Go Green. Go Green. Go Green.

By this time we have all heard this phrase millions of times and possibly even many times today. Going green is on everyone’s mind, especially when we are now seeing more positive rewards for doing so.

It is no secret that the green initiative has taken off. Now most businesses, organizations, and associations have some sort of implementations in place to reduce their carbon footprint. Sustainable meetings are also becoming a new fad. Making a few minor adjustments can show off big time financially, environmentally, and will just make you and your attendees feel like you are doing your part for Mother Nature.

In the February 2012 issue of Associations Now magazine there is an article dedicated to planning sustainable meetings including some tips on how to start small to get big results.

You may have noticed that when you arrive in your hotel room there is now more than just your breakfast menu to hang off of your door placed on your bed. Most hotel chains have implemented a linen and towel reuse system. For example: “Place this Card on your bed when you require new sheets”. Giving guests the option to get their sheets changed everyday or not at all. Before there was no option and your sheets were washed every day whether you wanted them washed not. The average person does not need to have new sheets everyday of their stay. Some chains even offer a financial incentive for groups that agree to take on green initiatives by creating less waste, using less energy and adding in local foods to their food and beverage menus.
Saving money happens when you conserve energy and reduce the waste. This is just smart business. When given the option what group would turn down saving money? Convention centers and hotels are vamping up their efforts to encourage these options. The convention center and hotels charge the clients for what they have to dispose of after a meeting. The more you can divert to recycling, the better off you will be.

To get the conversation of sustainable options started with your upcoming meetings, start right with the RFP. Include environmental criteria and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Ask about the facility’s recycling program, energy conservation practices, waste conservation promotions and their environmentally responsible purchasing efforts.
Ask the venue what they have done in the past for green and sustainable efforts to get the ball rolling. Other groups may have done great things in the past that you can build on and use at your own meeting.

How can you get on board?

• Coordinate with a local food back to pick up food left behind. (Check on the in-house regulations on perishable foods.)
• Eliminate bottled water and use reusable containers. (Use a water bottle as the conference give-a-way!)
• Start incorporating locally sourced foods into your menus. By putting a little sign by the food that says you are supporting the local economy by serving fruit that is from ABC orchard down the road, they will feel like they are doing their part as well.
• It will be a long time before all conferences can do away with their paper programs but reducing the numbers of pages to what is totally necessary in conjunction with using a mobile show guide can get you started in the right direction

Things to look for during site selection:

• Public Transportation Options
• Pedestrian Friendly location
• Convention center technology to help facilitate virtual attendance
• Low-flow or double flush toilet systems
• Linen and towel reuse programs
• Use of alternative energy for powering convention center, hotel or city building
• Extensive and inclusive recycling collections cans
• Compostable or biodegradable flatware, plates, or cups.
• Local farmer’s produce and product

It is hard to change the ways of doing every day procedures. Baby steps. This is the key here. We cannot expect to wake up one day and see a 360° turn around. Even if you implement just one green practice at your next meeting you will see a positive impact financially, you are going to benefit the planet and this gives you leverage for PR and attendee engagement to add more practices at your next meeting.

Grossed out by hotel TV remotes? There's an app for that!

Shared and with thanks from MSNBC

Watching TV or a movie in your hotel room just got a little less icky.

LodgeNet Interactive Corporation, which provides on-demand or other TV-based services in more than 1.7 million hotel rooms in North America, now has a free mobile app that allows guests to use their own smartphones or tablets to control the TV.

That means germ-wary travelers no longer have to keep a washcloth or shower cap handy to cover the remote control in order to watch the evening news or an in-room movie.

“We didn’t have germophobes in mind when came up with the app,” Derek White, president of interactive and media networks for LodgeNet, told msnbc.com. “But that does seem to be a very popular aspect of the system.”

The app, which became available on Monday, can be downloaded online before check-in, at check-in in a hotel lobby or in-room via an on-screen QR code. Each guest receives a unique code to enter into the app, which then syncs the TV system with the personal device.

“We can’t remove the remotes entirely from the rooms yet,” said White, “because you still use the remote to turn the TV on to do the initial sync up, but after that, there’s no need to use the remote or, for that matter, the in-room phone.”

The app displays TV programming schedules customized to the channel line-up in that hotel as well as specific information about the hotel itself and restaurants, attractions and other information about the local area. Users can also click to dial the front desk to arrange for a wake-up call, ask a question, order an in-room meal or take care of other business.

That should please travelers such as Charles Gerba, an environmental microbiologist from the University of Arizona. Known as “Dr. Germ,” Gerba conducted studies of hotel rooms and found the remote control to have the most germs.

The app is available for iPhone and Android smartphones.

Hopeful Financial News

Some Hopeful News

Joseph Sanders Visa's Chief Talks Up Global Growth:

"Three years ago, in the throes of the recession, people who had money thought it was cool not to spend money. A lot of markets shrank. And those markets are beginning to open up.

The convention venues, resort venues, travel itineraries of individual families, business travel on a global basis. It's more than it has been in a long while. It's not as robust as it once was. But I think things are slowly and surely getting better."

meetsmart mobile - the mind blowingly easy mobile show guide

meetsmart is the mind-blowingly easy mobile conference guide.

Specifically designed by meeting planners, its understanding of Conference needs is astounding. It hits the mark by delivering exactly what all the meeting attendee and the host organization expects - AND the meetsmart concierge staff does all the work. No added workload for your staff.

Quick navigation. Cross Platform. Powerful search. Lots of detail. Maps. Create schedules. Build sponsorship & exhibit revenues. Alerts. Analytics.

Special offer - book meetsmart mobile by December 31 and receive a complimentary iPad2! Email Larry Wilhelm at larry@meetsmartmobile.com or call 410-849-2177 for details.

meetsmart mobile - Another success!

The Society of American Archivists (SAA) implemented meetsmart mobile for their 75th Anniversary Annual Meeting in Chicago. This was the first time SAA used a mobile app for their Meeting. During the week before the SAA Meeting, the app had already been visited over 1,074 times with 18,606 page views! On average, each user visited 17.3 pages and spent 9.5 minutes on the site.

SAA has 1,664 registered attendees. They had expected only a moderate use of the app because they thought their members were 'late technology adopters'. Surprise!! Everyone was thrilled by the very high traffic and the great feedback.

meetsmart mobile brought great new technology to SAA, put their Meeting into the palms of their members, added a positive new dimension to the attendee experience and provided great ROI to the sponsors and exhibitors. Another great success for meetsmart mobile and for SAA.

64% of Meetings Are Using a Mobile App

With so much new meeting technology being developed it can be hard to know what’s worth investing your time in, and what will simply be a flash in the pan. Our clients rely on us to keep them abreast of trends and technology, so our team works hard to keep our finger on the pulse of the meetings and convention industry.

Earlier this summer, Conference & Logistics Consultants conducted a survey of over 300 meeting planners to gauge our industry’s comfort level with new technologies. A key finding of the 2011 Meeting Technology Trends Survey was that 64 percent of meetings are already using a mobile app, or intend to add one this year. Another 16 percent intend to add one within three years.

If you’re not thinking about a mobile app for your meeting, you’re being left behind. Attendees are clamoring for instant access to information, and ways to personalize their conference experience. Mobile technology is an easy way to provide both. Mobile conference guides run the gamut from inexpensive web-based platforms ($9 – 15K) to high-end custom native apps ($25 – 100+K).

The survey also revealed a lot of other interesting information, which we will put out in a white paper later this fall. Stay tuned to the blog or subscribe to our RSS feed for future updates.

PCMA Convene: A People-Based Approach to Virtual Meetings

Next week, PCMA and the Virtual Edge Institute will release a new research report that takes a fresh look at the role of digital technology in the meetings industry.

Instead of the typical "virtual versus face-to-face" approach, this survey took a comparative approach, looking at how digital technologies can best be used within the framework of meeting environments. The survey asked: Why do people attend in-person and online events? What business goals are being achieved? How are attendees engaging within these environments?

Check out the full survey information.

Several points that I found interesting from a meeting planning perspective, which reinforce my opinion that virtual events just aren't going to replace face-to-face events any time soon:

1) The networking just Isn't the same. Only 33% of people surveyed said they traded contact information with other attendees in a virtual meeting, versus 78% of people at a face-to-face meeting. That's a lot fewer connections being made.

2) Attendees pay less attention. Virtual meeting attendees are more likely to IM due to boredom, shop or surf the web, take a phone call, check email, and leave the meeting than face-to-face meeting attendees. Online attendees are easily distracted, which means your content and delivery has to be twice as engaging to deliver the same educational value.

3) You'll have to charge less. Only 25% of people surveyed said they would pay the same for a virtual event as an in-person event. That's 75% who expect virtual events to cost less. Pretty important stuff when it comes to evaluating revenue and expenses for your next event.

meetings drive the US economy

Meetings & conventions are valuable to the US and world economy. Our industry has always been difficult to quantify, because sometimes we’re considered part travel and leisure, part hospitality, part tourism.

So to prove our collective worth, in 2009 the Convention Industry Council undertook a study entitled “The Economic Significance of Meetings to the US Economy.” The study found that the total direct spending associated with US meeting activity is estimated at $263 billion!

And that’s only the direct spending: out total contribution to the GDP was estimated at $458 billion, including 6.3 million jobs. Other nifty facts:

• 205 million attendees participate in 1.8 million US meetings each year
• We pay our taxes, including $64 billion in federal tax revenue and an additional $46 billion in state and local tax revenue
• The 1.8 million meetings generate 250 million hotel room nights per year.

These figures show that the hospitality industry is vital to the health of the US economy. For more information, visit Meetings Mean Business (http://meetingsmeanbusiness.com/)

learn from social media with EventBurn

One of my recent conferences took a spin with a cool new social media service, called EventBurn. EventBurn is a social media aggregator, created for use at conferences and meetings, that’s designed to “summarize social media conversations.”

EventBurn makes social media more useful for conferences and events, by combining all the different content streams into a single feed. The web-based service “ automatically summarizes the top links, photos, and users, and creates a browsable long-term archive of the messages.”

Basically, EventBurn scours social media networks like Flikr, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn for parameters that you define, sorts through all the clutter, and bubbles the most interesting content to the top. Through sophisticated algorithms, EventBurn returns only the most relevant information, and cuts out the clutter. Isn’t that refreshing?

EventBurn also provides all sorts of interesting statistics about your users, to help you learn from your event. Here’s just a sampling of the data that EventBurn can provide:

· top users, photos, and networks used

· most shared links and most reshared messages

· most popular hashtags

· number of messages, links, photos, users

· usage statistics such as time and frequency of use

Check out the EventBurn archive from my event here.

Specifically created for face-to-date events, “EventBurn makes it easier for event attendees, remote followers, reporters, and others to learn about emerging topics of conversation, find people to connect with, and follow the buzz quickly and easily.”

If you’re already running a Twitterfall or some other social media aggregator at your conference, EventBurn is a great next step.

business cards go high tech with Poken

One of our high-tech clients just finished their annual conference in Vancouver. This group the is perfect training ground for new meeting technologies, because the delegates are inquisitive early adopters, game to try anything once. This year, our social experiment was Poken: your social business card.

Pokens are small USB drives (AKA thumb drives, jump drives, memory sticks, etc.) that contain your contact information. Users plug them into their computers to create a Poken profile, which can also include any other social media information you might want to add, such as links to your Facebook page, twitter handle, etc.

The Poken devices can be customized with your conference logo, or you can select from several dozen stock Poken designs, which run the gamut from funky to fierce.

Poken has a little hand-shaped end that you can “high five” with other Poken users to swap information. When two Pokens are touched together, they light up so users know that their information has been shared. I was a bit apprehensive that Poken would catch on, but during our six-day conference, we had:

• 17,337 - Poken interactions
• 1,409 - Linked Pokens
• 3,366 - User logins

Though the numbers speak for themselves, my very favorite review of Poken came via the conference’s twitter stream: “Poken is the saviour for drunk research-related conversations I otherwise wouldn't remember in the morning.” So, Pokens are also good for jogging fuzzy memories.

Coming soon on the Poken front: Poken tagging using your iphone and other smart phones. Though the Pokens themselves are pretty nifty, that’s awesome too!

Get Amenities Will Travel

I just saw this great idea from Meetings & Conventions:

BOTTLE SAVER

Little is more frustrating than picking up your luggage and finding everything soaked in wine from a broken bottle. One inexpensive way of preventing that is storing wine in the Jet Bag, an absorbent, zip-seal bag that protects a 750 ml bottle and absorbs all the liquid if it does break. A three-pack of Jet Bags costs $15. (248) 891-8939;thejetbag.com

Mobile App Success Story

meetsmart mobile and Meeting Professional International Southern California Chapter (MPISCC) implemented the new mobile app at the MPISCC 30th Annual Conference. By offering the app at the Conference, MPISCC gave their members:

- A smart, easy-to-use first mobile experience
- A great way to put Meeting information into delegates hands quickly & easily
- Generated new communication & increased professional interaction

meetsmart mobile received great reviews and MPISCC derived excellent benefits. Read the article here:
http://engage365.org/2011/04/mpiscc-meetsmart-mobile-a-conference-navigation-app-success-story/

meetsmart mobile is the only event navigation app designed by meeting planners. Attendees get a powerful information tool and associations receive the benefits of a very affordable revenue-generating tool which keeps them on the cutting edge of technology.

Meeting Trends: Mobile Technologies Are Green in More Ways than One

We are excited about the continued efforts across our industry to reduce the environmental impact of meetings and conventions. Our team often works with clients to incorporate common-sense green initiatives that also save money, such as using local suppliers to reduce shipping cost, custom-building menus to take advantage of local and seasonal ingredients, and managing power usage.

Small changes are important, but their impact is gradual. One big step that organizations can take to reduce their carbon footprint as well as boost the budget is to add technologies that reduce or eliminate the need for printed materials. Online registration virtually eliminates faxes, as well as reduces staff time and stress. E-marketing has become easier and more affordable – as well as more effective! – than expensive postcards and printed advance programs. And e-posters allow content to be captures and shared beyond the boundaries of time and space.

Replacing a printed conference program with a mobile app can easily save an annual meeting thousands of dollars in printing costs alone. In fact, one of our team members saved an association nearly $50,000 in printing and shipping costs by transitioning their meeting to a paperless format. By contrast, mobile apps start at just $5,000!

A comprehensive mobile app reduces or eliminates the need for printed materials of many kinds, including:
* Conference program books
* Exhibit hall maps
* Exhibitor guides
* Speaker biographies and session descriptions
* Onsite errata sheets to alert attendees about changes and last-minute additions

The C&LC team is proud that our meetsmart mobile conference navigation app is being used to support green initiatives. For additional ideas on greening your meeting, visit meetsmartmobile.com.

Meeting Trends: Using Mobile Technologies to Boost the Bottom Line

If you have a smartphone, you’re probably familiar with mobile apps that save you time, simplify mundane tasks, or just entertain you with movies or games. We rely on our phones for much more than just talking or texting.

In the last year, mobile apps have also emerged as an innovative method of both generating revenue and reducing costs for meetings and conventions. In fact, a leading meeting industry publication has dubbed 2011 the Year of the Mobile App. Savvy organizations are realizing that mobile apps return a great deal of value for a relatively small investment.

The question we often hear from our clients is, How can we maximize our investment in meeting technology? Mobile apps are extremely attractive to conference sponsors, who realize that conference delegates spend countless hours on their smartphones – both during conference sessions, as well as in their free time.

Technology sponsorships offer much richer delegate engagement than traditional sponsorship opportunities. A mobile app used throughout the conference draws hundreds of page views, while single-use items like food & beverage or disposable giveaways are quickly forgotten.

Sponsors are willing to invest $10K - $25K or more to get their logo and message in the place that attendees are already looking. A single sponsorship pays for the app several times over – bringing in additional revenue well beyond the initial investment. Additional sponsorships and ads can also be sold to produce even more profit. Small investment, big return!

Take time to recharge your batteries this holiday season

All of us in the conventions industry work unusual schedules and travel much, often to the detriment of our personal lives. We all need some precious time to relax, re-energize, and recharge our batteries. The holidays are a great time to unplug and regain our perspective.

As 2010 draws to a close, we have made the decision to close our office the last week of December. Our staff – like so many in this frenetic industry – have worked tremendously hard this year.

I truly appreciate everything that our team does to make sure that our clients’ events are 110 percent successful every time, and am grateful to work with such a talented group of people. It’s wonderful to come to work every day knowing that friends will surround me.

To our readers and industry colleagues, best wishes for joyful holidays and a happy, healthy 2011. I hope that you’ll be able to take some time to rest and recharge this holiday season. 2011 will present new opportunities and challenges, and I, for one, want to be prepared to face them.

Computing in the Cloud: What's it all about?

The recent article in Meeting & Conventions Magazine talks about "cloud computing". The word 'cloud' has been coined to describe using Software as a Service or SaaS. SaaS means using software applications over the Internet through your browser rather than purchasing and loading software onto your computer. This is the future of sharing information and technology. No longer are we constrained by specific hardware or operating systems. Information in the 'cloud' is available 24/7 and 365 days a year. It is accessible from any type of computer, on all mobile devices and it is accessible from anywhere.

Meetings & Conventions calls this change a "dynamic shift" in mindset. The major software developers are moving their software solutions to the 'cloud'. Companies are storing their information outside of their offices because the it is available with ease and real-time sharing of the data is more efficient than ever.

No wonder that Conference & Logistics Consultants chose to build its new mobile conference navigation app, meetsmart mobile 'in the cloud'. Every conference organizer wants to know that their meeting data can be accessed easily and won't be disrupted by programming or platform issues. Conference organizers work every day to avoid surprises. What planner would want to have their conference navigation app derailed by a phone manufacturer upgrade right before their event?

"Cloud computing" is the way of the future. Manage your costs, keep control of your data, minimize software issues and put your information into all the hands of your audience. meetsmart mobile: Meeting Technology by Meeting Planners.

Get out and explore with a SCVNGR hunt!

A few weeks ago, I blogged about harnessing geolocation technology (specifically Foursquare) for your meeting. As usual, technology is changing at such a fast pace that a newer and more useful tool is already available.

I’m learning more and more about SCVNGR, a game about doing challenges at places. SCVNGR’s website describes the platform as part game, part gaming platform. At the time of this blog entry, SCVNGR has native apps for the iPhone and Android as well as SMS (text) capability that allows players with other phones to join in the fun.

At heart, SCVNGR is similar to Foursquare in the fact that you use your mobile phone’s GPS to identify your location, and see what else is nearby. But the SCVNGR developers have added a new dimension to the basic check-in, allowing players to create challenges for one another and awarding points for complexity.

There are one-location challenges, where players do something at a specific location for points. There are also points for multi-location challenges, called Treks, where players go from place to place in a predetermined route to unlock a prize. Treks can be performed in a specific order (set by the organizer) or by closest location. Talk about the perfect incentive for your attendees to explore the local area or map their way through your exhibit hall!

A grown-up SCVNGR hunt is a great way to get your attendees out of the meeting room and interacting with the world around them. Why not encourage teams to participate? I could even foresee revenue opportunities in an official meeting trek, when local businesses are sold the opportunity to be added to the route.

I can’t wait to add a SCVNGR hunt for my next conference!

Tech without the Trauma

There was very interesting and valuable information collected by the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International’s (HSMAI) Affordable Meetings National Pre-Show Survey.

"According to the conference’s survey, respondents feel technology is most helpful in the planning industry for online registrations, social networking, eRFPs, e-mail blasts, marketing, blogs, conducting virtual meetings and utilizing e-commerce through online stores. Respondents suggested that technology saves time and enhances organization, while at the same time streamlines business processes, more accurately capturing or manipulating information and allowing a database of legacy data to be built. It also allows a wider audience to be reached, they said."

Technology touches our lives more and more every day. It can be overwhelming sometimes, but when approached with some guidance it is so surprising how the benefits far outweigh the initial reaction of hesitancy or stress.

Our team at Conference & Logistics Consultants team is helping more and more clients everyday find a friend in technology. Take a minute and visit our "Tech without the Trauma" information: http://www.gomeeting.com/tech/

Diffusing a Sensitive Situation with Humor

Sometimes, a little creativity can pay off in a huge way.

At a recent client convention in Las Vegas, we were tasked with implementing an exhibitor priority system for advance booth purchase for the first time. This particular meeting has some very assertive exhibitors, and we were worried that they would not appreciate the difficult decisions that had been made regarding priority order.

Our staff was concerned that exhibitors would crowd the advance purchase table to get the best spot. We had to come up with a solution to keep the atmosphere professional, while systematically adhering to the association’s priority system.

We considered a number of scenarios to maintain order, and decided to add a security guard during the appointment times. Yet, we were concerned about the unwelcoming impression a uniformed guard would have on the association’s valued vendors.

In a last minute stroke of genius we decided to swap out the security guard for a signature Caesars Palace Roman centurion, in full costume. Exhibitors and attendees alike were delighted, and many asked for a photo opportunity. For just a small investment, our centurion Carlos helped us keep the atmosphere light while also providing some structure.

Improved Outlook for Meetings in 2011

A recent article in Successful Meeting shared a positive outlook. In encouraging news for 2011, American Express Business Travel released good news in its annual Global Business Travel Forecast. According to the results of the forecast, companies will hold an increased number of meetings next year and overall will spend more money on them. However, it is predicted that companies will spend less per-meeting as meeting sizes decrease and sourcing efficiencies increase.

American Express also predicts that planners will hold more local and regional meetings and will include more virtual alternatives to face-to-face gatherings.

Another projection lies in business travel prices. We can expect that airfare and hotel rates will rise up to as much as 10% in the next year, in key global markets. They specifically forecast domestic economy class airfares will rise 2% to 6% while hotel rates will rise 1%. "Throughout 2010, companies have lifted travel restrictions brought on by red bottom line fears and this is expected to continue into 2011 as firms look more toward growing the top line," said Christa Degnan Manning, director of eXpert insights and research, American Express Business Travel. "Yet pricing power will swing back to air and hotel suppliers for the first time in two years in 2011 as more competition for limited seats on planes and increased occupancy levels at hotels are expected."

With the increased demand and constrained capacity, airfare and hotel rates are expected to reach pre-recession levels next year, according to American Express.

For more information, including complete forecast data, visit www.businesstravelconnexion.com.