I’m thrilled to hear how much participants got out of 2011 Convening Leaders in Las Vegas last month. Here’s what I think went over well—and what we can improve on next year.
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SHOUT-OUTS: Thank you to everyone at MGM Grand who was instrumental in 2011 Convening Leaders’ success: Barry Rushakoff, convention servic- es manager; Colleen Ortiz, assis- tant director of catering; Brian Keenan, vice presi- dent of sales; and Ruth Leis, executive director of sales. I am lucky to
work with such a phenomenal PCMA meetings and events team: Sarah Corradino, CMP, senior manager; Dyan Couch, CMP, manager; Mandi Kasper, CMP, spe- cialist; Lindsy Lim, intern; and Vicky Betzig, CMP, presi- dent/owner, Meetings Industry Consulting.
ecessity (yes, the mother of invention) drove the creation of the PCMA Learning
Lounge—the part of 2011 Convening Leaders that generated the most buzz. We needed to shrink downMGM Grand’s Grand Garden Arena space, where the General Sessions were held,
so we created a backstage area for short, interac- tive education sessions, live webcasting, and self-directed learning groups.We developed the space well before the content we would present there. I was very pleasantly surprised at
how well the Learning Lounge went over. I think people didn’t know what to expect from this new initia- tive—heck, we didn’t know what to expect. But people said they loved the 15-minute sessions and appreci- ated the behind-the-scenes exposure to our General Sessions’ backstage area. There was so much going on in the Learning
watch the General Sessions. People were pulling up chairs and casually watchingthe presenta- tions on the reverse screens there, rather than being in the actual General Session arena —which we didn’t expect, but was fine. Next year, we may add some components for
ON_THE_WEB:
Watch the interview that formed the basis for this column on Convene’s blog at http://bit.ly /hvQH8o.
that type of learning, or we may do something completely different. There was great collabora- tion between Dave Lutz,CMP, and Jeff Hurt, of Velvet Chainsaw Consulting, andPCMADirec- tor of Education Kristin Crane. They were the drivers of the content, and they did a magnifi- cent job.Without that content, the Learning Lounge would not have been success- ful.You can put up structures, you can have innovative space usage, but unless you have great content, it’s not going to go over. Another new initiative this year—
for education sessions outside of the Learning Lounge—was to give over- flow attendees the chance to watch those “sold-out” sessions live via video screens. The fire codes are very
Lounge—perhaps too much. There were numerous choices for people, too many for those who don’t like to “shop.” The thing to remember is that we presented all of these options not only as learning opportunities for attendees, but also to demonstrate what they might do at their own events. One attendee came up to me and said, “This is fabulous. I love this—not for me specifically, because that’s not the way that I like to learn. Butmyattendees would love it.” Which was the whole idea: for attendees to take what they saw and extrapolate from it, edit it down, or expand on it any way they want for their own events. One thing that we didn’t count on was that people would stay in the Learning Lounge to
strict in LasVegas, and attendees appreciated that if they couldn’t fit in the room, they could still see the speakers and what was happening in the sessions. One thingwe learned from this is that
we need to haveCEUreaders at these overflow areas—note to self for 2012 Convening Leaders in San Diego. Hope to see you there.
Kelly Peacy, CAE, CMP Vice President of Meetings and Events kpeacy@pcma.org