Online Event Management

Here in hot and humid Houston, I was much surprised with the announcement by the National Business Travel Association (That's its name for now, anyway!) at the annual convention and exposition that the organization next year will be known as the Global Business Travel Association. As a former executive and officer of NBTA, I’ve been in many meetings and discussions about changing NBTA’s branding to something else.  Quite frankly, I have to say that I've seen it coming for years.

On Monday, the first full working day of the convention, NBTA President and CEO Craig Banikowski said that the name change is due to the evolving nature of the organization -- that is, global in scope and character.  He said that just as people working in our industry have come to re-think their jobs as global in nature, so too has the organization.

Don't get me wrong. When I say I've seen this coming for years, I'm not claiming psychic powers or inside information. What I'm saying is that, through my past at HP in a global category manager role, in addition to working closely with our own customers and business partners (and increasingly more and more beyond the 50 states) we, ourselves, at StarCite, have built a more global business. (For example, Corporate RFPs within StarCite's Global Online Marketplace were up 82% for the first five months of 2010, compared to the same period last year.). And, if you could take a look at my frequent flyer mileage statements, you'd see that I have become a truly global evangelizer of the wisdom of strategic meetings management (although sometimes with the very necessary help of translators).

So I truly "get" Craig's connection to how our changing jobs reflect the NBTA morphing into a more global entity. And I especially applaud Craig's comments about the change: "As your elected president and CEO, my primary strategic focus is taking NBTA from being a national organization to being a truly global business group that gives you seamless access to best-in-class resources, information and the global network you need—anytime, anyplace."     

Progress and change; good move NBTA!

I've been meaning to congratulate CWT Travel Management Institute, the research arm of Carlson Wagonlit Travel, for its study on the state of meetings management -- Meetings and Events: Where Savings Meet Success. StarCite collaborated extensively with CWT on the research, which substantiated what we already know, that companies can save an average 10% to 25% of their Meetings and Events (M&E) spend when they apply best practices to such areas as policy and compliance, sourcing, and processes. 

The report's top savings mark is in line with benchmarking statistics that StarCite has been finding among our customer base, that is, using meetings management automation to make budgeting, planning, sourcing, attendee management and other key meetings tasks more efficient can save you up to 25% of meetings spend.  

The new study says that savings and ROI from meetings come from three key areas:

- Creating or fine-tuning an organization-wide meetings policy and enforcing compliance,
- Sourcing best practices, for example, selecting a limited number of preferred suppliers for accommodations and venues, enforcing usage of preferred suppliers and defining standard contract terms and conditions to help maximize purchasing power and protect an organization from onerous cancellation and attrition fees.
- Technology that optimizes processes such as online registration and aids in strategic meetings management.

I have spent a lot of my time evangelizing around the world via industry panels, conferences and with customer round tables highlighting these very same recommendations. On the issue of policy alone, I've repeatedly offered advice about the importance of at least establishing or updating and mandating policy since this blog started. Remember, you can’t expect people to do what’s right for your company in absence of a policy; so take the guesswork out and give employees M&E policies and/or guidelines or they'll make decisions based on their interpretation of “doing the right thing,” and that may not be what’s good for your company.

What I really like about the new CWT-StarCite survey are the practical steps it offers for maximizing meetings management, including:

- Analyzing spend company-wide to allow firms to estimate total spend and begin taking the reins to set up a centralized meeting management organization,
- Designing a well-defined policy that spells out precise rules, standard contract terms and specific processes,
- Selecting and negotiating with preferred suppliers and meetings services and technology partners -- allowing companies to save and benefit from outside expertise,
- Establishing a formal planning process that defines business objectives and sets a formal approval process -- for consistency and compliance and getting the ultimate ROI,
- Replacing manual processes with automated meetings management tools to perform tasks such as attendee registration and sourcing -- which saves time and labor, improves data quality  and spend management overall,
- Consolidating to a single payment solution, such as a meetings charge card, enabling companies to better analyze data, improve compliance and boost leverage with meetings vendors
- Evaluating the ROI of meetings, including attendee satisfaction, savings, compliance and other metrics.

Oh, one other thing. I must say that I'm a bit discouraged by another finding of the study -- that two-thirds of the more than 200 meeting planners surveyed manage their events in a decentralized way. I say that I'm discouraged, but I still have faith that more and more firms are seeing the need to centralize management of their meetings, especially in today's economic climate -- where every expense is being scrutinized.  The real winner in this common decentralized environment is one company, Microsoft, because that means there’s a ton of Excel spreadsheets that are being manually maintained and utilized often times simultaneously with little to no time to verify accuracy.  Sound frightening and inefficient?  I assure you this is what’s happening globally every day in decentralized programs at companies who conduct meetings and events as part of their business.

I've been meaning to write about AirPlus International's new survey about use of social media by corporate executives. Recently, the business travel card company came out with  "Social Media Making Inroads for Managing Travel," a new study that is part of the company's monthly "The Wire...from AirPlus" series of monitors on business travel trends.

AirPlus's new survey gives us the latest snapshot of the growing power of social media tools in managing travel and meetings -- something that I, too, have been writing about and keeping track of myself in this blog. Last year, AirPlus also did a survey on the same topic, allowing it to compare responses to determine changes in the social media scene. AirPlus, which polled 67 travel professionals in Europe and the U.S., l found this year that a higher percentage of corporate travel professionals used social media, specifically:

- LinkedIn users held steady at about 58% annually;
- Facebook participants increased by almost 25% by a year ago;
- Twitter fans doubled year-over-year in this month’s survey.

What's powerful about social media is that the tools aren't just for meetings managers to promote communication between attendees and to make it easier for planners to distribute course content, updates and other information about events, but it's also a great way for suppliers to expand and increase communications with customers.

I think we, in ever greater numbers on all sides of the industry, are continuing to explore valuable social media experiments. And whether it's attendees posting their impressions of meetings on Facebook, planners taking virtual tours of hotels located on the other side of the world, meeting managers and suppliers forming professional online communities or hotels sending companies tweets about updates and special offers, we're only beginning to see the many benefits of employing social media to strategically manage meetings.

I read recently that Starwood has developed Sustainable Meeting Practices for its North American properties, and that the hotel chain will extend the program globally next year.

Kudos to my friends at Starwood for establishing these guidelines! In my power buyer days for HP, I had the privilege of serving on Starwood’s Global Corporate Advisory Board for several years, and I've always appreciated Starwood management's drive for excellence and thought leadership.

The hotel company's SMP centers around five components:

- Paperless Meeting Planning
- Sustainable Meeting Services
- Sustainable Food & Beverage Practices
- Impact Assessment Tools
- Socially Conscious Activities

And within those core components there are 18 best practices that will become part of all on-property meetings and events, for example, replacing fresh cut flowers with potted plants, offering sustainable menu choices and using alternatives to bottled water. As part of the program, Starwood even has a new Meeting Impact Report, an online tool that produces a report showing customers the carbon footprint of their event.

I’m really pleased but not surprised (given the corporate demand for green events) that Starwood has developed these meeting guidelines, as I know that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been on Starwood’s roadmap for quite some time now.  You should also know that all of the other major hotel companies have some green initiatives in place and/or their own green roadmaps, and that is all good!

With everyone doing their part no matter how small, it collectively adds up in a big win for our precious environment -- and more importantly -- for future generations!

There's a fascinating new report out by the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, "Hospitality Business Models Confront the Future of Meetings," that discusses how companies are increasingly relying on virtual meetings such as webinars, video technology (such as Cisco's TelePresence technology) and tele-conferencing -- especially in light of the drop in demand during the Great Recession and even from recent events like the Icelandic volcano eruptions.

I should tell you upfront that both the paper's authors are from Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group; Indeed, the consulting group produced the paper. The paper contains a font of data and statistics that clearly shows that both companies and hotels are embracing meetings automation. For example, it quotes Wainhouse Research from 2009 that says 76% of corporations polled are using room and executive videoconferencing now, with another 8% set to deploy it within a year; and 50% are using webcams with PC software, with another 18% planning to use it by 2010. 

Since installing its TelePresence system more than three years ago, Cisco has saved nearly half a billion dollars in travel and registered more than $150 million in productivity gains. On the eco front, the company cut greenhouse gas emissions by 225,000 metric tons. "Coupled with policy changes on internal travel, communication and collaboration technologies enabled Cisco to reduce travel expenses from $750 million in fiscal year 2008 to $240 million in fiscal year 2009," says the paper.

Interesting, too, is the discussion around hotels increasingly recognizing the value of virtual meetings, in the form of TelePresence as a Service (TPaaS). For example, Starwood, Marriott, Taj Hotels and others are installing equipment in their properties -- sometimes in partnership with corporate clients -- to be able to take advantage of current and future demand.

But if there was one overriding thing that struck out at me from the Cornell paper, it was the question: "But what if technology-based meetings are deemed enduring substitutes for business travel? It is hard to believe that companies will be willing to surrender cost savings when viable alternatives have emerged to preserve them."  

As I've said before in this blog, you may see this happen for certain types of events, perhaps a company's internal training sessions. But not all. Indeed, even the Cornell paper says that "not all meetings can be held remotely, and face-to-face meetings will certainly endure."

There can be no holding back the march of time and advances in technology, including virtual meetings, but nothing replaces the experience of face-to-face meetings, especially for complex negotiations with clients, finalizing sales agreements, recruiting for executive positions and building relationships with key customers or prospects (as the paper duly notes).

Yet, I don't need a whitepaper to tell me that; that's the truth...and I've experienced it.

Let's talk about social media. You've only to look at the astounding success of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter to know how businesses are growing -- and in some cases being challenged to change -- through the use of social media. Facebook "friends," those connected via Linkedin and the legions of people who "tweet" daily are communicating, advertising, exchanging opinions (in many cases about goods and services, such as hotels), establishing new supplier relationships and customers and meeting new business partners.  (Yes, and those of you who have “friended” me in Facebook know that I love to relieve stress by playing Farmville.)

It used to be that you had to get on a plane or at least set up a conference call to go and meet buyers or suppliers and transact a deal. And frankly, while that was good for the travel industry overall--and still is--many of the tasks associated with meetings sourcing, planning and managing, including social interactions, are done online today. It's just the way of the new relationship economy. Through meta-tags, SEO-friendly keywords and intelligently matching member interests, communities publish important industry and brand information on a one-to-one basis directly to members.

I'm proud to say that now our company has a new social network expressly for the meetings industry -- the StarCite Online Community. It's powered by i-Meet (a worldwide online community for the meetings and event industry), and the network will provide StarCite users (on both the buyer and supplier side) meaningful content and access to our technology and search engine. The social part of the Online Community will come in the form of "hot spots," where users can gather in hosted public or private virtual forums to discuss industry issues and concerns.

From creating this blog, I've certainly learned the value of establishing new relationships and business opportunities with social media tools. And there will be ways to link to and create new blogs via the new Community, as well as establish relationships via "friending" and "following" suppliers.

From a strategic point of view, I'm really excited about this development because I think it's going to give meetings managers across the globe new, more powerful ways to exchange best practices, learn more from each other and improve the effectiveness of their meetings programs. In its most simple way, a professional social network for both meetings suppliers and buyers is like a 24/7 conference call.  While your social media use needs to be be carefully managed as part of your overall SMMP program, social media is not going away any time soon. After all, it's always on for creating good business opportunities...sharing information...and making new or improving existing relationships!  And as millions will attest (including me), there’s nothing wrong with staying connected with friends and loved ones.

Now that there's real evidence that the economy is improving (consistent rises in GDP and recent, positive news on corporate earnings), meetings managers everywhere are asking, is the sensitivity over using luxury hotels and spas for events over, and should we start once again taking a look at them when sourcing? The hesitancy I hear about this issue reminds me of the tagline from the movie "Jaws 2:"..."Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water..."

It’s understandable why corporations avoided using high profile luxury hotels and resorts during the economic recession, but if you did stop using these hotels because of negative media attention (especially if your company was a TARP recipient), then it's time to take a new look at this issue. In fact, some companies already are, according to a recent article in M&C magazine.  In the article, several executives from luxury chains said they're seeing improved numbers. ""Last year, meetings was a dirty word, right up there with banker bonuses, and the AIG effect was on the news every night," Frits van Paasschen, president and chief executive officer of White Plains, N.Y.-based Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, tells the magazine. "Today, the paranoia and taboo around resort and luxury destinations for meetings is subsiding. For example, at the Phoenician in Scottsdale, the very definition of luxury, group room nights [for first quarter 2010] are up 32 percent from last year."

And while Smith Travel Research forecasts that it will take most of this year and into next for the hotel industry to truly recover from dismal RevPAR and average daily rates figures, the article quoted STR president Mark Lomanno as noting that "when improvement begins, it will come from the top down, with luxury properties rebounding most rapidly."

Besides, the press (I'm talking mainstream media, here) has become more educated about how strategic meetings management methods can keep meetings costs in line and benefit the bottom line. My view is that top considerations should be whether luxury properties are the best suited for certain types of meetings, for example, incentive gatherings for employees or meetings with customers or perspective clients. They should be sourced competitively, together with other properties in more moderate categories. And, if luxury properties and resorts can throw more value into the mix, for example, discounts or waiving resort fees, free high-speed Internet access, etc. then so much the better.

Of course, Treasury Department rules set up to guard against excessive or wasteful spending on meetings for TARP-recipient companies still apply. But those rules are in effect whether your company is holding events at any property, not just a five-star.

It's safe to go back in the water...always has been. But use sourcing best-practices and a sound meetings policy to guide you when making strategic decisions about doing business at luxury and resort hotels.    
    

Mandates to use preferred hotels and other suppliers are here to stay; they're becoming less of an option in this "new normal" atmosphere of renewed -- yet fiscally sensible -- business and meetings travel levels. Many companies used the recession as an opportunity to cut costs and impose more policy compliance throughout the enterprise.  

Of course, travel, meetings and procurement managers in every part of the world tell me this when we meet to discuss business or network at industry events. But a recent article in an online publication offered a couple of great examples of how some firms are re-thinking what used to be an "option" and applying tougher standards.

One company, Deltek Inc., a VA-based firm that makes enterprise management software, revamped its travel policy over the past year, adding "stronger language and mandates" and delineating which travel services provider to use, said Karoline Mayr, Deltek's Senior Manager, Global Travel Procurement, in the article. "We knew this was an opportunity to get language in while budgets were tight and allow us to achieve higher savings in this economic environment,” said Mayr. “Mandates are going to stick for us. We don’t see things changing for now and become looser as they did in the past.”

Meanwhile, health insurer Wellpoint reviewed policy language through its compliance committee and toughened it up. "We took away the grey areas and made the policy uniform throughout business,” said Cindy Heston, Manager of Strategic Sourcing for Travel, in the piece. If travelers don't follow policy, they don't get reimbursed.

Siemens Corporation, also interviewed in the article, implemented a system of reason codes for trips. That information helped it determine that a lot of its travel was for internal meetings, and as a result, many of those gatherings are now done virtually.  Reason codes are something I am very familiar with, having used them for behavior analytical purposes while I was at HP. But they are most effective when you can modify policies to increase compliance.  

Whether or not your company's culture fits a mandate environment, your travel and/or meetings policies could probably use a good review. Perhaps, like Wellpoint, you need to eliminate the grey, that is, firm up statements around preferred supplier usage, proper sourcing processes (e-sourcing) and other matters that travelers, meeting planners and attendees might interpret too loosely. Keeping employees constantly up to date on changes in policy is extremely important, too, and it helps to have a senior executive weigh in on the matter and give their endorsement.

Don't underestimate the support you can get from suppliers, too, by keeping them in the loop on changes.  Suppliers have a vested interest in your ability to track and manage behavioral compliance, especially if it means improved market share support for their preferred program with you.

Want some guidance on how your meetings policy can help you gain more control of spend and improve your relationship with suppliers? Check out this replay of a recent StarCite webinar that spotlights risk and how to protect your organization!   

Recently, I was glad to see an analysis in a major consumer newspaper (USA Today) of what companies go through in terms of figuring out whether to meet virtually or face-to-face.

The story featured an executive at a machine maker saying that, over the past year, "We really needed to look at, is this trip the difference between closing business?. Is this necessary for some reason?" While the company sometimes decided that a phone call or e-mail could take the place of travel, the executive said that "there are times when nothing works as well as sitting in front of someone talking to them."

But the story correctly projects that, even as the economy shows signs of more robust growth, and more business travelers are hitting the road, the scrutiny over whether a trip is necessary -- or if web conferencing, teleconferencing or telepresencing would work just as well -- will continue.

I see this as a permanent trend, too. But meeting managers are also telling me that it's no simple task to come up with guidelines to help their companies determine what's best, as they have to consider such complex issues as differing business goals for trips. Not to mention that clients (internal or external) may require more or less levels of attention. In other words, while it may be fine to say internal meetings of, let's say, 25 people, must meet via the web, there are going to be some situations or projects requiring that these folks have to get together.

When forming policies on whether to meet face-to-face or virtually, it's very important to get feedback from different business units on how they view the effectiveness of each form of meeting, what type is best for them, whether they're already using virtual tech and in what circumstances (If you find heavy use with one vendor, you can use the information to negotiate a preferred deal.). Also, you may want to get a senior executive to weigh in on the issue -- even if it's just to urge department heads to use knowledge and experience about what clients and employees need before deciding on face-to-face or virtual.

You may discover that it's best to avoid an all-out mandate on using virtual meetings -- even in limited circumstances. But whatever you decide, make sure that the policy fits your company's culture and practices around service to customers, as well as business goals.

Are you seeking more information on your return on investment (ROI) for meetings these days? With budgets continually under pressure, many of the companies that I meet with daily tell me they're making decisions about meetings based on ROI metrics of events, and that it's not just about getting the most favorable rates anymore. This has been a common theme since even before the Great Recession began.

Now, however, a new survey confirms this trend. A poll of planners attending the 10th Annual HSMAI Affordable Meetings Mid-America Conference & Exposition in Chicago this week, says that nearly half (49%) "feel increased pressure to show metrics/statistics that attest to the success of events," a release from the organization says.

So just what are the meetings ROI measurements that companies these days want to see? According to the survey, top metrics most often requested are:

- event evaluations and satisfaction surveys
- net revenue
- attendance size
- room night count
- sponsorships
- ability to stay within budget
- rate of repeat attendance
- level of responsiveness to client needs
- and increased service per attendee for each dollar spent.

These are all great metrics and can really help you, as a meetings manager, make more informed decisions about the worth of some types of events, whether they should be expanded or, on the other hand,  discontinued and replaced with an alternative such as web conferencing. ROI stats are also helpful to have handy when communicating SMMP milestones to senior executives.

And I was very encouraged to see that, at least in this survey, meeting planners are using technology to plan and budget events: 84% said that they "rely" on technology such as online registration tools, social networking, e-sourcing, e-mail blasts, marketing and blogs as business resources.

Want to learn more about measuring ROI and what to do with those numbers once you've found them? Check out the replay of this recorded StarCite webinar!

For more than a year now, whenever I've done media interviews and spoken with procurement and corporate executives, I've been mentioning how there's a "new baseline" in business travel and meetings management spend. Recently, more and more I've been seeing the term the "new normal" being used by folks in the business travel and meetings industry to describe the purchasing environment we're all dealing with these days: strict compliance to purchasing rules, ultra-loyalty to preferred suppliers, migration to more virtual meetings and, seems to me, keeping meetings plain and simple.

Perfect example: the new normal is when resorts -- even though most are super-equipped to host large conferences and meetings of every stripe and often give great negotiated rates -- are removing the word "resort" from their names. They're doing this because they know how sensitive the public, the government and top executives are about perceptions of lavish spending. That's a pretty dismaying reality about the "new normal."  

But not all of the "new normal" is about simpler, more bare-bones meetings. Some of the "new normal" is good, too. I use the term a lot, when talking with customers or perspective clients about what CEOs today commonly expect in return for allocating precious funds for meetings programs, including mandates to measure ROI of meetings and proof that a strategic meetings management program is producing savings and efficiencies.

Recently, I ran across an online 18-question quiz by American Express Business Travel that may help you assess if you're operating in the "new normal," and if your travel and meetings programs reflect the current environment. The quiz is introduced by Charles Petruccelli, President of Global Travel Services at American Express, and features benchmarking insights from a research study conducted by ProMedia and American Express.

I recommend taking the quiz; you might find out that you've overlooked a "new normal" best practice to implement in your SMMP.

Check out this whitepaper, too, to find out if there are hidden liabilities in your meetings program that are blocking you from operating in the "new normal."

A new report out on commercial card spending notes that 2009 is the first year since purchasing cards were introduced to see a drop in overall spending. In fact, it was a year of decline for the commercial card industry on the whole, which, for more than a decade has posted double-digit spending growth figures.

According to the report, "this explosive growth was driven mainly by the administrative cost savings that card programs were able to deliver. Throughout the decade, as complementary technologies such as program management systems improved, card programs delivered still greater costs savings by improving transparency of spend, particularly in the area of MRO and T&E related purchasing. Taken together, these benefits sparked a secular movement away from costlier paper-based purchasing to more efficient electronic purchasing."

After reading this, I can't help but think how meeting cards -- as part of a comprehensive strategic meetings management program (SMMP) -- have helped countless numbers of companies:

a) discover the scope of their meetings spend separate from T&E,
b) use the data to create policies and rules around purchasing to implement more control,
c) apply what they've learned to increase bargaining power with their meetings suppliers.

Further, meeting cards linked to SMMP technology are powerful tools to help reduce administrative processes, such as budgeting and reconciliation of supplier bills.  Card data is pretty solid in the eyes of the CFO, too, and auditors also like the ability to track spend that is documented.

I'm afraid the report, published in the online publication Commercial Payments International  doesn't offer too rosy a picture of recovery for spending. It says spend won't keep pace with GDP growth. Not great news for card companies.

But T&E restrictions and purchasing policies that companies have implemented and strengthened won't be abandoned, either. And as I've said many times before, that's good news. The focus -- even when good times return -- will remain on strategic management of spend, whether it's on T&E, meetings or widgets. 

Ultimately, I think the power of cards as spend management tools will once again drive up spending levels. Yet, it's surprising that, even today, many companies ignore the benefits of using a meeting card. A new Aberdeen benchmark study due out soon says that over 60% of enterprises have integrated a corporate card into their expense management programs. Yet only 14% are using a meeting card in conjunction with strategic management of their meetings, events and conferences. For more details on that study, click here.

Commercial cards are the instruments of purchasing power that employees hold in their hands -- the first line of defense in spend control. And, when the transaction is complete, cards are the great provider of data that companies need to manage costs. And, in the case of meeting cards, companies can add extra power to the cards by integrating them into their overall SMMP. 

The best news about all of this is that if you are in danger of paying a claw back to your credit card provider, due to travel freezes negatively impacting your card spend thresholds for an annual incentive pay out, then issuing meeting cards and funneling their spend volume through your card program may actually help you to meet your basis point hurdles and earn an annual incentive, or at minimum, pay less of a claw back to your card provider. Having managed a very large multinational card program prior to my new life at StarCite, this is an area that you can definitely leverage to your company’s advantage.

When I first wrote about using social media tools, such as Twitter at meetings, attendees were using the technology to tweet back and forth during event sessions about how the presentation was going, exchanging opinions and then collaborating to propose questions to the panelists or presenter. How industrious and efficient!

Now, social media tools are taking on greater importance in overall strategic meetings management, according to an article in MeetingNews. While planners have been busy using social media to do things like integrate the tools into their online registration and conference sites and send out speaker and logistical information, organizations are making broader decisions about how and why to use the tools in their meetings programs.

That's a smart move because you'll want to make sure planners and their attendees are using social media to support your SMMP goals and increase your program value -- as well as adhere to corporate guidelines and policies around internal and external communications.

The article quoted a meetings tech consultant who said that companies are formulating policies on who will be responsible for the technology, which tools to implement and how to attract users. I work with some of our customers to accomplish the same thing, encouraging them to own this space as part of their travel and meetings programs; it’s all about enterprise mobility remember?

Understandably, there's a certain degree of cautiousness out there to implement an organization-wide tool. In the story, one association executive which used Twitter to satisfy members' needs to communicate in real-time and distribute conference material, acknowledged that "there is a fear of lack of control, and you don't have control over social media. It is an open forum, people can say what they want to say, and that makes people nervous. Our strategy is definitely cautious, but we are getting there."

In the meantime, social media continues to revolutionize how people and organizations communicate. Consider some of these statistics I found on the blog Socialnomics:

- 96% of "Generation Y" members have joined a social network;
- It took 38 years for radio to reach 50 million listeners, but Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months;
- 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations, but only 14% trust advertising.

Yes, social media is cool, and it can streamline planning processes, enrich content, facilitate instant feedback to help you measure ROI -- and even attract new event sponsorship opportunities. But be careful to choose tools that match your SMMP goals and company policies, and make it a priority to appoint a watchdog who monitors how your employees or association members use -- or abuse -- the tools.

I'd call it exercising "enthusiastic caution." 

Because Technology sits in the middle of the NBTA's SMMP Model, I think some people in the business travel and meetings industry confuse it with the term "strategic meetings management." Often, in conversations with folks at conferences or even meeting with some prospective clients, I find myself explaining that SMM is way more than just the technology that allows companies to streamline meeting planning and budgeting, search competitively for suppliers, take care of attendees, enforce policy, analyze spend data and other important meeting management tasks.

To build a true, comprehensive end-to-end SMMP, you need to construct a meetings management strategy that reflects your company's values and ethics and lays out goals for areas as varied as cost-savings and preferred supplier relationships. And of course, you want to make sure that you have a policy in place that supports and enforces your meetings management program and is endorsed by senior executives.

My point in mentioning this is that it disturbs me to see very well-intentioned corporate meetings and procurement executives -- especially those just getting started centralizing meetings procurement and planning -- place so much emphasis on putting automation in place that they forget about the very challenging strategic tasks involved in building an SMMP.

That's why when considering implementing a meetings technology platform, it makes sense to expand the breadth of your efforts and make sure that you have the knowledge and know-how to implement a true SMMP:

- Do you need help implementing best-practices, such as strategies for optimal sourcing?
- What are the best policies, processes, usage goals, communication plans to get the word out about the SMMP to employees and elicit participation?
- How do you track and monitor spending?

In my travels, I've met with many executives that have rolled out failed technology initiatives without doing due diligence on how to roll them out effectively. There is always some degree of regret, and often those companies have to go through more change management by changing suppliers mid-contract.  A technology provider has an obligation to their customers to provide consultative expertise, best practices, and a range of services.  If you are just buying technology focusing only on price, you’re missing the bigger picture and sacrificing enterprise adoption -- your proverbial penny-wise and pound foolish scenario.  Your technology supplier needs to partner with you and understand your business objectives, challenges and work hand-in-hand with you to ensure that training, adoption, risk mitigation, data reporting and all of those other important functions and processes are properly in place and operating efficiently.

If you're considering strategic meetings management technology, the best advice I can give is be thorough and consider the back-end support and guidance you'll need as well as the front-end of how the online solution will work. It'll make all the difference in creating a comprehensive end-to-end program, or what I call a true SMMP.

We've just witnessed an important positive indicator in the convention and exhibition business and thankfully it benefited Las Vegas, a destination hurt by a double whammy of negative public perception and the economy.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which closed on January 10th in Las Vegas, is the largest annual trade show in North America, and it attracted more than 120,000 attendees this year – which is significantly up from 113,000 attendees last year, according to an article in The Economist.

While that's certainly good news, even better is an assessment by The Economist that CES's success bodes well for face-to-face meetings. The article quotes Gary Shapiro of the Consumer Electronics Association, noting that there is little demand for virtual shows even in the consumer-electronics industry, folks you would think should be pretty comfortable with interacting online. Yet, "people still want hands-on experience of the gadgets they might soon be buying, and like to press the flesh with customers and suppliers," says the article.  It is at CES where the latest and greatest future technology is unveiled.  The advance buzz of future products has historically boosted sales in a very profitable way for the companies who invested in attending and showcasing their wares.

But how green are these giant exhibitions?  Isn't it better to save at least some of that expended energy and CO2 emissions and move towards more online showcasing?  I'm all for creating green meetings, and that can be done in many ways, for example, e-sourcing for hotels and convention centers that practice recycling. And, yes, virtual events are sometimes good green options.

But it turns out that CES attendees have an average of 12 different meetings with customers, suppliers and partners while at the show, according to Shapiro's data. And if attendees had to make those trips separately, it would amount to 1 billion miles of travel -- which translates to a lot of CO2 emissions.

My point is this, sometimes, in order to make the right decision about whether to go virtual or face-to-face, you have to consider metrics like these.

While CES is only one show, its size makes it important because our industry tends to sit up and take notice of it. I'm glad to see that attendance was higher this year and that it continues to be a visible example of the value of face-to-face meetings as well as a rebounding economy.

If video or web conferencing is a significant portion of your meetings program, perhaps it's time to consider creating or fine tuning guidelines around how attendees show up for these events -- meaning how they dress and present themselves when they get on camera.

Currently there’s laptop and home computer built-in web cams that allow for visual participation, and I’ve already heard stories of people who were unaware that their images were being viewed during a meeting. Oh, yes, total embarrassment!

It used to be that you could take part in a WebEx or teleconference from home; you could hang out in your robe, pajamas (and accompanying bed head) with no problem, while participating and taking care of business.  Soon, however, it will be a whole different story. Technology will soon require your attendees to be professionally attired for virtual meetings.

I thought about this as I was reading a piece in The San Francisco Gate. Apparently, Skype voice and video calling technology, which can be downloaded free from the web and allows subscribers to call and video conference each other at no cost, will be embedded in high-definition LG and Panasonic televisions with Internet capabilities. And LG and Panasonic will sell webcams that support 720-p high-def pictures.
 
This will all be available later this year. So, I wonder how many home-based meeting attendees will be turning to their 46-inch flat screens -- to see and be seen in virtual meetings? If you haven't done it already, this might be a good time to prepare for this next generation of virtual technology by updating your policy on virtual meetings to set some ground rules on how home-based attendees should dress. Allow me to make some suggestions:

- business casual attire for virtual meetings among fellow employees, meetings with suppliers, and any non-customer facing activity
- suit or coat and tie for gentlemen, business suits for ladies for all meetings that connect employees with clients and business partners
- combed hair, a shave, makeup (for women) – you can make it a gender neutral policy by asking employees for “visually professional appearance” during virtual technology meetings.

If you're thinking that this is a trivial matter. I beg to disagree. Employees representing your company, whether at an in-person event or virtual meeting, need to present themselves professionally for maximum impact. Besides, every day...seems more like every minute...technology is changing the way companies meet and manage meetings. So isn't it a good idea to be pro-active and prepare for these technological developments to better adapt and use them to your company’s benefit?

Have you created meetings policy rules on how virtual attendees should appear on camera? If so, please tell me about them here!

According to Smith Travel Research, several cities and regions around the world have emerged as focal points of hotel development and growth at the close of 2009.

National Occupancy & RevPAR

Nationally, the hotel industry overall experienced increases in occupancy and RevPAR in year-over-year measurements.  Hotels around the country rung in the new year with occupancy increases to 45.5% and RevPAR rising to $45.37 by week’s close on January 2.  Leading the growth in occupancy and RevPAR was the St.Louis, Missouri-Illinois market, followed by the Atlanta, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-New Jersey and Boston markets, respectively. 

Global Development Pipeline

Hotel markets across the globe are experiencing active hotel construction projects, with the Asia-Pacific region leading as the largest pipeline underway.  Specifically, Shanghai, Mexico, Brazil, London, and United Arab Emirates boasted the largest hotel development pipelines in their respective regions at the end of 2009.  On the other end of the pipeline, Central and South America as well as the Caribbean and Mexican markets were the regions with the smallest active hotel development pipelines. The breakdown of development is as follows:

• Asia-Pacific: 232,680 rooms>Shanghai with 13,057 rooms
• Europe: 97,266 rooms>London with 5,154 rooms
• Middle East and Africa>119,560 rooms/United Arab Emirates with about 48,000 rooms
• Central/South America>19,292 rooms/Brazil with about 7,700 rooms
• Caribbean/Mexico>18,291 rooms/Mexico with about 11,000 rooms

These numbers all bode well for the global hotel industry, indicating that a slow but steady recovery is on the way.  Find more updates on hotel industry numbers and performance at Smith Travel Research online.

As we begin 2010, I want to take a moment to mention some of the tremendous accomplishments of some very exceptional meetings managers during 2009.

Last year was truly the 'Year of the Meeting!' as our own business travel industry, the major media and the government all put a huge focus on corporate events and strategic meetings management. Some of it was positive, like the launch of NBTA's Strategic Meetings Management Certification (SMMC) program. And some of the attention was negative, like the misguided focus by the press and in government circles on corporate events as extravagant investments in recessionary times (when in fact it's been proven that meetings contribute enormously to a company's bottom line.

But aside from these major trends last year, were stories of some very hard-working and talented people who created or improved upon innovative strategic meetings management programs (SMMPs) at their companies. While I don't have large enough space in this format to mention them all, I want to draw your attention to some highlights:

Many were featured in Corporate Meetings & Incentives magazine's "20 Changemakers,” including:

- Louann Cashill, Meeting Services Manager at Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. (Louann significantly expanded centralized and automated hotel sourcing throughout her organization and worked pro-actively with hotels to re-book contracted space that planners had canceled for future meetings and re-negotiate credits.

- Lee Ann Adams Mikeman, VP, Conference Planning & Special Events, Science Applications International Corp. (Lee Ann and her team are streamlining the meetings payment process to track payments and reconciliations via their meetings technology system. She's also integrating her firm's online booking tool for air ticketing with the meetings technology platform.

- Other "Changemakers" who created outstanding meetings solutions for their firms included: Debbie Andersen, Senior Manager, Americas, Meetings & Conventions at Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics; Jeff Calmus, AVP, Conference & Event Planning at MetLife; Susan Lichtenstein, Director of Travel and Global Meeting Solutions at Cisco Systems Inc.; Donna Foppoli-Patrick, Manager, Group Meetings, Events, and Travel, Medtronic Inc.; Marybeth Roberts, Director of Global Meeting Management, Amgen; Tom Tolvé, Senior Manager, Meeting Operations, Novo Nordisk; Tracey Wilt, Manager, Global Travel & Meeting Management for Xerox; Alice Woychik, Director of Meeting Solutions at Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation.

Learn the full details of how these meetings executives enhanced their management programs by reading the full article in Corporate Meetings & Incentives!

And then there were others, singled out elsewhere, such as in Business Travel News, both for their outstanding contributions to their own companies and the industry at large, including:

- Debbie Dayton, Global Head of Travel Related Services at Deutsche Bank, who was named BTN's 2009 International Travel Manager of the Year. Debbie, along with VP and meetings program project leader Shawn Radek, made great strides last year consolidating and automating business and meetings travel processes worldwide. The bank, automated budgeting, requests for proposals  (RFPs), reporting, reconciliation and data modules. In just one improvement, Deutsche Bank's automated budgeting now projects the total cost of an event, including transportation spending -- before the meeting is approved. Further, the bank stays on top of things by pre-loading average negotiated hotel rates, airfares, F&B costs and other metrics biannually.

-  Cynthia Shumate, Executive Director of Global Travel and Meeting Services, Estee Lauder, who was featured in BTN's 2009 Large Market Benchmarking Report for creating a new SMMP. Cynthia's program now covers U.S. meetings -- about 12 large, annual gatherings of up to 350 attendees, plus thousands of smaller meetings for employee training and product launches. Expanding internationally is on the horizon. Among accomplishments, Shumate has centralized registration and sourcing of meetings, deployed a single meetings technology platform, created a central policy and  launched a meetings charge card.

There are so many other meeting, procurement and travel executives that brought strategic meetings management improvements to their firms in 2009. In doing so, they elevated our whole industry. It's unfortunate that I can't mention them all -- because you'd be reading this post all day. But my sincerest appreciation for being leaders in our industry goes out to you all, even if you're not singled out here. You know who you are!

Let's continue the progress we're making in creating new, higher standards in indirect expense management for corporate meetings and events, and let's make 2010 another  'Year of the Meeting!'

 

Ever see yourself conducting business meetings on a cloud, yes, a cloud?

The growing trend of cloud computing, which enables companies to stop pouring resources into internal servers and instead run applications and databases on the web (accessible virtually from any computer), is helping organizations cut down on the need to travel. According to a recent article I came across, 34,000 municipal employees of the city of Los Angeles will now be using cloud-based Google Apps (e.g., Gmail, Google Docs and other collaborative programs) in place of software previously loaded on their internal servers.

If this sounds like it's getting too techie for a strategic meetings management post, let me quickly make the link to how this is going to affect the city's need for meetings. In the story, Randi Levin, Chief Technology Officer for the city, said that, by going with Google's suite, she "expects L.A. employees to benefit from instant messaging, video conferencing, and simultaneous review and editing of documents by multiple people."  

Let's face it; the money tap is still twisted tight in this recession, and companies are looking every which way to avoid expenditures on "unnecessary" meetings, while still spending for critical face-to-face time with potential and current customers. So, now, in addition to virtual technology such as video conferencing, teleconferencing and TelePresence, organizations are turning to cloud-based apps, such as Google's, to help cut down on the need to travel for meetings.

OK, so now you can meet on the cloud, but regardless of the technology you use, meetings managers need to make sure they're incorporating these types of events into policy, for instance, addressing the circumstances for which they're appropriate. And, as I've said before here, like all events, it would be wise to have the strategy in place to measure a cloud conference's ROI.

Getting a bit confused by mixed signals on the seriousness of the H1N1 flu virus (aka swine flu)? On the one hand, President Obama has declared a national emergency over the current rate of outbreaks, and more than 1,000 people in the U.S. have died from the virus.

Yet, so far, it doesn't seem like businesses are letting the threat affect travel.

From Prague, where I'm attending ACTE's Global Education Conference, the organization has released findings of a survey of 109 international companies. It found that 91% were not delaying planning meetings or conferences. Further, 96% said business travelers had not asked to put off trips during the flu season.

But this isn't to say that companies, meeting managers and event attendees, themselves, aren't concerned about the spread of the virus.

One way to address those concerns would be to create or update your company policy addressing how to handle issues like H1N1 and other potential emergency situations and to communicate those policies effectively to your employees and meeting attendees. For example, at our company, our head of HR e-mailed all employees and advised that if they did have flu symptoms, but felt they had to work, to carry on from home in order to prevent infecting fellow employees. 

Key to making decisions about events and communicating with meeting attendees is having one meetings registration system that gives you visibility into all companywide events.  That way, you can quickly assess potential situations and make decisions.  Similarly, using one enterprise-wide online attendee management tool can give you the comprehensive data you need to locate people and make quick decisions.  

For prevention tips, you can visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.