Monday-Morning Quarterbacking planner’s

notebook Kelly Peacy CAE, CMP Senior Vice President, Education & Meetings kpeacy@pcma.org

Thank You!

Convening Leaders 2013 was a success. I think. But ask me again next year.

I

Convening Leaders wouldn’t have been the success it was without the hard work of so many people, including PCMA’s volunteer leaders and staff and our many partners. And, as always, I have to reserve my highest praise and most sincere thanks to PCMA’s Education & Meetings team: Vicky Betzig, CMP; Patrick Crosson; Ann Johnson; Dawn McEvoy, CMP, CAE; Danielle Roesmann; Laura Welsh; and Dyan Westropp, CMP. Thanks to you for helping make PCMA look so good.

t’s the night of Wednesday, Jan. 16, and Convening Leaders 2013 has been over for about three hours. Our whole team is exhausted and elated — not just my Education & Meetings staff, but everyone throughout PCMA

who was a part of the annual meeting. Over the next few days and weeks,

attendees will be filling out their formal evaluations, and also sending us emails or calling us up to let us know what they liked and didn’t like. They’re PCMA members, after all, and never shy about telling us what they think, and that’s one of the many things we love about them. We’ll go over all of that feedback

carefully, and combine it with our own observations to figure out how to make our meetings and events even better. But for now, here are some anecdotal impressions that I’m putting together. Overall, Convening Leaders 2013

went very well. We received a lot of good feedback about the level of educa- tion we provided. And while there are going to be some sessions that don’t meet everyone’s expectations or miss the mark in some way, we spend a lot of time preparing our speakers, and I think that was reflected in how on point they were. For example, Yum! Brands CEO David Novak, our Closing General Session speaker, used a lot of industry references, which attendees seemed to appreciate, because it showed that he did his homework. And we did ours. You can never ignore the basics. Con-

vening Leaders is probably best known for getting blown up and rebuilt every year — new innovations, new programs, new experiences — but throughout all of that, we still have to practice solid, fundamental meeting manage- ment. The idea is to create a well-oiled machine of best practices that powers all of the cool new stuff. With a few

14 PCMA CONVENE FEBRUARY 2013

exceptions, I think we did that this year. The Celebrate PCMA Awards Lun-

cheon was a home run. We divided the room into four zones, each with its own menu (Comfort Food; Small Plates, Big Tastes; Classic French; and Healthy Trends) and its own setup, and let our attendees pick where they wanted to sit. I’m pleased with how that worked out — it was executed right on the money. The Show Reimagined Networking

Luncheon needed more advance com- munication. For Tuesday’s lunch, we presented a variety of food stations interwoven with stages and sets offer- ing short sessions about exhibition management. It was a very different format for us, and while we thought we let attendees know about it in advance, a lot of people were confused or unsure about the whole thing on site. And that’s not a good thing. We should have done more in the final program or via our mobile app to better explain the concept. But once attendees under- stood their engagement opportunities in the luncheon, they told us they loved the concept and the education offered. As everything continues to sink in, I

know I’ll find more constructive criti- cisms and more successes, and I know the whole process will help us create an amazing program for Convening Lead- ers 2014. So ask me about it again when I see you in Boston next Jan. 12–15.

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