3 posts tagged “meetings”
While the “AIG Effect” appears to be waning for corporate meetings, the Hospitality Community awaits passage of the proposed Travel Promotion Act of 2009. The term “AIG Effect” is the term coined during the fallout from the meeting AIG held in San Diego which received much negative international media coverage immediately following their bailout from the Federal government late last fall.
It seemed that every corporate meeting fell under public scrutiny with cities like Las Vegas being demonized by our President’s words "You can't get corporate jets, you can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer's dime," in February this year at a Town Hall meeting in Indiana. Most corporations were forced to scrutinize their intent with planned meetings while reconsidering the perception of their location.
How do we quantify the economic impact of such statements?
Click here to read the rest of the story which was just published in the PCMA Heartland Chapter Fall 2009 newsletter. Contact me at christine.pennel-jones@experient-inc.com if you would like additional resources related to your meetings or conventions.
"If you had the foresight to know that the economy was going to crash, that you knew that commodity prices were going to go up, you'd do a lot of things differently," the former CEO of Starbucks, Jim Donald shared in a video posted on CNN Money/Fortune last week.
The video entitled "Lessons from the Fall" answers the question of what Donald would have done differently if he had some insight into the future prior to his dismissal in January 2008.
Donald was replaced by the returning Starbucks founder, Howard Schultz, as Starbucks stock plummeted to 50% of it's 52-week high. Schultz immediately ushered in several changes within weeks of his return-- closing every Starbucks for 3 hours to re-train employees on service & the Starbucks experience, introducing Starbucks reward programs with free wi-fi offerings & launching a online community named www.mystarbucksidea.com. Also, Starbucks started grinding coffee beans in the store to enhance the experience by boosting the aroma of coffee.
Donald goes on to say "When you are running a company that is dependent on opening 2,000-2,500 stores a year, you've got to be well out in front of site selection. You can't just naturally slow this growth down. However, if you knew 18 months beforehand, you just might be able to do something about it."
What does Jim Donald & Starbucks have to do with the world of Meetings?
Like Starbucks, our meetings are about THE EXPERIENCE. And all things being equal, people are willing to pay for the experience. Why else would we stand in line so long that we're late to work to pay $5.50 for a Venti non-fat Vanilla Latte when we could go to White Hen, QuikTrip or Wa-Wa & pay 99 cents for an equally-good tasting cup of French Vanilla cappuccino? (Yes, I realize that this is a controversial statement. I am merely trying to make a point.)
Have we forgotten that our attendees DO have many different channels of distribution to educate themselves, capture CEU's or CME's or even share Best Practices? Have we forgotten our silent competitor, the internet serves up on-demand & oftentimes comparable educational content to the innermost recesses of our potential attendee? And usually for a lot less money-- and headaches given the airline travel.
In fact, consider this sobering statement by Roger Dow, President & CEO of the Travel Industry Association: "The air travel crisis has hit a tipping point -- more than 100,000 travelers each day are voting with their wallets by choosing to avoid trips," Dow stated in an CNN article released on May 30. The article was entitled "Americans take 41 Million Fewer Flights, survey shows."
Again, my point you might be wondering?
In light of the current downward direction of our economy & the many different options available to last year's meeting attendees for next year, it wouldn't hurt each of us to pay heed to the words of Jim Donald in the "Lessons from the Fall" video when asked the question "What would you do differently" if you had an 18-month window into the future?
"If you had the foresight to know that the economy was going to crash, that you knew that commodity prices were going to go up, you'd do a lot of things differently.... if you knew 18 months beforehand, you just might be able to do something about it."
Translating this into our world, the question could better be phrased 'What could we do differently in Meetings/Trade Shows/Conferences/Conventions if the economy does NOT correct itself before our next Annual Meeting or Trade Show? (No, I am not a doomsday conspiracist, I have just always subscribed to the theory that one should Expect the Best, however Prepare for the Worst.)
The next few blogs will be geared to that very question-- of what we can do differently in meetings if the economy does not correct itself either BEFORE our next meeting or convention OR stays in a downward trend long enough to re-train our attendees into seeking educational content through the internet.
My good friend, Rick Boale, Vice-President of Meetings with the Advertising Research Federation will be a guest blogger on Branding & Re-Branding your Meeting. (Can you think of ANY better person to share his thoughts about branding than this well-seasoned & prestigious Madison Avenue based meeting executive?")
We'll also look at at least one sexy, AMAZINGLY-priced meeting destinations that I would nearly bet money that you've never considered. (Hint: Watch out San Francisco!) This destinations will drive attendance at your meetings all-the-while offering great value & venues designed to maximize networking & community-building.
Then, we'll take a look at the EXPERIENCE of meetings & how to build buzz around your meetings & conferences. Or how do you "Starbuck-ize" your attendees meeting experience. That is, of course, pre-stock drop experience.
Lastly (but not least), we'll be asking for your feedback in these specific areas. And we'll even make it worth your while to offer your thoughts. But more about THAT next time.
This is a true story.
Moving from La Guardia Airport to my hotel in the Upper West Side of NYC last Wednesday, I glanced through Corbin Ball's e-zine with particular interest on his article "The Speaker-Audience Balance is Shifting" on my Treo. Having just posted a blog on Web 2.0, I was compelled to read more.
"Web 2.0 technology is moving the balance of power from the speaker to the audience," Corbin opens with this understated statement in his article.
Corbin goes on to write about a shocking incident at the March 2008 annual "South by Southwest Conference" held in Austin, TX which involved a live interview with the 23-year old billionaire founder & CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, a BusinessWeek columnist named Sarah Lacey and an increasingly impatient & surly audience during a Keynote Plenary session.
What happened next is every Conference organizer's worst nightmare.
As the session's live interview drug on, attendees "pulled out their cell phones and started twittering. (www.twitter.com) Twittering is a Web 2.0 phone-based networked community (think text-message meets the chat room.) Text comments about how 'lame' the session was started flying in the hall. The audience increasingly became dissastisfied. Someone posted a dare to yell out "Zuck you suck". Someone took up the offer. And the whole session devolved from there. As the social media took over, the crowd started shouting out questions on their own. The session went off the rails from there," Corbin writes. Click here to read the article in entirety. Many of the actual participants were far less staid & polished in their description of the event.
While reading this, I began to envision the Jerry Springer-style mutiny, how with nothing other than cellphones & web access, these attendees revolted. They stormed the stage & took over the microphone both virtually, then literally-- demanding that their unprecedented voice to be heard, like a group within the confines of Lord of the Flies gathering together to overthrow the island & shouting 'Enough! We demand to be heard.' (Read another far less genteel account here in blog on Wired Blog Network.)
While I would have loved to have personally witnessed this revolution, I would lay money that SXSW will approach things differently next year. They'll clearly be more proactive in harnessing the power of Web 2.0 for their future conferences.
In fact, here's what they had to say "Certainly the most-talked about session of this day was the Mark Zuckerberg Keynote interview, as conducted by Sarah Lacey of BusinessWeek. For better or for worse, this interview forcefully demonstrated how new technologies enable formerly disconnected crowds to effectively communicate with each other about their feelings -- in this case, their dislike of the content at hand."
Read the official SXSW comments here.
I share this story with you NOT to scare the daylights out of you. But rather to again say that there IS a new breed of meeting attendee. And their weapons of the day include nothing other than Web 2.0 and a cellphone.
Arm yourself before going out there.
Don't think that your group is techno-saavy enough to use these weapons? Perhaps not today, but someday soon. I promise. Unless perhaps you are like one of the groups that I wrote about in my previous blog, where you don't have the younger Facebook generation engaged in your attendance. And if this is the case with your attendance, then you have far bigger problems than being concerned about having your General Session Stage overrun by mutinious attendees.
Email me by clicking here for some tips on how to navigate through the maze and how to manage Web 2.0 for your organization.
