Laying the foundation for PCMA 2012 Convening Leaders—by throwing out everything we did last year.
Editor’s Note: After a brief hiatus,wewelcomePCMA Planner’s Notebook—byPCMASenior Vice President of Meetings and Events Kelly Peacy—back to Convene.
H
erewegoagain—we’rewell into the planning of another PCMAConvening Leaders
annual meeting. And while the program is scheduled for Jan. 8–11, 2012, in San Diego, we already feel the pressure. For- tunately, we have a terrific team in the
San Diego 2012 Host Committee to help. Mid-August is a key target. Our goal is to
have about 80 percent of the program content in place by then so we can launch our program website, registration, and housing. But first, we need to lay down the meeting’s foundation. By that, I mean we need to get our arms around a few things, including: Howmuchformal education will be on
the program? It affects the overall schedule. Howmuchspace will the sessions
require? That will determine the overall lay- out at the San Diego Convention Center. Where will all of our evening and ancil-
lary events take place?They help to both round out the program and shape our partici- pants’ experience.
Based on this foundation, in the past I’ve cre-
ated a schedulematrix that resembles aGantt chart—kind of a project timeline. Iwould share thismatrixwith the internal teamatPCMA, and wewould pick it apart,move things around, and end upwith our final program schedule. This worked fine when we were simply using
14 pcma convene June 2011
Kelly Peacy, CAE, CMP Senior Vice President of Meetings and Events kpeacy@pcma.org
last year’s schedule of events as the basis for the following year’s event. This year, however, thePCMAteam has agreed to throw that matrix out the window and start from scratch. What does that mean? For starters, perhaps there won’t be traditional 75-minute and 90- minute educational sessions. Or maybe we’ll have a few. Or it could be that we offer 30- minute sessions—and they may not be held in typical session rooms. Whyare we deliberately making our lives
more difficult? Because the 2011 Convening Leaders program evaluations confirmed that our attendees expect us to continue to raise the bar. And, quite simply, we need to listen and deliver.With the help of our 2012 Annual Meet- ing Program Committee and Session Develop- mentTask Forces, we hope to shake up the way education is delivered at 2012 Convening Lead- ers and create a program and experience in San Diego that far surpasses expectations. I know I speak for the entirePCMAteam
when I say we are excited to be in the throes of planning for 2012 Convening Leaders. So much will happen between now and when we get to San Diego, but for us, that is the best part —staying ahead of trends and listening to your feedback as we continue to build the program. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love your ideas! Send them my way to kpeacy@pcma.org.
GETTING TECHY: Another critical com- ponent of our annual meeting’s foundation is technology. With technology changing so rapidly, how do we embrace it? Technology tools of all kinds will play an even larger role in our activities at 2012 Convening Leaders— from how my team will produce the event, to how we con- nect our attendees before, during, and after the meeting. On site, we’ll be engaging our attendees through mobile appli- cations, in new ways to use audience- response systems, and via our hybrid meeting in PCMA365 —along with many other components. But in the end, all of our technology offer- ings need to enhance our attendees’ face- to-face experience— and serve to show them what they can do at their own meetings.