CONTENTS June 2012 Volume 26, Issue 6

COVER STORY AND CMP SERIES

The Meat of the Meeting

‘I think [full-blown themed meetings’] time has passed, or passed for now. But it could maybe come back — like plaid.’

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Cover photgraphy by J. Christopher Lawson/First Light/Corbis

PCMA.ORG JUNE 2012 PCMA CONVENE 1 22145014A

For many organizations, the heavily themed conferences of yesterday are out. But as planners focus more on the main course — content — and less on the dessert, it becomes more challenging to differentiate one meeting from the next. In taking a leaner marketing approach, how are meeting organizers avoiding what one planner called “the cookie- cutter mode of planning”? Hunter R. Slaton

Features SALARY SURVEY 2012

Raises: More the Rule Than the Exception Our Annual Salary Survey is chockablock with averages, stats, and figures. Plus, our more than 400 planner respondents reveal what they like best and least about their job. Michelle Russell

BOOKINGS

Quiet Power In the first in our new series in which we ask popular nonfiction book authors to turn their lens on the meetings industry, Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, tells us how meeting organizers can make their events more comfortable for their less outgoing attendees. And how those events can benefit in return. Barbara Palmer