Newsletter_members

Dear member,

As you see we have two e-mailings. One is for 3.000 addresses including meeting planners, agencies, media, members, etc. and this one, just for our members and potential members.

We love to share your information in both newsletters, but we need to make sure we send newsworthy and relevant pieces to our readers.

The Meeting Support Institute wants to get information out to the community of meeting planners and others that are involved in meeting content. You can play a crucial role by helping us in one of the following ways:

VOLUNTEER! We have a few committees taking shape that may be of interest to you. You will build your network, learn and contribute to the progress of our side of the meeting industry.
SHARE! Send us contact details of people with an interest so we can send them our e-mailing
WRITE! For our newsletter, but also for any magazine, e-publication etc that reaches our target audience. The more you publish, the more we all win.
SPEAK! If you do not speak at conferences yet, start your PowerPoint presentation today! Start small for your own clients or in your local MPI chapter. And if you want, we will help you to get registered as a speaker for the bigger and international conferences.

For all of the above, feel free to use our knowledge base where you may find interesting lecture, facts or other industry people to talk to.
We have created three new member categories for intermediate users (production companies, PCO’s agencies), for consultants (individuals with an interest in meeting content) and for academics. Details are available through ilse.matthe@meetingsupport.org.

Finally some positive financial news: the Meeting Support Institute has ended its first year with a minor financial loss. This was better than expected and the budget for 2007 may end on a break-even. The future of the Meeting Support Institute looks bright, with our current extended board, more volunteers than ever, 7 speaker opportunities, our second conference well on track and a few new projects in the pipeline.

We hope you will participate in a few of those and enjoy some positive outcome.

Kind regards,

Maarten Vanneste, CMM

President Meeting Support Institute

September 2007 Member News
	Dear Meeting Support Institute member, The new season is here. Also for Meeting Support Institute: you have a lot of opportunities ahead, EIBTM, BTC (now in Rome), a few new member categories, a new CMS based website in the pipeline, etc. All exiting things as we move forward. Many associations and other ‘institutes’ in the MICE industry are moving into our direction. More and more people seem to ‘see the light’. My first book called “Meeting Architect” is now being edited and may help a bit too. I would strongly advise you to buy shares in other Meeting Support Institute member companies. Things can only get better for us. This email contains a few things you may be interested in. Ilse did a great job again, although her foot is broken… She sends you this e-mail from home. Talk about passion for our cause! Enjoy. Maarten Vanneste, CMM President Meeting Support Institute
10	TRADESHOW Good news for IMEX Tech Tap exhibitors As you know, the tech tap booths from the Meeting Support Institute at the IMEX tradeshow in Frankfurt are low-cost thanks to the important sponsoring of IMEX. Meeting Support Institute members are allowed to exhibit 3 years at these special rates because we have started this as a stepping stone into the industry for young or smaller companies or companies totally new to the meeting industry. After three years, one should be able to decide to move into the 'real floor'. Due to the wonderful hosted buyer program, prices are quite high and that makes it a big step to take from Tech Tap to normal rate. After some negotiations and a meeting with the Meeting Support Institute management, IMEX decided to work on a long term plan. This means that under certain conditions the participants coming from the tech tap, now can exhibit at another ‘in between, serious discount’ rate! Ilse has a few more details so feel free to contact her on ilse.matthe@meetingsupport.org
9	IMEX NEWS Future Leaders Forum The Meeting Support Institute got a spot for a presentation in the Future Leaders’ forum from IMEX. Just before or after Richard John who spoke at the Meeting Content Conference in April this year. All members will get literature on the table and one slide in the presentation. Member lists are always distributed and the web site is mentioned. This is the first time we get this opportunity so all suggestions are welcome. Click on "comments" below and send us your ideas. Comments
8	IMEX NEWS Professional Development Pavilion The Meeting Support Institute also got a theatre slot at the Professional Development Pavilion at the IMEX trade show. The Institute has some exhibition space at this pavilion and every new "consultant member" that registers before the end of January 2008, gets a free literature spot as well.
7	BLOGSPOT Advanced resource for networking This is a knowledge resource for technology providers, consultants, and all with a more than average interest in the networking amongst groups. Leave your comments and ask them to look at the conference industry too. www.networkweaving.com/blog
6	EIBTM Get together Only one stand available at the Technology Village! If you have not yet booked your hotel, we are staying at the H10 Marina Barcelona, an official EIBTM hotel that you can book online. It would be great to see you there. The Meeting Support Institute is also organising a dinner for members and friends on Wednesday November 28th. We can go for dinner and leave for the club night after. If you want to join us, please inform Ilse. ilse.matthe@meetingsupport.org
5	PRESENTATION PEC-NA 2008 The Meeting Support Institute submitted a proposal for the educational program of MPI’s PEC-NA 2008 in Houston, Texas. We made it past their first round of reviews. As the next step in the review process, we need your help to identify unique and alternative formats you propose to incorporate into our session. MPI wants to elevate the content and present new learning designs to their attendees. The theme for 2008 is ‘Alternative”. So, anyone who feels to have a great idea, or want to contribute to this session, please let me know as soon as possible. Deadline: Thursday October 4th. ilse.matthe@meetingsupport.org
4	PRESENTATION BTC The interest in technology companies is growing with BTC as well. We managed to get a super-offer for members of the Meeting Support Institute. For only €500 you can get a 8sqm stand. Non-members pay €1000. Speaking of member value! Contact Ilse to find out more. We will also have a presentation slot during BTC, the biggest MICE trade show in Italy. Will you be there? Do you want to collaborate in this session? Then send me an e-mail and explain your proposal: ilse.matthe@meetingsupport.org
3	MEDIA International Association Executive Magazine invites all technology solutions for a more efficient association to participate in building their special pull-out. From a completely free 90 word entry right through to an impressive Double Page Spread ‘advertorial’ feature. Deadline for entries is Friday 12th October. If you want your free exposure, e-mail to associationexecutive@btconnect.com For questions, please contact Robert Kemp at: info@association-executive.co.uk or call: +44(0)1279 812264
2	MEMBER ADVENTURE Spotme, RedBull and CNN: What is the connection? MSI member Spotme found itself on CNN and Eurosport last month when it sponsored employee, Alex Hofer, in the RedBull X-Alps in July! RedBull X-Alps is a twelve day adventure race where participant's paraglide and hike their way across the Austrian, Italian, Swiss and French Alps to finish in Monaco. Alex was the defending champion in the race and led the race for several days. Though, he slipped into a distance 4th place by the final day of racing. When all hope seemed lost, Alex made one of those made-for-TV comebacks and won the race! Congratulations Alex! Congratulations Spotme! RedBull Links: Trailer / Redbull X-Alps Website Video Links: Video 1
1	BLOGSPOT Interesting blog on networking at meetings A few intriguing articles and some research on networking at conferences can be found on the blog of Rick Borovoyn CTO at nTag. Make sure you leave a comment if you like what you see. a few interesting words will help build a vocabulary for our profession: Community mirror, event catalyst, betweenness centrality? ... some professional research an interesting thesis All interesting material: have a look at http://rick.ntag.com/ and make sure you leave a comment or give us your feedback with a comment on this piece

May - June 2007 MEMBER NEWS
	Dear member, As you see we have two e-mailings. One is for 3.000 addresses including meeting planners, agencies, media, members, etc. and this one, just for our members and potential members. We love to share your information in both newsletters, but we need to make sure we send newsworthy and relevant pieces to our readers. The Meeting Support Institute wants to get information out to the community of meeting planners and others that are involved in meeting content. You can play a crucial role by helping us in one of the following ways: VOLUNTEER! We have a few committees taking shape that may be of interest to you. You will build your network, learn and contribute to the progress of our side of the meeting industry. SHARE! Send us contact details of people with an interest so we can send them our e-mailing WRITE! For our newsletter, but also for any magazine, e-publication etc that reaches our target audience. The more you publish, the more we all win. SPEAK! If you do not speak at conferences yet, start your PowerPoint presentation today! Start small for your own clients or in your local MPI chapter. And if you want, we will help you to get registered as a speaker for the bigger and international conferences. For all of the above, feel free to use our knowledge base where you may find interesting lecture, facts or other industry people to talk to. We have created three new member categories for intermediate users (production companies, PCO’s agencies), for consultants (individuals with an interest in meeting content) and for academics. Details are available through ilse.matthe@meetingsupport.org. Finally some positive financial news: the Meeting Support Institute has ended its first year with a minor financial loss. This was better than expected and the budget for 2007 may end on a break-even. The future of the Meeting Support Institute looks bright, with our current extended board, more volunteers than ever, 7 speaker opportunities, our second conference well on track and a few new projects in the pipeline. We hope you will participate in a few of those and enjoy some positive outcome. Kind regards, Maarten Vanneste, CMM President Meeting Support Institute
10	TRAINING Meeting Support Manager Course Abbit Meeting Support is organising its first multiple day course for Meeting Support Management endorsed by the Meeting Support Institute. This course aims to increase the knowledge of individuals on the creative, technical and technological side of meetings. About 20 modules are given by multiple experts and most have hands on workshop elements. The group will be international and small for high quality interaction. Currently the course is planned for 5 days taking place in Belgium at a registration fee of € 1.950,-. Lunch and certificate included. Local low cost hotel accommodation is available. A 25% discount is granted to MSI members. For more information, contact the training manager from Abbit: paul.vanherck@abbit.eu
9	MEMBER NEWS LOG ON Once Again Wins Innovation Award By winning the Vele d’Oro LOG ON, a Dutch company specialised in the creation of mobile services and products for the event industry, has once again won an important award. After having been declared the winner of last year’s EIBTM WorldWide Technology Watch Award for the Event Assistant, LOG ON now did not only receive the innovation award for event software in Italy, but the judges also awarded them the overall first prize. The Vele d’Oro is an international award that is presented annually at the Federcongressi Annual Conference, the biggest trade congress of the Italian meeting industry. Read the whole press release
8	NEXT CONFERENCE January 2008 The next Meeting Content Conference is already in the works for January 2008. We are seeking volunteers to help with Sponsorship, Marketing, and On-site operations. In addition, we are seeking in-kind sponsorships for your services. If you would like to volunteer to participate in the next conference, please contact Ilse Matthé .
7	NEW PRODUCT New presentation tool WorldPresenter has launched a new online product to help meeting planners to drive event registrations. They’ve set up a new website for it www.minutestar.com and there’s a demo playing on the home page. Mike Foren also supports the website of the Meeting Content Conference.	Example of this tool
6	MEMBER NEWS MPI NY uses nTag Interactive badges “Our attending members were thrilled with the real-time information they got from using nTAG at our most recent event,” said Russ Ebersole, president, MPIGNY. “We’re always on the look out for ways we can improve our events for attendees and using nTAG made it easier for them to meet new people and exchange business card information.” “We’re proud to have been selected by MPIGNY to help improve networking and learning,” said David Goretski, CEO, nTAG. “Using nTAGs, NYMix attendees were able to connect to each other in a more dynamic and targeted fashion and exhibitors were able to capture more leads and streamline their follow up process.” Read the whole press release
5	MEMBER NEWS STAGINGOPTICS CEO finalist for Event Solutions Spotlight Awards Steven P. Simmons CMP, President & CEO of STAGINGOPTICS has been selected as a finalist for The Robert Bottoms Stage Set Award, which will be presented at the 2007 Idea Factory & Expo scheduled for August 20-23, 2007 in Miami Beach, Florida. Finalists were selected based on the following criteria: Innovation vs. Budget; Creative Integration of Client’s Theme; Interaction of Materials with Set Construction & Lighting; Innovative & Custom Elements Incorporated into a Stage Set; and Researching and Applying New Technologies. Read the whole press release
4	MEMBER NEWS New evolutions with DMD Associates eventEX, a subsidiary of DMD Associates dedicated to the event industry has signed an agreement for 3 years with Passkey, the world’s most powerful online group reservation system, completely integrated with HIVETHESOLUTION. Passkey will be delivered with HIVE in Europe, in the Middle East countries and in Asia. A call center delivering services for hotels with a high added value for customers using online reservation will be set up in the next few weeks. DMD Associates has also set up a new company in joint venture called Summer Solutions in Portugal (Porto) in order to better serve and distribute HIVE in South Europe and Maghreb countries. Paulo Maia is the General Manager of the company in Porto.
3	MEMBER NEWS 2300 events with REGIS Over 2300 events worldwide have now been organised using REGIS event management software. The on-line system is used by Associations, Agents and Companies for events from 50 – 3000 people. Simon Young comments "We are delighted to have helped so many organisations worldwide and have many new technology developments for the events industry" For more information please visit www.mission-eventsoftware.eu
2	PUBLICATION Article in Communications Business Solutions The magazine Communications Business Solutions wrote articles about two of our members: Crystal Interactive and Mission and event software. Written in Dutch, but you can check them out by clicking on the pages on the left.	Crystal Interactive	Mission and event software
1	TRADESHOW IMEX 2007 This year's group stand was fully booked in January already! All co-exhibitors were very happy about the organisation. “Can we thank you for all your help and support at IMEX itself - it was our first time as an exhibitor there and being part of a well-planned MSI presence with all the back-up we had from Ilse, Rudi and the rest of your team made it much easier and was very much appreciated.” - Ray Elmitt – Crystal Interactive More info and pictures HERE

March 2007 MEMBER NEWS
	Dear members, Let me remind you that registration of the Meeting Content Conference can still be done. 2006 promises to be a great year for the Meeting Support Institute. Membership keeps growing and it becomes clearer what our mission is in this great industry. "One doesn't know what one doesn't know" goes the saying and I humbly agree. I'm just back from an amazing PEC-E in Copenhagen (MPI's European conference) and I did learn a thing or two there... It is amazing to see how the interest from our industry is increasing for the content side of meetings; the things that we organise meetings for: learning, networking and motivation of participants. I had the distinct honour to see Ib Ravn in action after seeing him 3 years ago at the Brussels Meeting Support Day in 2004. His book, recently translated in English is a stepping stone for our industry towards growing the content side of meetings (more below). I was proud to be invited to speak, later this year, at a conference of professors in Meeting Management from universities all over Europe. I will, as you can assume, be more than glad to introduce this elite group to the Meeting Support Concept and the idea of a new profession: the Meeting Content Manager, preferably Certified. Good news for meeting planners, producers, PCO's and others meeting designers is that our members are growing and evolving with the Meeting Support Institute as a catalyst. Already a second strategic partnership was announced, this time at Confex between two MSI members. The IMEX group stand is bundling a great set of innovations, the knowledge base on our website keeps adding great thing to discover, members and academics share research reports with us and much more. If you have read until her, I'm sure you will enjoy the newsletter below. Kind regards, Maarten Vanneste President Meeting Support Institute
8	OUR CONFERENCE Inaugural Meeting Content Conference On 20 April 2007, the day after IMEX, this first-of-its-kind conference will be held in the Maritim hotel in Frankfurt. Linking our conference with IMEX was natural, since they are one of our largest supporters. IMEX is also sponsoring a hosted buyer group. Treat your clients and invite them to this unique event. REGISTER NOW and pay only 100 EUR.
7	COLLABORATION BETWEEN MEMBERS Two leading technology companies join forces after meeting through MSI. The Mission Group, leading technology providers of event management software since 1995 has partnered with LOG ON, the winner of the EIBTM 06 technology award for innovation, to promote the Event Assistant and REGIS Software. Simon Young CEO of the Mission Group comments: “This is a very beneficial partnership for our clients and prospective customers, providing a single point of contact for leading event planning and networking solutions in the Industry” For more information go to: www.mission-eventsoftware.eu/about/voiceindex.html
6	RESEARCH Crystal Interactive research report The Human Touch If you have missed the Human Touch report do take a look at www.crystal-interactive.co.uk. It provides some real food for thought in terms of the role communications plays in successful organisations. It proves that companies who interact with their employees are rewarded with greater loyalty, less churn and an employee base that is 8 times as likely to come up with business winning ideas.
5	TRADESHOW One of our new members invited us to CONFEX. WorldPresenter invited the Meeting Support Institute to exhibit at their stand at Confex. Thanks a lot for that Mike. Ilse went to Londen on Tuesay February the 20th. For pictures click HERE. www.worldpresenter.com
4	TRADE SHOW EMIF We had 8 co-exhibitors on the stand, including MSI. Thanks to the great sponsorship of EMIF a good savings could be made by exhibiting at our group stand. More info and pictures HERE. www.aboutemif.com
3	SPEAKER OPPORTUNITY International Meetings Industry Conference. Maarten Vanneste spoke at this event about Meeting Technology for incentives.	More information HERE.
2	LEARNING LAB MPI NL in Bussum We had 18 pre-registrations, but the day itself we did not have enough chairs to seat everyone. More info and pictures HERE.
1	4 NEW MEMBERS Covr: www.covr.be Software for Associations, and abstract handling conference services. Eventsforce: www.eventsforce.co.uk Event management software Converve: www.converve.de On-line networking tool for meetings WorldPresenter: www.worldpresenter.com Recording of presentation for on-line education

ARCHIVE OF NEWSLETTERS FOR
Meeting Owners - Meeting Planners	MSI Members

October 2007 Member News

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1	ADVERTISING OPPORTUNITY Special Supplement for Association Technology Solutions big hit with MSI members Some time ago, Ilse asked our member to participate in the supplement of the magazine International Association Executive. Already on the cover of this supplement, I see quite a lot of our members took this opportunity. Have a look at the cover.