MPI’s World Education Congress (WEC), held June 19-22 at MGM Grand Conference Center in Las Vegas opened with a TED Talk-style Opening General Session that mixed up its traditional formula, and the fresh experience unfurled from there.
The Opening General Session was headlined by wellness and alternative medicine expert Deepak Chopra at MGM’s Park Theater and a later performance at the Opening Night Celebration at MGM’s Park entertainment promenade by New Wave standard-bearers The B-52’s (writers of “Love Shack” and “Rock Lobster”).
Attendees were constantly reminded by speakers “to stop planning meetings and start designing experiences.” To that end, all of the opening session speakers were on message, including actual designers Sarah Prevette, founder of the Future Design School, and Bruce Mau, chief design officer for convention management company Freeman, who counts working with Frank Gehry, Coca-Cola and redesigning Mecca as some of his career accomplishments.
“The idea of a passive audience is a thing of the past,” Mau said. “What they’re looking for is engagement and productivity. If you want something to happen it’s either going to happen by accident or design.”
The Opening General Session delved into some of the deeper questions of life, with Prevette telling the audience to check its ego and practice empathy in order to succeed in projects.
“The ego keeps us from hearing what other people are thinking and soliciting feedback,” she said, adding that empathy, ideation, validation and rapid prototyping are the keys to success, guided by honest customer feedback up front. “Nobody wants to hear [their] baby is ugly. Methods and process are key to ‘design thinking.’”
Not to dwell too far into the realm of self-discovery, humorist, advertising writer and creative director Ron Tite, founder and CEO of the Tite Group, told the audience to focus on personalization to turn the “Expression Economy” into the “Experience Economy.”
MPI CEO Paul Van Deventer, leading his fifth WEC, emphasized the importance of face-to-face meetings, and to remain vigilant in the face of mounting security challenges to the meetings and events industry.
“When we meet, we change the world,” Van Deventer said, before augmenting his oft-used phrase with a somber qualifier reflecting today’s security-challenged environment while urging communication with elected officials and corporate leaders. “[If] we can’t meet, we can’t facilitate change, we can’t facilitate advancement.”
Van Deventer also said meeting professionals should look to the world of sports to reinvigorate their meetings to make them engaging for modern audiences, who are distracted by mobile devices and other gadgets.
Closing the opening night speaker lineup, Chopra guided the audience on a journey of reflection and the importance of mediation and self-awareness to physical health, ticking off a list of six practices that are the key to wellness: good sleep, stress management, movement, positive emotions, nature-based nutrition and tapping into negative ions by creating a connection to the Earth through practices such as walking barefoot.
“The lightness of being is the highest state we can be a part of,” Chopra advised.
WEC closed with a performance by rock legends Joan Jet and the Blackhearts at Brooklyn Bowl, an 80,000-square-foot facility at Caesars Entertainment’s The LINQ.
MPI News
MPI WEC 2017 posted impressive numbers, attracting more than 2,400 attendees, according the Van Deventer, with a 60 percent planner to 40 percent supplier ratio. Thirty-five percent of attendees were not current MPI members, which the association views as a membership-conversion opportunity.
WEC hosted 250 hosted-buyer planners for its one-on-one Exchange Floor meetings, and the show offered more than 70 educational sessions.
Van Deventer also announced a major renovation of its website, which is scheduled to be rolled out in December and will roll its chapter websites into a single domain.
The Town Hall Meeting, held on the last day of the show, featured a panel of Freeman Audio Visual Solutions Executive Vice President Jim Russell, MPI Foundation chair; ConferenceDirect CEO Brian D. Stevens, chair of MPI; and Van Deventer.
Stevens said that the association is still struggling back from severe financial difficulties sustained by the 2007 recession, but that MPI is solvent and rebuilding its resources steadily. Van Deventer said that the association’s cash reserves have increased 50 percent this year when compared to last year, and that membership increased 1 percent last year and 2.2 percent so far this year, for a total of 17,400 current members. MPI had a peak membership of 24,000 in 2007 before the collapse, with its membership nadir of 15,500 in the depths of the reception.
Education News
MPI introduced several new education offerings from the MPI Academy at MPI WEC 2017 as part of its new Executive Education Series, including the Women in Leadership Program and a designation program for the MPI Experiential Event Series.
In addition, the association formally announced it is collaborating with the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security (NCS4) at the University of Southern Mississippi to develop educational programming and resources, with the first course—Emergency Preparedness for Meetings and Events—which debuted at WEC.
MPI’s Executive Education Series is the association’s answer to providing more education for senior-level and executive meeting professionals. The programming is not only designed for individuals with executive-level experience in the industry, but also for mid-level professionals aspiring to advance.
“I cannot be more pleased with the progress we have made with MPI Academy since it launched two years ago. Our members tell us year after year that education is one of the most important benefits of their MPI membership so it is important we continue to strengthen our portfolio of offerings with fresh, relevant and timely courses,” Van Deventer said in a prepared statement. “The average MPI member has between 10 to 20 years of experience and they have been seeking more immersive and insightful educational programs that are comparable to what they may experience in graduate school.
“We believe the MPI Executive Education Series will meet that need.”
Following are more details on the new MPI Academy offerings, provided by MPI.
MPI Women in Leadership: Executive Leadership Skills Certificate Course
Developed in partnership with Marriott, this four-hour course examines why it is challenging for women to move into leadership positions and what they can do about it, and helps participants create a personal action plan to overcome some of the common career obstacles women face. It also helps participants identify additional resources available to women seeking leadership roles in the meeting and event industry and involves some pre-work and peer-to-peer mentoring. The course was soft-launched earlier this year and has five program dates scheduled for the remainder of the year.
MPI Experiential Event Series and the Experiential Event Professional Designation
These multi-day immersive educational experiences take meeting professionals behind the scenes of world-class events, such as the Venice Film Festival, SXSW and the Indianapolis 500. After completing 15-25 clock hours of experiential education, participants receive a certificate in one of four main areas of event design: Sports, Culinary, Entertainment or Mega-Event.
Once they have earned a certificate in each of these four areas, they may apply to achieve the Experiential Event Professional (XEP) designation. Candidates have 12 months to develop a final business case and presentation demonstrating application of knowledge gained during the Experiential Event Series, and they have the option to present their final projects live at an MPI signature event or virtually, and receive live feedback from a panel of industry representatives and from their peers.
Emergency Preparedness for Meetings and Events Certificate Course
This six-hour intensive certificate course takes a deep dive into incident management strategies as needed for the prevention, preparedness, response and recovery from all-hazard emergency incidents.
Learners will be introduced to techniques to prevent and respond to extraordinary crimes, violence, terrorist attacks, natural disasters and ordinary incidents such as fights or drunkenness to ensure the safety and security of all attendees, limit damage and restore services in the event of emergencies.
The course was developed in partnership with NCS4, which has a successful track record and proven methodology for creating safety and security best practices as well as strategic partnerships with security resources such as Interpol, the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA. The MPI Academy will present the course in January 2018 during the SITE + MPI Global Forum in Rome.
Additional risk management program dates will be published online soon.
To learn more about these new education programs, visit http://www.mpiweb.org/MPI-Academy.
Click here to check out our MPI WEC 2017 event gallery with highlights from the show.
