behind the scene_successful_event

Behind the Scene of a Successful

Eventan eBook by Certain Software

©2010 Certain Software, Inc. All rights protected and reserved.

ii

Behind the Scene of a Successful EventAn eBook by Certain Software

meet ing - An assembly or conference of persons for a specific purposee vent - An occurence, especially one of some importance

successful event is more than a gathering of people at a specific time and place; it is an opportunity to introduce new ideas, to learn new skills, to meet new people and to build life-long relationships. Participants remember a successful event because it enriches their lives.

Certain Software and our partners help our clients plan and execute the world’s greatest events. This eBook compiles some of the lessons our expert authors learned over 100 years of collective experience in the professional meeting planning industry. Whether it is an executive board meeting, employee train-ing course, incentive travel event, customer conference, association event, or industry trade show, we hope to help you make your next event a success. If we can be of assistance, please contact us or one of the authors.

Peter MiccicheCEOCertain Software [email protected]

A

Introduction


Prepare to Plan Your Event 1 The Roles of Event Host and Event Planner 1 Define the Event’s Objectives 1 Determine a Baseline Budget for Your Event 1 Obtain Budgetary Approval and Funding for Your Event 2

Site Selection 3 Selecting the Perfect Site for Your Event 3 Site Inspection 4 Strategic Hotel & Contract Negotiations 5 Virtual Meetings 11 Telepresence Brings Together Disperse Groups in a Short Time 11 Webinars Deliver Targeted Content to an Interested Audience 12 Virtual Events Precede, Extend, or Replace Face-to-Face Events 13

Marketing Your Event 15 The Event Web Site 15 E-mail Marketing and Event Invitations 17 Event Notification Schedule 18

Online Registration 19 Pre-Registration 19 Housing Management 21 Payment Processing 23 Reports, Reports, Reports 24 On-Site at Your Event: Registration and Check-in 26 Before You Go 26 On-Site 28 Technology and Check-in 30 After You Event Ends 31 Closing Out Your Event 31 Prepare for the Next Event 32

Table of Contents

iii


BEHIND THE SCENE OF A SUCCESSFUL EVENT

Strategic Meetings Management Programs (SMMP) 33 How to Get Started 33 Begin the Standardization Process 34 Organizing Site Selection for SMM Programs 35 Complete SMMP 36 Embed SMMP in the Organization 37

Social Networks and Events 38 Viral Marketing - Linkedin, Facebook 38 Twitter 41 Online Communities 42 Pathable 43 Social Networking Tips and Tricks 44 Planning a Sustainable Event 45 What is a Carbon Footprint for an Event? 45 Travel Trumps All Others 46 Travel Footprint Reduction 46 Other Ways to Reduce Your Footprint 47 Keeping Perspective, and the Role of Offsets 47 Up and Coming Standards for Event Planners and Managers 48

Definitions and Meeting Planner Terminology 49

Additional Resources 50 Certain Software 50

About the Authors 51 Rick Borry, Certain Software 51 Jeff Rasco and Christina Rasco Adams, Attendee Management Inc. 52 Tim Brown, Meeting Sites Resource 53 Jennifer Brown, Meeting Sites Resource 54 Jordan Schwarz, Pathable 55 Dave Rochlin, ClimatePath 56

iv


Planning an event is hard work; before starting the process, be sure that you, your organization, and the attendees are ready to commit to a successful event.

ThE ROlES Of EVENT hOST AND EVENT PlANNERThe host is responsible for creating the event’s objectives and strategic vision, and for procuring the funding to cover the event’s expenses. The planner is responsible for organizing and executing the event in order to achieve the ob-jectives with the highest economic value and lowest risk.

DEfiNE ThE EVENT’S ObjECTiVESThe host and planner work together to formulate concrete objectives for the event. “Prepare the national sales team for the May 15 product launch” is an objective, which can be measured with post-event surveys of participants and post-product launch sales results. “Bring the national sales team together for 5 days in Dallas” is not a strategic objective, although after reviewing the number of attendees and volume of content to be covered, it may be the best tactic to achieve the desired result.

DETERMiNE ThE bASiC EVENT fORMAT AND STRuCTuREThe host and planner must determine the best way to achieve the event’s objectives. This decision should consider physical constraints, such as

1. Number of participants 2. Geographical distribution of participants 3. External deadlines (e.g., a product launch date) 4. Amount, type, and complexity of content 5. Familiarity of the participants with each other 6. Ballpark budgetary limits

After outlining the objectives and constraints of the event, the event structure will often present itself. In order from least to most expensive and time-consuming, the basic event formats are:

• Conference call • Webinar • Virtual event / Telepresence • On-site meeting • Luncheon / Dinner • Off-site single-day meeting • Multi-day meeting

Prepare to Plan Your Events


1

ESTAbliSh A bASEliNE buDgET fOR YOuR EVENTIf the chosen format requires services of an external supplier, then the event will need to have a budget to pay for itself. Before spending time creating an RFP and evaluating responses from several suppliers, we recommend first establishing a preliminary estimate based on the type of event, number of participants, services required (hotel rooms, catering, production), travel, and auxiliary expenses. Planners can use software that aggregates their past experi-ences into average unit costs, and then automatically creates a baseline budget for financial approval of the event that is about to be planned.

ObTAiN buDgETARY APPROVAl AND fuNDiNg fOR YOuR EVENT.If the event host (or manager) cannot obtain funding within the ballpark range of the baseline budget, then the planner and host need to work together to reduce the event’s scope and objectives until the budget is within reason, or stop the event planning process altogether. It is better to stop at this point rather than spending time and resources planning an event that has no chance of happening.

Even if you plan to fund the event via fees per attendee and exhibitors, you still need to approve a budget to determine the proper fees to break-even, and whether you have enough money to conduct the event planning process while you wait for payments to come in.


2

Table 1. Sample sliding scale for meeting cancellation fees

Site Selection


3 BEHIND THE SCENE OF A SUCCESSFUL EVENT

SElECTiNg ThE PERfECT SiTE fOR YOuR EVENTJennifer W. Brown, CMP, President, Meeting Sites Resource

Researching and evaluating hotels for a meeting, convention, or incentive takes considerable time; however, careful analysis is essential for a productive meeting. Look beyond “dates, rates, and space” in order to achieve meeting goals, objec-tives, and criteria. Here is a 12-step process to assure success:

1. Assess needs - What do you want attendees to take away? 2. gather information - Meeting requirements, history, expenses3. Define attendees – demographics, guests, expectations4. Consider additional requirements - Weather (related to time of year), accessibility (by air and ground), special needs (resort, golf)5. Determine the budget – how much can you spend and can you be flexible?6. Design the meeting specification – based on the agenda and data collected7. Create a meeting profile or RfP – for hotels, based on the meeting specification 8. begin site research – use one or more options to find the perfect match: • Site Research company • National and regional hotel sales offices • Convention and visitors bureaus (CVB’s) • Trade publications or Web search9. Narrow your selections – select three or fewer preferred venues10. Collect site proposals – each site should provide • A description of the number and type of accommodations available • Meeting space floor plans with dimensions/capacities • List of technical equipment and support services • Tentative meeting room assignments • Complete description of property’s restaurants, sports facilities, entertainment areas, and shops • Information about insurance, licenses, taxes, beverage control, union contracts, automatic charges, gratuities • Food and beverage menus11. Conduct site inspection – follow the site inspection guidelines in the next section to review your finalists.12. Site inspection alternatives – if the planner cannot personally attend the venue, then ask the hotel for a conference packet, videos, and four refer- ences of organizations with a similar profile that held events there in the last year.

4

SiTE iNSPECTiONA site inspection is an in-person, on-site review and evaluation of a potential venue or location for an event. Before committing and going to contract, visit your top choices and methodically evaluate whether each venue meets your specific criteria and will lead to success, or perhaps is a candidate for a future meeting or event.

Site Inspection ChecklistA detailed site inspection checklist runs several pages. In general, your site inspection report should document the following:

1. first impressions - pay attention to your attendees’ experiences from when they land at the airport to their arrival at the venue2. general appearance - ask for specific dates of recent renovations, and make sure that no construction is planned during your event 3. front desk – look for the ability to handle crowds, and to speed check-in via self-service kiosks and preferred guest counters 4. Accommodations - quality and size of rooms by type, in addition to the number of rooms5. ADA requirements (Americans with Disabilities Act) – Most venues meet the minimum legal ADA requirements; however, this may not be sufficient for your group 6. Meeting & event space – with your RFP, requirements and floor plans in hand, visit the specific meeting and event rooms for your event; check lighting, ceiling height, room shape and size, and beware of any pillars and other obstructions. Also check access to wireless internet and power, and ask about in-house A/V and technology support. 7. food & beverage – review hotel catering menus and hotel F&B / theme capabilities. Inspect the size and location of restaurants, access to kitchen for meal functions, and additional catering support services. 8. Transportation – distance to airport, convention center, local attractions, transportation options (shuttle, train, taxi, bus, parking)9. Sports & recreational facilities – availability and costs of golf, entertainment, dancing, spa, exercise room, tennis, etc.10. Sustainability – venue policies and standards related to sustainability in general and carbon emission reduction, and overall hotel green initiatives11. Neighborhood – pay attention to the facilities near the venue12. Services – in-house or recommended vendors for Destination Manage- ment Company (DMC), decorating, audio/visual, etc.

Immediately after your site inspection, write down your overall impression including strengths and weaknesses. Planners often visit multiple venues on a single trip, and waiting until you return to the office to document an inspection report is a good way to confuse properties.


STRATEgiC hOTEl & CONTRACT NEgOTiATiONSTim Brown, CEO, Meeting Sites Resource

Change in economic conditions have a big impact on how meeting planners plan and execute meetings and how hoteliers sell and provide service. This includes conditions changing from a “buyer’s market” to a “seller’s market” and vice versa. Regardless of shifts in the marketplace, the simple truth is that when meeting planners evaluate each meeting, understanding their leverage and flexibility and having a negotiation plan will add value to their meetings’ bottom line and reduce contract risk.

The Strategic Request for Proposal (RFP)The Request for Proposal (RFP) is a document that specifies all vendor-supplied requirements for a meeting, in sufficient detail so that potential vendors can provide bids for the proposed event.

In addition to the information collected in the pre-planning phase, the RFP requires the meeting planner to:

• Conduct a meeting needs assessment with all internal and external stakeholders in order to understand all meeting goals and objectives. • Evaluate the demographics of attendees: who are they, where are they located, age and gender, special interests and needs, and meeting expectations. • Evaluate past meeting history including meeting budgets, meeting and event agenda, number of attendees, F&B functions, A/V spending, actual sleeping rooms - picked up versus contracted. • Create a strategic RFP that includes a day-by-day breakdown of all meeting and event activity, including set-up and teardown. List minimum square footage / ceiling heights for all meeting and event space, including breakout rooms • Include all food and beverage functions, number of guests, off-site events, and special needs • Based on a composite from above, determine best cities and type of hotel (resort, downtown / conference center, airport, suburban) that achieve stated goals and criteria

Web-based software is a valuable tool to help manage the process of creating an RFP and selecting potential venues to receive it.

5



Assess Your LeverageBy assessing the value of their meetings and understanding how hoteliers man-age for profitability, planners can improve their leverage to achieve meeting quality and bottom line results. All hotels utilize an on-line system to evaluate and “rate your meeting” based on a multitude of qualitative and quantitative factors. Knowing how (and if) your meeting fits into the hotel is an important part of the negotiation process along with your overall meeting revenue mix.

Key issues that influence hotel pricing and availability for group business include:

• Transient (individual) demand • Arrival / departure pattern • Rooms to meeting space ratio • Group food and beverage • Potential incremental revenue

• Other groups in house • Season • Meeting lead time • Group history • Contract components

All hotels have different “best answers” for each of these parameters. For example, is your peak night pattern (e.g. Monday-Friday or Friday-Sunday) compatible with the hotel’s desired group arrival/departure? Pattern selling is the cornerstone of hotel revenue management, and every hotel, whether big, small, chain or independent, has desired patterns for all market segments. Flex-ibility to shift your dates/pattern can be the difference in securing a first option and can drive the rates, too.

Analyze your Request for Proposal DetailsBefore you negotiate with the hotel for your meeting, look at your RFP from the hotelier’s perspective and determine where you can be flexible, and where you have leverage to use.

• Meeting and event space - Calculate your total space needs for each meeting and heaviest day usage. What percentage of the hotel’s total space are you requesting? What other groups are contracted over your preferred dates? How much set up time did you ask for? Do you need 24-hour hold? Hotels use their space to sell their allotted group rooms and many use the rule of thumb “use 40% of my group room inventory and you get 40% of my meeting space” (always negotiable, of course). • What is your group food and beverage contribution? Ask the hotel what their minimum F & B expectation is and if you are projecting an increased amount, that’s leverage. Ask the hotel if they do off- site catering and if so, capture that revenue, too.


6

• Calculate your total revenue based on your overall agenda, including sleeping rooms, F&B, AV, golf, spa, etc. • Check your meeting history...what did you contract/actual results. Hoteliers do reciprocate on providing specific group pick-up and revenue data. • What is the specific season for this destination...and is this a short, medium or long-term meeting? If you have multiple date options at a hotel, ask which date gives you the most flexibility with space, rates and concessions. Negotiate a fair contract with the hotelContracts do not have to be complicated, but they are a “must” to protect your company and to make expectations and responsibilities clear. Effective negotia-tions go beyond “dates, rates, and space,” and all hotel contract components, value added concessions, hotel fees and surcharges, and performance clauses must be part of the negotiation process. Everything, however, is negotiable. It is important to prioritize and have a specific game plan for each meeting (focus on adding value and reducing risk).

Once you complete your hotel proposal and evaluation process, provide the hotel of choice with all your contract requirements and clauses. Ideally, you should create a custom hotel contract template for initial distribution. Key hotel contract negotiation strategies include:

• Adjustment for published rates - If, at any time after contract signing, the Hotel publishes, issues, or promotes a group room rate (for any peak night during the Meeting Dates) that is less than your group’s contracted rate, Hotel shall adjust the applicable group rate to equal such published rate. o Note: This rate adjustment does not include negotiated wholesale or corporate business travel rates, which are not publicly available. • Base attrition and cancellation damages on lost profit, not lost revenue o “Total Room Profit” = 75% times (Room Rate) o “Total f&b Profit” = 35% times (F&B Guarantee) • Attrition is the difference between the number of rooms you contract with the hotel and those you actually fill o Always include a resell clause so that any resold rooms/ space/services are credited to your meeting o Also, if attendees book rooms around your block (e.g., via travel discount websites), then these rooms are credited to your group

7



• Cancellation – damages should be based on a sliding scale, with percentages increasing as dates get closer o The ranges and percentages listed in Table 1 are examples; the contract should specify dates and amounts based on the actual meeting date and total amount


8

Date group Cancels: Cancellation fee:

From signature to 180 days prior to arrival

25% of Total Room Profit

179 days – 90 days prior to arrival 50% of Total Room Profit

89 days – 30 days prior to arrival 75% of Total Room Profit

29 days or less prior to arrival 100% of Total Room Profit + 35% of F&B minimum

Table 1. Sample sliding scale for meeting cancellation fees

• Reduce or eliminate hotel fees and surcharges, for example o Resort fee o Early departure fee o Parking o Health Club o Maid / Bellman o F&B surcharges o Telephone / Internet access o Meeting room set-up • Ask for complimentary meeting & event space based on 80% guest room pick-up (no sliding scale fees). No meeting space changes without written approval by group • Concessions - Everything is negotiable, but prioritize what you “must have” or would “like to have” based on the specific needs and value of each meeting • force Majeure/Termination - Based on circumstances out of the control of either party, identify specific terms and conditions, which allow either party to cancel the meeting without financial responsibilities. (Including anything that makes it impractical, illegal or impossible to perform) • In the event of performance damages, apply a credit for some or all damages to a future meeting • breach by hotel - specify financial responsibilities if the hotel cancels the group (other than Force Majeure). Hotel is liable to group for all damages, direct and indirect, including expense to resched- ule, increased room rates and F & B, administration and operation, legal fees, printing/marketing costs

• Construction and remodeling – allow none over specific meeting dates • In addition to addressing all hotel performance clauses to assure accountability and a clear path to dispute resolution, it is important to define responsibilities for indemnification (make mutual), arbitration, add insurance and successors and assigns. If you have a legal department or representative, be sure to get their opinion on specific language to incorporate.

Hotel Audit ProcessIn the event of attrition or cancellation damages, conduct a room audit and include:

• Request a hotel sleeping room inventory/occupancy report by night • Verify how many rooms were resold (individual or group), regardless of the room rate • Verify how many rooms, by night, were out of service due to reno- vation or repair • If attendees make their own hotel reservations (vs. rooms on master), provide the hotel with an electronic registration list so they can cross reference against all in-house guests over the meeting dates • Capture any pre- or post-room nights Contract Tips - Plan and “Think Before You Ink”No meeting planner signs a hotel contract with the expectation that they will pay performance damages, but it is important that planners be prepared in the event “things change” and that they have a clear path to work with the hotel to mitigate damages and minimize risk.

• All hotel contracts are negotiable (plan and prioritize before you negotiate) • A thorough and well designed contract is essential for a successful meeting • Stay away from vague phrases such as “ample”, “reasonable”, “to be assigned”, “appropriate”, etc. • All meeting and event space to be assigned by day (if a hotel will not assign specific space, they are not considered a candidate) • There is no contract until both parties have signed the document




10

• Written changes on the contract with date and initials repre- sent a counteroffer • Discuss areas of dispute and counter offers in an open and honest manner • Negotiate an option date to sign and return the contract • Do not rush into signing a contract if you do not understand or agree with its content

Meetings are big investments and when planners carefully evaluate each meet-ing, understand their leverage and flexibility, and have a negotiations plan; clearly they will add more value and ROI to their organization (and greatly reduce risk).



Virtual MeetingsA successful virtual meeting will save travel time and costs, but still requires careful planning, production, and execution. In general, a virtual meeting may be the best value if:

• The attendees are geographically dispersed, but know one another well from past experience • The content to deliver is brief and centered on a single topic • Or, the meeting is a short introduction used to determine if further discussions and face-to-face meetings are justified TElEPRESENCE bRiNgS DiSPERSED gROuPS TOgEThER quiCklYModern telepresence meetings offer a hybrid face-to-face and virtual format. Typically, several people gather in one location and connect via high-definition video and voice conference to groups in one or more other locations. These high quality conference systems are expensive, so most telepresence meetings are held in offices, hotels, or restaurants that have the technology available.

For example, a major pharmaceutical company arranged simultaneous din-ners in restaurants in 50 cities, where physicians attended to hear a world-class scientific seminar delivered via telepresence from the New Jersey headquarters.

Figure 2. Teliris VirtuaLive Telepresence System. Image from www.teliris.com


12

WEbiNARS DEliVER TARgETED CONTENT TO AN iNTERESTED AuDiENCEWeb-based meetings allow participants to view a shared presentation or desk-top from their Web browser, in conjunction with a voice conference. Short team meetings among dispersed colleagues can be successful with little forethought; however, you must carefully plan a successful Webinar with professional speak-ers and a diverse audience who is not required to attend.

Professional Webinars start at least 15 minutes prior to the scheduled time, and require:

• A moderator to manage the meeting, and occasionally serve as another voice to engage the speaker in a conversation • Speakers experienced with the Web-based meeting platform • Participants should be instructed to ask questions via text chat, instead of directly to the speaker • The moderator or an assistant should continually monitor and compile incoming questions, and present them to the speakers for response • Back-up plans for faulty phone lines, Internet connections, computers • A call to action following the meetingFigure 3. Webex meeting room. See Table 2 for a partial list of popular Web-based meeting platforms.

Vendor Web Site

Adobe Acrobat Connect www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnect/

Cisco Webex www.webex.com

Citrix GoToMeeting www.gotomeeting.com

Microsoft Office Live Meeting office.microsoft.com/en-us/livemeeting/FX101729061033.aspx

Table 2. Partial list of popular Web-based meeting platforms



ViRTuAl EVENTS PRECEDE, ExTEND, OR REPlACE fACE-TO-fACE EVENTSA Virtual Event allows attendees to participate from their personal computer in a theme-based combination of Webinars, voice and text chat, video on-de-mand, and virtual exhibit halls. You should expect a successful Virtual Event to have similar costs for meeting space (i.e., the Virtual Event software platform), production, and pre-event management when compared to a face-to-face event of equivalent size. Virtual events, however, will not have travel, housing, or food & beverage costs; additionally, planners and participants save the travel time associated with a face-to-face event. Accordingly, most Virtual Events have lower registration fees, sponsorships, and exhibition fees than their face-to-face counterparts.

A Virtual Event works well in conjunction with a face-to-face event (as an online extension of the live event), or in complement with one (e.g., a Spring Virtual Event can build on the audience from a Fall annual conference). Hewlitt-Pack-ard has used Virtual Events for product marketing kick-offs with their global reseller network, while College Week Live is a good example of a Virtual Event designed to quickly review multiple options in order to narrow down selections for later in-person meetings.

Figure 4. On24 Virtual Event convention lobby. See Table 2 for a partial list of popular Virtual Event platforms.


14

Vendor Web Site

6Connex www.6connex.com

Expos2 www.expos2.com

InfoNeedle www.infoneedle.com

InXpo www.inxpo.com

On24 www.On24.com

Unisfair www.Unisfair.com

VirtualEvents365 www.cgsinc.com/solutions/virtualev-ents365.html

Table 2. Partial list of popular Web-based meeting platforms



Marketing Your EventAll events need to communicate with their desired attendees; however, event attendance falls into three broad categories:

• Mandatory – invitees must attend the event, although they may have a choice of dates and/or locations (employee training) • Sponsored – invitees don’t have to attend, but the experience is highly desirable (incentive travel programs, sponsored buyer shows) • Optional – attendees must choose the event over everything else competing for their time and money (trade shows, conferences)

The optimum marketing strategy for your event ranges from informational to promotional, depending on which category fits your intended audience.

ThE EVENT WEb SiTEThe Web site is the foundation of most event marketing campaigns. At a mini-mum, the Web site needs to answer these basic questions:

• What is the event about? (name, content, and agenda) • When are the dates and times of the event and related meetings? • Where is the event’s location and venue? • Who should attend this event? • how can one attend? (include invitation and fee requirements)

The event Web site may be a single page listing the event name, dates, location, audience, and agenda, or it may be a series of Web sites with multiple tabs and highly interactive content. Be sure that the What/When/Where information is visible on the top of every page.

Figure 5. Sample event Web site with basic information


16

Design the appropriate “Look & Feel” for your eventAn attractive Web site is part art, and part personal preference. Nevertheless, you can give your attendees a successful experience by following these guide-lines:

• Consistent – the colors, graphics, fonts, page header and footer should be consistent across every page of the event Web site, and they should match the Web site of the event’s host organization. Jumping between one “look & feel” for the organization, another for the event, and a third for the registration process will confuse, annoy, or scare some of your audience • Clean – use a single font with a small number of sizes and colors for all pages. Avoid use of moving images, especially on pages that will be viewed often • Concise – if a page has one section, then 100% of the reader’s attention will be focused on that area. Each additional word, form field, section, image, hyperlink, etc. competes for the reader’s focus • Edit, re-edit, then edit again – the Web does not excuse your eighth grade grammar lessons. Review your content multiple times and from the viewpoint of other people

Decide what content to place onlineIn addition to the basic information, an event Web site should contain the in-formation your audience needs to achieve success before, during, and after the event. Think about what your audience needs to know, and then provide it.

• How do I get to the event? What are the cheapest travel options? • Can I confirm, cancel, or modify my registration and travel? • Who should I meet at the event? • What will I do, and what do I need to wear?

As the event gets closer, attendees may ask for things you never considered during your planning. When reasonable, put this information in a frequently Asked questions (FAQs) area so that others may benefit from the knowledge.

Some events have multiple audiences, e.g. attendees, exhibitors, and speakers. Consider having separate Web sites or separate areas in the event Web site for each audience, where you can place content of specific interest to that group.



E-MAil MARkETiNg AND EVENT iNViTATiONSThe host and planner must draw attention to the event in order to generate the audience needed for a successful event. Before the event, much of this at-tention will direct attendees to the event Web site; however, in order to have a successful Web site the audience needs to be drawn to it.

Different events will use a combination of marketing campaigns, including mailed invitations, advertising (print, radio, TV, and Web), phone campaigns, etc.

Who to send invitations and announcements toThe appropriate marketing campaign must consider the nature of the event’s audience:

• Repeat attendees – is this an annual or recurring event, and most of the invitees have attended a previous event recently? • Existing organization – will most of the audience belong to an established group, e.g. association, company (employees or customers), community, etc.? • Recruiting focus – is one goal of the event to recruit new individuals to attend and perhaps join the established group?

The optimum marketing strategy for your event ranges from informational to promotional, depending on which category fits your intended audience.

In all situations, event invitations should have an “Opt-out” option to remove the recipient from your mailing list. Event marketing processes should be able to track and separate the following groups of recipients:

• Opt-out – want to be removed from future mailings • undeliverable – addresses are invalid (bounce-back) • Views – looked at the message (address is valid, but no response) • Click-throughs – took action from the message to view the Website • Partial registrations – began the registration process but stopped • Registrations – complete registrations who intend to attend the event • Attendee – attended the event (or a previous event)

As the event marketing campaign proceeds, each new message should target only individuals who remain in the intended group. For example, do not re-send an invitation to registered attendees; this will confuse them and produce questions and more work. An email list “gets old” rapidly, typically 20% or more each year. Invest the time to remove opt-outs (this is the law), investigate and update undeliverables, and find new prospects to invite.

EVENT NOTifiCATiON SChEDulEEvents have widely varying timelines; however, below is a general schedule.

Date (before Event)

Notification and Purpose

One Year Save-the-DateSend an advance notice to attendees immediately after the previous year’s event, or as soon as you know dates and location of the new event. The event Web site should have at least a placeholder page

Six months Event Web Site OpenFill the event’s Web site with appropriate content (speakers, agenda, travel options, etc.) and place it live as soon as possible. Once the Web site is ready, send a notice to previous and required attendees.

3-6 months Event invitation (Registration open)Send a short, targeted message to each group of invitees. Registration should be open before sending the invitation, so that the attendee can respond to the call to action.

1-3 months Alternate invitationsFor optional attendees, send different messages and offers if the origi-nal invitation did not lead to action. Do not spam or re-send the same message repeatedly.

1 month Registration and Travel ReminderSend short reminders to attendees who haven’t completed their required information. Travel should be booked before room blocks fill or are released and airfare rises (typically 21 days’ prior to travel).

3 weeks Event ReminderSend a “Get Ready” message to attendees with any new updates.

1 week See you at the EventJust before staff departs for the event, send a final message to at-tendees. This serves as a final reminder for the event, and will trigger last-minute questions from attendees while the staff is still in the office and may be able to resolve issues more easily.

0 days Daily event updateEach morning during the event, send a newsletter to attendees with an overview of the coming day and highlights from the previous day


18



Online RegistrationThe goal of the event Web site and marketing campaigns is to lead invitees to attend the event. The registration process allows planners to manage the resulting flood of information.

PRE-REgiSTRATiONA good registration process captures attendee data early and accurately; this allows planners to forecast budgets and make changes to the event before ma-jor expenses incur. Conversely, late and inaccurate information results in long hours, unhappy attendees, poor attendance, unused food, empty rooms, and wasteful expenses.

Design your registration formHyperlinks and tabs allow readers to navigate between multiple areas of the event Web site and quickly find the information they need. Registration pro-cesses, however, should be linear - attendees need a simple path from start to finish, or they are likely to become confused, make mistakes, and abandon the registration. Key design points to consider include:

• Minimum instructions – if the form requires paragraphs of expla- nations, it is doomed because people don’t read them. Use tool- tips, hints, and plain-English error messages to guide registrants • Straightforward – once the registration process begins, reduce or eliminate navigation options. The best process is to complete one form, then submit and move on to the next page

• Reduce the data collected – only collect the minimum data required for each individual. For example, if your company’s fax ma- chine broke three years ago and wasn’t replaced, then don’t collect fax number. If the attendee picks golf over tennis, then collect and require questions about club rentals and tee times, but skip follow-up fields intended for tennis players • Review, Verify, Pay, and Confirm – registration processes may

need one page or ten, but they all should end with a review of the data entered, an option to edit that information, a final checkout (and payment, if applicable) page, and a printable and email confirmation

Planners sometimes spend days or weeks designing their event Web site and registration process, but forget that an attendee will consider the effort a waste if they spend more than five minutes learning about the event and registering to attend.


20

Create different forms for different purposesSome events are complex. Exhibitors, speakers, staff, sponsors, and various groups of attendees may all need to provide vastly different types and amounts of information to the event planner. The result can be a very complex registra-tion process, or it could be a number of fairly simple but specialized processes. It is always better to choose multiple simple registration forms. This will im-prove the front-end experience for both registrant and planner, however, don’t forget that all of the information from multiple registration processes should end up in one event database. •

•

•

Share inventory – if the event has physical limitations, e.g. number of hotel rooms, seats in sessions, or ticketed activities, then this inventory must be shared (in real-time) among all registration pro-cesses. Otherwise the planner must maintain separate inventory for each group, and will likely undersell or oversell some itemsDual-role attendees – a speaker may also be an exhibitor or at-tendee. Make it clear where they should register, keep information for both of their roles, and watch out for duplicate registrationsguide people – people may not see themselves in the same “clas-sification” that the planner puts them into. Guide them to the correct form with plain-English labels, and provide links or a way to change forms if they selected the wrong process initially

Register guests and groups at the same timeIf your event allows attendees to bring guests or groups of attendees, then let these people register together. There are two ways to handle this:

•

•

“guests” – people who travel with the attendee and may attend parts of the event, but they would not attend the event without the attendee.“Colleagues” – people (co-workers, employees, etc.) who are full equals as attendees, but prefer to register together for conve-nience or group benefits.

In general, the registration and reporting process should track guests as part of the attendee’s registration record, while colleagues each receive a separate registration record, unique identifier, and confirmation.



hOuSiNg MANAgEMENTHotel rooms are typically two-thirds of the total meeting costs for overnight face-to-face events. For most events, the hotel contract represents both the greatest risk and best opportunity for cost control.

Let the hotel sell their rooms, when appropriateWith small meetings or events where your attendees are paying for their rooms, the easiest solution may be to use the hotel’s group reservations Web site for hotel reservations. In this case, be sure that your event Web site and registration form are integrated with the hotel reservation form (via hyperlinks and custom messaging), and ask for report-level access to the hotel’s group res-ervation system so that you can keep track of who has made room reservations and compare that to your attendance list.

Manage your hotel block to reduce attritionIf you have signed a contract committing to a large number of rooms, then of-ten the best way to handle the risk of filling those rooms is to manage the room reservation process yourself.

• Make housing reservations part of the event registration process • Offer a registration discount to attendees staying in event hotel • Monitor public rates and re-negotiate your group rates if published rates drop below them (www.hotels.com, etc.) • During on-site check-in, ask people if they are staying at a local hotel and, if so, which one. Then compare to your registration list • Ask hotels for their guest list and compare to your attendance list to see which event attendees booked around the block.

Figure 5. Sample event Web site with basic information (Passkey)


22

Match roommates without creating a big messPutting two people in one room can save about half of your event’s housing costs, which could amount to a 1/3 savings overall for the event, and signifi-cantly reduce your event carbon footprint. This isn’t for everyone, but can be a valuable part of some event experiences:

• •

•

under-18 audiences – place 2-4 children per room or 1 adult and two kidsYoung adults – “New hire” orientation events may intentionally pair people from different offices and regions in order to encour-age interaction among attendees who might otherwise stay apartEmployee-only events – if the company is paying the bill, then it has more justification to enforce room-sharing

While sharing rooms can save money, it can create logistic headaches if not managed carefully. Some things to watch out for include:

•

•

•

Roommate requests – can people request roommates by name, and what is the policy for the selected person to approve the requestMatching criteria – typically gender and smoking preference are used as matching criteria, but arrival/departure dates and demo-graphic information may also be relevanthandling exceptions – the roommate policy needs to be flexible, for example, with two married employees or those with special needs

Work with your hotel representative to prevent surprisesThe event planner should work with the host and hotel representative in order to keep everyone informed of pre-registration progress as the event date gets closer. • •

•

•

Deliver reports to the host and hotel on time, as stated in contractsEncourage early registration (via discounts, reminder emails, con-tests) in order to gauge your room pickup early enough to release rooms without penalty or add them as neededCompare pre-registration to previous years’ events – if your au-dience is similar, then their registration habits will typically follow patterns that indicate if the event will have more or fewer attend-ees than in the pastDon’t take no for an answer – registration companies must be able to give you lists before the hotels need them, and hotels must be able to give you reports to cross-check for mistakes. Repeated delays and missed deadlines indicate larger problems



PAYMENT PROCESSiNgCollecting fees from attendees or exhibitors can be a good way to cover the costs of an event; however, payment processing adds another area for the event planner to manage. The event registration process should offer payment options appropriate to the type of event and expectations of the audience, such as: • Credit cards • Debit / ACH / e-Checking • Check by mail • Purchase order / invoice • Payment plans • Other methods – Paypal, Bill Me Later, etc.

Handle payments securely every timeRegardless of the payment method, financial transactions involve the exchange of sensitive information between the attendee and event. Planners must ensure that privacy safeguards and data security of the payment process meet local laws and regulations. Events are fraud targets, and the loss of credit card numbers or other financial information can be embarrassing or disastrous to an event. Key points to consider include: •

•

•

•

Never email credit card or bank information – if a hotel needs credit card guarantees from attendees, have them collect the information in their secure system. Alternately, pass financial in-formation via a hyperlink to a secure, password-protected report-contractsDon’t store credit card numbers – use systems where the credit card or bank information is only used during the original payment transaction. If data is not stored on your system, it cannot be stolenEncrypt secure information – when you have to store secure infor-mation, be sure that it is both encrypted and access-controlledControl access – secure access to data using unique logins, pass-words, and employee background and credit checks

PCI - accept credit cards online, without headachesFortunately for event planners, many technology vendors offer registration sys-tems with integrated credit card processing that is compliant with the Payment Card industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS). Look for “PCI Level 1 Compli-ance” with your vendor, and periodically review their required annual audit report to make sure you can rest easy.


24

REPORTS, REPORTS, REPORTSWhile an event is typically a physical experience, the event planning process is closer to an assembly line of information. Throughout the weeks leading up to the event, the planner compiles more and more information from the host, suppliers, speakers, hotels, attendees, etc. Before the event can succeed, the planner must compile this mass of information and distribute it to the people who need it. Thus, prior to the event itself, reports are the main output of the planning process.

Standard reports and custom reportsSeveral organizations have compiled “standard” reports for event planners; for example, see the Accepted Practices Exchange of the Convention Industry Council (www.conventionindustry.org/apex/). While most events use the same basic reports, each event typically requires some changes to the format. Although no true standard exists, common reports include:

• •

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

Attendee list – list of attendees with contact and demographic information, separated by attendee typeRoom block Pickup – summary of number of rooms reserved for each hotel, room types, and nights as a percentage of the contract-ed number of room-nights hotel Rooming list – list of attendees staying at each hotel, with arrival, departure, room type, special needs, and other housing dataArrival & Departure Manifest – list of attendees organized by their arrival (or departure) time at the event location (to allow ground transportation and hotels to avoid bottlenecks with large groups)Travel itinerary – detailed list of attendees travel information from their departure point to their destination at the event. Typically used for VIPs and speakers to make sure planners know where key people are when travel delays occur.Session Attendance – basic list of attendees who have pre-regis-tered for breakout sessions (by topic, time, and room)Payment Reconciliation – daily summary of payments and refunds by payment method, used to compare totals to bank account statements for financial reconciliationbudget – detailed summary of event revenue and expenses by category, comparing actual to budgeted numbersCost Savings – report outlining cost savings realized during the event planning process, when compared to the original proposal or a baseline average



“Changes” reports: Communicating with suppliersEvents have multiple suppliers (hotels, ground transportation, tour operators, food service, etc.) who need pre-registration information in order to plan their services. A planner typically sends registration data to suppliers weeks to months before the event, however, many changes occur after the initial report as the host or attendees make additions, changes, and cancellations to the original plans. Thus, event planners rely on “Changes” reports to update their suppliers with the new information, without having to repeatedly send the complete registration data.

“Changes reports” have multiple formats, but they should include:

• • •

•

A header with basic event information – most suppliers work on multiple events simultaneously, so be sure the event name, date, location, and contact are prominent in the reportColumns with all relevant information the supplier needsSections for Additions (new records), Modifications (changed records), and Cancellations (records removed)Modifications should highlight the fields that changed using color, font, and text; reports are often copied and faxed thus color and bold can be unreliable indicators of changes

Changes reports apply to a range of dates, typically from the date the last report was delivered to the current date. Mistakes occur, however, so be sure that you can re-run reports from earlier periods or simply run the original report again to reset the changes.

Figure 7. Sample “Hotel Changes Report” with Additions, Modifications, and Cancel-

Onsite registration is certainly not rocket science, but it is the first impression your attendees have of the actual event. And like the cliché goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. As with the rest of your event, check-in requires planning and attention to detail.

bEfORE YOu gOOnsite registration is highly variable depending on the size and type of event you are handling. The key part in planning for check-in procedures is evaluating the numbers and needs of your attendees. A few key points to address early in the planning process to prepare for onsite include:

• How many attendees? • What equipment is needed? • What materials will be supplied to attendees upon check-in? • What purpose will your Reg Desk serve?

NumbersThe total number of attendees will dictate your equipment and staffing needs for onsite, so it is important to have a ballpark figure early on to help plan. Smaller events may just need a couple of draped tables and chairs, while a large event may require a number of registration stations. Note where the registration area is and whether the venue contains a built in registration area for your use, and if so, what is included.

With so much activity going on at the event, registration desk staffing is often overlooked. Consider the hours that the desk will be open, and plan for who will man the desk during those times. If manpower is an issue when the event team is busy with other tasks, then outsourcing onsite support is a very valuable option.

26

On-Site at Your Event: Registration and Check-inChristina Rasco Adams and Jeff Rasco, CMP, Attendee Management, Inc.




BadgesName badges are not only a way to convey attendees’ names, but they also identify different attendee types and verify that participants are registered.

There are a number of techniques for producing name badges. Registration software often includes a badge printing component that helps layout and generate a printer-ready document, or spreadsheets can be merged into a label document. Several vendors specialize in supplying everything you need for badge printing – perforated cardstock, badge holders, and lanyards. In addition, some companies will handle all your badging needs from designing and printing to stuffing and shipping.

Badge reprints are inevitable once onsite, so whatever printing option you choose, plan to have a quick way to recreate and reprint the badge onsite. One of the simplest options is to pre-print badge stock and prepare a black-and-white template for the actual badge information. When a reprint is needed onsite, simply update the contact information in the template.

Registration PacketsIn addition to badges, many events give the attendees a registration packet upon check in. This packet typically includes the conference agenda and other general event information, such as a location map, speaker and session descriptions, an area for notes, etc. Sponsor information and giveaways are often included in the packet.

EquipmentMany pieces make up the registration area. The checklist below covers some of the items needed at nearly every registration desk.

• Tables/booths • Chairs • Badges and packets • Extra badge stock for reprints • Computer • Printer • Internet • Location map • Conference agenda • Phone and/or radio for contact with other event staff • Pens and paper • Storage


28

ON-SiTE

Setting UpThe types of attendees and the total number play an important role in deter-mining how the registration area should be set up. Your goal should always be an efficient check-in process with minimal lines. Staff may include registrars for pre-registered attendee check-in, helpers for on-site registrations, cashiers, VIP check-in staff, greeter/information desk, and support for exhibitors and sponsors. At least one senior registration manager should have no direct desk assignment, but be available to troubleshoot and keep the process moving along.

Staff numbers depend entirely on the number of attendees and difficulty in the registration process. Your tradeshow may allow for many onsite registrations, so the ratio of staff to attendees may be 1:50 or lower. If most attendees pre-registered, 1:150 or so could be perfectly adequate. Your event history is the best guide to providing staff, but if in doubt, don’t skimp on personnel. Possible staffing sources include your meeting management team, administrative assistants, vol-unteers, and the CVB.

The physical set-up re-lies on the facility, at-tendee numbers, and oftentimes budget. As mentioned, you may be at tables, supplied registration booths, or a built-in desk. Based on your numbers, you may choose a simple line or serpentine ap-proach, or it may be advantageous to split the group in alpha-betical segments (A-D, E-H, etc.) to speed things along. If it helps to keep things organized, work with the facility or your vendor to supply ropes and stanchions or other methods to keep people moving in the right directions. And don’t forget proper directional signage.



Prepping StaffA successful registration process demands making registration desk staff prepa-ration a priority. The prep session should cover:

What each attendee receives • upon check in (badge, packet, etc.)What information to convey• to each attendee and attendee typeA • basic understanding of the venue and location of meeting roomsProcedures for handling • badge reprints, walk up registrations, and emergency or security situationshow and when to contact other members• of the event team

Covering every possible situation or question that the registration staff may en-counter is impossible and not necessary, but providing the team with the tools to help the attendee is crucial. Handheld radios, cell phones, and text messaging are lifelines for the registration staff.

Since the planning team is often working behind the scenes, the registration staff represents the entire event team and should understand the weight of this re-sponsibility. The registration area can get stressful at times, and your registration team will feel it. Never underestimate the power of a good attitude and a smile.

Meet Me at the Reg DeskThe Registration Desk often becomes the information center of the event. It’s one of the first places attendees stop when they arrive, and it can continue to be a place to meet up with other attendees, find out where a meeting room is, and get other general information. Establishing the hours of the registration desk and including them in the conference agenda will help attendees know when this support will be available.

As the first face of the event, registration is a great place to relay the feeling and theme. For instance, if going green is an important theme of the conference, make sure that registration reflects this. Take advantage of the area to exhibit the event or organization branding, promote special conference events, or recognize sponsors.


30

TEChNOlOgY AND ChECk-iNWe’ve come a long way since the days of sorting through index card catalogs to find attendees and welcome them to our events. With powerful automated reg-istration systems in place, most information is a click away, even on site.

With a basic Internet connection at the event venue, you can access your com-plete registration database with your on-line system, such as Certain Meetings. You may also opt for a server-based network, if going online is an issue. With onsite reg-istration kiosks, attendees can self-regis-ter directly in the system, pay their fees, and be queued up for their name badge and tickets. Pre-registered attendees can check themselves in by entering their reg-istration code or scanning a bar code.

Onsite technology can really work to speed up the check-in process and save money

on staff, postage and shipping, especially with larger meetings. With the addition of on-demand printers for badges and tickets, advance mailings of those materi-als are unnecessary. Because attendees simply check in at computer kiosks, and have their badges, tickets, and other credentials automatically printed, there is less need for staff to assist. It also reduces or eliminates the need for pre-event “stuffing parties” and shipping badges to the event venue.

Digitized information is also transforming another manual process in registration – the information packet. More and more, printed materials are giving way to handouts provided in USB flash drives, CD/DVD format, or online. At worst, at-tendees look up the materials they need and print on demand at stations placed conveniently throughout the venue.

Registration truly makes the first impression on your attendees, and technology has made a lasting impression on the registration and check-in processes.



The day an event ends successfully, most planners want to either hit the bar or their bed. The next day, however, the professional meeting planner knows that the end of the last event is only the start of the next event. The planner and host should reserve time immediately after the event to review what worked, what didn’t work, and where to make improvements.

ClOSiNg OuT YOuR EVENTThe first post-event task is to close out the event. This includes:

update the registration database • with on-site changes, and mark pre- registrants who did not attend as “no-show”

If the event did not meet its hotel commitment, then • compare the hotel guest list to the attendee list to make sure your event gets credit for all attendees

Compile all event invoices • , and remind suppliers of deadlines to submit invoices not yet received

Review invoices for errors • , and submit for payment

update the event budget • with the actual payment amounts, and calculate the variance between actual and budget or expected amounts

Conduct surveys • of key team members (host, speakers, planners, sup-pliers) to evaluate each others’ performance and make suggestions for improvement

Compile attendee surveys • , and distribute results to relevant parties (speakers, suppliers, etc.)

What to KeepAt a minimum, the planner should keep track of high-level financial and registra-tion details for three years, in order to use in annual event consolidation reports and preparations for future events. This includes:

basic event details• – Name, dates, locations, agenda, number of attendees

Signed contracts• – in case of future audits or dispute

Actual expenses by major category• (Housing, Food & Beverage, Audio/Visual & Production, Meeting Space, Travel, Registration)

After Your Event Ends


32

Actual registration numbers• by attendee type and revenue

Registration and attendance proof for sessions granting • Continuing Education Credits (some CE programs require this information to be archived for 7 years minimum)

What to throw awayKeeping everything from old events is almost as bad as keeping nothing, since important information becomes lost in the flood of the irrelevant and stor-age costs spiral upward. Each planner should determine a data deletion plan based on their organization’s applicable laws and regulations. Periodically (quarterly or annually) set aside time to “clean house” and remove irrelevant paperwork and data.

PREPARE fOR ThE NExT EVENTRepeat events will have new dates, locations, speakers, attendees, and chal-lenges. A professional event planner can improve productivity and chances for success by constantly improving the planning process they follow.

update the workflow• used for the event with new “best practices” and lessons learned

Make a copy of the old event web site and registration form• and set it up as a place holder for the next event, with a simple “Get Ready” message with any information known for the next year’s event

Review past supplier performance• and consider adding or changing preferred suppliers in order to drive more business to the best ones

Use consolidated event spend information to • negotiate discounts and better rates with preferred suppliers



Strategic Meetings Management Programs (SMMP)Large organizations sign hundreds of contracts that together commit huge sums for meetings and events, without adequate controls on risk management or measuring value obtained for the money. Accordingly, a well-designed Strategic Meetings Management Program (SMMP) should be part of any enterprise travel and expense control system.

hOW TO gET STARTEDSMMP attempts to impose central controls on a geographically disperse and highly variable behavior – planning meetings and events of different size, com-plexity, and purpose. Some SMMP implementations fail because the problem is too big to tackle all at once and management patience expires before the pro-gram becomes demonstrably effective. It is critical to establish goals, priorities, milestones, and expectations throughout the SMMP implementation process, which typically requires at least two to three years to establish within a large enterprise.

how big is the problem?•

Establish an area on the company Intranet for meetings, and o post a page explaining the initial SMMP goals, new policy re-quirements, and a Meeting Request form

Require all events over 10 people or $10,000 to be registered o and receive a unique Meeting id

Do not yet implement a formal review/approval process – at o this point simply register events (even if they were in the past) and collect basic information

Control your risk immediately•

Work with your legal department to create ao standard contract template for meetings and post this on your SMMP Intranet

An advanced SMM program has o pre-negotiated contracts with major hotel chains and a process specifying required and op-tional clauses for non-standard contract negotiation

If practical, SMMP meeting professionals should o review all non-standard event contracts, otherwise at least post an stan-dard contract with explanation of key clauses so that part-time meeting planners know what to watch out for

Store meeting contracts in a central locationo and associate each contract with its Meeting (by unique Id)


34

bEgiN ThE STANDARDizATiON PROCESSOnce each meeting has a unique Id and all contracts are in a central location where a meeting professional can review their risks, your organization is ready to begin standardizing meeting management processes.

Centralize payment by Meeting id•

The best way to enforce meeting registration is to implement o a policy that event-related expenses are not paid without a Meeting id – be forgiving at first and allow registration of the meeting even after it is over, while educating the event host for next time

Alternately, you may require o event charge codes for every meeting Id

Require employees to use the Meeting Id or Charge Code for o event-related expenses, e.g. travel reservations, travel ex-pense reimbursements, meeting expenses, etc.

If practical, consider using a o meeting charge card, at least for smaller purchases. Otherwise, track payment by broad cat-egories such as housing, food & beverage, travel, registration, audio/visual production, and meeting space

Standardize client-facing tools•

Most employees’ pre-event experience is limited to the o event Web site and registration process

If your central o Attendee Management tool has major faults, then the ultimate clients (attendees) will lose faith in the value of the entire SMM program

Custom-brando your event web sites, registration forms, and email marketing within your Intranet to make the pre-event experience seamless and fast for attendees

Set up a Request & Approval process•

After the event host completes a meeting request, it should o route to the appropriate budget manager for approval

Some systems create o automated budget estimates for “not-to-exceed” approval limits, while others require at least one response from a qualifying facility (hotel, etc.) before approval



ORgANiziNg SiTE SElECTiON fOR SMM PROgRAMSOrganizations have different requirements for selecting the event location and facility. Single-source proposals are appropriate in some cases, such as when events occur in the same location year-after-year, one facility is obviously more convenient for the majority of attendees, or a repeating event rotates among a fixed number of properties. In other cases, organizational rules or laws (e.g., Sarbanes-Oxley) require the meeting planner to consider multiple facilities and obtain at least 3 proposals from qualified vendors. The site selection process was discussed previously for a single event; additional considerations for a SMM program include:

Centralize the site selection and RfP process• – use a single system and workflow to create an RFP, select potential vendors to receive the RFP, collect responses from vendors, narrow the options, conduct site in-spections, negotiate with the selected facility, and prepare a contract with appropriate clauses for the event

Customize the site selection process• to your organization’s specific needs, and allow further customization for each event’s unique require-ments

use an extensive supplier database• , and load it with your organization’s sales contacts, preferred suppliers, and past events

Track credits from cancelled meetings• , volume discounts, promotions, etc. and consider these during the RFP process

Consolidate RfP reporting across all events• – show suppliers (by chain, brand, and property) not only how much you spent with them each year, but also how many opportunities (RFPs) you offered them, and how often they bid, declined, or didn’t respond. Include their RFP re-sponse time in comparison to their competitors

Prepare Cost Savings Reports• - Most cost savings in the event planning process occur during site selection and contract negotiation. Keep track of those savings by event and in aggregate

35


36

COMPlETE SMMPProject management and creation of a detailed Event Specification Guide (ESG) with a detailed budget are the central daily tasks of many meeting professionals. In the context of SMMP, however, we consolidate these processes only after con-trolling meeting registration, contracts, bill payments, attendee management, and site selection.

Project management•

Define a o “best practice” workflow for each process that you repeat often, with due dates relative to key milestones (e.g. the Event Start Date) and task assignment relative to roles (e.g. host, approver, planner)

Create a Master Scheduleo by applying the appropriate work-flow to each event, so that tasks and milestones now have spe-cific due dates and assigned persons. Remove tasks that are not applicable to the specific event

Ao Project Management Dashboard shows managers the prog-ress of all current events and projects, including which tasks are overdue and which are pending in the near term

Event Specification guide• (ESG) – also called “Meeting Resume”

The event specification contains all of the details about an o event, for the vendor where the event will be held

It includes o “function Setup Orders” (fSOs), which include details for each meeting space and time slot. FSOs are the meeting planner’s version of hotels’ “Banquet Event Orders” (BEOs)

For example,o see the Accepted Practices Exchange (APEx) standard at www.conventionindustry.org/apex

The ESG contains all information that the planner and event facility share. In ad-dition, the planner should maintain a detailed budget for each event.

Event changes• should reflect automatically in the budget details

Combine line item details into• major spend categories, such as Housing, Travel, Food & Beverage, Audio/Visual, and Meeting Space

Consolidated budgeting reports• should aggregate all expenses by event, spend category, and across multiple events over time



EMbED SMMP iN ThE ORgANizATiONOnly after firmly establishing commitment to SMMP in the travel, procurement, finance, and event management departments should an organization invest in systems integration. Such integration, however, is essential to streamlining SMMP and embedding it internally.

Integrate internal systemsEvents are not a core profit center for most businesses, so most event manage-ment systems must fill a support role to other primary systems. The key systems most SMM programs integrate include:

Travel management• – most corporate travel and expense (T&E) systems focus on individual (“transient”) travel, however, event-related (“group”) travel can account for 30% of total expenses and should be managed ac-cordingly

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)• – for customer-facing events, the CRM application needs to know at least who was invited, who plans to attend, and who has attended past events

human Resources (hR)• – employee-facing events need to pull data from HR for registration and push data related to attendance in required events

learning Management Systems (lMS)• – many LMS applications don’t man-age physical events, however, course content, prerequisites, and Continu-ing Professional Education credits must be transferred between the event management system and LMS

Single Sign-On (SSO)• – Single Sign-On allows employees, customers, etc. to sign on to a system (such as an Intranet or customer portal) once, and then have their profile information pass automatically to other systems such as event registration

Procurement• – event site selection and contracting must work within the overall organizational procurement process

Accounting• – event-related invoices, billing, and payments must comply with the overall organizational accounting system

Automate information exchange Whenever practical, automate the exchange of event information (reports, email, status pages) with suppliers and team members. In other cases, provid-ing real-time access (via hyperlinks or system login) will allow parties who need event-related information to retrieve it when they need it.

37


38

Social networks have caught the imagination of meeting planners worldwide for good reason: people attend face-to-face events to network; they want to meet potential customers, vendors, employers, employees, and friends.

On-line social networks facilitate that goal by providing a means for attendees to get to know each other prior to the meeting and to stay in touch afterwards. In addition, social networks can help build attendance at events through viral marketing.

ViRAl MARkETiNgSocial networks can help get the word out about your event, at no cost beyond your time invested. Social network marketing has two important advantages over traditional marketing:

Exponential Effect• : Remember that old shampoo commercial, where a woman says she told two friends about Faberge, “and they told two friends, and they told two friends…”? That’s a classic example of the ability of viral marketing to amplify a message

Trusted Source• : People are more likely to listen to and trust something they hear from a friend than from a paid advertisement. Viral marketing is “advertising you can’t buy”

The accessibility of viral marketing has increased dramatically with the rise of established social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, which have formalized who is a “friend” and made easy the ability to share thoughts - (and links) with them.

LinkedInLinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) is considered the most “professional” of the social networks and provides several avenues for building a viral marketing campaign.

First, you can create a dedicated page on LinkedIn for your event where attend-ees indicate they are “Attending”, “Interested” or “Not Attending”. If they choose “Attending”, a message will appear in each attendee’s Feed letting their contacts know. Attendees will also be able to leave messages for one another as “Com-ments” on the page (which will also show up in their Feed).

Creating an Event page on LinkedIn is free: simply sign-in with your LinkedIn ac-count, click Events from the left-hand navigation bar under Applications, then click the Add an Event tab that will appear at the top of the page.

Social Networks and EventsJordan Schwartz, CEO, Pathable


BEHIND THE SCENE OF A SUCCESSFUL EVENT39

Figure 8. Sample event page on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com)

A second way to leverage LinkedIn’s viral marketing potential is through LinkedIn Groups (http://learn.linkedin.com/groups). LinkedIn Groups are topic-based sub-communities within the larger LinkedIn community. When people join a LinkedIn Group, they generally consent to receive messages posted to that group as e-mail, so Groups can be an effective way of getting a message out to targeted, relevant people.

To get your message out to a LinkedIn Group:

Sign in or create an account if you don’t already have one•

Find and join groups relevant to your event by visiting the LinkedIn •Groups Directory: http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory. Also, view the Groups that people involved in your event belong to.

Click “Start a Discussion” and enter your message•

important: Many Groups have rules restricting advertising messages, so read any introductory messages and learn the etiquette before jumping in.

Even Groups that don’t explicitly disallow advertising won’t appreciate “spam”, and you don’t want to alienate potential attendees. Be sure that you only send your message to directly relevant Groups and that you phrase your message in terms of sharing information, rather than marketing your event.


40

Facebook Like LinkedIn, Facebook (www.facebook.com) has “Events” pages that your at-tendees can join. When they do, Facebook adds a message to their News Feed letting all their friends know they are attending, a great viral marketing mecha-nism.

While Facebook generally is regarded as more “social” and “personal” to Linke-dIn’s “professional” feel, Facebook has a more active membership and a better developed News Feed feature, meaning that even for professionally-oriented events, it can be a more effective way to spread your message.

Figure 9. Sample event page on Facebook (www.facebook.com)

To create an event on Facebook:

Sign in or create a Facebook account if you don’t already have one.•

Click in the box labeled “What’s on your mind?”•

Click the “calendar page” icon showing the 31• st:

Enter your event details, then click • Share

Click the name of the event, then click • Edit Event

Enter any additional event details (notice the options on the left)•

Click • invite People to Come to inform everyone in your social network that you’ve created an event page



TWiTTERTwitter is a fundamentally different type of social network from LinkedIn and Facebook in that there are no “pages”, there is just your feed: a continuous list of the messages that you’ve posted to the service. Anyone who is subscribed to your feed (i.e., anyone who is “following you”, in Twitter terminology) might see your messages (or “tweets”).

However, because each person sees a continuously updated list of all the tweets of everyone they follow, if someone is following many people, they may overlook some tweets as new tweets replace them in the feed.

One common behavior on Twitter is to “retweet” what someone else has retweeted. This simply means that you repeat their message, preceding it with the letters “RT” (for retweet) and their Twitter name (e.g., @pathable).

You can spread the word about your event on Twitter not only by tweeting it yourself, but by encouraging others to retweet your message (thus spreading it to all of their followers). Some common methods for encouraging retweeting are:

Ask your followers to retweet your message explicitly (e.g., “Registra-•tion open for EventCon 2001: http://bit.ly/oiweru (please RT)”

Include Twitter-only specials or discounts in your messages•

Share breaking news or new and interesting developments (e.g., high •profile speakers booked) on Twitter

hint: Twitter restricts messages to 140 characters. That means that if you want someone to be able to retweet your message, it must be less than 140 characters long even after they add “RT @your_twitter_name” to the beginning!

Twitter Hash TagsOne way to mark tweets as being relevant to a particular topic (e.g., about an event) is to include what’s called a “hash tag” in the body of the tweet. A hash tag is simply a set of characters preceded by a hash mark, “#”. By including the hash mark, you designate that word as a key word that can be more easily searched for, and is distinguished from similar words. For example:

“I use certain software” might mean that the sender uses a particular •piece of software.

“I use #Certain software” designates the word “Certain” as a special key-•word, and thus more likely to reference the Certain Software service.


Events typically have hash tags, as well. For example, the hash tag for South by SouthWest is #sxsw. The hash tag for MeetDifferent 2010 is #MD10 (hash tags are not case sensitive). You should choose a hash tag that is unique and relatively short (ideally less than 8 characters), so that it won’t compete with your message when keeping under the 140 character limit.

Hint: to make sure your desired hash tag isn’t already in use, visit http://search.twitter.com/ and search for it. If it shows up in tweets about another topic, some-one has already claimed it for another purpose.

ONliNE COMMuNiTiES

When it comes to making a lasting, personal connection, nothing compares to meeting someone face-to-face. Unfortunately, conference and event attendees have a limited amount of time to take advantage of this opportunity. In a crowd-ed room, most attendees must rely on luck or happenstance to bump into the “right” people in the limited time they have.

Event-centric on-line communities can extend the time attendees have to net-work months prior and after an event, and can make the time they have in the same room more effective by allowing them to identify people they would like to meet before they arrive.

LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook can all function as on-line communities for your event, but experience has shown that building a dedicated community for your event can be more effective:

Integrating the community experience with registration has been shown •to increase adoption by up to 6x

When you create a custom community, you can control the look and •feel and the brand of the site

When using a generic third party- service such as LinkedIn or Facebook, •those services own the customer relationship. When you create a cus-tom network, you own the attendee data and can use it to build a high-er-value customer relationship

42



PAThAblE

Pathable (www.pathable.com) is a social network service, similar in some ways to Facebook or LinkedIn, that integrates with your Certain Meetings solution to create a dedicated online community for your event. Unlike Facebook or Linke-dIn, the site will “look and feel” like your event web site, embedding in your navigation system, carrying your banner and URL, and only registered attendees can participate in your event’s network.

When someone registers for your event, Pathable’s integration with Certain auto-matically creates an account for that attendee based on the information they’ve provided. The attendee can then fill out additional background information to help other attendees get to know them, such as a photo, their interests, a short bio and other relevant details.

Figure 10. Sample event community site using Pathable

Pathable helps your attendees network by:

identifying which of the attendee’s Twitter and LinkedIn contacts are •also attending

recommending people to meet based on common interests•

searching for attendees interested in any topic•

supporting topical mailing list conversations, so attendees can start dis-•cussions with other attendees around areas of mutual interest.


In addition, Pathable’s scheduling feature allows attendees to sign up for edu-cational sessions, download hand-outs, and then start conversations with the speakers and attendees of particular sessions, creating ad hoc communities around each talk.

By taking advantage of these social networking features, attendees can get to know each other before the event, so that when they arrive they already have a set of familiar names and faces and people they want to talk with.

Pathable includes iPhone and Blackberry interfaces, allowing attendees to access their schedule and contacts on the go, and synchs with Outlook 2007 and above as well as other common calendar programs, to allow its scheduling features to integrate into attendees established workflows.

Pathable even allows attendees to schedule one-on-one meetings with each oth-er, using their chosen session schedules to determine mutually free times.

Figure 11. iPhone and Blackberry interfaces for Pathable community site.

When an event is complete, the Pathable community for event lives on, giving attendees a place to return and continue the conversations they started. As a result, they feel personally attached and committed to the event, increasing the likelihood that they will return for the next one.

SOCiAl NETWORkiNg TiPS AND TRiCkSChoosing a social networking strategy need not be an either / or deci-•sion. These solutions can often be used effectively side-by-side.

No matter which service you use, be sure to • tell people about the pages you have created in every way you can: tweet about them, link to them from your web site and Facebook page, etc.

To make most effective use of Twitter, download one of the • free support programs, such as TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com). These will allow you to have “search columns” that spotlight all the relevant tweets on a particular topic instantly and continuously.

Measure, measure, measure• ! Use tools like Google Analytics and HootSuite (www.hootsuite.com) to tell you how much of your traffic is coming from a particular source, which can help you focus your time and money on the most effective investments.

44



The growing consensus is that reducing green house gas emissions is urgent to avoid a variety of climate related, planetary crises. Whether you believe the worst scenarios related to climate change projections or not, the specter of emis-sions targets and reporting programs - either mandated or voluntary - has many large organizations scrambling to understand, quantify, and reduce the carbon emissions of their business activities. Relying on “random acts” of green and sustainability when planning meetings and events needs to be replaced with a comprehensive approach to understanding and mitigating climate impact.

No two events are alike, so calculating and reducing a carbon footprint can be complicated. The scope, sources, and solutions can also be surprising. The pur-pose of this chapter is to remove some of the ambiguities and mysteries around carbon foot-printing, identify general benchmarks and key variables, and assist event organizers in developing a strategy for tackling this critical green issue.

WhAT iS A CARbON fOOTPRiNT fOR AN EVENT? Carbon emissions are typically divided into 3 scopes to help determine organi-zational boundaries. These three scopes can be applied to meetings and events, and help you calculate your extended carbon footprint:

Scope 1 emissions are those directly occurring “• from sources that are owned or controlled” by event planners, such as work vehicles.

Scope 2 emissions are those • generated in the production of electric-ity consumed by the event. This includes the energy consumed at the event location.

Scope 3 emissions are all the other • indirect emissions that are “a conse-quence of the activities of the event, but occur from sources not owned or controlled by the event organizer.” These include air and ground travel, hotel stays, emissions of the production and transportation of purchased goods, outsourced activities, and so forth.

Scope 3 emissions are the hardest to assess, track, and reduce because we have the least control over them. Simply determining which scope 3 emissions to in-clude within the boundary of the event can be an important and complex deci-sion. The emerging event standards encourage event planners to take a holistic look at everything from attendee travel to meals and paper usage when develop-ing a sustainability plan and measuring their overall impact - or carbon footprint. The confusing part is determining the event planner’s role in reducing the impact versus simply encouraging attendees to mitigate.

Planning a Sustainable Climate Friendly EventDave Rochlin, CEO, ClimatePath

45


Whether you choose to follow a standard or your own best practices as part of your emissions measurement and offsetting, it is critical to be transparent, so that claims can be understood and verified.

TRAVEl TRuMPS All OThERSAttendee travel to and from your event is particularly impactful. If a majority of attendees are flying, these emissions account for up to 80% of your overall foot-print. The airport transfers and in-town travel can be another 5%, as can hotel stays. All together that means 90% or more emissions of an overall event can be attributed to attendee travel. Of course face-to-face meetings can be valu-able and highly productive, but it is important to select the right location for the event, and reduce the miles flown. With 10,000 people attending, your choice of location could mean as much as 5,000 tons of CO2 emission added or avoided!

Outside of travel related emissions, an actual event’s footprint is in the range of 25-35 lb per day per person. A 10,000 person event is roughly 120 tons per day.

TRAVEl fOOTPRiNT REDuCTiON

Air travel:• When many attendees are flying, selecting a central location can cut your events carbon footprint in half. Keep in mind that direct flights tend to be 20-25% more efficient than flights with connections. Finding a central and direct location can save 1000 lbs of CO2 or more per attendee.

Airport-to-event• : Airport transfer considerations can also have an im-pact. Cutting the travel distance and using vans can reduce this footprint by 80%, which can be 40 lbs of CO2 or more per attendee. Software can help coordinate logistics by pre-scheduling and providing manifests for shuttle drivers.

Drivers• : For events where driving will be the norm, optimizing the loca-tion and arranging for carpools can still have a large reduction impact. Cutting both drivers and mileage in half can save as much as 75 lbs of C02 per attendee.

46



OThER WAYS TO REDuCE YOuR fOOTPRiNT AND gREEN YOuR EVENTOutside of travel, making greener choices in areas such as lighting, venue selec-tion, meals, water, paper, and recycling can also have a significant impact on your overall ecological and carbon footprint. Let your attendees know about your ef-forts, and ask for their cooperation. You’ll be surprised by their enthusiasm.

Set a waste goal and arrange for recycling•

Watch your energy use•

Think about transportation needs •

Watch the paper!•

Think local, organic, and vegetarian for food•

kEEPiNg PERSPECTiVE, AND ThE ROlE Of OffSETSSome emissions are unavoidable, and often it is simply too expensive to make an “optimal” choice. As an example, should a location be ruled out if it results in another 1/2 ton of CO2 per person, but saves $300 per person in travel and other expenses? Saving CO2 at a cost of $600 per ton may not be practical for your organization. Planners also need to be aware of emissions shifting. Choos-ing a venue which is more efficient for you, but causes traveler miles to go up may lower your ‘scope 2’ event footprint while causing your attendees to raise theirs.

47


“Carbon Offsets” provide a mechanism to neutralize your impact and avoid being forced into irrational trade-offs. A variety of offset projects from reforestation to wind energy can deliver quantifiable carbon benefits that can mitigate your impact. It is important to select projects that conform to a reputable third party standard, and that the carbon credits are tracked and recorded through a public registry. When you buy the credits (by the ton of CO2 reduced), you are essen-tially purchasing shares in the project, to offset the carbon emissions generated by your event. ClimatePath endorses the VCS (Voluntary Carbon Standard), CAR (Climate Action Reserve), Gold Standard, Plan Vivo, and Green-e (for Renewable Energy Certificates.) These offsets generally cost $10-$20 per ton. A variety of specific carbon credit generating projects can be viewed (and supported) on the ClimatePath.org website. The non-profit ClimatePath Ecologic Fund will acquire, register, and retire offsets on your behalf.

uP AND COMiNg STANDARDS fOR EVENT PlANNERS AND MANAgERSbS8901• : British Standard developed by BSI specifically to move the events and planning industry in a more sustainable direction. Acts as a baseline and organizational framework for risk assessment, and puts measures in place to minimize negative effects of your events.

APEx green Meeting Standards• : Though under review, the APEX stan-dard critically assesses all aspects of an event from accommodations to communications to transportation, and scores your event on a green scale. The APEX standard is complex to implement and interpret, and is not recommended for the average meeting planner.

iSO14001• : A more generic standard that provides requirements for en-vironmentally friendly management systems.

48



The “official” guide for professional meeting planner terminology is maintained by the Convention Industry Council (CIC) via their Accepted Practices Exchange (APEX) program. A searchable glossary is available at http://www.conventionin-dustry.org/glossary/, and terms used in this eBook are defined below.

Attrition The difference between the actual number of sleeping rooms picked-up (or food-and-beverage covers or revenue projections) and the num-ber or formulas agreed to in the terms of the facility’s contract. Usually there is an allowable shortfall before damages are assessed.

Attrition Clause

Contract wording that outlines potential dam-ages or fees that a party may be required to pay in the event that it does not fulfill minimum com-mitments in the contract.

Audio/Visual (A/V)

Equipment, materials, and teaching aids used in sound and visual presentations, such as televi-sion monitors, video, sound equipment, etc.

banquet Event Order (bEO)

A form most often used by hotels to provide de-tails to personnel concerned with a specific food and beverage function or event room set-up.

Event Specifi-cations guide (ESg)

The industry’s official term for the document used by an event organizer to convey information clearly and accurately to appropriate venue(s) and/or suppliers regarding all requirements for an event.

food & bever-age (f&b)

Any catered or concession service provided by a facility.

Request for Proposal (RfP)

A document that stipulates what services the or-ganization wants from an outside contractor and requests a bid to perform such services. Same as BID MANUAL/SPECIFICATIONS.

Definitions and Meeting Planner Terminology

49


If you have any questions about planning your best event yet, please contact us directly.

CERTAiN SOfTWAREwww.certain.com

[email protected]

SAN FRANCISCO Global Headquarters 75 Hawthorne Street Suite 300 San Francisco, CA 94105 USA

Toll-free in US: 1 888 CERTAIN (1 888 237 8246)Office: +1 415 353 5330 Fax: +1 415 614 9192

BRISBANE 60 Brandl Street Eight Mile Plains QLD 4113 Australia

Office: +61 7 3457 0900 Fax: +61 7 3457 0999

LONDON 5 Bucklersbury Hitchin, Hertfordshire SG5 1BB United Kingdom

Office: +44 1462 420 780 Fax: +44 1462 422 335

50

Additional Resources



Rick borry, Certain Software

Rick Borry founded Register123 in 1998 and grew it into one of the early leading providers of online registration tools for the professional meeting planning indus-try. He joined Certain Software after it acquired the online registration company in 2001. Since 2005, Dr. Borry has been an active member of the APEX Technol-ogy Advisory Committee, charged with developing XML standards for the group travel industry through the Open Travel Alliance. In 2008, Dr. Borry chaired the executive merger transition team after Certain Software and Amlink Technolo-gies joined to create Certain, a global events management software company. Dr. Borry earned a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and a Bach-elor of Science degree in chemical engineering from Clemson University.

Rick borry, Ph.D.

Certain Software

[email protected]

www.certain.com

P: 415-345-2715

51

About the Authors

MEETiNgS AND EVENTS SOluTiONS


jeff Rasco and Christina Rasco Adams, Attendee Management inc.

Jeffrey W. Rasco, CMP is the founding partner and CEO of Attendee Manage-ment, Inc. (AMi), providers of state-of-the-art, customer-focused, comprehen-sive registration, housing, travel, and e-marketing services. Jeff has nearly thirty years experience as a meeting and event manager with a strong focus on man-agement and technology. He was recognized in 1996 as Meeting Professionals International’s Meeting Planner of the Year. Christina Rasco Adams is partner and Chief Creative Officer, leading the design team and acting as primary con-sultant to AMi’s customers. Their goal is to increase the quality of meetings and elevate the strategic value of meeting professionals through the intelligent use of technology.

jeffrey W. Rasco, CMP, Partner/Chief Executive Officer

Christina Rasco Adams, Partner/Chief Creative Officer

Attendee Management, inc.

[email protected] / [email protected]

www.attendeenet.com

P: 512-877-947-5174

52




Tim brown, Meeting Sites Resource

Tim Brown has been the CEO of Meeting Sites Resource since he founded the company in 1993. MSR is a global specialist in meeting site research and hotel / contract negotiations. The company also offers professional meeting support services and advanced meeting technology solutions.

Tim has spent his entire career in the meeting, convention and hospitality in-dustries and has been both a planner and supplier. He has been in hotel sales, marketing and management and a business owner in the meeting, convention and incentives industry for 30 years.

He also contributes articles in major trade publications and speaks at many in-dustry events, including Meeting Professionals International (MPI), Affordable Meetings and Financial & Insurance Conference Planners (FICP). Tim also pres-ents custom educational workshops for meeting and Procurement Department planning teams. He has served on MPI’s International Board, has been President of two different MPI chapters and in 1994 was Supplier of the Year. Tim also sponsors the MPIOC Educational Scholarship. During his Presidency of MPIOC, he launched the California State University, Fullerton (CSUF) Professional Meeting Planning Curriculum which is now in its 14th year.

Tim is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BS degree in Marketing.

Tim brown, CEO

Meeting Sites Resource

[email protected]

www.meetingsites.net

P: 949-250-7483 x312

53


Jennifer W. Brown, CMP, is President of Meeting Sites Resource, a global specialist in meeting site research and hotel / contract negotiations. The company also offers professional meeting support services and advanced meeting technology solutions. Jennifer speaks at many meeting industry events including Meeting Professionals International, Affordable Meetings, Financial & Insurance Conference Planners and NYU. She has been a faculty member for MPI’s Platinum Series Workshops and pres-ents custom workshops for meeting and Procurement Department planning teams.

She earned her CMP in 1992 and has won such awards as MPI’s Planner of the Year and was a recognition recipient of MPI’s Global Paragon Award. She is a graduate of Woodbury College.

For a complimentary copy of “Hotel Site Inspection Checklist”, contact:

jennifer brown, President

Meeting Sites Resource

[email protected]

www.meetingsites.net

P: 949-250-7483 x315

54

jennifer brown, Meeting Sites Resource



jordan Schwartz, Pathable

Jordan Schwartz is President and co-founder of Pathable, a social networking ser-vice for conferences. He earned his B.S. from Brown University, his M.S. in Social Psychology from the University of Washington and spent over 10 years at Micro-soft building consumer-focused products, including several versions of Windows and MSN. In addition to making conference experiences better, Jordan has a pas-sion for mobile technologies and indulges his love of community by authoring the Wallingford, Seattle neighborhood blog, Wallyhood. He also leads a team of 60,000 bees in the manufacture and production of a delicious, organic honey.

jordan Schwartz, CEO

Pathable

[email protected]

www.pathable.com

P: (866) 809-0252 x702

55


Dave Rochlin, founder, ClimatePath

Dave Rochlin is a founding partner of ClimatePath, a leading provider of industry solutions to help meeting and event planners, consumer brands, travel providers, and other businesses measure and reduce the climate and other impact of their business activities. He has an extensive background in the NGO sector and social enterprise, as well as technology, consumer products, and ‘big four’ consulting.

Dave speaks and writes frequently on green business, corporate social responsi-bility, and sustainability. He has an MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwest-ern, teaches innovation strategy and ethics in the executive MBA program at St. Mary’s College, and has published a textbook on technology strategy. He is a also on the board of directors of both the Lindsay Wildlife Museum, and the Climate-Path Ecologic Fund.

David Rochlin, founder

ClimatePath

[email protected]

www.climatepath.org

P: 925 297-6017

56

behind the scene_successful_event

Documents

christina

sample sliding

meeting sites

national sales

total room

optimum marketing

meeting site

accepted practices