    “The emphasis on working collectively to achieve recognition has inspired me to go home and really work to break down remaining barriers,” said Wendy Simon, a city councilor for Liverpool, England. “And we’ll definitely be highlighting our part in the Declaration of Support. I think it’s important that Liverpool knows it had a voice here today.”

    Below is the list of all 27 signers. 

    Director Tourism Planning & Development, Ministry of Culture & Tourism, Azerbaijan—Fikrat Mammadov
    Vice Mayor, Antwerpen, Belgium—Koen Kennis
    Chair, Canadian Tourism Commission, Canada—Steve Allan
    CEO, Tourism Victoria, Australia—Leigh Harry
    The Egyptian Minister of Tourism—His Excellency Mr Hisham Zaazou
    President of France Congres - Mayor of Deauville—Phillippe Augier
    Deputy Mayor of Toulon, France—Sophie Verdery
    President, Toulouse Metropole, France—Bernard Keller
    Vice President, Nantes Metropole, France—Valerie Demangeau
    Ministry of Economy, Transportation & Innovation Hamburg, Germany—Dr. Rolf-Barnim Foth
    Councillor, City of Milano, Italy—Franco D’Alfonso
    Deputy Mayor - The Hague, Netherlands—Marjolein de Jong
    Vice Minister of Tourism, Panama—Honorable Ernesto Orillac
    President and CEO, Seoul Tourism Organization—Sung-Real Lee
    Chief Executive, Singapore Tourism Board, Singapore—Lionel Yeo
    Director of Spirit Slovenia—Bostjan Skalar
    Vice President Moderat Party, Skovde, Sweden—Michael Nimstad
    Vice Municipal Commissioner, Municipal of Tranemo, Sweden—Claes Redberg
    Deputy Mayor, Municipality of Ulricehamn, Sweden—Mattias Josefsson
    Member of Parliament, Sweden—Penilla Gunther
    Vice President, Region Vastra Gotaland, Sweden—Conny Brannberg
    Municipal Commissioner, Municipal of Boras, Sweden—Lena Palmen
    Member of the Geneva City Government, Switzerland—Guillaume Barazzone
    Mayor of Lviv, Ukraine—Andriy Sadovyi
    Minister for Sport and Tourism, U.K.—Rt. Honorable Hugh Robertson, MP
    Member of Parliament, U.K.—Nick de Bois
    Cabinet Member for Culture and Tourism, Liverpool, U.K.—Wendy Simon


  • Posted by Jason Hensel at
    12:00AM 05/29/2013 • 0 Comments

    Meetings at Ottawa Convention Centre Impact Regional Economy

    Thanks to 54,400 out-of-town visitors to the Ottawa Convention Centre (OCC), the city’s economy experienced a CAN$101 million windfall in 2012.

    The OCC commissioned Ipsos Reid, a third-part research firm, to conduct an economic impact study on 57 OCC conventions and tradeshows held that year that drew at least 25 percent of participants from outside the Ottawa-Gatineau area. The $101 million in direct spending includes:

    • $78 million in attendee spending
    • $16 million in exhibitor spending
    • $7 million in production spending

    The study found these conventions and trade shows attracted more than 47,000 delegates and attendees from outside Ottawa and nearly 5,900 staff members that represented more than 1,500 non-local exhibitors. These events also generated tax revenues for the federal and provincial reserves estimated at more than $38 million.

    The new report shows the OCC to be a major force in Ottawa’s economy and a good business partner, says OCC President and CEO Patrick Kelly. 

    “The OCC has had a significant impact on the national capital region’s economy in many sectors,” Kelly told One+. “1,300 jobs annually are supported by the conferences taking place in the OCC…jobs in sectors such as arts and culture, accommodations, transportation, retail, warehousing and more. We are pleased with how OCC’s presence has assisted our city both financially and in connecting our industry clusters to the national and international marketplace.”

    In any city, meetings always have a positive effect in the places where they are held, says Stuart Taylor, a chapter business manager supporting all of MPI’s eight Canadian chapters. 

    “Not only does the facility benefit from the business, but so do the hotels and restaurants in the area, local transportation that brings them to the meeting and the airport and airlines that bring them to the city,” he said. “In Ottawa, it’s as important as ever to show how meetings affect everyone in Canada. People may have a different perspective about meetings in Ottawa because that is where our federal government has their own ‘meetings’ in the House of Commons, which help to move our country forward in the decisions that are made there on a daily basis by our elected officials.”

    MPI is currently in the middle of conducting our own third Canadian Economic Impact Study (CEIS). The first was released in 2008, with the release of version 2.0 in 2009. CEIS 3.0 will be released in 2014 and will focus on regional data, as opposed to the national data focus of the previous studies. It is MPI’s vision that the CEIS 3.0, combined with other valuable studies such as the one conducted by OCC, will help our industry tell the story of how much economic value meetings and events bring to local communities—ours is a powerful story.



  • Posted by Jason Hensel at
    12:00AM 05/20/2013 • 1 Comments

    The Top 20 Cities for Meetings

    The International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) recently released its latest top 20 rankings for cities. It’s always interesting to see which cities remain on the list and which are new. For example, Vienna kept its No. 1 status, Berlin climbed one place to third and Copenhagen took the biggest leap, moving into the eight spot. Beijing, though, fell out of the top 10 to land at No. 13.

    We editors have been fortunate enough over the years to visit some of these cities, either for business or pleasure. Here we each offer some thoughts about one place in a highly ranked ICCA city that we particularly enjoyed experiencing. 

    Michael Pinchera, editor, One+:

    In Prague, requiring a relaxed experience to conclude what had been a strange day, I could have wished for nothing better than stumbling upon the Reduta Jazz Club. Wonderful music, cozy seats/couches, low lights, a friendly crowd—after a week of exploring the Czech Republic, this was a heavenly way to wind down. Note: The Reduta’s live music goes until midnight, but if you’re relying on mass transit don’t get too comfortable because that’s the same time the city’s subway stops running for the night. Plan accordingly. http://www.redutajazzclub.cz/

    Jason Hensel, multimedia editor, One+:

    The Bassy Cowboy Club is located in the Mitte neighborhood of Berlin, and it’s a place my wife and I stumbled across when the doorman asked if we liked to dance to 1960s-era rock. We would’ve had our red-blooded American cards taken from us if we said no. The club only plays music pre-1969 and frequently offers live music. From leopard printed wallpaper to disco balls hanging from the ceiling to a huge mural of Saddam Hussein watching you dance, Bassy is a great example of what I love about Berlin—taking the past, twisting it up and making it seem brand new. http://www.bassyclub.de/

    Blair Potter, managing editor, One+:

    Despite the dropping temperature—and Vienna can get quite cold in the winter—the high spirits of the crowd, a bag of freshly roasted chestnuts and a mug of spicy orange punch will keep you warm when navigating the Christmas markets of Vienna. The markets, some small (inhabiting a few side streets) and some massive (the town square by city hall), are located throughout the city, and they’re easily accessible on foot from many of the hotels and public transportation stops. You can enjoy a baked potato, pick up something handcrafted or just enjoy the sights. If you’re looking for a place where you can really absorb the holiday spirit, these markets are a must (especially when a light snow begins to fall). http://www.wien.info 

    Here are the top 20 cities measured by the number of meetings organized in 2012:

    • Vienna
    • Paris
    • Berlin
    • Madrid
    • Barcelona
    • London 
    • Singapore
    • Copenhagen
    • Istanbul
    • Amsterdam
    • Prague
    • Stockholm
    • Beijing
    • Brussels
    • Lisbon
    • Bangkok
    • Helsinki
    • Seoul
    • Buenos Aires
    • Budapest


  • Posted by Jason Hensel at
    12:00AM 05/14/2013 • 1 Comments

    Learning, Your Way

    Andragogy is the art and science of helping adults learn, and for most people, education continues throughout their lives. How they learn, though, is key to internalizing content and letting it transform the person.

    Consider the classroom. I’m sure many of you grew up being lectured to by a teacher, who gave you assignments that were graded on a point or letter scale. Some of you may have excelled with this method. Others, however, may have wanted a more hands-on approach. I have plenty of friends who found more success in woodshop compared to world history class for just this reason. Then you have the people who seem to only learn by being part of a group where ideas and thoughts can tumble around the circle. 

    Discovering what style works best for you is a personal journey as well as an organizational goal, and in an effort to be more inclusive and sensitive to your individual learning needs, we’re introducing sessions in three distinct learning styles at WEC this year. 

    “Over the years, we have adjusted our tagging strategy to assist our participants in making the best educational choice for them,” said Miranda van Brück, MPI’s team leader of professional development. “We learned a lot, and the biggest learning of them all is that in the past we have often used tracks and novice/all/advanced level distinctions. While they made absolute sense in the planning process, for the actual participant they were more confusing than helpful. In talking to members and learning from other industries we moved towards our current approach which focusses on how you prefer to learn at a conference.”

    The three styles are:

    • Lecture (listen and learn)—If you like to listen to a speaker deliver a lecture and just absorb the information, then these sessions will definitely resonate with you. These sessions will be presented in lecture style, with a low level of interactivity. 
    • Interactive (learn from experts and practice)—Hands-on learning with expert guidance—listening, moving, touching, doing and discussing. A selection of our educational sessions is designed to provide a medium to a high level of interaction. If you like to learn from experts, but also have the opportunity to discuss how this can be applied to your world, then these are not-to-miss sessions for you. If you like learning this way, also make sure to check out the WEC learning labs, which will provide a hands-on approach that allows attendees to learn, get up, touch and do, which will enhance retention of information. 
    • Peer-to-Peer (learn from each other)—Participant-led sessions, with the highest level of interactivity. These are sessions where you learn from your peers through discussions and sharing of your own experiences. A facilitator will drive the process, but not the content.

    We’re also providing a tag that lets you know if session content is specific to the meeting and event industry or if it comes from an outside source. 

    • Inside Industry (topics specific to the meeting and event industry)—Most of the times these sessions qualify for continuing education credit on the CMP application or recertification and really provide industry specific education. 
    • Outside Industry (general business topics from outside our industry, delivered by non-industry experts)—These topics and experts are selected as they bring valuable knowledge from outside into our world and have been coached on how their knowledge can be made relevant for a meeting and event professionals. 

    “We still use the ‘level’ distinctions, but in line with the advice of our members, we will only point out the novice sessions and the truly advanced ones, in order to level expectations for participants,” van Brück said.

    Now that you know more about the ways we’re providing education at WEC, check out the sessions, speakers and entertainment and make plans to join us in Las Vegas, July 20-23, for a truly transformational event.



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