Meeting Support Institute A call to the industry: Let's not go too fast (again).
Posted February 8th, 2008 by maarten.vanneste
Meeting content management is not just another topic to add to the list of topics for the next conference. The current meeting industry needs to think long and hard in order to create a strategic plan for transition, or maybe renewed focus on its core purpose. It needs to consider what happened with ROI and how the members of the community cope with that. Even though I feel it is fair to say that ROI is treated as another topic on the list: are most meeting planners happily practicing ROI today or is it just an intellectual elite trying to manage? How many planners are frustrated, understanding the ROI challenge, but unable to perform? Do we want to stack another load of overwhelming innovation onto the meeting planners’ shoulders? Are logistically oriented and hospitality minded professionals with a passion for travel interested? Will they be able to digest and use the information about the content side of meetings? And what if a majority doesn’t? Will it create a two speed association? Will it split the community?
As I asked at the end of my first meeting industry ROI class in Denver in 2004: “Are we not going too fast here, jumping all the way to ROI while we don’t even know how to manage the learning (level 2 in ROI measurement)?”
Here I ask that question again: Are we not going too fast? Is this industry able to rapidly make that switch or hastily take that curve towards managing both logistics/hospitality and the content side of meetings? And also if we believe the meeting industry can do it, how will we do it and how much time do we give it: one or two decades? We should do a thorough investigation or survey, but I’m estimating that maximum 10% of the planners in MPI is ready for this, 5% may even crave for it, and maybe 3% of the suppliers would welcome this transition. I am convinced that the vast majority of planners is scared of another revolution and will feel left out when it happens. We do not want to scare the foundation of our industry away.
I am convinced that, looking at the sheer size of the knowledge base consisting of commercial tools and services plus the (to be translated) scientific knowledge and the (to be imported) other industry practices is so vast, no one can do both the logistics and the content side combined. Especially not in a setting where planners are already stressed out by procurement and ‘more for less’ and burried under new rules in contracting, multiculturalism, green meetings, security, CRM and other burning matters.
I believe that in the future, the educational degrees in meeting management will offer the choice between meeting logistics management and meeting content management (Meeting Architecture) because both are a full time course resulting in complimentary degrees. So if an association starts today by importing, let’s say one set of skills from only one source about only education, this association should be aware it is merely opening the door to a whole new world. Announcing that this is the new revolution is to me somewhat premature; it is merely the tip of the iceberg.
Consider this an invitation to co-creation, where MPI, PCMA and many others put their heads together to investigate, design and execute this major, industry wide endeavour.
Maarten Vanneste
February 8, 2008.
in
Meeting content management is not just another topic to add to the list of topics for the next conference. The current meeting industry needs to think long and hard in order to create a strategic plan for transition, or maybe renewed focus on its core purpose. It needs to consider what happened with ROI and how the members of the community cope with that. Even though I feel it is fair to say that ROI is treated as another topic on the list: are most meeting planners happily practicing ROI today or is it just an intellectual elite trying to manage? How many planners are frustrated, understanding the ROI challenge, but unable to perform? Do we want to stack another load of overwhelming innovation onto the meeting planners’ shoulders? Are logistically oriented and hospitality minded professionals with a passion for travel interested? Will they be able to digest and use the information about the content side of meetings? And what if a majority doesn’t? Will it create a two speed association? Will it split the community? As I asked at the end of my first meeting industry ROI class in Denver in 2004: “Are we not going too fast here, jumping all the way to ROI while we don’t even know how to manage the learning (level 2 in ROI measurement)?”
Here I ask that question again: Are we not going too fast? Is this industry able to rapidly make that switch or hastily take that curve towards managing both logistics/hospitality and the content side of meetings? And also if we believe the meeting industry can do it, how will we do it and how much time do we give it: one or two decades? We should do a thorough investigation or survey, but I’m estimating that maximum 10% of the planners in MPI is ready for this, 5% may even crave for it, and maybe 3% of the suppliers would welcome this transition. I am convinced that the vast majority of planners is scared of another revolution and will feel left out when it happens. We do not want to scare the foundation of our industry away.
I am convinced that, looking at the sheer size of the knowledge base consisting of commercial tools and services plus the (to be translated) scientific knowledge and the (to be imported) other industry practices is so vast, no one can do both the logistics and the content side combined. Especially not in a setting where planners are already stressed out by procurement and ‘more for less’ and burried under new rules in contracting, multiculturalism, green meetings, security, CRM and other burning matters.
I believe that in the future, the educational degrees in meeting management will offer the choice between meeting logistics management and meeting content management (Meeting Architecture) because both are a full time course resulting in complimentary degrees. So if an association starts today by importing, let’s say one set of skills from only one source about only education, this association should be aware it is merely opening the door to a whole new world. Announcing that this is the new revolution is to me somewhat premature; it is merely the tip of the iceberg.
Consider this an invitation to co-creation, where MPI, PCMA and many others put their heads together to investigate, design and execute this major, industry wide endeavour.
Maarten Vanneste
February 8, 2008.
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Recent blog posts
- Meeting Participation Technology
- Meeting Support tools: CHATTY tools
- Meeting Architecture defined
- Motivation as the multiplier for meeting turnout
- some different kinds of Meeting Support tools
- Graphical facilitation
- Brown's movements and Bill Clinton.
- Unconference?
- A call to the industry: Let's not go too fast (again).
- Meeting Support Institute 2.0 Website
