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PCMA Planner’s Notebook By Kelly Peacy, CAE, CMP
Pre-Conference Jitters
The butterflies in my stomach can mean only one thing: Convening Leaders is next month— and I’m anxious to see how our new risks and innovations work out.
I
’ll be honest. I’m always a little nervous this time of year. By the time you read this, the team and I will be just about ready to head to San Diego for
the 2012 edition of Convening Leaders. Don’t get me wrong—I’mvery excited to
see how all of our hard work comes together, but I still have pre-conference jitters. I’m not sleeping all that much and my mind is constant- ly spinning, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. All of these butterflies in my stomach mean that there is anticipation of the unknown; and what’s unknown is whether our new inno- vations and risks are going to pay off. It means thatPCMA’s Convening Leaders is not the same old, same old. And that’s a good thing. PCMAtakes lots of risks at Convening Lead-
ers, because we know that sometimes you just don’t have that luxury as meeting professionals. You need to see something in action and whether it works in order to justify the expense and effort at your own meeting.We get it.We’re your industry organization, so we’re always going to take the risks so you don’t have to. So,what are the risky things at Convening
Leaders 2012 that have me so nervous? Here are just two—in no particular order of how nervous they make me: We’ve blown up the concurrent session
schedule. Kind of. At a staff meeting last February, I challenged everyone to think outside the box when it comes to delivering education content at Convening Leaders. Remember last year when all of our sessions were 90 minutes long?Well, some of those sessions remain, but there are also programs that are only 45minutes, or 30 minutes, or 15minutes. Some are even two hours.We believe not all content can or should fit into 90-minute block of time. If you’re attend- ing Convening Leaders next month, you’ll need to pay attention to the schedule.
10 pcma convene December 2011 I’mnervous about how this will go over,
because change is hard. Our attendees may not like this type of schedule, but either way, we’ll find out —and so will you. Inside scoop:When you plan 90-minute
session blocks, it’s easy to assign rooms to pro- grams with all the same start and end times. When you develop a schedule of different ses- sion lengths, it’s not so simple, as our meetings and events and education teams have learned. Different rooms are needed at different times, and because not everything is starting and end- ing at the same time, it can be challenging to figure out what goes where. But just because it’s challenging doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. Three speakers in one opening general
session.And, by the way, one of those speakers is being remotely delivered live from San Fran- cisco.OnMonday, Jan. 9, we’ll present three separate speakers on different but related topics (see sidebar). They’ll only speak for an average of 20 minutes each, but, if you like what you hear, they will dive deeper into the topics during our Masters Series sessions later that day. Inside scoop: Three general-session speakers
can create a unique challenge when it comes to rehearsals and developing a production timeline or “show flow.” Figuring out who goes first and why, and how to transition from one to the other, takes some thought. If you haven’t yet registered for Convening
Leaders, Jan. 8–11 in San Diego, there is still time—and we’d love to see you there. Experi- ence for yourself some of our risks and innova- tions, and let me know what you think after- ward at kpeacy@pcma.org.
TIMES THREE: Monday’s three general-session speakers are game designer Jane McGonigal, brand consultant Sally Hogshead, and molecular biologist John Medina. Read in-depth Convene interviews with them at http://bit.ly /three-in-one.
Kelly Peacy, CAE, CMP Senior Vice President of Meetings and Events kpeacy@pcma.org