TAKING MEETINGS TO THE NEXT
LEVEL
By: Andrea Sigler, PhD
“So – what is it exactly that you do?”
– my mom always wanted to know exactly what I was
doing. She had no trouble figuring this out when at 18 yrs, fresh from college, I
took my first job as Girl Scout Executive. But she thought it entailed too much
travel for a young, married woman and encouraged me to become a teacher in the
Philippine public school system..
I quickly rose through the ranks as principal,
academic supervisor, assistant superintendent of schools. When I got tired of
that, I switched to academia and served as college Professor, dean of a
community college, vice president of academic affairs in a large City University
and retired as president of a small, innovative Distance University that
delivered higher education to remote islands (The Philippines has over7000
islands) and neighboring countries of Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. The
unique nature of this last job earned me invitations to speak at conferences in
Europe and around the world. Soon, I was helping organize some of those
meetings. I had a taste of global
meetings and I was hooked.
By then, my personal life had changed. Tackling
high pressure jobs while earning my PhD and raising six children had taken a
toll on my marriage. I had divorced, married an American who
legally adopted the kids and all of us moved to join him in the United States. Too young and too active for retirement, I went
back to teaching as adjunct professor at George Mason University in Virginia.
But the day-to-day life of a university professor had lost its appeal for me. I
needed a change. So - when ex-Mayor Marion Barry of Washington DC offered me the
job of .Executive Director of the US_China Friendship Council, I grabbed the
opportunity. Thus was my second career as meeting planner launched.
It was a fun and exciting change. I planned all events for the Council as well
as some events at the Mayor’s office. I enjoyed planning the council’s
fundraisers, annual meeting, trade exhibition, board meetings, committee
meetings, escorting Chinese delegations in the city, organizing seminars on
US-China relations, leading technical study groups in various cities in the
United States and organizing trade and study missions to China and other Asian
countries.
This career path is not typical. While there may
be meeting planners who served as CEOs or university presidents, most meeting
planners I know start out as secretaries or administrative assistants. This
seemed to be a natural path as CEOs delegate meeting planning functions to their
secretaries or administrative assistants.
Let us know how you got into meeting planning.
Please complete this form and you will be entered to win one of valuable prizes:
What does a
meeting planner really do?
The meeting planner identifies what are needed to make the meeting a success,
finds the right providers, negotiates rates, terms and conditions, keeps tabs on
details - and
communicates, communicates, communicates.
What the meeting needs varies from meeting to meeting. This depends on the
requirements defined by the CEO, Board of Directors or the person responsible
for the meeting and authority given to the planner. Mostly, this includes site
selection. Some planners select the sites themselves while some merely recommend
the sites for someone else’s approval. In either case, the planner exerts a
powerful influence in site selection. It is a daunting task as there are so many
choices available.
Once selected, getting to the site is the next challenge. This is fairly
straightforward -just a matter of researching what transportation modes to the
destination are available. Choices are usually limited and are better outsourced
to other providers.
Beyond site and transportation, the planner may recommend or select speakers,
caterers, pre and post conference tour operators, production companies,
audiovisual companies, ground transportation and others,
Independent planners may focus on slightly more
areas than association and corporate planners who have access to support
resources in the organization.
What do YOU do?
Excerpt from a
meeting planner's diary
CIMPA wants to hear about what you do as a
meeting planner. Please complete this form and you will be entered to win one of
valuable prizes:
TRAINING
PROGRAMS FOR meeting plannerS
“Are you paid to travel and attend these parties? What
exactly are you paid to do?”, my mom could not find “meeting
planning” in the neat list of jobs in her mind.
When pinned to the wall, I realized I could not find neatly delineated answers
to the question, either. Strange - for a woman who had made her living
identifying competencies and building curricular programs around them.
That was 20 or so years ago – and there were no curricular programs for meeting
planners that I was aware of. At a reception in my honor during a brief
stop-over at the city university in Manila where I was once Dean of Academic
Affairs, I asked if they would consider starting a meeting planning program.
“You can’t be serious. You know that will never get
approval from the Academic Board. BA on Travel? How about PhD on Parties?”
They almost choked on their food, laughing. When I told my husband,
recently retired as Deputy Chief of Staff for the US Army Western Command in
Hawaii - he, too, laughed. “I organized all the Pacific
military seminars and meetings without a degree on meeting planning? Shame on
me!”
I searched the Harvard University and Yale University websites and found no
courses on meeting planning. I do not know of any Ivy League institution
offering this. Do you?
I had the impression meeting planning as an academic program did not get much
respect. But perhaps they are wrong.
Is it possible that we are focusing on the wrong skills and competencies? For
example, most of the college curricula and meeting planning books include “Food
and Beverage”. Shouldn’t this be better left to the hotel chef or caterer?. Sure
– we need to know something about it. But do we need a course on it? The skill
you need is not how to plan a menu – but how to work with the chef or how to
find and negotiate with the perfect caterer: an entirely
different competency..
Another common topic is “Setting Objectives”. Who really sets the objectives for
meetings? In associations, this task is usually undertaken by association
executives. In corporations, objectives are set by the department planning the
meeting and may be shared with the meeting planner. In the real world, there are
times when they are not even shared with the planner. All the planner gets are
instructions to “find a meeting venue for 60 people and book flights for 35”.
Ditto for Program Planning
Registration? For large meetings and exhibitions, registration is usually
outsourced to registration companies. If the meeting is small, the planner or
the department putting on the meeting handles it.
Transportation? Smart planners will do well to let a travel agent, destination
management company or a ground operator handle this.
Ditto for pre and post conference tours
Special Events? A smart planner would sub-contract this to a production company,
an event planner or a destination management company
Legal Contracts? Woe be to the meeting planner who signs a contract without
authority from the CEO and without having a lawyer or someone responsible in the
organization look at this. It pays to know something about the legal
implications of one’s actions. A well-informed planner should be familiar with
legal issues like attrition and cancellation policies .But in real life, contracts are signed by the responsible
person in the organization.
Key knowledge, skills and competencies
include process analysis, identification of resources, financial planning, negotiations,
communication, technology, public relations and marketing. These are decidedly
on a higher level than the knowledge and skills we are currently teaching.
Should the degree be called Certificate, B.A, or M.A in Meeting Planning? I say
NO. After this student is done, he/she can plan anything. I would call the
degree B.A., M.A or even PhD in Planning. Planners can specialize in various
niches – such as meetings, travel and exhibitions like lawyers specialize in
various industries.
CIMPA will hold a brainstorming session on this issue at
the International Technology, Meetings and Incentives Conference to be held in
Lisbon, Portugal on November 5-8, 2003. All who are interested are invited.
Please contact Becky Smith at becky@cimpa.org
An Advisory Board on this issue is currently being formed. CIMPA wants to build
a new curriculum for the modern meeting planner. If interested, please
send email to Andrea Sigler at andrea@cimpa.org
