Meeting Support Institute

Article about Maarten Vanneste's book "Meeting Architecture a manifesto" in eventos magazine of July - August 2008.

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Article about Maarten Vanneste's book "Meeting Architecture a manifesto"
in Meetings - Autumn 2008

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MV_Meetings.pdf	218.21 KB

The magazine Convene from PCMA (Professional Convention Management Association) is publishing a series of articles called How Adults Learn. This series of about 10 articles is written by Glen C. Ramsborg, PhD and Sue Tinnish. They are published from 2008 onwards and it will be very useful for those that are interested in the educational side of their meetings. This Convene series, How Adults Learn, is intended to offer meeting professionals a new paradigm, focused on optimizing the adult learning experience. This first article describes how four major factors — learning environments, fragmented audiences, technology, and networks — affect how adults learn.

MEETING ARCHITECTURE 

Manifesto for a new profession 1.The meeting industry
In 2007, the meeting industry is a Multi billion dollar industry that exists around the outside of meetings, the shell, and not it’s inside. The destination and venue take all the space as a natural consequence of an industry that resides inside the tourism (and hospitality) industry. This is a fact, not a judgment. This is a great and well organized industry of large and multinational corporations that work very professionally and lay out the foundations on which meetings can take place.

How can you ensure your meetings aren’t a turn off for tomorrow’s delegates? Katherine Simmons reports
 
 
Today’s students - and some young people already within the workplace - belong to a generation known as “digital natives”. This generation has mastered the concept of multi-tasking – talking and networking with peers via mobile phone, text, e-mail and social networking sites such as Bebo, Facebook and MySpace, downloading music from iTunes and sharing photos with friends on Flickr. All at once.
 
The term “digital native” was first coined by educational theorist Marc Prensky to describe those who have grown up with digital technology. Digital immigrants grew up without digital technology but adopted it later.
 

Rick Borovoy's blog, contains a number of exceptional statistical pieces on networking at meetings.
This unique research stands as an example for what our industry needs: reel scientific proof of the value of networking and the influence w meeting organiser has if the mind is set to it. 
Rick writes about networking analysis like "Taking Care of Newbies at User Conferences":

 

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?

The 2008 PEC-NA was different, in many ways.
For the Meeting Support Institute, it offered many opportunities and insights. Opportunities to share the vision and member information and insights in new technology and other innovations and ideas like visual facilitation, the Shark Tank, a book on informal learning, etc. And of course, especially the people made it worth while. Getting together with some friends is great: Ib Ravn, the Author of ‘the Learning Meeting’ (and doing his so needed missionary work), Joan Eisenstodt, this PEC speaking on Q-Storming™, Tyra Hilliard who is back at the George Washington University and many more.

And to top it all of, you meet new people.