THE
NEWS FROM THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL CONGRESS ORGANISERS
P C O Collaboration comes
Issue No. 78
in different forms Posing the question ‘compete or collaborate?’ to IAPCO members attending our Annual Conference in Dubai generated lively debate, not only between the panellists on stage but also amongst the audience. With collaboration a recurrent theme in discussions about the future of the global meetings world, the arguments for both sides were revealing. They swung from ‘when you collaborate Jan Tonkin, IAPCO President. that’s when magic happens’ to ‘when you compete you know you can deliver what you promise’ and back again. There were those who proposed that ‘it all depends on the context’ but, by the end of the debate, it was apparent that collaboration was the favoured approach.
Wanting to know whether others agreed with that approach we explored the subject of collaboration further at IMEX. Teaming up with PCMA and IPCAA as part of a new threeway education and networking initiative, we called on the observations of Martin Jensen (Lundbeck), Mathias Posch (ICS) and Roberta Kravitz, Executive Director, International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. Michelle Crowley (PCMA) encouraged the speakers to give their frank views about the realities of collaboration. The consensus seemed to be that collaboration only works when there is a clear benefit to both parties and they both want to contribute their strengths but they need to check in regularly with one another to ensure that continues to be the case.
Q2 2017
The PCMA Column
Inter nal dis tribution please for ward to:
Interview by Michelle Russel, Editor in Chief, Convene
In our second seminar at IMEX all three speakers – Ori Lahav (Kenes), Camilla Nyman (Göteborg & Co) and Angeline van den Breoecke, (Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre) enthusiastically embraced collaboration confirming the adage that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. Examples included a PCO tapping into a bureau’s advice in an unfamiliar destination, creating an event with many stakeholders to deliver an amazing legacy and delivering training within the meetings industry to fill a skills shortage. Regardless of the format of the collaboration, what makes for a great partnership is much aligned. It revolves around trust, clear communication, having responsibilities well-defined and a commitment by all involved to contribute to producing something better than they could working solo. When it comes to accessing a new market or needing a team on the ground in unfamiliar territory, that is the perfect time for an IAPCO member to call on another in that country to explore the chance to team up. Both have know-how and skills to bring to the project and, if my own experience is anything to go by, everyone certainly learns from one another. We also see collaboration making its presence felt in conference programmes as the lines between presentations and conversations become blurred. Fledging conferences are known to emerge from such environments which is hugely encouraging. So, while we may have been brought up to compete, it seems that collaboration, or perhaps more aptly described as co-opetition, is valuable in the meetings world.
‘A Terrific Right-Brain Business’ The PCMA European Influencers Summit will gather approximately 40 European business events leaders in Monte Carlo, Monaco, June 25–27, to address the future of the events industry. Summit presenter and European technology expert Inma Martinez will help put the audience in a future-focused frame of mind — a world, as she described it, in which artificial intelligence and robots are commonplace and a focus on rightbrain skills will be increasingly important. “When I speak with HR managers at major global banks, or the Deloittes of this world,” Martinez told Convene, “they ask, ‘What’s going to happen to the human capital in the workforce?’ I’m telling them, ‘You need to retrain workers to be right-brain people and do tasks that the machines will be
completely unable to do.’ This is the talk of the town right now: The link between artificial intelligence and human capital, and how you will combine both of them and how you will hire people for different skills. It’s not about because they went to a top Ivy League university. It’s a new society of skills and abstract values and knowledge.” Where do live events fit it? Martinez believes that “conferences are the business of humans and are very abstract things. One goes to a conference to acquire knowledge, but mostly to meet other people who can ignite ideas,” she said. “It’s a terrific right-brain business, which makes me really happy for you. It’s a business for the future.” To read more of Michelle’s interview with Inma Martinez, go to: www.pcmaconvene.org/design/howartificial-intelligence-will-elevatehuman-interaction/.
Council Meeting gets the Gothenburg effect Gothenburg underlined its importance to the meetings and conference industry when the IAPCO Council Meeting took place in one of its main meetings venues. Known as Gothia Towers, the venue features 1200 hotel rooms, restaurants, a spa as well as a range of places for delegates to
meet, and as such made the perfect destination in the run-up to IMEX Frankfurt and an appropriate place to look at the future of the Association “We were really impressed by the welcome that Gothenburg gave us,” says Sarah Storie-Pugh, IAPCO Executive Director, who liaised with them
GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN – A CITY MADE FOR MEETINGS!
Situated just by the sea with a fabulous archipelago in the heart of Scandinavia. International airport easily accessible from around the world. Eco-certified hotel rooms, venues, restaurants and entertainment within walking distance.
Europe’s largest fully integrated hotel and congress facility. City centered – all under one roof: - 41,000 m² exhibition space - 1,200 hotel rooms - 60 meeting rooms
Welcome to the most sustainable meeting destination in the world! goteborg.com/en/convention-bureau
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before and during the IAPCO Council Meeting. “It’s a huge relief for any organisation or association to be able to approach a partner with a series of needs and to know that they will be met and that your expectations will be exceeded. Gothenburg and Gothia Towers represented that perfect location
and venue. From the rooms we used to the excellent social events, the attention to detail shone through everywhere. Friendly, hospitable, professional, innovative and creative are just a few words to describe what we experienced and what anyone bringing an event to Gothenburg would receive.”
African Agenda Driving Excellence Innovation Elizabeth Winter of African Agenda was the celebrated winner of the IAPCO Driving Excellence Innovation Award 2016, as announced at the IMEX Gala Evening in Frankfurt. African Agenda’s award winning innovation was a “standing discussion”, a session which took participants out of their comfort zones and brought them
together to share ideas in a lively, structured discussion. The connection of improved cognition and physical movement to strengthen learning, improve memory retrieval, and enhance motivation and moral was an added bonus. Elizabeth stated that ‘Being innovative does not necessarily imply being an
IAPCO infographic goes around the world for #GMID17
Can one picture tell a whole story? That just might be the case, at least if the reception that the most recent IAPCO infographic received on social media is anything to go by. Designed to publicise good news for IAPCO members on Global Meetings Industry Day, the IAPCO Infographic highlighted the fact that employment figures have recovered to an all-time high after the financial crash of 2008, with 5761 full time staff members, compared to 5429 in 2015. Launched under the The Conference Partners International team, winners of the GMID17 hashtag #GMID17, the photoshoot.
inventor, we suggest it implies assessing a situation, a need, an audience, and crafting a concept in order to shape a solution. This is an example of that.’ The IAPCO Innovation Award, in its third year, attracted excellent quality and varied submissions. Three finalists each created a video describing their innovation, presented to the audience of the IAPCO Annual Meeting in Dubai for the final vote. The results were very close and both runners-up deserve recognition for their innovative concepts: Susan Kilcoyn, Conference Partners International for Connect16; and Ziv Izackov, Kenes Group, for a technological innovation for ESPID 2016. IAPCO twitter feed received over 16000 impressions in the first 24 hours. And in the meantime, 20 companies around the world took part in putting their faces to the statistics, using #weareIAPCO and #GMID17 to show the world what their employees looked like. From New Zealand to South Africa, across Europe and into Canada, a host of companies used Twitter to share their photos and, in so doing, publicised both IAPCO and what they do to the wider world.
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