PCMA CONVENING LEADERS 2014 PREVIEW

And the ones that have been successful have been able to build a very tangible community around that topic. I think the same logic applies to internal meetings: The role of the meeting planner is community building — under- standing the key stakeholders and the key issues, maintaining contact with the participants and stakeholders. Not just dur- ing the event, but in the spaces between events as well, given every available communication platform. For me the area that’s changing isn’t the stage, it’s the

backstage. It’s what happens when people leave the sessions. I see my role as an agent to provoke ideas, but the real learn- ing happens after I finish talking.

Anything else? A final thing that’s going to be a critical skill for event planners is going to be [using] data and analytics. Meeting planners and meeting organizers used to have a bit of a “spray and pray” approach when it came to trying to engage potential event attendees. I used to work in the meetings business myself. In the late 1990s, I started a company in Australia that was the Australian operations of Jupiter Media. I have run lots of con- ferences — it was actually my first job out of university. Do you remember Internet World trade shows? That

was where we realized that innovation, at that point, was, rather than sending direct mail, to use targeted emails out of databases. Fifteen years on, the smart event organizers of the 21st century will use data to segment potential attendees or customers. [They will] only invite and talk to [potential attendees] about the things that are specifically relevant to their interests. They use all the available digital platforms, to not just communicate, but to learn about what interests and engages people.

Where is a good place to start? I always thought the key place to start is what [has been called] the inbound market. Rather than trying to find more effective ways to market to people you want to engage for a meeting, you start by creating content that you think would attract people. Let’s say you’re producing a confer- ence for people in the automotive industry. You might create a series of blog posts and YouTube videos talking about the latest trends and the key disruptors for 2014 — the things that you think that people would be typing into Google, looking for information, or the kinds of things you think people would be sharing on LinkedIn or Twitter. What happens is that if people discover that content, they’ll get drawn into a network. Then you can start to engage with them.

. Barbara Palmer is senior editor of Convene. PCMA.ORG

The Next Generation of Meeting Attendees Think big. Think new. Think quick.

That’s what Mike Walsh told attendees at the PCMA Educa- tion Conference in Denver on June 26. As meeting profes- sionals look to the future, Walsh urged them to recognize that the future is upon us — now.

While it’s important to look at trends and statistics, Walsh cautioned against making assumptions about what attendees will prefer at tomorrow’s meetings. “It’s quite dangerous to make generalizations about the next gen- eration,” Walsh said. In fact, the futurist doesn’t even think in traditional Gen X, Gen Y, or Millennial terms. “I don’t believe in generations,” Walsh said.

GEN IPHONE

Instead, Walsh looks to the future for one group: the smartphone generation. From 2007 (the year the iPhone was introduced) and beyond, everyone will grow up with anytime/anywhere access to making connections and reading content. “The next generation of attendees,” Walsh said, “will have a radically different mindset and communication paradigm shaped by a childhood of disruptive technology.”

It’s important to note that this places significant pressure on planners who are still waiting to develop mobile appli- cations for their meetings. While some planners may attri- bute the lack of an app to an older audience, that excuse is problematic, Walsh noted. How will you replace that aging audience if young, prospective attendees perceive your meeting as an old-school experience that is failing to keep up with technology? Indeed, Walsh’s Education Confer- ence presentation posed a question that every meeting planner should ask: If your meeting isn’t mobile, will your audience even know it’s happening?

WHERE TO TURN FOR YOUR EDUCATION

For meeting professionals with children, you might not need to go far to get advice on how to be innovative. “If your kids had your job,” Walsh said, “how would they do it differently?” If you can’t turn to your own kids for help, Walsh suggested turning to someone else’s by setting up a youth lab, recruiting some young people, and asking them to imagine the kind of event they would like to participate in.

As your organization looks ahead and works to determine how to stay relevant, Walsh recommends taking a step back and answering one additional key question: Are you fighting the future or training for it?

— David McMillin

SEPTEMBER 2013 PCMA CONVENE

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