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PCMA Catalyst: Are Planners Holding Themselves Back? Brad Lewis, executive director of the PCMA Education Foundation, reported key results of a recent PCMA web poll on pcmaFORUM, a general discussion area in the recently launched PCMA Catalyst community at pcma.org. The poll asked: “Does your CEO think your meetings are effective?” The results were split evenly between “highly effec- tive” and respondents who judged their executive director/CEO to feel that meetings were less than highly effective. “Do you feel this is an alarming stat?” Lewis asked Catalyst members. “What key thing(s) does our profession need to do so that the overwhelming response would be ‘highly effective’?”
Meeting planning in general is treated or considered as an administrative function (albeit one that requires a certain level of education, experience, and skills to be effective). In order to break free of being lumped into the other administrative functions within an organization, planners need to evolve into more strategic thinkers and to show added value to their executive director/CEO. Ask yourself, when was the last time (if ever) that you asked for and reviewed the strategic plan for your organization? Do you understand how your department/function fits into the overall revenue picture for your orga- nization? What is your contribution to growing that revenue stream? What conversations are you having within your organization, and with whom?
Phelps Hope, Vice President of Meetings and Expositions, Kellen Meetings
We have been addressing this topic for way too long. In my opinion, we (planners) have created much of this perception and not done enough to change it. First, we need to stop calling ourselves “planners.” To give you an example comparison: Leadership in communications don’t call themselves
communicators. More importantly, we need to embrace the organizations we work for, know their business, and stop taking the approach that we are just the meetings people. We need to view our work and meetings as avenues for our organization to be successful. Once that happens, you can then contribute to strategic conversations in terms of how your event(s) can support and enhance various organizational goals/programs. Finally, I have heard colleagues complain about sitting through board and other leadership meetings as if much of the discussion has nothing to do with meetings. This is a huge mistake! Those with a seat at the
table are not always recognizing that as an opportunity to learn and increase their meeting’s importance, thus their own stature within the organization.
James Goodman, Managing Vice President of Conferences and Continuing Education, American Dental Association
Editor’s Note: The concepts presented in the October 2012 Forward Thinking column did not give proper attribution to Rottman Creative Group’s Manifesto (rottmancreative.com/manifesto). Convene regrets the oversight.
From Convene’s blog For more on the meetings industry, visit our blog at pcmaconvene.com.
THE ENTROPY OF HELIUM LIQUID Assistant Editor Katie Kervin recently attended the Global Young Scientists Summit (GYSS) in Sin- gapore (read her story on p. 76) and posted this report: “At the summit’s opening cer-
emony — held at National University of Singapore’s University Cultural Center — Douglas D. Osheroff, professor emeritus of physics at Stanford (and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1996), gave the keynote address on ‘How Advances in Science Are Made.’ Cool, I thought. This could be some- thing I’ll understand. I was mostly wrong. Professor Osheroff began discussing his work in condensed- matter physics. There were slides demonstrating nuclear magnetic resonance frequency spectra. I tried to keep up for a brief while before my brain became muddled. But then Professor Osheroff’s talk took a turn. He started mixing in explanations of his research and projects with personal photos and anecdotes. He showed us a picture of his wife of
Douglas D. Osheroff addresses the GYSS.
nearly 43 years (biochemist Phyllis Liu-Osheroff, Ph.D.) on their honey- moon, and explained how important it is to choose a good mate. “Lastly, he had a little advice for the young researchers in the audi- ence: ‘Back off from what you are doing occasionally, to gain a better perspective on the task at hand,’ he told them. And an important function of gatherings like GYSS? To ‘encourage scientists to inter- act with each other — this is how advances in science are made.’ “Now that sure makes sense to
me.” APRIL 2013 PCMA CONVENE 7
PHOTOGRAPH BY NATIONAL RESEARCH FOUNDATION SINGAPORE