CMP SERIES CERTIFICATION MADE POSSIBLE You Will Find Your Attendees Online

B.L. Ochman Social-Media Strategy Consultant › whatsnextblog.com › @whatsnext

What general business skills will any professional need to develop over the next few years? You need to use social and mobile media in order to understand the sea change they have brought about in communication. Unfortunately, people who’ve had corporate jobs for the past many years have almost always failed to keep up with the changing media environment. You need to use tablets, smart- phones, and the other tools your customers use. There are ample numbers of seminars and books — and yes, conferences — that aim to teach these skills. But the most important way to learn about new media is to use it in an immersive way. Get a Twitter account, learn to run Google+ Hangouts, learn to use video, become active on LinkedIn.

Aligns meeting ob- jectives with broader organizational goals.

How do you see meetings, conferences, and other live professional-development events evolving? Five years from now, as many as 95 percent of these kinds of events will take place online, on platforms like Google+ Hangouts (or whatever that evolves into over time).

Will in-person/face-to-face continue to be the dominant mode for meetings? I seriously doubt that face-to-face is dominant even now. Travel is expensive and ridiculously time-consuming. Face-to-face has its place and always will, but 99 percent of all business travel is wasteful and unnecessary. That kind of spending can’t continue, and it won’t. Sorry to say that I don’t anticipate increased

demand for meetings and conferwences. I see increased demand for online interactions with more personal engagement. Digital, social, and mobile media have already

changed conferences and meetings. Every confer- ence is now live-streamed. The fact is, nobody really goes to conferences for the content. We go to schmooze. So networking opportunities will always be needed, but they increasingly can be done online in smaller groups in which people can interact on a meaningful level.

— Michelle Russell You Will Use Technology All the Time

Paul Paone Founder and Director Meetings Technology Expo › meetingstechexpo .com

What every professional should know As busi- ness communication continues trending towards increasingly digital interaction, general writing skills will become even more essential in order to sell, market, and network. The ability to convey appropriate messages via email, social-media channels, and marketing materials may be the only form of communication available, so you need to be concise and have something worth reading.

Engages attendees with compelling narratives.

Meetings, tomorrow and the day after Our industry will see a much higher technology adoption rate regardless of the industry sector, and thereby plan- ners will need to become significantly more tech- savvy. Ironically, technology seems to flourish in tougher economic times, when event professionals are charged with doing more with less — that is the perfect segue into adopting new tools and technol- ogies. Social-media integration will also continue to play an ever-expanding role in our industry and will constitute a sizable chunk of event marketing.

46 PCMA CONVENE JUNE 2013

I also see events becoming better in general as planners are given the tools to harness data on attendee behavior, patterns, likes, and dislikes.

Get hands-on to hone your skills If your team cur- rently has technology in place for registration, housing, attendee tracking, mobile applications, etc., ask your manager to see how they function on the back and front end. Understanding the impor- tance of why the tech solution is in place and then seeing it in action will garner a better appreciation for the event that you’re helping to create. If tech- nology is lacking in your events, investigate solu- tions! Sit in on webinars, attend a conference, and educate yourself to the point where you can make a case for purchasing and implementing a tech solution. Most events will eventually be forced to catch up with the rest of the industry, so why not be the catalyst for change in your company and strengthen your career at the same time? — Christopher Durso

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