Smart Meetings

Keeping up with the Joneses may be easy compared to what meeting planners have to do to keep up with industry trends today. Planners already have to be part psychologist, part global ambassador, part IT guru, part environmental scientist and part master negotiator. But they also have to know what’s hot and what’s not, and keep tabs on the next big thing—all while making sure that upcoming meetings have great content and come off without a hitch.

“A planner needs to become known for knowing what people want and what’s useful to them,” says Ann Fishman, president of Generational Targeted Marketing Corp. in New Orleans. “You [need to] attract, motivate, entertain and get them to come back, but you have to know their attitudes and values to do that,” she says.

With that in mind, we offer tips and insights on current trends designed to help you better understand your prospective attendees and create first-rate programs for them.

Can You Hear Me Now?
Everywhere you turn, there are stories about the first of the Baby Boomer generation retiring, turning 60 or celebrating some other milestone. Meanwhile, Generation X has begun to make its mark. And the two couldn’t be more different, Fishman says, which affects the entire meetings structure. Boomers, for instance, love keynote speakers and awards banquets; Gen Xers hate them. “They’d rather eat dirt,” Fishman says. Boomers are more touchy-feely, while Gen Xers are more practical, wanting to know how they’ll benefit before they commit to a program.

“Gen X is all about value,” she says. They want valuable, short programs that are to the point with no breaks. Boomers want breaks to network. Lurking around the corner and beginning to surface at meetings is Generation Y—also called Echo Boomers. Fishman calls them grasshoppers for their short attention spans developed from a lifetime of Internet and text messaging. They’re also civic-minded and team-oriented; plus, they expect every program to be interactive and  to have an opportunity to voice  their opinions. According to Fishman, the only way planners can mesh these generations is to provide things that are attractive to each group.

“There is no more old-style meeting planner,” she says, or old-style meeting. Instead, planners need to look at every aspect of their meetings with an eye toward keeping each group happy. Daunting? Yes. Impossible? No. Try some of these tactics:

• Instead of a lengthy awards dinner, make awards short and entertaining. Have winners present tips for success and add networking with the winners afterward to draw the younger crowd.

• Instead of a motivational speaker, use a panel of industry executives to field questions from the audience.

• Do follow-up with attendees and give them access to something on the website that only attendees can access.

• Rather than building an entire house for Habitat for Humanity, provide the opportunity to volunteer for a few hours doing a specific task—one that also develops skills useful at home.

Gary Schirmacher, senior vice president, Western Region, for Experient Inc. in Denver says groups are struggling to meet the expectations of older attendees while trying to cater to the younger generation to build membership. “The challenge is how to do that and keep everyone happy,” he says.

It’s not uncommon today for meetings and conventions to have an international element—particularly in the corporate market where more firms are multinational today. California alone has more than half a million employees who work for a foreign-owned company, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. But in the association market, it’s still the exception rather than the rule.

“For many associations, globalization is still a frontier,” says John Graham, president and CEO of American Society of Association Executives & The Center for Association Leadership in Washington, D.C. “What I hear is (members) want to know how to become relevant  and operate in the global environment,” he says. To that end, ASAE    & The Center is working on various ways to help meet the needs of a global marketplace.

On another front, the ongoing difficulty faced by international travelers in getting a visa to come to the U.S. has impacted some organizations. “Most domestic associations are feeling the impact there,” Graham says. The American Diabetes Association once got almost half its annual attendees from overseas, but the current visa process has put a damper on that attendance. That’s a particular concern for medical meetings, according to Graham, because those draw a lot of international researchers.

Some planners are looking at holding more virtual meetings, iPhone meetings and video conferencing, which are easily affordable. Others want to do international meetings but have concerns about government regulations, business regulations, political climate and shipping.

Anto Budiardjo, president and CEP of Clasma Events in Texas, got a crash course on the international market when his company staged a recent trade show in Dubai. He praised the local facilities and efforts to create top-level service, but found some differences that clearly point to the details planners need to consider.

“Classroom-style (setups) to them means making the room look like a wedding reception,” he says. The facilities also approach pricing differently, using a “daily delegate rate” that includes the meeting space, food and beverage breaks and lunches and audiovisual services. “It’s a much better way of doing things,” he says. And hotels are willing to sell meeting space without room nights.

If you haven’t yet heard of MySpace.com, you don’t know any teenagers. The social networking site has moved into the mainstream with companies taking note of its vast audience and scurrying to market to this group. A slightly older crowd can be found on Facebook.com, generating yet another advertising frenzy. But this may be the right place to reach young professionals to get them interested in your industry or to market your event.

“One hundred million users can’t be wrong,” says tech guru Corbin Ball, whose Corbin Ball Associates in Bellingham, Wash. consults on technology topics for meeting planners. “It’s smart to establish a presence there.”

Indeed, MeCo Mansion is a meetings venue on Second Life—a virtual world that real people populate with faux personalities who  lead virtual lives in a parallel online universe. Such online communities are finding their way into the meetings, trade show and convention markets.

Just as important is electronic data interchange, Ball says, which will begin to impact planners by year’s end. For example, people who sign up for a conference will be able to have their housing arranged at the same time. And once they’re in the attendee database, they can use it for preconvention networking—finding friends, making potential contacts or connecting attendees when they land at the airport.

Ball says this is more than just a clever new tech toy. Time-starved professionals who can find the right contact before they arrive might be more likely to attend. “If you can use technology to find the right contact, it can pay for the trip,” he says.

Other trends with big meetings potential include GPS Web capability based on location and near-field communication, which may enable you to pay for everything from parking to your hotel room with a tap of  the phone.

In the meantime, planners using online education, remote access to meeting content on-site and post-event, and audience response mechanisms will be headed in the right direction. Corporate planners might look to add more interactive content or even speed networking, Experient’s Schirmacher says.

Higher Rates, Fewer Dates

In 2002, industry conferences often were dominated by talk of how to get attendees to book hotel stays within the group block. The proliferation of web-based hotel deals was resulting in attrition charges, some planners said. It’s a much different story today. With the economy mostly humming (excluding the recent downturn in residential real estate), planners are having a difficult time increasing the size of those blocks.

“In tier-one cities, hotels are increasingly unwilling to commit large room blocks,” ASAE’s Graham says. If they do, it typically is at a much higher rate than the rate originally negotiated, in part due to a very strong hotel market.

Schirmacher says the room block situation is an almost 180-degree change in booking patterns from 2002. “Now we see attendees trying to book in the block,” he says, because of higher rates at overflow properties.

Potentially more worrisome, Graham says, is the shift of hotel ownership to companies outside the hospitality industry. “The business model for the hotel and its leadership has changed,” he says. It’s too early to tell if that’s bad or good, but it’s important to remember that nonhospitality owners may answer to different shareholders than in the past. Graham says the association community needs to work with the new leadership at major meetings hotels “so they know what associations bring to the table.”

Booking patterns also continue to evolve, with corporate and small meetings increasingly booking on very short notice. “Everyone wants preferred dates, but there are spaces to be had for short-term bookings,” says Steve Sackman, regional director of sales and marketing for Destination Hotels & Resorts in Englewood, Colo. On the flip side, Sackman said those booking a series of events in one location are beginning to do so a year or more ahead in order to get preferred dates.

The Green Machine

As noted in the October issue of Smart Meetings, only eight percent of meeting planners surveyed last year said environmental conditions were mandated for their meetings. Just 38 percent said they always arrange for recycling bins at venues and 41 percent said they placed a high importance on whether the venue was eco-friendly.

But the green movement is gaining steam. Cities, professional organizations and companies are beginning to pay more attention to their impact on the environment. So are meeting planners. But now that you’ve tossed the plastic bottles, monitored energy use and bought your carbon credits, what’s next?

“What we’re hearing a lot of (is) more social responsibility agendas,” Graham says. That includes associations like ASAE going green. The group’s convention went paperless last summer for the first time, providing materials online and on flash drives. 

Warren Call, a board member for IACC and sales manager at Crystal Mountain Conference Resort in Michigan, says a goal for IACC is to offer attendees a way to offset carbon footprints when attending a meeting. The IACC Green Committee hopes to establish a wind credit program for its 2008 conference and is looking at which certification system best suits its conference center members.

Hotel companies are bending over backward to tout their environmental efforts. Spurred by spiraling energy costs, they’re installing energy-efficient improvements that range from insulated water tanks and convection ovens to solar energy-driven signs.

Taking it a step further, Destination Hotels, which has 16 hotels and conference centers in the West, started a Destination Earth green initiative that provides details of the programs at each property to highlight efforts unique to their own environment. One center has a well that reduces its reliance on a nearby reservoir; another uses a transportation company with flex-fuel limos.

“Just saying you do a towel program today is like saying you have a color TV,” Destination’s Sackman says.

Helping Hands
Cities and CVBs frequently highlight the economic impact of every major meeting, convention or trade show that comes to town. But attendees increasingly want to do more than flash wads of cash when they visit.

“The opportunity for an organization to live its vision and mission by engaging its participants in outreach initiatives that take place during an annual sales conference…has been a ‘win-win’ for everyone,” says Elizabeth K. George, CMM, on an August MPI blog posting. George got a first-hand look at “voluntourism” as a staff member of the New Orleans CVB, where numerous groups have pitched in to help the community since Hurricane Katrina struck two years ago. Habitat for Humanity has been a big beneficiary of such help—including a group of chapter leaders from MPI last January. 

Other nonprofits are paying attention and some are making it easy for meeting planners to embrace a community service project in conjunction with their events. The Orange County, Calif. United Way, for instance, has a Volunteer Solutions section    on its website to make the process easy—especially for corporate planners, who can check into local opportunities for the company’s official charities.  “There’s a trend toward more awareness of the community and interest in entertaining ideas about giving back—even not [meetings related],” Graham says.

Meeting planners can ask a CVB, United Way, Community Foundations or the Council of Foundations (an international association of nonprofit foundations) for help in identifying community needs in their destination. Another resource is Hands On Network, which has offices throughout the country, including six in California and one each in Las Vegas, Portland, Seattle, Denver and Arizona.

Heather Scott, member services manager for the Council on Foundations in Washington, D.C., says she also has set up nonprofit marketplaces where groups are invited to bring their handmade crafts and other goods. Attendees then have the opportunity to shop for local gifts or souvenirs that don’t come from the airport and still help the community.

“The feedback was great…attendees felt like it added local flavor to the conference,” Scott says. “The (nonprofits) were very appreciative that the group cared enough to do this.”

Philanthropic ventures might have an added bonus: they’re attractive to the Gen X and Y attendees planners are trying to attract, says IACC’s Warren Call. Which brings us back full circle. No matter how much you stay on top of trends affecting your meetings, there’s one caveat that’s clear: to succeed, you need to know your audience.

Smart Take-Aways: 10 Easy Steps Toward Trendiness

Feel pulled in too many directions? Tired of people telling you that adding one more element to your meeting is easy? Here are 10 truly easy ways to be on top of trends without adding yet another day to your workweek.

• Add a charitable element by asking attendees to bring a simple donation like child’s book to the event; have a collection box at registration and arrange with     local charity (the CVB probably has a list) to pick up the contributions.

• For international meetings, add a translation feature to your website that allows people to view the site in one or more languages besides English.

• For a convention with international attendees, display small flags from each of their countries alongside the Stars and Stripes at general sessions.

• Bridge the generational divide by providing more than one option for each breakout session.

• Generate interest in general sessions by providing hand-helds for audience feedback to questions presented by speakers.

• Use a panel of speakers instead of having a keynote address to keep younger attendees interested.

• Use online registration.

• Provide a meeting environment more reminiscent of a lounge than a classroom.

• Set up a premeeting blog and give the comments to your planning staff and/or presenters before the meeting.
• For corporate training meetings that cover a series of dates through the year, book more than one year at a time to leverage the best possible rate.

Going Global? Pay Attention to Details!

An increasing number of corporate planners work for multinational companies or have strategic partnerships with companies overseas today. That may mean regular trips across the Atlantic or Pacific for various engineering, marketing or executive teams. Members of those teams new to international business travel or unfamiliar with the country involved need more than just a plane ticket to be players in the global market. 

Here are some tips for those just getting their feet wet in a global environment, courtesy of Ree Taylor, manager of customer relations, Thayles Raytheon Systems, Fullerton, Calif.

• Is your client/company a Department of Defense contractor? If so, there are stringent rules foreign visitors must follow, even if they travel here once a month. At one such company in California, the legal department must even approve any gift, meal or other business amenity offered during the international meeting. Know the rules up front!

• If your client/company is the host, learn about and respect cultural and religious food restrictions when planning menus. For example, in some countries people don’t touch food with their hands, so utensils are required if you’re serving bagels or muffins for breakfast. If attendees don’t eat pork, make sure you eliminate any bacon bits from salads, too!

•  Know the typical formality expected in business transactions. If attendees will show up in suits or uniforms, your staff needs to dress up as well.

• Make sure you find out if translators are needed for any attendees.

• Consider what international visitors want to do outside of the meeting and help them arrange off-site tours to museums, theme parks or shopping.

Smart Thinking: Coloring Outside the Lines

Community service events don’t have to take people away from their meeting venue. Hands On Atlanta partnered with the Community Foundations Conference to have a nonprofit presence at a networking event for 1,500 people.

Each nonprofit had a booth with simple projects attendees could come and do in a short period of time to help the community. Some made door hangers for a seniors’ home; others pitched in to assemble tricycles for needy children.

“It was something new for attendees at a networking event,” says organizer Heather Scott. “It provided opportunities for people to meet each other.” Hands On coordinated all the nonprofit projects and delivered finished products to the appropriate places.

“The process of working with a nonprofit is similar to the process of working with a hotel or other supplier,” Scott says. “It’s the same skill sets as planning the meeting—it’s the venue and organization that’s different.”

Smart Thinking: Top Dining Trends

Meeting planners can show their smarts by choosing menus that reflect current dining trends:

• Bite-size desserts, tapas style: same temptation, less guilt—and more cost-effective, too!

• Latin love-affair: Caribbean, Central American and South American fare are hot, hot, hot—and not just in flavor. Area fruits, vegetables, meats, marinades and flavors are gaining ground as favorites in the U.S.

• Local organic foods: possibly the best-known trend, it reflects a consumer desire for cost-effective, locally grown and pesticide- and chemical-free food. Local producers can be your best friend in finding new ways to address this trend.

• Memories are made of this: childhood memories of favorite foods, time spent gardening and seasonal specialties have found their way into top restaurants via recipes from leading chefs—many of whom share their secrets.

• Fresh beverages: from chocolate-flavored cocktails and mint mojitos to Bloody Mary salads, the crossover between fresh food and premium alcoholic beverages has gone mainstream and provides unique options for cocktail receptions or appetizers.