Even though our members are reporting a powerful business recovery, we face a growing demand from our community for more education and business opportunities, more professional development resources, a wider variety of programming and ways to meet the needs in emerging markets. So your board considered for the first time in seven years, a dues increase.  And I think it’s one of the most challenging decisions any volunteer leader makes for their organization.

We took a long, hard look at what our community needed and what investments had to be made for the future, and even asked consultants for a fresh perspective.  After much analysis, feedback within our membership showed support from supplier members to step up and make an investment in the professional future of our community.

As such, we’ve decided to increase member dues for our supplier members effective July 2011 to an annual rate of $/€450. To put a perspective on the increase, it amounts to approximately one client dinner over the course of a year. While this is the first adjustment to dues pricing in seven years, MPI’s member dues rate remains the lowest amongst the major industry associations.

Investment enables us to expand our base of professional planners and dedicate more financial resources into education at the local chapter and international level.  We’ve already seen initial investments in these areas begin to pay off.

Our first endeavor this year, MPIWeb Connect has exceeded all early goals.  Our increased investment in chapter education will bring more planners to chapter functions which provide more opportunities for our supplier members to meet and build lasting business relationships with MPI planner members.  This final step of our supplier members increasing their investment in our community enables us to support more education and build more diverse marketplace opportunities like those you’ll see at WEC in July.

If your company is evaluating association memberships, consider promoting your affiliation with MPI as one geared towards professional development and lead generation.  You can cite our recent commitment to develop the professional development portal as well as expanding marketplace opportunities and increased access 24/7 to our growing online communities.

I look forward to an MPI future focused on world-class professional development for our industry and lasting business relationships. I hope you continue to view your MPI membership as a valuable and rewarding resource that connects you to the world’s largest planner community with the largest buying power. Thank you for being a loyal member of MPI.

Next Thursday February 17^th Chairman Eric Rozenberg and I will join leaders from 14 other meeting industry organizations and experts from PricewaterhouseCoopers (“PwC”) at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. to release the long-awaited study on “The Economic Significance of Meetings to the US Economy.” PwC was hired to prepare and manage the year-long study, yielding some staggering findings on the magnitude of GDP, employment and taxes generated by the US meeting and events industry.

The study, the first of its kind in the United States, was inspired by the depth and credibility of a study undertaken in Canada. The Canadian study was conducted in 2008 and paid for by the MPI Foundation Canada. The study became a model around which further studies around the world were designed.

Immediately preceding the press conference at 130PM EST, an industry webinar will be held at Noon EST to brief members of our entire industry on the findings in the study. MPI members can get more info here and we encourage you to sign-up online. It's important that our members and all industry stakeholders tune in to understand the powerful national economic story our industry can tell. The study, webinar and other resources will be housed on a website maintained by the funding partners and the Convention Industry Council.

Following the release of the study next Thursday, participating industry organizations through the Convention Industry Council will begin to disseminate tool kits to constituents to support the delivery of key messages at the local and grass roots level. MPI will activate our powerful chapter network to help carry message. We will also work our own business media contacts. Funders are also exploring ways to sustain a long-term messaging program.

As a companion to next week’s announcement, MPI will release our bi-annual Getting Business Done – How and Why Meetings and Business Events Bolster Your Overall Strategy insert , in conjunction with American Business Journals. More than 300,000 business leaders in 26 metropolitan areas across the US will receive this insert in their local Business Journal. The content, provided by MPI's One+ magazine, provides case studies and business insights on how meetings and events drive business performance. It will also be posted on our websites and disseminated through our digital channels.

As you can see, lots of story-telling going on to support the continued recovery of our members and the public understanding of our industry.

Announcement Webinar:
The Economic Significance of Meetings to the US EconomyThursday, Feb. 17
12 p.m./12.00 Eastern Standard Time

Press Conference:
Thursday, Feb. 17
U.S. National Press Club
Washington, D.C.
1:30 p.m./13.30 Eastern Standard Time

 

What an exciting day for the MPI Community, and as your chairman, I’m very proud.  When I consider the thousands of professionals around the world who are unable to experience our community, it excites me all the more that MPI now has a way to reach them. Our strength is in our content and we can extend that knowledge, along with a valuable global network, to them through MPIWeb Connect. This experience allows users to submit their profile information and gain select access to the research, articles and MPI community to drive their success. Most importantly, they become affiliated with the world’s largest association of meeting professionals, where they can build relationships to sustain and grow their business.

Our members retain full access to the body of knowledge provided as part of their investment, with ongoing research in Business Value of Meetings, meeting design and mobile strategies for meetings. With no-cost access to more than 40 planned webinars for the year, and on-demand online content that includes videos from annual conferences, MPI ensures that the education produced is quality.

Last, but certainly not least, today MPI debuts digital tools that address the changing ways in which professionals interact with their community. The MPI mobile website is a streamlined experience that brings the latest and most popular content, along with the chapter listing and event calendar, to the fingertips of smart phone users. We’re also developing apps for iPhone, BlackBerry and yes, even Droid compatible all available by the end of February.

As a focus of my tenure, I am enthusiastic about the knowledge being produced by MPI. It is cutting-edge, timely and it shapes the industry. Through these enhanced connection options, our advances in education will reach even more people, raising the standards of the industry. I welcome the MPIWeb Connect users, enjoy our community.

Best, Eric Rozenberg
@Yoda18