What's on the Minds of the Industry's Leading CEO? Three Important Insights That You Need to Know!

Early last week, members of CIC's Council of Representatives met in Baltimore, MD for their bi-annual face-to-face meeting, where all 34 council members are invited to discuss emerging issues and trends, share information with each other and network.

Former board president Robert Gilbert, CHME, CHBA of HSMAI introduced a new platform to the meetings a few years ago which the council continues to use today. Developed in conjunction with CIC CEO Karen Kotowski, CAE, CMP, this new format invites industry thought leaders to the meetings to share insights and knowledge around different topics.

At this year’s fall meeting, members heard insights from:

Ed Rudzinski, GM, Baltimore Marriott Waterfront, "Meetings Imagined: A New Approach to Meetings"
Tom Noonan, CEO, Visit Baltimore, "Crisis Management and Lessons Learned from the Baltimore Riots"
Don Neal, Founder & CEO, 360 Live Media, "What Business are You Really In? Looking at the Association Business Model through a New Lens"

Here are three of the top eight (8) insights from those talks that CIC Council members took away from the meeting and some key ideas that you may find useful in your career as well.

Define your meeting’s purpose first. There are seven different purposes of meetings – educate, decide, network, promote, celebrate, ideate, and celebrate. These seven purposes came out of research that analyzed more than 40,000 meetings. To have a successful meeting or event, first understand your purpose, then create your meeting around that with the overall design and experience. For example, if the meeting is to network and share, rooms set with small pods may be more ideal than using a board setting, which would be better for making decisions. www.meetingsimagined.com

Travelers’ needs and wants are changing. Generational shifts are a large factor in how people travel. And with demographics changing, this will lead to noticeable hotel transformations in the upcoming years, particularly as many more Generation Xers will be traveling. Looking at generational values, Marriott will be adding more art, smart TVs, open concept closets (as Gen X typically doesn’t unpack), and room service overall will be changing from a traditional wheel in cart to pick up and go. Embracing different generational shifts is very important and the differences in values and needs are not bad, just different.

The best time to reinvent is now. People change mostly for two reasons either from inspiration or desperation. The latter is the more common scenario as many people need a trigger, such as hitting rock bottom or losing sales to change their behavior. But that also puts more risk on the change overall as there is negative effects and lots to overcome. A better time to reinvent your event or meeting is after a successful meeting or event. This is because sticking with the same can cause an event to get stagnant and with the increased rate of change in the market, constant renewal is key.

David DuBois, CMP, FASAE, CAE, CTA, immediate past chair of the CIC board and CEO of International Association of Exhibitions and Events, said, "Coming together with the other leaders of the council is very important to creating open and engaging dialogue about what is affecting the industry overall, as well as having an open forum to share what is keeping us awake at night as CEOs."

Events Industry Council