For Planners

An event isn’t going to be well-organized if the person behind it isn’t. The following tools keep planners on track by helping with travel, accounting, scheduling and planning.

Contactually

Not everyone can have a personal assistant keeping track of emails and tasks. Contactually is a relationship management tool that connects directly to an email inbox and takes note of who the messages are from and how frequently and quickly the user responds to certain emails. The system prioritizes contacts and helps keep track of follow-up. Reminder emails from Contactually keep important relationships top of mind. The web-based platform is compatible with Gmail, Outlook and most email programs online and on all mobile devices. It also syncs with most CRMs. contactually.com | Plans range from $15-$150/month

Doodle

Faxing a sign-up sheet around to colleagues? Sending reply-all emails to a group? Try the online meeting scheduler Doodle, which easily coordinates schedules with polls that sync with Google, Outlook, Exchange and iCal to help pick the best dates and location for everyone involved. doodle.com | Free or premium plans $39-$479/year

Powersquid

Bring along the ultimate powerstrip, the PowerSquid, which fits in a briefcase, has a flat profile plug to squeeze behind furniture, two glowing outlets, surge protection and a bevy of octopus-like extensions for multiple electronics. powersquid.com | $12.95-$59.95

 iRunuRun

This mobile app and web dashboard focuses on performance and accountability rather than acting as a task manager. Users select up to seven measurable actions that can be weighted according to priority and lead to a big picture goal (i.e., “reach out to 10 attendees a week on social media” rather than “improve engagement with attendees”). Weekly scoring and benchmarks give users metrics to mark their progress. Purchasing a directed account allows leaders to create teams, set goals for employees, monitor progress, create competitions among a group and add custom branding to the app. Also check out iprayupray, a beta website that uses the irun concept to encourage individuals and organizations to manage prayer among communities. irunurun.com |  $0.99 app; self-directed account: free-$4.99/month; directed account: $500 team challenge fee, ongoing subscription based on users and performance discount during initial challenge |  iPhone

TIP | Use tweetchat.com to join Twitter chats. Sign in on the website using your Twitter account and type in a designated hashtag. The system filters the relevant tweets into a chat room and makes it easy to message the group. Smart pausing prevents new tweets from being added to the top if the user scrolls down to read earlier posts until scrolling back up. No prep work is required for the organizer either. Make sure followers know when to join and what hashtag to follow and it’s all set.

For Events

From marketing and registration leading up to an event to on-site gadgets and post-event follow up, event technology enhances connection, engagement and participation throughout the experience.

Citywide Attendee Credential System

ITN International’s BCARD badges take interactive name tags one step further. Embedded with Near Field Communications technology, the identification cards double as a way to track attendees within the conference (think: education credits) and as a free pass to public transit and tourist attractions throughout a host city. The host CVB can provide discounts around town, or tickets to a convention-wide event at an area attraction. itn-international.com | Pricing structures depend on size of event and sponsorship opportunities

Padgett Plus

The affordable device has login capabilities and a full numeric keypad for voting and polling. It is the most popular of Padgett’s devices for faith-based events, especially for elections. An LCD display shows two-line messages, including an alert when the organizer receives the vote or answer. Upgraded devices from Padgett include the Ativa with a full-color, customizable LCD touch screen that can engage participants in a fun game of “Jeopardy” or other custom game shows in addition to its audience response capabilities.
pcipro.com  | Flexible pricing is based on the number of keypads, number of days used and location of meeting

IML Connector

The BlackBerry-like device has a full keyboard and color screen. In addition to simple polling during a presentation, the device works well for voting on amendments, elections and other important matters. The organizer can give voting privileges to certain individuals and make responses confidential, providing professionalism for important votes or fundraising initiatives. A built-in speaker and microphone allows attendees to contribute to the conversation or ask questions during an open forum. Simpler models are available through IML for polling and fundraising. imlaudienceresponse.com | $10-$25/day per device

Social Tables

Anyone who’s ever gotten stuck at the crazy cousin table at a wedding knows the importance of a good seating chart. When there are assigned seats, drama and unhappy guests can follow. Social Tables gives attendees the power to help with the seating chart without the chaos a planner would expect from crowdsourcing this aspect of planning. The collaborative program allows multiple organizers at different locations to determine seating. The organizers’ purest intention, though, is to allow guests to pick their own seats. Planners can put guests into categories giving them certain options of where to sit, and guests have the ability to interact beforehand and pick their seats, ideally with new contacts. socialtables.com | Free

Square

The best way to take payment on-site, this tiny device attaches to a smartphone, accepts all major credit cards and charges merchants a 2.75 percent rate. It makes registration a breeze, and direct-deposit payments are in the bank the next day. square.com | iPhone, iPad, Android

For Social

Events are social. We plan gatherings to initiate connection and interaction among colleagues. Social media gives that interaction a year-round platform, encourages face-to-face connections and offers the potential to elevate events to a new level. New players in this field add excitement to what planners can achieve through social networks.

Pinterest

The hottest trend in social media, Pinterest, beat YouTube, Reddit, Google+, LinkedIn and MySpace for percentage of total referral traffic in January and is fast on Twitter’s heels. The social networking site is an online pinboard where users share things they love on the Internet. It’s perfect for the visually stimulating world of events. Planners can go in several directions with it. A planner might create a board that markets an event, pinning articles about education, images that go along with the theme, speaker videos and host city information. Or, the planner might create a personal idea board with centerpiece possibilities, great food and beverage presentations or cool audiovisual. And, if the site seems geared too much for the female set, its manly (unrelated) counterpart, gentlemint.com, has a rougher exterior. pinterest.com | Free | iPhone, iPad, HTML5

Pathable

Technology has increased engagement at face-to-face events and extended lifespans online. One of the pioneers in this area is Pathable, a custom online community for events, which had a makeover at the end of last year that made it even better. More than simply a custom social networking site, the platform was designed with events in mind. It integrates with registration systems, giving attendees a virtual presence and allowing them to network with one another, create custom agendas and download session handouts. Attendees, speakers and suppliers dialogue in forums, and a virtual trade show floor gives additional exposure and connection opportunities to suppliers. The benefits of 2.0? Allows all of that engagement year-round, makes it all mobile and browser-based (i.e., faster). pathable.com | $3,900-$27,200/year | iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, Windows phone

For Mobile

Today, in order to mobilize attendees, many meeting planners have to mobilize their content. Making the event website mobile, having an on-site mobile app and using a personal mobile device as a tool are necessary.

Gamify App

Competition fuels engagement, and gaming—the No. 1 most popular mobile activity—turns attendees into active participants. EventMobi has created GamifyApp, a customizable gaming app for events. Attendees earn badges by checking into exhibitor booths, answering questions about education sessions or taking part in an event-specific scavenger hunt. Organizers receive data about who checked into locations, which they can share with exhibitors or use for their own feedback. gamifyapp.com | $2,500 or combined with EventMobi packages starting at $799 | iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry

Swivl

This is not your average tripod. The Swivl base holds a smartphone, and automatically follows a presenter wearing a Swivl sensor. The speaker is free to move around and stays in the camera’s view. swivl.com | $159 | iPhone

For Websites

An app, social media, online registration system and print pieces are all important aspects of event marketing, but they all link from or to a crucial information hub: the event’s website.

Event Manager Theme

The new website theme built for a WordPress platform was designed based on feedback from the Event Planning and Event Management LinkedIn group started by Julius Solaris, editor of the Event Manager Blog. The template is easy to manage with custom dashboard sections for speakers and sessions, integrates with Eventbrite for registration, and is responsive, meaning it adapts to web or mobile platforms automatically. The clean layout is easy for attendees to navigate. It’s recommended for small to medium events, and has a custom version with upgrades and extra features for large events. eventmanagerblog.com/event-manager-theme | $99, $149 with 1 year of support

Facebook Badges

Share personal profiles, a “like” box, photo albums or an event’s Facebook page on a main website to draw attention to the event activity on the social network. Users don’t have to leave the website to like the event’s page or check out photos from previous events. facebook.com/badges | Free

Don’t forget there are still more tools in the April/May issue of Rejuvenate, and read an interview with Michael Williams of Chick-fil-A Leadercast about how he implements technology here. Let us know in the comments below some of your favorite meetings technology tools.

You’ll see a lot of the same elements at faith-based conferences. The style and substance of these events vary wildly (a 10,000-person congress certainly demands different things than a 200-person youth event), but most faith-based meetings have a few unifying factors: education, worship, speakers and community events. It’s the way these elements are delivered that’s changing. And a few meeting planners are stepping way outside the ascribed planning box by focusing on creating an environment that changes the attitude and conversation about a meeting before it ever begins.

“If everyone else is doing it, we’re probably not going to do it,” says Katie Strandlund, sponsor care coordinator and director of operations of Story conference, an annual event held in Chicago for self-described artists and creators (mostly Christian) who are trying to communicate their stories. Now in its fourth year, Story continues to break the standard conference mold. “It’s more of an experience than a conference,” says Strandlund. “It’s meant to inspire and help people see what’s possible and push imaginations to a greater level.”

The speakers you see at other faith-based events? You won’t see them at Story. Musicians? The bands at Story are up-and-comers or barely-knowns. Breakout sessions? Not here. Everything takes place on one main stage at Park Community Church. Speakers are intermixed with bands. Bands are intermixed with theatrical acts. Those acts are intermixed with monologues. The agenda is unexpected, the content is unusual, but the focus remains where it should be: on the attendees.

“The environment—from the time you arrive to the time you leave—is meant to be inspirational. We want to make it an experience. We want to make it something you want to come back to,” says Strandlund. That means bringing in speakers via hologram (yes, a hologram, on stage, speaking). It also means making it rain, indoors, on the main stage. It means dispatching a “surprise and delight” team who hands out throwback treats from the ‘90s (think MoonPies and Yoo-hoo chocolate milk).

Not every planner can make it rain on stage (Strandlund says, “Don’t ask me how we do it”), but much of what you see at Story can be lifted, even in part, for your own meetings and events. Story’s website is an amazing online portal and gateway to the event, with an innovative design and functionality. Last year, conference organizers checked everyone in with the EventBrite app, which, despite being relatively easy-to-use, made a huge impression on attendees. During Story’s breaks, organizers created special environments in which attendees could hang out and relax. One was a garage lounge with a DJ and comfy couches. Another was an art gallery. Yet another area was an acoustic cafe. They gave the event a “festival feel,” says Strandlund.

Story is big and bright and fun. Its vision is obvious. The passion that Ben Arment,  author and founder of several ministry events including Story, and the rest of the planning team have is clear. They want to inspire people. They want to bring their attendees something they can’t find at other events. And they have that goal in mind before they even begin lining up music acts and speakers.

“Start with identifying your goals and design meetings around that, innovate around that and create around that,” says John Nawn, an organizational psychologist and founder of The Perfect Meeting, a meeting facilitation, coaching and design advisory firm. It’s impossible to be creative and try new things without first knowing what you want to get out of your event, he says.

Blaine Hogan, creative director of Willow Creek Community Church, opens his mouth to catch a few raindrops as it rains on stage during the 2011 Story conference in Chicago.

Nawn also draws a distinction between creativity and innovation. Creativity, he says, is developing new ideas. Innovation, by contrast, is the process of transforming those ideas into valuable or profitable solutions. When planning meetings and events, you can be both creative and innovative, but being innovative can help you actually measure ROI. “You need to understand and get past self-imposed barriers,” he recommends. Instead of focusing on the fact that you have a tight budget or time constraints, think instead about what opportunities those barriers can ultimately create. Limited time for education? Consider the TED approach by shortening the time speakers have to present. Tight budgets? That’s when creativity really flows.

“I believe most people are more creative than they give themselves credit for,” says Nawn. They just need to be more confident, he says. It takes guts to forgo printed conference materials in favor of electronic ones, possibly alienating a few members, and it takes a lot of confidence to start with absolutely nothing and, within months, build an entire event and watch people explore and enjoy your creation.

That’s what happened to Scott McClellan, director of Echo Conference, an educational event for the artists, geeks and storytellers that roam behind the scenes at their churches and organizations. The conference attendees are primarily on staff at churches or ministries, and “they are communicators who don’t have a traditional pulpit,” says McClellan. “Most of them aren’t teaching Sunday mornings, but they’re communicating the same message or enhancing the Sunday morning message through other media.”

Echo was founded by RT Creative Group, which is also the parent company for Igniter Media. Igniter Media has been helping to create media resources for churches for a decade. “As Igniter Media, we were passionate about using new media to unite the church and serve its people,” explains McClellan. “We found that there was no magazine dedicated to that conversation, exploring the art and resources and practice of those things. The magazine we wanted wasn’t there, so we started Collide,” he says, which was a magazine for Christian creators the company often worked with. (Collide has since ceased publication in favor of an online outlet, EchoHub.) “The conference that we wanted wasn’t there either.” So, they started brainstorming. That’s how Echo came along.

McClellan joined the planning team for the 2009 conference, the event’s second year. One of the first things he recognized was the pressure to be creative when planning an event for creative people. “I feel that pressure,” he admits. “Although, what’s interesting about our audience is that they come from such different churches. One person’s definition of creative because they’re on staff at a 10,000-member church that does 3D and immersive experiences is truly different from someone who comes from a rural church of 400 people in Montana.” Because of that, McClellan and his team have to be careful not to overplan and overdo the technical aspects of Echo.

“We started out going full throttle, as graphically intensive and media intensive as we could get,” he says. “And our attendees said, ‘That was great, but we can’t go home and replicate that.’ In some ways, our eyes began to open. How can we model creativity without modeling something extravagant?”

That’s when McClellan and his team refocused on the goal of the conference. What they wanted to do was inspire and equip people and show them what’s possible in multimedia church offerings, but in an approachable way. “We started imposing some constraints on ourselves,” he says. What resulted is a conference that’s “creative in a good way,” as McClellan describes it. “Being creative doesn’t necessarily mean being more extravagant.”

Take, for example, Echo’s speaker introductions. Rather than having a moderator introduce speakers, Echo plays short, two-minute videos as introductions. For the last few years, the videos have featured Johnny and Chachi, a Christian comedy duo (watch the videos). The videos aren’t excessive or overproduced, but they’re funny and original.

In recent years, Echo also introduced a user-friendly mobile website with all conference information rather than producing a pricey app that has to be reformatted for different phones. The site works on any Droid or iPhone. Echo has to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to conference technology because its uber tech-savvy audience demands it. Inspiration and new ideas for Echo come from everywhere, says McClellan. He recently heard about a speaker who presents sessions using an iPad because he can seamlessly transition between his keynote address and another app that allows him to sketch something on the projected screen. McClellan plans to adopt the idea for the sessions he presents at Echo.

Richard Kang speaks during the 2011 Echo conference in a session on the mobile Internet.

McClellan gleans inspiration from lots of sources, and reviews them with his team in an effort to come up with the best ideas. Nothing impairs the creative planning process more than negative feedback, says Kristin D. Charles, Ph.D., a communications and adult learning expert. She often presents educational sessions on the topic of planning and creativity, including a recent one at an MPI-Wisconsin event, “Balancing Creativity and Critical Thinking in Event Planning,” in which she identified a number of steps in the creative planning process. “The first step is being creative and thinking divergently,” she says, which is the process of coming up with as many ideas as possible without evaluating them.

In all subsequent steps, thinking divergently is a key to maintaining the creative approach. Like Nawn, Charles finds it important to identify goals and the vision for your event as a way to facilitate the creative planning process. “Ask a ton of questions of all your stakeholders. What do they want the meeting to feel like, look like, sound like and taste like? Get as many ideas as you can, then go through an exercise of narrowing down themes,” she says.

It can be difficult to get people to open up and brainstorm as a team, says Charles. Some people dominate the conversation. Others are critical of ideas, even when it’s been established that there will be no negative feedback. It takes a strong leader to set the tone and be clear about the goals of the session. “Don’t have negative consequences for thinking creatively,” she says. “Someone has to say, ‘We’re going to have fun coming up with the most ridiculous stuff we can.’ Then you reward people who are willing to go out on a limb and come up with crazy ideas.”

Deciding you’re going to bring in a speaker via hologram? That’s pretty crazy. Choosing to produce speaker intro videos? That takes some planning. Many ideas originally proposed for Story or Echo never made it into their events, but that’s OK, too. It’s about throwing out as many ideas as possible, then seeing which ones stick.

Story conference is all about the unexpected, including little-known bands.

Nawn says there are two different models for planning events, and neither is right or wrong. Neither is better or worse. They’re just different perspectives. One is comparable to the Apple model. In many ways, the late CEO Steve Jobs convinced Apple consumers what they wanted before they knew they wanted it. That’s true of many meetings. Planners organize meetings based on what they think attendees want. “That happens by default because we’ve been doing meetings like this since the beginning of time,” says Nawn.

But in recent years, another model has emerged. “We reach out to our audience and ask what they want in partnership or collaboration with them.” These crowdsourced conferences are built and improved over time based on audience response. It’s more difficult to perfect the Apple model, says Nawn. TED has been able to do it, but few conferences have replicated the TED conference well. It takes a very creative person who’s willing to take risks, implement the top-down approach and do it successfully.

Regardless of the way you plan events or who you plan them for, there’s always an opening for creativity. Some planners bust it wide open, and that’s when you get conferences such as Echo and Story. Other planners—in fact, it’s probably safe to say most planners—never quite get the courage to fully explore their creative resources. In the faith-based community, opportunities abound to break out of the norm, and one key reason is because the audience is often willing to accept what is offered. They’re looking for inspiration. They attend events because they want to see and feel something new. You can help open their minds to new ideas when you do the same.

“Bright Ideas” is the third article in our Rethinking Meetings series, which examines the way the planning and production of meetings are changing. We invite you to think about how you can use concepts presented in this series, discuss them with your teams and organizations, and share your insights with us. Email editor@collinsonmedia.com or add your comments on our wall.

Photo: Joshua White

The airline that puts the customer first

No baggage fees, no change fees and a seating system that aims to get you on and off the plane faster have catapulted Southwest Airlines to the top of the pack. So far up, in fact, that it recently acquired rival discount airline AirTran Airways, so it’s about to be accessible to a whole lot more travelers. Southwest proves that you don’t have to nickel and dime fliers to be profitable. Putting the customer first works, too.

The convention center that breaks the standard design mold

When you turn the corner on to North High Street in Columbus, Ohio, the award-winning Peter Eisenman-designed Greater Columbus Convention Center instantly lifts your spirits. Brightly colored, geometric segments line one side of the building along the city street, and inside, the new Battelle Grand Ballroom electrifies an event with custom lighting options.

The luckiest marketing campaign for a CVB

Search YouTube and you’ll find thousands of videos of children screaming in delight when they learn they’re going to Disney World. Well, one little girl wasn’t too happy to find out that her upcoming vacation to Chattanooga, Tenn., was instead going to be a trip to Disney. “I want to go to Chattanooga, not Disney World!” cries the little girl to her mother’s surprise. The family did end up going to Disney and had a great time, but they also planned to put a trip to Chattanooga on the calendar.

The convention center that’s GREEN inside and out

It’s hard for a building the size of a convention center to maintain green standards, but the Vancouver Convention Center in British Columbia has done it. It has the standard recycling and energy reduction initiatives, but sustainability goes beyond practices. The center has a six-acre living roof with indigenous plants, beehives producing honey and beautiful walls made of local British Columbian wood that look like stacked lumber. Everywhere you turn in the center is another green, unexpected surprise.

The enormous hotel that doesn’t overwhelm

Conferences that require a lot of space also require additional attention to traffic flow. The Orlando World Center Marriott has enough room for sizable conventions (2,000 rooms, more than 450,000 square feet of meeting space, multiple ballrooms and up to 73 breakout rooms) and a layout and flow of a hotel half its size.

The city where the local restaurants really are local

Louisville is a city of neighborhoods replete with homegrown restaurants worthy of the short drive or cab ride from the downtown convention center and the KFC Yum! Center. The NuLu neighborhood has sprouted up on a few blocks of East Market Street, about a mile from the convention center. At Harvest Restaurant, at least 80 percent of the bill of fare comes from local farmers, many of whose sepia portraits hang on the walls, along with a food-shed map pinpointing their farms. The Garage Bar occupies a former auto repair shop and gas station: Don’t let its exterior fool you; the restaurant, which features group-sized farm tables in a sleek interior with a retro flair, was renovated by the team that rebuilt the 21c Museum Hotel and Proof on Main. Proof Executive Chef Michael Paley is co-owner and boss chef of the restaurant, which has a menu heavy on locally sourced fare, from country ham tastings and personal-size pizza pies to iconic local soft drinks and regional draft beers and bourbons. Chef Bruce Ucan, a Mayan Indian from Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, prepares authentic Mayan food using local, seasonal produce at The Mayan Café. Nearby, the aptly named Toast on Market prepares breakfast and lunch with a similar commitment to farm-to-table practices. On the same block, you can shop at boutique jewelry and housewares stores, watch glass-blowing artists at work and visit a century-old candy shop.

The place to throw your next party

Discovery World Milwaukee attracts kids and adults alike wanting to learn more about science and is also one of the city’s coolest venues for live concerts. Discovery World’s outdoor Rotary Amphitheater sits right on Lake Michigan, an impressive backdrop for a musical act at an opening or closing reception.

A shoe that looks good and feels good

Nothing ruins a day running around the convention floor like a bad pair of shoes, but nothing ruins a chic ensemble more than a pair of tennis shoes. Opt for something in-between: a pair of really comfortable Naturalizer flats that won’t land you on an episode of “What Not to Wear.” Tip: Take two to three pair to every conference and change shoes once or twice during the day.

The coolest venue—literally

Bundle up. ICEBAR Orlando is cool. In fact, it’s cold: 27 degrees. That’s what’s required to keep the bar’s 50 tons of ice frozen at all times. Planners can rent the space for events, in conjunction with the bar’s adjacent Fire Lounge. Together they provide 4,000 square feet of space, accommodating up to 875 people. Don’t worry—attendees don’t have to pack their parkas. The ICEBAR provides capes and gloves.

These are just a selection of the cool things we found to feature. See the complete feature in the February issue of Rejuvenate magazine.

College students from around the country pencil in a few days at the end of every year to attend their regional Campus Outreach conferences. This year was different, though. Every 10 years, the regional campus ministries and alumni gather for one national conference, which includes inspirational speakers, concerts, breakout seminars and sporting tournaments. Dubbed CONatCon by organizers, the conference took place in Chattanooga, Tenn., Dec. 28– Jan. 1. The major endeavor required four key event planners leading a preconference planning staff of 20 and a conference execution team of 60.

The event’s lead planners—Mary Beth Rogers, Luke Niday, Bobby Pepiot and Chris Devine—took the time to document this year’s event for Rejuvenate magazine from their point of view. They arrived in Chattanooga on Dec. 26, two days prior to the start of the event, and worked tirelessly until the conference ended on Jan. 1. They’re used to planning small regional conferences for about 500 to 1,000 students. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to organize an event for 5,500.

Monday, Dec. 26
Evening
We arrive in Chattanooga and get ready for set-up tomorrow. We organize the office, and Bobby and Chris stay up late working on a detailed guide to hand out to resource staff. For tomorrow’s events and throughout the rest of the conference, we will divide into four strategic teams:

Team Mary Beth
• Pre-con meetings with hotels
• Organizing conference notebooks

Team Luke
• Set up assembly line to complete conference registration materials

Team Bobby
• Work with DCR Media and Systems, based out of Atlanta, to set up ballroom, lighting, sound, video screens and set
• Set up Cafe, which is a trade show, bookstore, concession and  gathering area

Team Chris
• Gather free-day passes for city attractions
• Prepare for sports tournaments
• Secure food discounts

Tuesday, Dec. 27

8:00 a.m.
Everyone meets, and we divide the more than 60 resource staff members into groups that will pack registration bags, make name tags, organize T-shirts and giveaways, set up the stage, mark off fields for free-day tournaments, meet with hotel staff members to set up nine different decentralized registration locations, and meet with local food vendors to secure discounts at more than 20 restaurants in the downtown area throughout the day.

9:30 a.m.
The frenzy begins. People are dispatched throughout the city, others jam out to music in the office, spending the day stuffing 5,000 bags and preparing name tags.

6:00 p.m.
All staff gathers for dinner and a short meeting to assess progress: registration areas are ready, staging area has made much progress, and all free-day tournaments and food vendors are set up. Only a few specialized tasks remain, so we call it a night.

Wednesday, Dec. 28

8:00 a.m.
We start the day with a meeting to gather the troops and give them the evaluation of where we are and what still needs to be done to get ready for the conference. Luke shares three key tips to make the most of the conference: 1. Prepare for the King. 2. See Jesus in the little things. 3. Enjoy your work.

9:00 a.m.
Our teams scatter to set up nine registration areas at our conference hotels: Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel, Staybridge Suites, Marriott, Sheraton Read House, Courtyard by Marriott, Hilton Garden Inn, DoubleTree Inn and Suites, Hampton Inn, and Holiday Inn and Suites. Each registration area has a live twitter feed streaming on a projector screen, computers to register attendees via Eventbrite, sound systems to play welcome music and a photo booth. Each location also has one of nine pieces of a 60-foot banner that students can sign that will be hung up in the hallway during the conference. (This is a hit!) Team Bobby puts the final touches on the main rally room and gets the lighting hung in the Cafe area.

3:30 p.m.
Registration begins. Mary Beth did a great job in getting her team prepared; through Skype she was able to train the registration point people to be proficient in Eventbrite. Attendees use Sharpies to write their own names on name tags, which makes the system really simple. Members of regional campus staffs greet attendees. Students mostly arrive as groups; buses of students came from Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Daytona Beach and other cities.

We have a slight hiccup with registration at the Sheraton as we received the keys in room number order not in alphabetical order, so our team has to put them in alphabetical order before they can be processed at registration. There’s also not a great set-up for registration at the Sheraton; we have a very small room and 700 people have to make their way through one standard-sized doorway, but it’s the most convenient meeting space in the hotel. All the other locations are flowing great. Of the nearly 900 keys at the Chattanooga Choo Choo, there are only eight wrong keys, and seven of them are Campus Outreach’s fault.

6:00 p.m.
At the end of registration, we’ve processed 3,900 attendees at the nine sites.

7:15 p.m.
Attendees begin lining up outside the main rally room at the Chattanooga Convention Center for the opening session.

7:30 p.m.
Doors open, and hundreds of college students sprint to the nearest seats available. Speaker J.D. Greear arrives on time and sticks to the schedule.

10:00 p.m.
About 350 students arrive to the city for late registration. Overall, the conference sees about an 18 percent increase for the national conference compared to the combined total of last year’s regional conferences.

10:30 p.m.
After the main rally, we help guide students out of the main room to find their regional rallies. We have 15 different ballrooms set up for regional rallies. The goal with the regional rallies is to make this large conference feel smaller. Each regional rally is shaped differently to bring a personalized feel to the conference. They were set up by the conference team and are executed by the regional staff teams. For these first rallies, some regions are throwing a welcome party with music and dancing and games. Other regions are walking through how to make the most of the conference and staging a flash mob. Other regions are talking about how this conference is going to change the shape and scope of what they are doing back on their college campuses.

11:00 p.m.
We come together as a planning team to evaluate day one. It’s going better than expected. The twitter feed is blowing up with tons of positive comments. Four meetings are added to the agenda.

Thursday, Dec. 29
8:00 a.m.
The entire planning team meets in the morning to walk through the day’s big upcoming events: feeding 5,000 attendees, setting up security and rally teams, and concert planning. We spend 30 minutes focusing on the food plan. We divide into our teams to prepare for speaker arrivals, set up AV in breakout rooms, attend programming meetings, etc. A hot topic this morning: One student did not check into the hotel on time last night. We referred to our master online database, sending out an email to registered attendees to help us find the student, who was in the wrong hotel.  We’re a little tired from the search.

10 a.m.
Morning session with speaker Matt Chandler begins on time, with about three minutes to spare. Attendees really respond to Chandler; tweets come in at a rate of about one per second for the rally’s first 30 minutes.

Noon
Men leave the main ballroom for lunch while women remain inside for a rally. In 15 minutes, 2,500 men are served lunch. The only problem: We get them through the line too fast, and they’re left sitting for 45 minutes to an hour before their rally.

1:15 p.m.
About 20 staff members help send men out of an exterior exit to re-enter the ballroom elsewhere while the women are released to go through the lunch line.

2:30 p.m.
Smaller breakout sessions begin. One of the projectors goes out and we realize we don’t have remotes to flip through PowerPoint slides. But all seminars start on time and all speakers are here.

3:30 p.m.
Second set of seminar sessions begin. More than half are at maximum capacity and the rest are all at least half full. We’ve also set up two information tables and have stationed staff members throughout the center for students who have questions during the event. After the session, students have free time to eat before reconvening for the 8:00 p.m. rally.

7:30 p.m.
Students arrive early for the 8:00 p.m. rally and enter the rally room. They start waving regional banners and become a bit unruly because we have a lack of leadership and security inside the ballroom. It’s all stationed at the door. We should have used our @conatconstaff Twitter handle to send a message to our regional campus staff leaders to help calm them down. They were mostly just having fun. As soon as the emcees came out on stage, everyone started listening.

8:00 p.m.
Rally with Matt Chandler begins.  Attendance holds steady at rally.

10:00 p.m.
A concert with Trip Lee and Sho Baraka begins. For late-night events, we add security at the ballroom door and in the hallway. After the concert, we’ve organized free shuttles for attendees who have to walk more than five minutes to their hotels. We feel responsible for students the whole time due to the fact that their hotels are conference hotels and we paid for them the same way we did the convention center. We’ve worked with local CVB to communicate with the police force and get them up to scope on our schedule. We ask students to stay  in groups. We also have campus staff  staying in each hotel, helping the  students go from their hotels to the  convention center.

2:00 a.m.
Our day is finally over.

Friday, Dec. 30

7:30 a.m.
Staff meeting begins, and members are blowing up 1,000 beach balls for a rally later in the day. Chris leads a group of 35 people to set up concessions stands and equipment, fill out brackets, and set up basketball courts and flag football fields. Pre-conference planning included locating fields, getting insurance and waivers, coordinating teams, seeding brackets and setting up field coordinators, logistics coordinator and runners. Our team will also spend much of the day setting up the alumni conference running simultaneously over the weekend days of the conference.

About 225 alumni will come to town for the weekend. They will have their own room off to the side and their own emcees, stage, and band during each rally. Live video of the main session speakers will be shown in the alumni room during rallies.

10:00 a.m.
Sports tournaments begin: a basketball tournament with 110 teams and a football tournament with 55 teams. More than 1,000 attendees take part. They last all day.

7:00 p.m.
Trip Lee and Sho Baraka return for a rally. We had planned to break a world record with beach balls, but had to cancel it for this meeting because of time. We’re not sure where they will fit it in the program, but there are 1,000 beach balls blown up and ready to go.

9:00 p.m.
Students again break up into their regions for rallies, which last anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half.

11:00 p.m.
We convene one last time before calling it a day. The biggest problem today was that we had to move five regional rally rooms because they weren’t large enough. Also, one of our staff members was approached by people from a blood-donor mobile who were in crisis and needed blood. One of our staff people allowed them to set up outside the center’s doors and recruit students. After we got word of this, we had to put a stop to it as this could cause a liability issues, especially in light of our stringent schedule. They set up their operation a few blocks away and students donated when they had free time.

Saturday, Dec. 31

8:00 a.m.
Our team meets for our daily morning meeting and we discuss how Campus Outreach directors are pushing for mobilization, which is being involved in the Campus Outreach movement after students leave college, to be large takeaway from this conference. Some of that communication didn’t cross over to the planning team, so we’re making adjustments to add meeting times for different regional mobilization times. Adjustments also have to be made with the musician because there hasn’t been enough time given to the band, creating some tension with our planning team.

10:00 a.m.
Fifth conference rally begins with Harry Reeder.

Noon
Women’s lunch and men’s rally begins. There are no problems coordinating today’s lunches.

1:15 p.m.
Men’s lunch and women’s rally begins. More than 2,500 people are served lunch in 11 minutes.

2:30 p.m.
After seminars begin, many are overflowing and we have to send some students to their second or third options. One seminar was moved from the room it was in two days ago, and the AV equipment wasn’t moved. We set up our own equipment rather than asking the convention center for help because it needed to be done quickly.

8:30 p.m.
The event’s sixth rally with John Piper begins. It begins and ends on time. We coordinated an extended worship time with music and devotions at the end. After the rally, we have 30 minutes to set up for a New Year’s party we’ve planned. We move and stack 2,000 chairs for the party and set the room. The party starts on time and the team decides to bring in the beach balls. More than 1,000 beach balls create a wave of fun over the crowd. It brings a lot of energy to the room energy and works out so much better than if we had tried to do this during a main session. We have to document the event to send it in for a new world record of the most beach balls in the air at one time.

11:15 p.m.
The New Year’s party is in full swing. We’d ordered black lights and party favors, created highlight videos, and hired a D.J. During the party, we give away gifts such as Kindles and iPads. We use a mobile text drawing system to give away prizes where students text in their phone numbers, one is randomly drawn and the number is called back to award the winner. We ring in the New Year at midnight, and the party lasts until 12:30 a.m. We send everyone back to the hotels by 1 a.m. After a brief meeting, staff members head to bed at 2:00 a.m.

Sunday, Jan. 1

8:30 a.m.
Campus staffs and students meet to fill out evaluations, either on paper or mobile phones. Everyone is tired but excited about all that is happening and looking forward to hearing from John Piper again.

10:15 a.m.
All the students stay until the end of the conference for the final rally with John Piper. Each student receives his book “Don’t Waste Your Life.” This rally is always short and sweet from a programming standpoint because we have to get people on the road.

Campus Outreach planners always had four key objectives in mind that guided all decision-making. See a grid outlining the objectives here.

“We spend a lot of time talking with planners about why they might want to take their meeting to Canada,” says David Whitaker, president and CEO of Tourism Toronto. Besides the value and curiosity factors, Whitaker and his team have found a number of other reasons why U.S. associations might consider it. “Their mission may no longer have [geographic] borders and may now include a global context,” he says. “If you’re interested in a global agenda and content then why not be interested in a place that’s as comfortable, convenient and appealing as Canada?”

That said, Canada does present the chance to meet someplace truly international but with most of the comforts of home. Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, British Columbia, offer attendees a healthy dose of familiarity (in fact, all have repeatedly served as American locations in films and TV) along with a sense of being somewhere quite different. Each comes with built-in and distinctly international cultural, educational and business networks, as witnessed in everything from restaurants and museums to the plethora of ethnic neighborhood and festivals.

The best example of that foreign/familiar combo can be found in the charming provincial capitals of Victoria, British Columbia, and Quebec City, Quebec, where—given those cities’ art, architecture, cuisine and language (in Quebec’s case, it’s Quebecois, a variation of French)—attendees might be forgiven for thinking that they’d landed in either Westminster, London or the Normandy Coast. And yes, even in the most Old World cafes and shops of Quebec, English is commonly heard.

EASY ACCESS, PLENTIFUL SPACE
Attendees also will discover that Canada’s cities are as accessible as many of their American counterparts. Air service between the countries is competitive in terms of price and frequency, with many direct and non-stop flights from major carriers. And depending on the destination, travel times can be quick—Quebec, Toronto and Montreal, for example, lie within a two-hour flight of most Northeast and Midwest cities.

Once in town, attendees should find Canada’s meeting spots decidedly user-friendly. “You can walk from end to end of our downtown in about 20 minutes,” says Erin Lee, business development for meetings and conventions at Meetings and Conventions Calgary. Alberta’s largest city also features a light rail transit system (free in the downtown core) and 10 miles worth of climate-controlled passageways for cooler weather. Montreal, Toronto and Edmonton, Alberta, are equipped with their own systems of enclosed, weather-proofed walkways and passages, in some cases with tie-ins to local mass transit stations.

In Canada, planners also can count on the quality and quantity of meeting and exhibit space that they’ve become accustomed to in the states. From British Columbia to Halifax, the list of major centers runs long and deep, with many of the major Canadian cities also providing additional venues and facilities designed to accommodate industry-specific (e.g., agriculture, technology, automotive) trade shows and exhibitions.

FOUR SEASON FUN
Attendees love to toss around the term “added value” and Canada, fortunately, comes with plenty. For starters, consider Canada’s seemingly endless natural beauty and outdoor recreation, much of which is a short trip from downtown meeting spots. In the west, Vancouver provides an easy jumping-off point for group adventures on Vancouver Island (think sailing, kayaking, hiking and deep sea fishing) and is a two-hour drive or train ride south of Whistler, British Columbia’s premier mountain meetings resort town.

In Alberta, planners can hold meetings in Calgary and Edmonton, then send attendees out for terrific teambuilding and group recreation in the Rocky Mountains around Jasper, Canmore and Banff, a combined resort town and national park where human visitors stroll side-by-side with elk and deer. Summers here bring golf, rafting, horseback riding and mountain biking, while winters are truly a wonderland, with dogsledding, snowshoe hiking, and downhill and cross-country skiing.

The winding, cobblestone streets of Quebec’s walled-in Old City and the nearby historic Plains of Abraham battlefield are ideal for group day trips or free-time exploration. A local and tourist favorite winter sight in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada’s elegant and historic capital city, is the graceful stream of ice skaters gliding along the landmark Rideau Canal. Prince Edward Island is home to spectacular beaches, the world’s best mussels and one of youth literature’s best-known and favorite characters, Anne of Green Gables. Tremblant, just outside of Montreal, is a year-round, all-encompassing resort where indoor activities like shopping and dining hold their own against outside fun on the ski slopes and forest hiking trails.

For a truly memorable teambuilding experience, it’s hard to beat what Canada offers at its former Olympic sites. To wit, groups can visit and experience first-hand gold-medal thrills, revel in memorable moments, and even hold a luncheon or private reception at the country’s former Olympic venues in Vancouver, Whistler, Calgary and Montreal.

Challenged with educating future generations, meeting membership organizations are reevaluating and upgrading course content and certification requirements. Many faith-based meeting planners fell into their roles accidentally, but they’ve realized the importance of career training and advancement. Some make the decision to get into the industry early in their careers. Universities are developing educational material on the intrinsic value of meetings and events in business. There are now advocates for the concept that students majoring in business at institutes of higher learning should be required to take an elective, special course or a minor in event management.

Where does the discipline of meetings and events belong in the contemporary academic curriculum and why? A little more than two decades ago, virtually any courses of study relevant to people in our industry were offered in the newly formed hospitality or tourism departments (the latter of which owed their name, their focus and their existence to the word “tourism” and its supposed ability to pull revenue into a given city)—or within some part of facilities management instruction. For many in the academic world, this is how courses of study on meeting and events are still understood: as footnotes to subjects like facilities management, as elements of other business-driven course offerings such as sports marketing or tourism, or perhaps as community college material in narrowly defined areas such as social and wedding planning.

In recent years, meetings and events have emerged as powerful tools for strategic messaging; public relations, marketing and advertising play a more important role. Clearly, well-planned, well-executed, well-branded events are having an impact on the bottom-line, forcing academic institutions to reassess their course offerings. Considering the glacial speed at which any kind of structural change tends to unfold within long-established academic silos, the shift that has taken place during the past decade has been remarkably fast, and is accelerating. There has been a real reassessment of the business case for meetings and events as an academic discipline in its own right. What follows are some of the most interesting voices and intriguing insights from the emerging academic discussion on how, where and why to teach people to become meetings and events professionals.

Janet Sperstad: Educating clients on the value of meetings is key

Joe Goldblatt: Women will change the dynamics

Elizabeth Rich: We are in the communication industry

Patti Shock: Projections point to strong growth despite setbacks

Tim Brown: We are waiting for academia to catch up

Amanda Cecil: It goes beyond ordering large amounts of cheese Danish

“The Great Shift” is the second article in our Rethinking Meetings series. In future issues, we’ll explore change as it affects the design of convention and conference centers, hotels, seating and setups, production and programs, food and beverage, travel and every other aspect of what we do in connection with events. We invite you to think about how you can use concepts presented in this series, discuss them with your teams and organizations, and share your insights with us. Email editor@collinsonmedia.com or add your comments on our wall.

What simpler way could there be for event organizers who want their conferences to make a difference then to jolt attendees into action with coffee? “Everyone wants the opportunity to help transform lives, and for many of us jumping on an airplane and going on a mission trip is either too scary or just isn’t feasible, but there are simple things we’re doing already in life that we can transform into being missional and help build the kingdom,” says Robert Crow, community and relationship director, Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee Company.

Click here for videos of giveback organizations covered in this story

“One of those things is making sure the coffee you drink is helping people and not exploiting them.”

Thousand Hills sells Community Trade coffee, which is based on the company’s goal to build relationships with farmers in Rwanda, Thailand and Haiti by providing them a fair wage for their coffee and equipping them to become better farmers. Using coffee from Thousand Hills could be a first step in aligning every part of your conference with your organization’s mission.

Common Vision
When developing giveback elements of your conference, the most important decision is choosing which programs best match your group and your conference’s mission. Thousand Hills found connection with the mission of Story Conference, a gathering of practitioners from a variety of creative fields who want to inspire and equip the next generation. “Story believes that the Christian story revolves around everything you do—that every action you have revolves around that story,” says Crow, including the coffee you drink.

The company has worked with Story, as well as Orange Conference and Catalyst, to share its Community Trade philosophy. At conferences, the company brews coffee, sells Rwandan lattes and merchandise, and distributes information about the impact of purchasing its coffee. Bulk orders also can be purchased from Thousand Hills that come with materials and videos to educate attendees. Crow says 135 pounds of coffee supports a farmer for a year. That’s the equivalent of 2,700-4,000 cups of coffee, an amount easily consumed during many conferences. Founder Jonathan Golden speaks at conferences and churches about sustainability as a solution to poverty and using coffee to build Christ-centered relationships in the communities it serves.

Better World Books funds literacy programs and donates a book to organizations around the world for every book purchased from the social enterprise. It is the official bookstore of TED conferences. “Our values align,” says John Ujda, vice president of marketing for Better World Books. “The concept of TED is spreading ideas to change the world. And what Better World Books believes is that books are a good way to spread ideas and we’re trying to improve the world.”

The bookstore, which seeks a social, economic and environmental profit, exhibited more than 300 titles from TED speakers and books recommended by influential TEDsters like Bill Gates at TED2011 in Long Beach, Calif. Other conferences can partner with Better World Books by sponsoring book drives at events or using the online bookstore, betterworldbooks.com, for purchases.

“There’s a halo effect for having Better World Books as your bookstore, rather than any other bookstore that is strictly for profit,” says Ujda, who also urges organization’s working with social enterprises to be willing to compromise on fees and other costs. “Be conscious of the value their brand brings to the game, and be willing to make some tradeoffs because of what comes with that.”

Lights, Camera, Action
Sometimes passive changes that encourage attendees to contribute to causes aren’t enough. Some organizations plan entire events around giving back.

Christ in Youth recognized an opportunity to educate more than 60,000 attendees at more than 100 events a year about social ills around the world by using a medium that was familiar to its participants. “The students we see are really part of that Millennial Generation,” says Chris Jefferson, director of organizational advancement for CIY. “They are 10 to 18 years old. Everything they have seen in education or entertainment has a video screen or a computer. Even at live events, they look up to see a replay on the video screen.”

CIY produced several short films and a feature film that are shown at the organization’s youth events, Know Sweat (now called Engage: Service), Move, SuperStart, Believe and Mix.

After a video presentation, a speaker expands on the topic and at the end of the week-long or weekend events, students can accept a challenge card to come up with a creative idea either individually or as a group to meet the need on their card. The challenge might be related to a global issue in the movie, such as not drinking anything but water for a year to raise money and support for clean water in Africa, or closer to home, like collecting 500 coats for the homeless in their community.

The result? Two middle school girls raised $24,000 in one year for clean water in Zambia, Africa, by selling hand-sewn decorative birds after seeing “Zambia’s Song” at Know Sweat. A couple of teenage boys sold T-shirts at concerts and music festivals to raise money and awareness for victims of sex trafficking in Southeast Asia after watching “Baht,” a movie about the issue, at Move. There are hundreds of stories about students who were challenged at the events to make a tangible difference for others.

Each summer, CIY chooses a single organization to support. “We try go beyond the event in a way that is real and lasting and impacts communities here and around the world…rather than scattering support to four or five different organizations,” Jefferson says. This past summer, the organization focused on persecuted Christians around the world through a full-length feature film, “Love Costs Every Thing.” Representatives from the Central Indian Christian Mission spoke and interacted with students during events. “[Students] immediately know who the money is going to support,” says Jefferson. “These are real people whose lives are being impacted.”

The films and additional resources are available from CIY for other groups to use at their events. “Video clips become a powerful teaching moment as razor-sharp illustrations, than become products of an event,” Jefferson says. “A five-day event with video elements is its own living breathing thing…the video has the opportunity to encourage greater involvement.”

For the past two years, youth ministers at the Worship Center in Lancaster, Pa., have hosted events supporting Sweet Sleep, a faith-based organization that provides beds for orphans in Moldova, Uganda and Haiti, to educate their students about living conditions around the world. In September, almost 80 fifth through eighth graders participated in Under the Stars, a lock-out event during which kids sleep outside in cardboard boxes in order to raise money. “It was a hands-on experience to help others in need,” says Heather Bivins, Worship Center student ministry pastor of Route 56, the fifth- and sixth-grade ministry. “Even if it was just for a night, they could step outside themselves and see the rest of the world.”

Due to rain, the event was moved inside, but the kids listened to speakers, played games like hauling water through an obstacle course and carrying mattresses on their heads, and slept some. They raised enough money for 80 kits for orphans in Northern Uganda that include a sleeping mat, mattress, mosquito net, blanket and Bible in the child’s language.

“[The kids] were excited to know they could help someone they would never meet,” says Bivins. “Eighty kids’ lives were forever changed, plus it was a lot of fun.”

Sweet Sleep provides promotional and educational materials, videos and an event plan for each of its programs. Under the Stars is recommended for high school and college students, but Bivins recommends choosing programs in which the format can be adapted to fit the needs and culture of your group. She combined aspects of Insomnia, a lock-in event that encourages participants to stay up all night to experience an uncomfortable night similar to what others around the world face, and Under the Stars. “Also, I would start promoting earlier,” she says. “In promotions, I’d explain more about who we’re helping and what we’re actually doing at the event.”

Other Sweet Sleep fundraisers include Bed Races, Nickels for Nets and Build-A-Bed. Event organizers can get creative. At Rejuvenate Marketplace this year, Tri-Valley CVB sponsored a station where attendees could make stuffed animals for the orphans who receive a bed from Sweet Sleep. Attendees stuffed 200 “buddies,” which were donated to Sweet Sleep and Next Door, a local women’s shelter, and purchased enough Sweet Sleep T-shirts and jewelry made by women in Uganda to purchase 40 beds for orphans in Uganda.

Increased Demand
Convention and planning executives in various cities say the demand for volunteer activities in conjunction with meetings has led them to create lists of local organizations that need help and welcome volunteers. “It’s becoming more and more common,” says Judi Quesonova, director of convention services for the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau. “I think more companies and organizations are doing it because they want to leave their footprint on a local community.”

That increase is expected to spread, keeping meeting and convention planners on their toes. Quesonova reasons that an organization that does it in one city is likely to do it in each city in which it holds events, prompting a change in how conventions are planned. Community projects, while noble, present their own challenges. Many tourism bureaus assign specific staff members to work with individual companies on giveback activities, but it becomes just another task on the long list of responsibilities for those staffers who often juggle multiple convention clients. If a client requests ideas about a local charity to work with, the staff member must be ready to make suggestions.

“Getting the client with the right group is the biggest challenge,” Quesenova says. “It has to be a good match. These events can be used as part of the convention programming as a teambuilding exercise. You’re going off-site and you’re helping the community, but you’re also working together as a team. So it’s important, if the client wants that, to match them with the right organization that will allow them to do that.”

Houston’s CVB dedicates a service manager to work with each convention client, Quesenova says. Besides serving as the primary liaison with the client on meeting logistics, the person also helps plan a local charity event.

Arvie Murff, director of special events and conferences for Aglow International, says the religious organization, which has locations and ministries in more than 160 countries around the world, partners with local ministry chapters and CVBs in each city in which conferences are held to identify local charities in need of help.

For its worldwide conference in Houston last summer, Aglow worked with the Houston CVB and targeted Redeemed Ministries for outreach. Aglow donated more than $15,000 worth of retail gift cards from Target, Wal-Mart and other local grocery stores. It also donated journals and Bibles. “For us, it’s basically about wrapping our arms around those who are in need to show them that they have the love of the Lord, and that they have not been forgotten—and not just forgotten by people that know them, but by strangers as well. Everyone is important,” Murff said.

The publicity surrounding post-Katrina volunteer projects in New Orleans helped spread the adoption and popularity of community giveback programs as an opportunity for meeting participants. “These types of projects are powerful tools for teambuilding and create unforgettable meeting memories for attendees,” says Jennifer Day from the New Orleans CVB. “This type of work is so positive, and really about the essence of a national and global community. After the storm, the city’s nonprofit organizations exploded with assistance and in turn their capacity and skill set has truly fine-tuned their ability to accommodate groups large and small and to create customized experiences to fit the client’s needs.”

—Andrew Guy Jr. contributed to this article.

We’d like to publicize your good works. Tell us about your meeting or convention giveback program or experience. Contact editor@collinsonmedia.com.

When considering hotel and meeting venues in international destinations, it is important to craft a request for proposal that includes as much attendee demographic and historical information as possible, even if the meeting was not held in that country previously. It is also important to provide an estimated per person budget, keeping in mind that most international properties include breakfast with the room rate. Many countries also package the meeting requirements into a separate rate often referred to as the daily delegate rate (DDR). This rate would include the meeting space, coffee breaks, lunches in the restaurant, writing materials and basic audiovisual such as a projector and screen. If you are looking for a private lunch not in the hotel restaurant, you might incur a surcharge on top of the DDR.

The hotel also will require international groups to pre-pay the cost of the meeting space in full. Transportation and tour companies require 90 to 100 percent pre-payment. Many international properties will charge a fee for payment by credit card. Inquire what the supplier’s policy is and request that the fees be waived.

Contract concessions typical in the United States, such as complimentary meeting space and a 24-hour hold on that space, are not the norm and should not be assumed. It’s important to allow more time for the contract negotiation process when dealing with foreign countries. Ping He, CMP, director, global sourcing and partner relations for Experient Inc., suggests building in more time to account for time zone and language differences as well as forming a relationship with the sales person. “Salespeople are not as incentivized to close the deal as they are in the U.S.,” he says.

When writing the RFP and negotiating the contract, be careful not to use words that would be understood by American suppliers, but unclear to service providers abroad. For example, requesting a “light lunch” might have a different meaning in Latin America and even more so in Asia. It is better to provide the number of courses required and use basic descriptors such as a meat, poultry or fish entree, starch, vegetable and dessert. “Use simple English in your communication with non-English speaking countries,” he says. “We know what ‘How many rooms have been picked up?’ means in the states, but a manager of a small Italian hotel will not understand. Say instead, ‘How many rooms have been used or actualized?’ and you will get a quicker response.”

Paulette Hopkins, president of the Hopkins Alliance, suggests contacting the destination’s tourist board and working with a local destination management company to help navigate cultural disparities. “Research the country’s holidays and bank holidays,” Hopkins says. “Unlike America, other countries honor their holidays and most businesses are closed.” She points to an example where the word “weekend” does not always mean a Saturday and Sunday for Muslim countries. “For most Muslim countries, ‘weekend’ means Friday and Saturday as Friday is a Muslim holy day,” she says.

While planning your budget, be aware that hotel room rates, meals and services will include a value-added tax or VAT, which could be as much as 15 to 20 percent. Because visitors or non-residents of the country do not technically owe the tax, groups can request a refund to reclaim all or part of the charges. It is important to request that the VAT amount be separated so you can keep track of the charges and file for a refund. “I recommend working with a VAT reclaim services company,” she says. “It can be a complex process and take up to a year to reclaim.”

Airport entry fees and visa requirements are also budget considerations. Argentina, for example, charges a $140 entry fee, which is valid for up to 10 years and multiple visits. A passport is required to enter and leave most foreign countries and if your attendees include young adults, it is important to verify that they have this essential travel document. The U.S. State Department strongly advises American citizens to register their travel abroad with the Department of State. Registration makes it possible to contact the traveler in the event of a family emergency back in the U.S. or to alert of a crisis in the visiting country. Note that U.S. medical insurance is generally not accepted outside the country, but short-term policies can be purchased for travel abroad.

When considering a hotel, venue or mode of transportation for your group, remember that the Americans with Disabilities Act is a North American requirement. Historic hotels, which are often smaller in European destinations, may not contain elevators or be accessible to attendees with special needs. International shipping requirements also vary from country to country. To avoid delay of your shipment in customs, it is best to use a broker based in that country who is familiar with the guidelines and has influence to move your materials if necessary.

Learn more about international travel with these tips.

Here’s a look at a typical pre-con day for one of today’s planners:

• 9:00 a.m.
Check emails—Turner holds himself and his team to a strict 24-hour turnaround on all emails. 

• 9:30 a.m.
Game plan—Turner and his assistant, Jordan Bolte, rely on a white board in their office to keep track of that day’s tasks, the next day’s tasks and key focus items still needed for the conference.  

• 10:00 a.m.
Staff meeting—Turner and Bolte meet with Randy Raus, Life Teen president and CEO, Kevin Hickey, director of parish outreach and the conference emcee, and Erin Kleckner, product sales manager, to nail down details for the event.  

• 11:00 a.m.
Name tags—The team helps check, stuff and organize name tags with schedules-at-a-glance for the 150 attendees, staff and speakers. 

• 11:30 a.m.
Tie up loose ends—The week before a conference means trips to FedEx, adjusting the room block, confirming check-in details with the hotel and last-minute phone calls.  

• Noon
Communicate with team—Turner makes final changes and sends his 14-page master schedule to everyone involved behind the scenes at the event.

• 12:30 p.m.
Group lunch—It’s Bolte’s first week, so the team squeezes in a welcome lunch—and talks more about the conference. 

• 1:30 p.m.
Final site visit—The conference is held about 30 minutes from the Life Teen Atlanta office at St. John Newman in Lilburn, Ga. Turner spends the afternoon there doing a final walk-through with his points of contact, the parish’s youth minister and facility director, and the team completes the bulk of load-in.

• 5:00 p.m.
Wrap-up—Turner checks emails, cleans the office and makes sure things are in order. 

• 8:00 p.m.
Speech writing—Turner writes his presentation at home for the breakout he’s leading at the conference, “The Keys to Leading Retreats.”

> Return to “Great Expectations” feature article.

The primary reason most people attend conferences is the educational content. So why is it so many sessions are disappointing? Why are the most fundamental aspects of content development so hard when the premise is so simple? The answer is easy: Too much focus is placed on the subject matter and basic principles of engagement are forgotten.

You need to create a buzz; the content needs to be in line with the buzz. The delivery needs to be engaging and interactive. The presenter needs to tell a story that connects emotionally. The material needs to be user-friendly and distributed online for various audiences.

Keeping content engaging can be difficult since the demographics of an audience can be so diverse, ranging from Baby Boomers to Gen-Xers to Millennials. Keeping the content delivery conducive to the make-up of the audience is important. Today’s presenter must engage the audience by making the session interactive, either by soliciting participation or by breaking the audience into groups to discuss the content.

The format is crucial as well. Too many presenters still make the mistake of using PowerPoint as the crux of their presentations, reading directly off the slides rather than using them as a guide. Weaving storytelling into the presentation engages the audience on an emotional and personal level. People remember good stories, especially when compelling and thought-provoking.

Conference materials should be accessible in a format that is user-friendly. If the conference content is placed online in different formats and levels of detail, it will appeal to at least three different audiences: Participants who attended the conference; prospective attendees; and sponsors who can associate their brand with a site that reaches a wider audience over a period of several weeks or months.

Since many organizations are cutting back on the number of people sent to a conference, it is crucial to ensure the content is on point. Attendees and their decision makers are demanding a higher, more tangible return on their investment. The goal is for the attendee to bring back information that can be shared with the rest of the team.

> Return to The Challenge of Change

Amita Patel, CHSP, has been a leader in the hospitality industry for more than 25 years. Her experience includes destination and facility management as well as hotel sales and marketing. For the past 10 years, she has championed sales and marketing efforts at the Ontario Convention and Visitors Bureau/Ontario Convention Center in Ontario, Calif.