Never Replace Face-to-Face

Posted by:
Jordan Schwartz
CEO, Pathable



Perhaps it sounds heretical coming from the president of an Internet-based “social media company”, but I don’t think on-line social networks and communities can ever replace the power and value of face-to-face meetings.

At this point, you might be asking “but isn’t that your business?” No, it isn’t. Here’s why:

The value that on-line social networks for events provides come from the way they can enhance and extend face-to-face meetings, not replace them. Here are three simple ways:

1. Increased Attendance: On-line social networks are uniquely suited to set off viral marketing cascades: one person posts a note to Twitter or Facebook and all of their friends see it. If only a small percentage of those respond or “retweet”, you can quickly build a chain reaction where your news or message can flow through to an audience of thousands. By leveraging this network effect, you can get the word out about your event in a much more effective way than traditional ad buys or other channels.
2. Increased Satisfaction: If your attendees are coming to meet each other and build new relationships, they will judge the value of your event on their success at achieving their goals. If they walk away with a passel of new connections and relationships, they’ll be back next time. If they don’t, they may not.
3. Extended Duration: Typical face-to-face events last anywhere from several hours to several days. It’s a rare event that lasts all year. But that’s exactly what on-line communities can do. And not only do they extend your event for months after it’s over, but think about what kind of value a 24 / 7 tradeshow can offer your exhibitors!

With Thankgsiving wrapped up here in the U.S. and more holidays on the way, we’ve had many opportunities to see how emotionally impactful getting together with people face-to-face can be. Looking someone in the eye, hearing the silence between their words, feeling the grip of their hand: these powerful experiences can’t be matched by words or pictures on the screen.

But if you want to get the most out of the face-to-face experience, taking advantage of all that on-line communities and social networks have to offer is essential.

None of this is to say that virtual meetings and hybrid meetings (i.e., meetings with both an on-line and physical component) don't have value: they do! The way information can be transmitted and ideas exchanged without the accompanying travel costs (both time and money), are fantastic and these types of meetings will continue to grow with good reason. But will they replace face-to-face completely? Never.

Attendees at your events have a limited time to see each other, so they want to make the best use of the time they have. How can you help? Provide them with the tools to get to know each other before they arrive, to set up meetings in advance and to stay in touch when the event is over.

And that is enhancing and extending the face-to-face meeting.

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To hear more from Jordan, be sure to attend PCMA's 55th annual meeting: Convening Leaders in Las Vegas, Jan 9-12,2011.

Jordan's session, Successful Online Communities for Events, will help you identify best practices in building an online community, create synergy between face-to-face and online communities, and utilize online activity to improve year-round relationship with your community.

Giving Back: Community Service as Part of Events

Posted by:
Debbi Beldon, CMP
Experient National Account Manager




Community Service is an important part of my life. I have served on the committee for an annual local industry event that raises money for the Food Bank of the Rockies for years. I am currently serving as the Chair of the National Network for the Needy Committee for PCMA. Community Service has always been important to my company, Experient and I am grateful that they give us the ability and support to participate in some very important activities.

The Denver Experient Office holds an annual event called Pack for Impact that combines raising money and doing good work. We collect leftover convention bags and spend the afternoon with clients and supplier partners at the Food Bank of the Rockies stuffing the bags with food with the children that participate in the Kid’s Café program to take home every weekend. This year, in addition to actively stuffing 500 bags, I am very proud to share that with the help of some very generous sponsors we presented a check for $7,750!

I know that many groups include some community service component in their events, so I was curious to learn what groups were doing at their meetings.

I spoke with Diane Miller, Senior Coordinator Meeting Services for the Church of the Nazarene. She told me that they have been holding service projects at their events since 1987. The Church feels that it important when they go into a city – that they don’t just “take” – hotel rooms, food and beverage, etc. but also “give back” to the community. I was most impressed that at their Youth Conference, the service project is mandatory. Attendees are instructed to bring two suitcases – one for their personal belongings and one filled with food. Once the teens get to the event, they sort the food and fill boxes that will feed a family of four for a week. In 2007 in St. Louis they were able to provide enough food to feed 10,000 families! According to Diane, they believe that if you can expose these teens to service early enough, hopefully the practice of giving back will stay with them for life.

I then reached out to Heather Plush, Senior Meeting Manager at the National Conference of State Legislatures. Heather explained that they have done a community service project the past two years. The last two years their project was an adult “paint by numbers” activity where attendees could come and paint for as long as they had and then the paintings were donated to a local hospital. This year, they are working with the USO, selling specially designed children’s books in their bookstore for attendees to purchase. The books are equipped with recording devices and after the event, NCSL will send the books purchased back to the USO who will send them to parents on active military duty. Those parents can then record themselves reading the book to their children.

I spoke with a corporate planner that is celebrating their 25th anniversary, so every employee has been challenged to commit 25 hours of volunteer service over the course of this year. In an effort to support this challenge, six charities were showcased at a networking event at their office. A pre event video montage (viewed as pre-work in the virtual environment) described the charter and works of each organization prepared the attendees to meet with charity representatives and discuss the possibilities for personal and team volunteer opportunities. Additionally, they incorporate volunteer and community/charity work at almost every internal event.

If you are doing a Community Service project at your events – thank you. If you are not, maybe you should ask yourself why not? The projects are good for the community and rewarding for your attendees that participate. If you are concerned about not knowing how to get started, contact PCMA who has a Community Service committee and may be able to guide you. The Convention & Visitors Bureau in the city where you are meeting is a great resource for ideas. Destination Management Companies can also help you put on a great event.

If you are attending PCMA’s annual meeting: Convening Leaders, be sure to attend our session “Giving Back to Your Host City”.

Why your story matters…

Posted by:

Sue Hershkowitz-Coore, CSP

President/Owner, High Impact Presentations




If your best prospect agreed to give you just 3 minutes to persuade them you were their best choice, what would you say? Oh, and they’re also asking 5 of your competitors all who pretty much offer what you do (think Gala, MacIntosh, Fiji apples). You can create a Powerpoint if you want, or anything else you think might give you the edge.

So what would you do?

Tell your story. Tell them what about your product, service or idea drives people to do business with you. I don’t mean your beautiful ballroom. I mean how you watch brides walk into the ballroom and see them choke back tears (don’t ruin the make-up [humor is fine]) when they see their dream wedding come to life. I don’t mean how you love what you do. I mean how when people write to you after your program and tell them you changed their life, transformed what they do, that they applied your principles the next day – even though they weren’t yet feeling totally confident – and BOOKED the business! It’s your story that matters.

Telling your story requires you know what you offer. That sounds so obvious and really, it isn’t. It’s not the tangibles but the intangibles. The confidence they can feel because of your attention to detail. The time they’ll save because they can depend on your abilities. The sales momentum they’ll generate because of the learning environment you provide.

Pay attention to what people say when they use your service or product. Start journaling the things that happen that are special, unique, interesting to you.

Use your 3 minutes to tell your story. Generate emotion. If you have time left, back it up with the features that enabled the story you just told. No time for facts? No problem. Email them as soon as you leave the meeting. Thank them, remind them of how they’ll benefit and give them a link to the details they’ll use to justify choosing you.

Your story is your differentiating factor. Let them hear it.

If you're interested in learning more about storytelling, check out my session at PCMA's 55th annual meeting: Convening Leaders.

Be a Storyteller: How to Present Ideas Memorably
Meeting and convention managers need every tool to persuade stakeholders that their ideas and meetings have value. Following an interactive program on how to vastly improve your presentation skills, take part in small group exercises where you will "tell your story" and receive feedback. Discover specific, practical concepts to tell your story confidently and competently.

Are questions scary?

My life has been about questions. I think it is a deep-seated cultural/religious thing!

As Chair of PCMA's Student Task Force, I served on the PCMA Annual Meeting Planning Committee. In that role, bouncing around session concepts, speakers and design with PCMA members and staff, it was evident that I drove Chair Neil Schriever a little meshugge! (C'mon .. no 'poor Neil' comments! And Neil? If it makes you feel better, I am sure my parents (of blessed memory) felt the same from all my questioning.)

Why and how?

In addition to being curious, I am a questioner, aural learner and an MBTI "P" who needs to ask and hear questions out loud to process the information. My learning preferences made me as curious about room sets and delivery formats, about interactivity in sessions, about how students would be incorporated into the entire Annual Meeting, as others were about session titles and speakers.

I asked lots of questions and to many, questions are scary. Questions make us think differently and delve deeper. Brainstorming (v. Q-storming™) is easy because it allows all ideas to be put on the table; Q-storming™ makes us consider all angles before we make final decisions. It can take a bit more time and often, in this process and in life, decisions are needed quickly.

There was lots of good that came from the questions during the AMPC experience:
- Students will be seen and heard from more, beginning at the Student Union on Sunday. [Note: MegaMentors, among PCMA professionals, are still wanted. A commitment to being with us on Sun., 1/9 from noon - 3 and a desire to help students grow is all that's needed. Email me at eisenstodt@aol.com if you can and will participate.]
- PCMA will incorporate some new informal learning venues and ventures including facilitated discussions of general session learning applications.
- A session where you can learn to ask better questions will be held on Monday, 1/10.

So why ask?

Why not?

Convene On Site: PCMA Masters Series

Posted by:
Chris Durso
Executive Editor, Convene

This post was posted, with permission, from the PCMA Convene Blog.

The PCMA Masters Series program held at the Renaissance Washington, DC Downtown Hotel last Thursday offered a terrific assortment of big-sky and ground-level insights (some of which I tweeted throughout the event), but for me the grand unifying takeaway was the fact that you can't separate a meeting from its parent organization, and vice versa. An obvious conclusion, perhaps, especially considering the topic was "Associations and Meetings of the Future: A Look Ahead to 2020," but there it is.

The panel was moderated by Greg O'Dell, president and CEO of the Washington Convention and Sports Authority, and featured (picture above, left to right) Chris Brown, executive vice president of conventions and business operations for the National Association of Broadcasters; Abe Eshkenazi, CAE, CEO of the Association for Operations Management; Karen Hackett, CAE, CEO of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons; Scott Hunt, executive director and CEO of the Endocrine Society; and Peter O'Neil, CAE, executive director of the American Industrial Hygiene Association. As this distinguished group of association executives speculated first on the issues that would face their organizations and then those that would face their meetings in the short- to mid-term view, they couldn't talk about one without referencing the other. Or, even when they were talking about one, their comments had relevance for the other.

When Brown, for example, said, "We're all getting used to being always connected, always on, always available," and "Associations going forward are going to have to be more nimble" -- he was talking about how associations need to figure out how to serve their members in the "do-more-with-less" environment of the last several years. But he very easily could have been talking directly to meeting professionals. Ditto Hunt when he noted that associations have a growing role to play in helping members decide "what is important and what isn't. ... How do you stake out your space when they are getting 120 e-mails a day and clicking right through them like a shotgun?"

The last word goes to O'Neil, who, reflecting on the oft-heard death knell for the annual meeting, said: "The annual meeting is dead. Long live the annual meeting." He added: "What can be better, different, or more for our meeting? ... How can we make that experience live the whole year?"

Storytelling as a Sales Tool? Seriously?

Posted by:

Sue Hershkowitz-Coore, CSP
President/Owner, High Impact Presentations




It seems like everyone today talks about the importance of story, of telling your story and of differentiating your idea with story. Consultants and bloggers explain the different types of stories and companies jump on the bandwagon.

Why? Because a good story starts a conversation. And a conversation can start a relationship. And a relationship can move mountains.

What makes a good story? It’s relevant, authentic and intriguing (or at least interesting) to the listener.

What makes a great story? When the teller isn’t always the hero. It’s a lesson learned the hard way. Sometimes there are twists and surprise endings that don’t make the teller look good at all, except for the fact she/he is telling it, to underscore that lesson learned.

Whether you’re an executive trying to make a point, a parent or teacher attempting to persuade a child, or a sales professional trying to motivate a buyer to act, tell your story to help the other person trust your message.

We (staff, clients, customers, children, students, etc.) are hard wired to buy into an idea based on emotion and justify with logic. That’s just the way it is.

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions? Would love to hear from you.

If you're interested in learning more about storytelling, check out my session at PCMA's 55th annual meeting: Convening Leaders.

Be a Storyteller: How to Present Ideas Memorably
Meeting and convention managers need every tool to persuade stakeholders that their ideas and meetings have value. Following an interactive program on how to vastly improve your presentation skills, take part in small group exercises where you will "tell your story" and receive feedback. Discover specific, practical concepts to tell your story confidently and competently.

I Work in Living Laboratory...And I Love It

Sometimes I think about how lucky I am to work for an organization like PCMA that encourages risks and innovation. It keeps us sharp and on our toes and no day is like the one before. At no other time in the year is this more true than when we are preparing for our signature event, Convening Leaders, which will take place this January 9-12, 2011 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

At PCMA, we work in a true "incubator for new ideas". Whether it is a room set, a technology application, a luncheon menu experience or an education format, we like to throw ideas in the incubator and see what happens. Sometimes these ideas grow and sometimes they don't and that's OK because as an organization for meetings industry professionals, it's our responsibility to take that risk so our members don't have to. They will see what could work for their meeting and what DEFINITELY won't, which is often just as good.

This year at Convening Leaders Las Vegas, we will continue our living laboratory of ideas, with many different types of experiences that you won't want to miss. For example, how will we transform the 16,000-seat MGM Grand Garden Arena into a more intimate setting of 3,000 for our General Sessions? Or, what will happen when we take some the "traditional" learning out of the session rooms and create self-directed learning opportunities and other education formats in our new "Learning Lounge"? This year, we will take all of these new and untested ideas one step further and explain the how and the way behind them. We realize everything at the PCMA Convening Leaders program can be a teaching moment and this year in Las Vegas attendees will gain an even better understanding of our ideas.

Where do these ideas come from? Sometimes our PCMA members are my team's best resource, they tell us what they would like to see tried at our program. They tell us what they like and what they don't like and we make adjustments. Sometimes we rely on our vendor partners to help us come up with a new way of doing something. Sometimes we just make things up that we think might be interesting. Often it's a combination of all of these things. Do you have ideas or concepts you would like to see us try? Let us know! In the meantime, I hope you'll register for the PCMA 2011 Convening Leaders program in Las Vegas, visit pcma2011.org/.