Blog #3 PCMA Capital Chapter: What Do You Do When the Circus Comes to Town? Contingency Planning for the New Millennium Planner Workshop

PCMA Capital Chapter: What Do You Do When the Circus Comes to Town? Contingency Planning for the New Millennium Planner Workshop

I attended PCMA Capital Chapter’s planner workshop titled What Do You Do When the Circus Comes to Town? Contingency Planning for the New Millennium on September 16, 2015 at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Crystal City, Virginia. The program consisted of a 2 hour educational session on contingency planning and risk management as well as a 1 hour reception. The education portion was facilitated by Joan Eisenstodt of Eisenstodt Associates, LLC. She is a meeting planning consultant with over 30 years of experience in the industry. I chose to attend this event because it’s content directly related to topics that we discussed in class and I hoped to gain additional understanding on how to implement contingency plans.

We received the session powerpoint slides the morning of the event with an email confirming the details of it. When we arrived there was PCMA Capital Chapter branded signage with directions to the meeting room by the garage elevators and in the lobby making it easy to find our way in the hotel. Joan had set each table with dark chocolate for attendees but also included signs next to them clearly noting what ingredients in the treats could cause an allergic reaction. This small detail was just one example of how important it is to think through every possibility when assessing risk and deciding how likely it is to occur and how it will be managed. While food allergies may not seem very important they are common and the signage that was included was a simple but effective way to manage the risk. 

Some chocolate to get our brains working (The yellow paper is the sign I had)! 

The session was very interactive and asked attendees questions such as “share the worst thing that’s ever happened at one of your meetings?”. While this was a simple question for the experienced planners participating there was an unusual task that went along with it. We were asked to draw the experiences and share them with our neighbors! Touches like this made the session fun. In addition to stressing how important it is to start risk management in the initial planning stages such as site selection we learned more on how to incorporate requirements into contracts. Finally, we got a chance to respond to scenarios created by the facilitator to practice our new skills! 

After the session there was a reception in the attached room for all attendees. The organizers chose a circus themed menu to go with the title of the event. I thought this was a creative touch!  This hour allowed attendees to network and share their thoughts on the educational piece with each other.

Overall, I think this workshop was well developed, facilitated and balanced the education portion with a creative networking reception at the end. As a student member and first time attendee I was not only impressed with the level of education provided but at the willingness of members to network and speak with me.

To share some of what we learned I have posted a link to the powerpoint presentation with some of my notes. To see this please click on the link below.

PowerPoint Presentation Slides with Notes

PCMA Live Webcast

On 11^th and 12^th Nov, I attended two PCMA Live Webcasts, one called “31 Predictions for the Event Industry in the Next 20 Years” and the other one called “by How to Overcome the 5 Most Common Mistakes in Attendee Engagement at Events.” This kind of online meeting is free to register and it is very convenient for us to attend. Since we just went to a field of Social Table, I felt very excited to take the first course by Dan Berger, the Founder and CEO of the hospitality software company Social Tables.

I really appreciated the meeting style. Dan was in his office and we could stay at any place with a laptop, feeling relaxed. As you can see the screenshot below, the live video of Dan was on top left, which made you feel closer to the speaker. You could type anything you wanted to ask on bottom left and Dan would try his best to reply everyone. Besides, the PPT was showed on the right, which was easier for the attendees to follow. The whole meeting lasted one hour from 2pm-3pm.

For the meeting content, there are 10 global trends to be mindful of:

1. Time is the most valuable resource in business.
2.  Events are becoming a strategic marketing product.
3. Software is eating the world.
4. We’re transitioning from bureaucratic hierarchies to technology-driven networks.
5. The sharing economy is not slowing down.
6. Everything is a function space for meetings and events.
7. Everything is consolidating.
8. Traditional education is losing significance, moving online, and becoming free.
9. Business models are changing to due to increased competition.
10. Technology is seamlessly integrating into our lives.

I recommend PCMA Live Webcast to you, because you can learn the ideas not only from the speakers but also from the attendees for what they have typed in the dialog box.

PCMA Webinar

PCMA Webinar

On November 11 2015, I attended a PCMA webinar entitled "Predictions for the Events Industry in 20 years." The webinar was free - you just had to register. The webinar was given by Dan Berger, the CEO of Social Tables. It had a video component in that we could see Dan speaking from his office in DC as well as slides that Dan was changing to go along with his presentation.

The set up of the online webinar

Even though virtual meetings don't lend themselves to as much engagement as in person, there are ways to engage your audience and make them feel included. There was a box set up for chat between all of the participants and a separate box to submit questions only to Dan. He encouraged the attendees to write comments in the chat box to him and one another. There were also polls and around 80% of the attendees were participating in them.

Various polls throughout the webinar engaged the participants
and made them feel like participants rather than audience members.

A big advantage of having a meeting such as this online instead of in person is that people were able to listen in from all over. At the beginning, attendees wrote where they're from in the chat box, and there were people from DC, Boston, Virginia, Australia, Pennsylvania, and Vancouver, just to name a few.

Any time you are using technology, there is a possibility for technical glitches. Dan's video froze briefly toward the beginning of the webinar, but he typed in the chat box that he has an awesome tech, and sure enough within a minute the system was working again. Dan communicated to all of us that they were working on the problem, and they were able to fix it very quickly.

At the end of the webinar, Dan had a question and answer session as well as gave his contact information. Anyone who wanted to find out more about what he spoke about would have the opportunity to do so. After the webinar ended, the program immediately took you to a short survey about the webinar to get prompt feedback on the system and the presenter. The survey was easy to fill out. Participants are more likely to fill it out immediately because they are still thinking about the program rather than if it was emailed to them the next day when they would have to open a new web page and think about their experience again.

What is PCMA?

On Tuesday, November 3^rd, I attended the 2015 PCMA Capital Chapter Rewind event at the Washington Hilton hotel along with my classmates, Bekah and Nicole. PCMA stands for the Professional Convention Management Association, it is one of the event management associations we discussed in our Event Management class. PCMA provides educational, networking and community events for professionals in the convention and business events industry. I have been a member of PCMA for 1 year, but have yet to get involved or attend an event. Fortunately, the Capital Chapter Rewind 2015 meeting was the perfect start to inquiring about how I could get more involved in the field.

Ready to Network!

In my mind, I thought the event would be an actual business meeting but instead it was much more of a reception with programming in the middle (announcing the key chapter highlights of the past year and award winners) and a silent auction throughout. When I arrived at the event, I was unsure of where to start or who to ‘network’ with first, however, within seconds Nell Chadwick approached me. Nell is a PCMA member and a supplier (if you recall from class, a supplier is usually someone who works for a service company/CVB/hotel, while a planner is someone who uses the services of a supplier to plan and operate a meeting/event). Nell is the Director of National Accounts for the Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau and handles sales in the Mid-Atlantic market. She informed me about how active the PCMA Capital Chapter is, holding several events each semester for networking, education and professional development. She informed me that Capital Chapter members all know each other but are very open to new members and the best way to get involved would be to volunteer on one of the eight committees (see below) that are managed by the Capital Chapter’s volunteer Board Members:

1.       Communications Committee

2.       Community Services Committee

3.       Emerging Professionals Committee

4.       Government Relations and Advocacy Task Force

5.       Marketing Committee

6.       Membership Committee

7.       Professional Development Committee

8.       Sponsorship Committee

The Board Members of the PCMA Capital Chapter

I then spoke with another supplier, Jim Stuckeman (Convention Specialist with the Wyndham Hotel in Plano Texas), who said he is currently on the professional development committee and they are tasked with organizing and promoting the various professional development events to both Capital Chapter members and others. He also mentioned that he too was very new to the PCMA organization but that through his volunteer position he has been able to meet a lot of people in the event field, especially those working in the DC metro area. Volunteer committee hours can also vary to whatever you can offer based on your school/work schedule.

After listening to the programming portion of the evening and talking to a multitude of other meeting and event professionals, here are the key insights and observations I obtained about PCMA and the field:

●     There are 17 PCMA Chapters in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

●     The Capital Chapter is the largest of all of them (thus reiterating how DC is a mecca for the events and meetings field).

●     There is a Scholarship Program for young professionals starting in the field.

●     PCMA members are social!

Networking with this group was so easy. In hindsight, I suppose we are all in a field in which you have to be social, open, and at times talkative.

●     Suppliers probably made up 60% of the crowd.

This is interesting because suppliers had to pay $20 more than planners to attend the event.

●     Suppliers weren’t there to ‘sell’ to me or other meeting planners.

As someone who also works full time as a meeting planner, it was a relief to see that the suppliers were genuinely wanting to network and not push their services on me.

●     Everyone is talking about Vancouver!

The PCMA National Conference is held every January and in 2016 the conference will take place in Vancouver Canada. Everyone I spoke with at the event had nothing but great things to say about the National Conference from the exceptional educational seminars to the great networking opportunities.

●     Lots of event professionals MOVE around the field.

I spoke with the outgoing Capital Chapter President, Mary Gallagher, who started her career in hotel sales, then moved to corporate meeting planning, then went to DC area convention sales for LA, then moved to DC area convention sales for San Francisco and finally returned to Convention Sales for LA. Mary’s key piece of advice was to diversify your resume with different types of event planning and then stick with what you love the most (for her, working remotely on the East Coast for a West Coast location was most ideal).

MTA at PCMA Rewind 2015

Overall, the event was a great introduction to how to get more involved in the PCMA Capital Chapter as well as the event management field in DC. I am looking forward to attending the PCMA National Conference in Vancouver in January 2016 (on behalf of the organization I work for) where I will attend the education sessions and of course…network!