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Reinventing Ourselves
to the point
Deborah Sexton President & CEO deborah.sexton@pcma.org
Take the time to re-imagine your skills — and even your career.
H
A Longer Shelf Life
PCMA’s Education Conference is the perfect way to get started reinventing your meetings and your career. If you couldn’t make plans to join us in Denver this month, you can still take advantage of some of the program’s education offerings. Join us live at pcma.org on June 25 for a hybrid with select sessions and discussions. Following a re- broadcast on July 17, archived content will be available on the website.
ere at PCMA, we’ve been talking a great deal lately about the need to reconstruct or reimagine face-to-face meetings. In fact, the theme for our upcoming Education
Conference — June 24 –27 in Denver
— is “Meeting Reinvention.” From con- tent delivery to technology use, we’ll be exploring how to transform events so that today’s attendees, exhibitors, and other stakeholders experience maxi- mum benefit. Reinvention doesn’t mean blowing
up what you have and starting over from scratch. But it does involve a good deal of open-mindedness about which pieces are working and which are not, what components could be added, and how they could be put together to shape a new experience for all of your event participants. That kind of open-mindedness is
also essential for meeting profession- als in terms of career development. In this issue’s cover story and CMP Series article (p. 42), we explore what kinds of skills you will need to stay on top of your game in the next few years. It’s a good opportunity for you to assess where you are today and what you might need to learn, on or off the job
— even if that means stepping outside your comfort zone. This applies whether you’re an
industry veteran or just getting started, and it requires something of an entrepreneurial mindset. Does Mark Zuckerberg, the 29-year-old who cre- ated Facebook with a group of college friends, sit back and relax — despite his reported wealth of $13.3 billion? Of course not. He must constantly upgrade his skills, not to mention making some serious about-faces if he wants to keep Facebook competitive.
10 PCMA CONVENE JUNE 2013 The need for reinvention is impor-
tant, whether you have tenure at your organization or are looking for work. Rule number one: Meetings themselves are rapidly changing, and there’s a great deal to learn about new approaches to content delivery, technology, and creat- ing customized experiences. Number two: The meetings profession is also evolving, with much more of a need for broad-based business acumen. In this issue, we help you take stock
of not only your skills but also your compensation. As our latest Annual Sal- ary Survey (p. 59) reveals, investing in your career reaps dividends. Those who earned the CMP designation make an average of $14,000-plus more per year than those without it. Take advantage of all the tools and
resources PCMA offers to help you in your career development. For every- thing from the latest research and education to important resources and an ever-important community of like- minded professionals, I encourage you to visit pcma.org or talk to anyone on staff about how we can help you meet you goals. After all, reinventing our meetings
goes hand-in-hand with reinventing our skills and our careers.
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PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL ABRAMSON