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Innovative Meetings continued
“[The gaming format] is a way that you can really add value— getting people to talk to other people about issues that matter to them, and creating solutions that go right into the heart of what organizations are there for.”
between the attendees before they actually began to workas a team.” The lessons weren’t lost on the teams, many of
whose members improvised away. The conference waslive-streamed,andmeeting-technology consult- antSamuel J.Smithjoinedoneoftheteams viaSkype from his Minneapolis office—a totally unplanned development.Andsomecompetingteamsthatwere assigned to thesamecase study opted to join forces.
son said. “People come and set up a booth or get their logo on a sign, but do they actually get peo- ple looking at their information?” Competition between teams was another key
element in keeping players engaged, Henderson said. Points were regularly talliedona leaderboard, so attendees could see exactly where their teams stood. “Itwasamazinghowcompetitive the teams got,” Henderson said, with teams “trying to knock each other off the top of the leaderboard, and coming up with strategies to win.” Thegameappears to be an industry first—and
PLAYBOOK: In designing the game, GMIC’s leadership relied on concepts and research out- lined in the groundbreaking 2009 book Total Engagement. “Ignore this work at your peril,”wrote one reviewer.
before the conference got underway, the meeting’s organizers were nervous abouthowwell it would work.Henderson said:“GMIC took a big leap of faith.” So how did it go? Not everyone liked the for-
mat, but overall, the reactionwaspositive. “Just left the best conference I’ve ever attended,” Scott McKye, founder of KleerTech and a 25-year vet- eran of themeetings industry, tweeted on his way out of Portland.“Totally interactive&energizing.” “It’s just incredible,” McKye said later, “all of
theways itmakes an eventmuchmore education- al while being fun for everyone.” Itwas so successful, in fact, thatGMIC already
“It was amazing,” Henderson said. “It showed exactlywhatpeoplewhoaremotivatedandengaged can do.Theycan takeastructureandmakeitwork inwaysyounever could have expected.”
‘A BigLeap of Faith’ One of the game’s more innovativemoves was to embed sponsors into the case studies that were part of the game. While making site-selection deci- sions, playerswere asked tochoose froma short list that includedGMIC’s sponsoring destinations, cre- ating what was essentially a product-placement opportunity.The gamenot only drove participants directly to sponsors’ information, it required that they really dig into it, paving the way for deeper engagement than usually occurs.“The sponsorship model in the industry is, I think, failing,”Hender-
32 pcma convene June 2011
is planning to use the structure again next year— with some tweaks, said Henderson, who will serve as 2012 conference chair. Only team leaders were equipped with iPads this year, for example, andwhile thegamewas availableonthe web, most participants wanted the opportunity to interact with it themselves through mobile technology. And next year, Henderson will introduce players to the game before they arrive, to further acceler- ate the engagement process. “We’ll be brainstormingonhowto improve the
format for next year,” Henderson said, “building on what we’ve learned from this event.” But she’s soldonthe idea of agameitself. “This is awaythat you can really add value—getting people to talk to other people about issues that matter to them, and creating solutions that go right into the heart of what organizations are there for.”
Take Away
Totally Engaged Many of the con- cepts that framed GMIC’s conference game were drawn from the book Total Engagement, by Byron Reeves and J. Leighton Read, pub- lished by Harvard Business Review Press. The following excerpt describes how games encour- age community: The intriguing
promise of games is that the challenges for teams are similar to ones in business: What is the problem we are solving? … Who is responsible for what, and who is in charge? Do we have the correct information? Does the assembled team have relevant expertise? How do we solve disagree- ments among team members? What are the risks and bene- fits to a given solu- tion? All of these issues have to be resolved, and if done successfully, they will result in group and individual success.
Barbara Palmer is a senior editor of Convene.
Innovative Meetings is sponsored by the Irving, Texas, Convention and Visitors Bureau, www.irvingtexas.com.