NBTA  ‘09 Meeting Architecture: class one
In 2008, NBTA got connected to Meeting Architecture via Kari Kesler, Honeywell USA, Janet Sperstad, CMP from Madison Area Technical College and Lynda Garvey, American Express, USA. These visionary professionals are all involved in NBTA’s  SMMC program, Strategic Meeting Management Certification as a corporate wide, meeting procurement, consolidation and management program.
Most procurement efforts currently focus on the commodity side of meetings: travel, venue, room nights. Meeting Architecture adds the dimension of the content of meetings and that is seen as a creative, made to measure, project based activity. The content side of meetings is about objectives; learning, networking and motivational objectives. This is where value is created and therefore it is crucial to managing this well. The logistics and hospitality side of meetings is all about efficiency, where in the content side, we focus on effectiveness.
This content area is relatively low in spent and hard to commoditize or to squeeze into classic procurement models. This makes MAP™ the next best thing for optimizing or maximizing value. MAP™ or Meeting Architecture Process is the standard operating procedure for developing the content side of meetings together with meeting owners.
 











The participant, were about 50/50 procurement and planners, looking at MAP™ from a different perspective.

The day started with a presentation on Meeting Architecture as a discipline followed by a presentation on MAP™.  The rest of the day we worked with the MAP™ tool  and did many exercises, ending with a relevance discussion and how to apply this in practice. The session comes with a copy of the book ‘Meeting Architecture, a manifesto’ and copies of  MAP™ to take home for further learning and the real work. One copy is used for the exercises, making it a real practical hands-on training. The exercises were facilitated by Terri Breining, CMP, CMM who says:   "I think there's a great future for MAP™ programs".


FEEDBACK: Since this was the first ever one day session on MAP™ also the participant feedback is crucial. One earlier 90 minute session at MPI ‘s WEC  came back with great comments and 97.28% favourable feedback. The NBTA was a full Sunday, pre-conference and paying session, so a critical audience was to be expected. Main comment, by all accept one, was that this could well be a two day session. Adding more time for the exercises and also adding a module on how to sell this and get the buy-in from other people in the organisation. Everybody found MAP™ to be very to extremely relevant, new and applicable.


The corporate planner sees MAP™ as a tool that will be used to: “Understand my clients”, “Help to meet objectives”, “Become more strategic”, “Talk with clients in a more intelligent way”, “Target the legacy of 35 year old conference”
The procurement professionals see MAP™ as a tool to: “…use as a Standard Operation Procedure”, “…validate excising practices” “… take a next step in consolidation”, “…develop meeting practices”
The Agency planners see MAP™: “As a selling tool”, “As a practical tool to use with clients”, “To implement the exercises”, “To target large (client) conferences”
 







Participants find MAP™ “extremely relevant” and “very applicable”


Next MAP™ course is the first ever two day training Dublin during the ROI week with Jack and Patty Philips and Elling Hamso.
Contact: maarten.vanneste@meetingsupport.org

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