Sorry, I couldn’t resist. The
new Principles of Professional Performance just released from Professional Convention Management Association is just loaded with "p"s. It puts educational content into six categories: planning,
people, professionalism, programming, procedures, and production. Each category will cover these core competencies (they have me doing it now, only with "c"s!):

Planning–strategic
planning and business development
People–managing
human resources, interpersonal relationships, and leadership
Professionalism–professional
development and communication
Programming–program
planning
Procedures–financial
management, event management, using technology, and legal
issues
Production–facilities
and services, and logistics

PCMA will tailor its educational offerings to provide these Ps on the executive, professional, and essential levels.

I don’t see the press release yet on PCMA’s site, but there’s more info on it here. I wonder if MPI’s program will have something to do with seashells by the seashore?

Meetings planners tend to get really ticked when people call them "party planners." It seems demeaning, somehow. So just imagine how special events planners–those who actually do plan the parties–feel when even their meetings bretheren don’t recognize the value of what they do.

Lisa Hurley, editor of our sister magazine, Special Events, wrote a great editorial on just this topic. A snip:

…in the clamber for a seat at the corporate table, too often it seems that the
meetings pros are positioned as the ones doing the serious business, while event
planners are pushed into the kitchen to put paper-frill panties on the lamb
chops.

But this line of thinking is entirely wrong.

As any good marketing or PR person will tell you, people like to think that
they behave rationally, that they make hardheaded decisions based on the facts.
But they don’t. The truth is, the best way to change behavior — to make people
believe in and commit to a brand or a company or an idea — is to touch them
emotionally. In April, National Public Radio ran a fascinating story describing
the work of 20th century PR mastermind Edward Bernays, who sold consumers
everything from soap to cigarettes using theories about the power of the
subconscious developed by his famous uncle, Sigmund Freud.

This is where special events have their special clout. Virtually all special
events have some message to convey, from the launch of a new product to the
commemoration of a significant life event. But giving that message impact is the
arsenal of tools — decor, music, food — that event professionals bring to bear.
These are all hooks that grab emotion.

Meeting planners may not like to admit it, but there is much they can learn from their special event colleagues in terms of making that emotional, as well as intellectual, impact.