July 2012: Behind the Scenes I totally agree with you on “Feeling the Love” (Behind the Scenes). I certainly do make our vendors and exhibitors feel loved, as much love as I show our attendees. Exhibitors are the backbone of my organization’s annual meeting. Without them being an active part of our meeting, the cost would be so out- rageous that many meeting attendees could not afford to attend. I personally greet each exhibitor as they arrive on site to pick up their reg- istration materials and set up. I make sure everything has been delivered to their booth, and find out if there is anything more they need. It does hap- pen, at times, that with all the meetings the exhibitors work at, they can forget something. I walk through the exhibit hall several times each day, stopping for a moment to speak with the exhibitors and make sure they are being taken care of properly. I work with my board to ensure that each board member visits the exhibit hall and thanks all the vendors. We make sure to stress during the general education sessions the importance of visiting the exhibit hall and seeing what our exhibitors have to offer. We also make sure to have adequate exhibit-hall hours when there are no concurrent education sessions.
All the main food functions during
the meeting are set up in the exhibit hall. What better way to bring the attendees in to see the exhibits … feed them! But one important thing that I do, which I hear from a lot of the exhibi- tors that they do not receive [at other events], is allotting them time to enjoy the meal functions. They are included in all the continental breakfasts, recep- tions, awards luncheon (a sit-down function at which they are recognized by our organization for their continued support), and the exhibit-hall buffet lunch with attendees. The exhibitors love this special attention. A little kindness, courtesy, and one- on-one attention go a long way. I want
our exhibitors to always “feel the love” while at our meeting.
Jackie Cencer, CMP, Meetings Coordinator, College of Optometrists in Vision Development
PCMA@LinkedIn: When Bed Bugs Bite Deborah Psioda, global account director at ConferenceDirect, asked members of PCMA’s LinkedIn group if anyone had experienced bed bugs at a meeting and whether group members had added clauses covering the pests in their con- tracts. The problem, she noted, doesn’t seem to fall under force majeure. Here is one response Psioda received:
We added a “pest control” clause (including bed bugs) to our hotel
contracts. Some hotels won’t accept the clause, but many do. Basically, it asks the property to be vigilant and to employ a thorough detection program based on training, education, and awareness. In the unlikely event that the hotel
or a guest suspects a problem, the hotel is to take immediate action [by] isolat- ing the area in question to determine if a problem exists, and if warranted, the guest is to be relocated and the situa- tion immediately remedied. It isn’t a perfect solution. Since pests, particu- larly bed bugs, can appear at any time, our goal was to establish procedures if they were discovered.
Kathy Molk, CMP, Assistant Director of Conferences and Meetings, American Occupational Therapy Association Inc.
From Convene’s blog For more on the meetings industry, visit our blog at pcmaconvene.com.
AN ALAMO EPIPHANY When Editor in Chief Michelle Russell was in San Antonio for the PCMA Education Conference in June, she made time to visit the Alamo, a site which, she noted, looms large in the American consciousness but turned out to be a lot smaller that she had imagined: “I thought about that when ‘Practical Futurist’ Michael Rogers (see our interview at convn.org/practical-futurist) spoke at this morning’s general session. Staying on top of the latest technolo- gies and figuring out how to imple- ment them to benefit our industry seems overwhelming, given our growing day-to-day tasks. (As a for- mer colleague used to say, ‘It’s hard to build the house when you’re wash- ing the windows.’) Rogers acknowl- edged that operational duties trump research and development — but R&D is critical to innovation. He
San Antonio’s memorable landmark.
recommended that you designate someone within your organization be removed (perhaps on a regular basis) from the operational side of things to talk to people and search the web — to do the actual work of seeking out and understanding new tools and technologies. “Designating someone to focus
on that on a regular basis feels doable. And for me, something that I imagined to be such a huge thing seemed to shrink down to a man- ageable scale.”