The PCMA Global Meetings Community on LinkedIn is a place to pose questions or ask for insights on specific topics to a broad audience, says Michelle Stoddard, manager of global development and programs for PCMA.
“Planners use this when they don’t know where to get answers,” she says.
PCMA holds numerous education programs each year relating to meetings overseas—including sessions at the Convening Leaders conference and a program dedicated solely to organizing meetings outside your home country, called Global Professionals Conference.
Stoddard also recommends CultureGrams (www.culturegrams.com), a quick resource that covers a number of aspects of a destination, including economy, history, government, people and customs.
“It can be a helpful briefing document when you are exploring different countries,” Stoddard says.
MPI is partnered with Richard Lewis Communications (www.crossculture.com), one of the world’s leading companies in the field of cross-cultural communication.
According to Didier Scaillet, chief development officer for MPI and the MPI Foundation, all MPI members have access to Lewis’ CultureActive (www.cultureactive.com) online tool, which aims to provide its students knowledge and the ability to communicate across cultures.
Scaillet adds MPI also has captured some of the content from conference sessions, including those covering global business, at MPI’s Professional Development OnDemand portal (www.mpiweb.org/portal/ondemand).
Cynthia W. Lett, CPP, CEP, director of The Lett Group and founder and executive director of the International Society of Protocol & Etiquette Professionals, offers several helpful tidbits:
- Speak with the cultural ministers at the embassies and consulates—in their cities and in Washington, D.C.—and ask for recommendations for suppliers as well as calendars of National Days and other festivals.
- Take a class, such as the one The Lett Group offers called Managing Protocol Issues (www.lettgroup.com), which focuses on the issues meeting planners will come against in their planning.
- Read the newspaper and subscribe to the U.S. Dept. of State (http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_1764.html) for travel warnings and other information.
