If you’ve taken the CMP exam, or if you’re thinking about it, check out Krys Slovacek’s thoughtful post about her CMP experience at the recent PCMA meeting in New Orleans. Sounds like, though she found it weird and frustrating, it also was worth doing. Sounds like most every test I’ve ever taken!

That’s what webinar guy Ken Molay thinks after reading this summary of results from a new ON24 survey. Some of the results listed:

* 42% expect participation in physical trade shows to be down by as much as 50%
* 64% expect to have fewer physical sales kick off seminars - or none at all
* 60% expect training, management and other internal events to be down 20 - 50%
* A full 76% said their company has already begun using virtual events (53%) or plans to begin using them (23%) to supplement some of their physical events in 2009

This is fortunate news for ON24, seeing that it’s a webcasting/virtual meeting company. I think the key word can be found in that last bullet point, though: “supplement.” Shows may be leaner this year, more focused on both buyer and seller side, but I don’t find this to be a bad thing. In fact, I’m a big fan of smaller shows where you really get a chance to spend quality time with exhibitors and their products, not having to elbow through all the tchochke-hunters and gatherers. If organizations end up using virtual events to supplement their shows, more power to them. This is not a new thing this year, but a trend that’s been going on for quite a while. And rightly so. Some meetings have been held for no good reason, other than they’ve always been a part of an organization’s mix. Now’s the time to cut out the fat and make the remaining meetings really worth attending. Anything that’s interesting but not worth a plane ride? Well, maybe those events should be held another way.

Don’t you wish you could make every attendee of your programs read this article on how to become a more effective learner? With a slight shift in perspective, it makes for a great meeting planning primer, too–what can you do to help your people learn in multiple ways? Gain practical experience?

Thanks to Guy Kawasaki for the pointer.

This post from Jamie Notter really got me thinking. He’s talking about someone who made a presentation, then asked if anyone had any questions. No one did, but later, the presenter was inundated with IMs from the younger folks in the crowd, who thought it would be rude to take up everyone’s time with their questions in person.

This had never occurred to me! Sometimes they’re right, actually, and the questions can be someone showing off their knowledge, trying to catch out the presenter, off topic, or just plain dumb. But since that Q&A often is the only interactivity we have in sessions, we need to think about this. I’d be curious if PCMA breakout session leaders get a bunch of IMs or e-mails later from those who didn’t want to ask in person? I know if I think my question is questionable, I try to ask the presenter afterward in private. Is this really any different because it’s a little further off in time and distance? I’m not sure, but it’s chewy food for thought.

As is this morsel from Jamie: “notice that the younger generation did not assume that learning required a group of people to be having a synchronous conversation in person. In fact, they thought it was “rude” to make people learn that way (I’m extrapolating a bit here, but you see my point).”

Update: Check out this post full of tips on how to get people “talking” during a webinar (thanks for another great post, Ken!). While most are very specific to the online environment, this last tip applies to face-to-face presenters as well, I think:

“Keep your energy up, up, up! If you give a big sigh at the end of your presentation and read off questions in a bored tone of voice because you’ve heard them all before, nobody is going to want to play with you.”

If my blathering isn’t enough PCMA coverage for you, check out this blog from planyourmeeting.com. And Nancy Wilson over at the green meeting blog also is posting her take on some of the green things going on here. I stopped by the green meetings “Ask the Experts” area yesterday and had the chance to finally meet Nancy in person, along with fellow green meeting experts Amy Spatrisano and Tamara Kennedy, who heads up the Green Meeting Industry Council.

One thing I was glad to hear from Nancy is that, despite my worries that all the greening of the industry that was in the news last year might be, well, too last year, are baseless. She said that she’s been hearing that green initiatives are now making it into RFPs, meaning that planners now are demanding some things of their supplier partners. At last year’s PCMA meeting, pretty much all the suppliers I asked had said that they were doing all kinds of things, but planners weren’t asking for them yet. Now they’re asking, which is a good sign. Though PCMA did not seem to be doing much itself in the green area with this conference…

…other than including a bunch of green meeting sessions, which I hear have been packed. So, interest level in all things environmental still does appear to be high. And that’s a good thing.

(If you want to learn more about green meetings, we have compiled just a ton of stuff on this page of our Web site. I know every meetings magazine has done some things on greening meetings, but I’m particularly proud of our ongoing efforts in this area.)

(I just realized I saved but did not publish this post from Monday. Sorry! Here’s a link to the news item my colleague Dave Kovaleski has done on it since.) The biggest news to come out of the press conference this afternoon at PCMA’s annual meeting in New Orleans was that folks from all the main meeting organizations, from MPI and ASAE and USTA, got together this morning to strategize about how and what to do to get the meetings industry on the radar screen of the incoming Obama administration. According to PCMA’s Deborah Sexton, the goal of the meeting was “to create a plan to move the meetings industry’s global impact message forward.”‘

The organizations she mentioned as being involved in this grand plan are CIC, PCMA, ASAE, NBTA, DMAI, SITE, ACTE, and IAEE. These efforts will tie in with those of USTA and NBTA on the travel and business travel front, from what it sounds like. But meetings will definitely be an important part of the mix, she emphasized. Roger Dow of USTA, who also was at the press conference, said, “We will be lobbying Congress, but you can’t lobby with anecdotes. You have to lobby with data.”

Sexton said to get the depth of data they’re shooting for would take at least a year, but they’re ready to get going asap, and will attend a meeting in D.C. in a couple of weeks to figure out the nitty gritty of who does what, when, and how.

Christine Duffy of Maritz Travel, also at the press conference, explained that the “AIG situation” was part of a perfect storm of economic conditions and perceptual problems. Now, she said, “[companies that received] bailouts are actively canceling meetings. We don’t want to have this happen again and not have data to back us up” on why this is not a good thing.

CIC did do an economic impact study back in 2005, but this sounds like it’ll be even more comprehensive and far-reaching. This is such a good idea, and I hope that it doesn’t stop with this one-time effort, but continues to be updated. You never know when you’re going to need that data.

This was a great session! The moderator, the panelists, and the audience took turns telling their war stories and the lessons they learned the hard way. So many great stories, I can’t even begin to go there. Here are just a few:

One person was catering a meeting where President Bush was set to speak. They had everything else set with the secret service, but didn’t realize they’d also have to check the food, since they weren’t there to check it while it was being prepared. So this poor person had to open up containers for meals for 6,500 people in an assembly line as bomb-sniffing dogs checked it all out, then get it all back and server-ready. While the secret service was ready to just let people not have lunch since the time was so short, this intrepid person called on relationships with all concerned, rallied the troops, and somehow made it all work.

Panelist Johnnie White with the Cardiovascular Research Foundations told a sad tale about attendees entering the facility all upset about the awful hot and uncomfortable ride they had over to the meeting. Turns out the transportation company had run out of shuttles and used schoolbuses to get people there instead. They ended up being able to get more shuttles from another city, so the problem was limited to just that morning. “The aha is to communicate with vendors ahead of time,” he said. “If we had known, we could have given attendees a heads-up” that it was just a temporary problem, and maybe even played it up somehow, incorporated the experience into that of the meeting (in a good way).

Another planner had attendees get stuck near the roof in an outdoor elevator in a hot-climate city in the summer. For an hour, with temps outside reaching well over 100 degrees. She learned that she could keep her head and calmly direct rescue efforts when the leader of her organization was shouting helpful things like, “break the glass!” There’s one I’d really not have to learn for myself! But you never know how you’ll deal until you have to face something like that yourself.

OK, I’m signing off to go see the Neville Brothers and (for something completely different) chow down some more at tonight’s festivities. This should be fun.

I fully expected to be snowed, if not put to sleep, by Jeremy Siegel, this morning’s PCMA general session speaker and financial expert. But he was really understandable, and even better, he agreed with me about what the ultimate cause of the economic meltdown was. More later on all that, hopefully, but it comes down to being driven by short-term thinking instead of being willing to take some short-term fallout for long-term gains. And he puts the majority of the blame on CEOs, followed by Alan Greenspan/the Fed, then the usual suspects. Anyway, lots of charts and graphs, but really informative. Nothing specifically to do with meetings, but I didn’t see many folks walking out before he finished, so I’d say it was holding everyone’s interest anyway.

Also, the session I just came out of on crisis management was terrific, even though the audience was pretty quiet. If you’ve never had to deal with a tornado striking your hotel, or union workers striking outside your hotel, or war being declared while your meeting was going on, well, I wouldn’t wait. There were lots of resources mentioned, which I’ll try to link to later, but the biggest message was to get your act together now, because once something’s going on, you do not want to be in reactive mode.

Cutting this short because I must go eat lunch. You have to have priorities at these things, you know…

I’ve seen New Orleans just before daybreak before, but I have to say I got a different perspective this time when I had just gotten up instead of heading back to the hotel after a long night! I’m proud of myself for getting up at 5 to do the fun walk/run, and even prouder of actually running the whole route, and in just under 20 minutes no less (a runner I am most definitely not!). Met some great people, too, though I doubt many were at Party with a Purpose last night. We saw a few folks stumbling out of the bar, and the looks on their faces were priceless as this herd of people thundered by. Thought about stopping at Cafe du Monde for a beignet, but restrained myself.

I’m semi looking forward to this morning’s general session with Jeremy Siegel from the Wharton School. He’ll be talking about the economy—and some people thought yesterday’s opening general session was depressing! After that, the plan is to stop by the Bite-size learning session in the Pavilion to learn about green standards and certifications, then to a session on crisis management. I’ll try to check in later, but I don’t think I’ll be dragging my laptop down to the convention center again. For some reason I was having no luck at all getting a signal in the “i-coves” (little alcoves tucked away here and there that supposedly are hot spots. Maybe it’s just me.). So, I’ll try to be short and sweet at the cyber cafe instead.

Enough rambling—time to get moving.

This session started out great, only to be derailed by AV problems, unfortunately (we seemed to have channeled Joseph Grenny’s Master Series session, Influencer: The Power to Change Anything, through the sound system in our room. Couldn’t hear our presenters over it, so they ended up cutting the sound altogether and ending the session early.).

What was really interesting was that the panelists—Camille Paluscio with Volkswagon of America; Kati Quigley with Microsoft; and Johnnie White, Jr., with the Cardiovascular Research Foundation—all came up with the same main points, even though their working environments were very different. A few of their main ones were:

Make sure you have an objective for the meeting, and that the objective is aligned with the objective of your organization…

More later; a line is starting to form behind me (thought I’d get more leeway since I’m skipping out on lunch to visit the cyber cafe, but it was short-lived).

OK, I’m back. Another way to be more strategic is to understand what’s important to the head of your organization. What do your superiors need to show to their superiors? That’s what you need to give them.

One surefire way to get noticed (in a good way): Increase revenue streams and prove savings. The latter means having measurable benchmarks to prove your savings against. “If you can’t measure it, you probably shouldn’t be doing it,” said Quigley. She’s a big believer in standardized metrics so you can measure apples to apples over time.

Have data to back up your ideas. If you don’t have data, at least have contingency plans you can fall back on (but really try hard to get data to back up why your first choice is the best one).

Know the environment and politics of your organization. Get buy-in ahead of time from those who are in a position to help you show the value of what you and your department does.

Expect change to be an evolution, not a revolution. It’ll take time to build trust, to get others to understand and appreciate what it is you do and what you bring to the table. Expect progress to be incremental. “When you make them look good to their superiors, you build trust,” said Paluscio.

The session had to be cut short, but the room was packed and interest was really high. There was some talk of doing a follow up of some kind. If there is, I’ll try to find out and provide a link to it here.