Meeting Industry Summit: Climbing, Relating, Stategizing

I attended the Meeting Industry Summit at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle on Thursday.  It was, as one might expect from an event run by meeting professionals (primarily from the local chapters of PCMA and MPI), well-planned, well-organized and very worthwhile.

In the opening keynote, Sue Ershler shared her approach of "project, prepare, persevere", illustrated how she has applied this approach to her achievements in climbing mountains and corporate ladders, and broadened it to setting and achieving goals in any personal or professional dimension.  She invited us to list our own personal and professional goals on a card, using as few words as possible (to make them more memorable and actionable); I came up with "love well" and "prosper" ... which combine to form a variation of the Vulcan greeting.

After the keynote, there was a panel, moderated by Kati Quigley, General Manager of Events for Microsoft, and included the following panelists:

• Marty Fisher, VP of Store HR and Training for Abercrombie & Fitch
• Dave Peckinpaugh, Executive VP of Sales & Marketing, Conferon Global Services
• Colin Rorrie, President & CEO, Meeting Professionals International
• Gregg H. Talley, Chairman of the Board, PCMA, President & COO, Talley Management Group
• Robert Scypinski, Regional VP, Sales & Marketing-West, Hilton Hotels & Resorts

Two of the themes that I heard throughout the panel were the importance of helping people relate to one another -- before, during and after events -- and thinking more strategically how to better reach out to various groups and work with them to achieve their goals.  Marty Fisher talked about a recent conference he organized for Starbucks (his former employer) on the theme of "human connection", and emphasized that "whatever we [the meeting industry] do has to be relationship-based". 

A questioner from the audience raised the issue of how the meeting industry should adapt to the echo boomer generation (Dave Peckinpaugh shared a related reference to this group as generation why).  All panelists agreed that adapting to the younger crowd will prove a challenge.  Greg Talley predicted the non-profit world wil change radically, and that the new generation will want something different. Colin Rorie said that MPI has a new research group looking into how to address the needs of this group. Marty Fisher recommended an ethnographic approach, reporting how he goes to schools and asks kids what they want ("a cool environment", "cool stuff") and watches what they do (lots of teaming).  Rob Scypinski noted that people in this demographic are online, and won't want to wait for the offline face-to-face meetings for announcements, networking and other aspects that have traditionally provided the incentives for people to travel to such meetings.  Rob suggested we have to find new ways to support interactions.

I'm all for interactions (and interrelating) and believe there are exciting new opportunities for using technology to both create and maintain relationships between physical meetings, and for enhancing the interactions that take place during face-to-face meetings, taking advantage of the best features of the online and offline worlds.