Life always presents one with many twists and turns. It’s how you react and adapt that makes the difference. Speaker and author Kristen Brown, who spent 15 years on the corporate ladder in senior leadership roles with Fortune 500 giants such as Disney, Hanes, Target and Kraft, was dealt the ultimate wild card in 2007 when her previously healthy husband died of a sudden heart attack in his sleep, leaving Brown a widow and single mother of an infant daughter just as the economy was collapsing during the Great Recession.

Like many who have taken a fairly circuitous route before landing in the meetings and events business, Oakland, Calif.’s Mike McAllen entered the industry after a previous life as a fireman, with an injury forcing him into a career change. And now, as leader of Grass Shack Events & Media, his work life is changing once again. After being solely a purveyor of meetings and events production—it’s still his bread and butter—he’s now involved in broadcasting event content via podcasts. According to McAllen, this growing content channel is but one more tool that speaks to the trend getting attendees fully engaged before, during and after an event.

The momentum of the marijuana legalization movement has created huge opportunities for entrepreneurs such as George Jage, president and publisher of Marijuana Business Media, who is using his background in trade publishing as the founder and president of World Tea News and the World Tea Expo—bridging the gap between buyers (readers) and industry suppliers—to gain leverage in the booming new industry of legal cannabis.

Working in the City of Denver’s Office of Marijuana Policy, Dan Rowland recently planned the Mile High City’s first-ever Marijuana Management Symposium, held Nov. 5-6 at the Colorado Convention Center and described as the “first cannabis event of its kind organized by a government agency.”

As the guy who controls messaging for a “meeting planning” company that’s more than 100 years old, Scott Kellner knows a thing or two about the industry. But the very term “meetings industry” sells it short, as the “experience” is rapidly becoming the marketing vehicle of choice for some of the most powerful, and emerging, brands.