MPI president/CEO
Bruce MacMillan
is expanding MPI’s
global reach.
There is strength in
numbers. Just ask members of Meeting Professionals
International, now close to 23,000 strong. Chances are, if you
belong to the Dallas-based organization, a fellow planner or
supplier member works nearby and can lend a hand, lend an ear or
lend some expertise.
Hitting such a high number is a real
milestone for the association. With 22,626 members as of September,
MPI officially has become the largest meetings industry
organization, taking over the position long held by the Washington,
D.C.-based American Society of Association Executives, which
counted 22,568 members as of Oct. 22.
MPI was founded in 1972, when 159
people joined what was then Meeting Planners International. The
name changed in 1994, and the group now encompasses 68 chapters and
clubs based in 20 countries. The organization has three
international offices -- the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa)
office in Luxembourg; the Canadian office in Mississauga, Ontario;
and the Asia office in Singapore, which opened Oct. 25.
Staff remodeling
The face of MPI has changed quite a bit
in the past two years. In March 2006, president/CEO Colin Rorrie
Jr., Ph.D, CAE, left the organization, and the search for a new
staff leader did not conclude until last December, when Bruce
MacMillan, formerly president and CEO of Tourism Toronto and a
longtime member of MPI, took over the position.
A number of other staff changes have
taken place since. In February, after veteran association executive
David DuBois left the MPI Foundation to take the reins of the Fort
Worth (Texas) Convention and Visitors Bureau, the position of
executive vice president of the foundation went to Katie
Callahan-Giobbi, late of LA Inc., the CVB of Los Angeles. Around
the same time, Vicki Hawarden was hired as vice president of
knowledge management and member events, and Didier Scaillet became
vice president of global development.
Bren Clevenger-Ori, CAE, CMP, joined
the organization as COO in May, and Cary Broussard came on board in
July as vice president of marketing and brand management.
“While these five had less than one
year of MPI management experience, they have more than 50 years of
MPI organization experience,” notes MacMillan of his key hires.
RAPID RESPONSE
In September, MPI members received a notice that the organization’s online supplier showcase -- the MPI Global Marketplace -- was expanding to include nonmembers (for a slightly higher fee than members) in its directory. The decision to include “outsiders” did not sit well with the insiders, and much debate quickly ensued, notably on both the Meetings Community listserv (
www.meetingscommunity.org) and MPI’s own blog (
www.mpiweb.org/cms/mpiweb/
blog/blog_landingpage.aspx).
At issue was a previous push by the association, called Buy MPI, asking its planner members to support the supplier members. Would the new focus detract from the value suppliers were getting by joining MPI? The organization obviously heard its constituents’ voices, pulling back on the expansion within days of sending out the announcement.
“Any time you put a new product in the marketplace, you have no idea what the reaction will be,” says MPI president and CEO Bruce MacMillan. “People made a number of suggestions that we were able to turn around in about 24 hours. We’re not going to stop doing innovative things, but our commitment to listen and to act on comments is proving to be the right one.” -- S.B.
Beyond boundaries
One of the main thrusts of the
organization is to extend its reach worldwide. As MacMillan notes,
“We’re reflecting where business is going, and it’s increasingly
global.” This push is being overseen by the current chair of the
board of directors, Angie Pfeifer, CMM, assistant vice president,
corporate meetings, travel and incentives, for Investors Group
Financial Services in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
“As we grow globally, the key is to
grow the right way,” says Pfeifer, MPI’s fourth board chair from
outside the United States. “By that I mean we need to understand
and respect the local regions and their cultures. It’s not just
about becoming a larger MPI, but about helping bring value to our
members from their peers around the globe and connecting them to
each other.”
Along these lines, during MPI’s World
Education Congress, held in Montreal in July, Pfeifer emphasized
the desire to turn MPI into a global community. That strategy took
a leap forward soon after, with the debut of the Singapore
office.
Next April 5-6, a landmark event, the
Gulf Meetings and Events Conference 2008, will take place at the
InterContinental Dubai Festival City in the United Arab Emirates.
The gathering is geared for industry professionals throughout the
Middle East and anyone else doing or anticipating doing business
there.
This will be followed by the revamped
Professional Education ConferenceÐ
Europe, now called the European Meetings and Events Conference, to
be held in London April 18-20. The EMEC will offer a dual
curriculum: One will target executive planners and feature
MBA-level presenters to teach advanced business skills. The other
track, for early- to middle-stage professionals, will follow the
model of study for the Certified Meeting Professional designation.
The topics of corporate responsibility and sustainability will be
woven into the tracks.
Chapter by chapter
More than 3,600 people attended the WEC
in Montreal -- the largest attendance ever for the event. Other
members find they get the education and networking they need from
their local chapters.
That’s the case for Elizabeth Halleron,
CMP, a member of the Greater New York chapter since July 2004. The
manager of marketing events for Alliance Bernstein, an asset
management firm in New York City, Halleron spent her early planning
years working for nonprofit groups, a time when “I never thought of
developing professionally,” she says. “When I got into the
corporate world and my events got larger, and more eyes were
falling on our agendas and budgets, then I began to wonder if I had
the right skill sets and if I could improve.”
The best benefit of membership, says
Halleron, is the networking. “I can always pick up the phone and
ask for advice, or ask about a hotel or situation. It’s always good
to have an outside perspective.” She does wish, however, that her
chapter offered more educational programming.
Julie D. Merken, CMP, a member of MPI
for 24 years and of the Washington State chapter since 1992,
believes so keenly in working locally, she spent last year as
chapter president. “I am a strong advocate of the concept that you
get more out of your association the more you are involved,” says
the senior meeting planner for paper company Weyerhaeuser’s travel
and meetings management department, based in Federal Way, Wash.
MPI’s value has run its course,
however, for one senior corporate meeting professional, who asked
to remain anonymous. She has switched her allegiance to the Groups
and Meetings Committee of the Alexandria, Va.-based National
Business Travel Association.
“MPI is for planners, and I’m not one
anymore,” says the 19-year veteran of the organization. “I’m now a
strategic meeting manager, and MPI doesn’t have anything for me on
that level. They can’t articulate for themselves what the
difference is. But I feel I’ve moved on. That was high school, and
I’ve started college.”
“We recognize the expectations of our
senior planner members keep rising,” says MacMillan. “Our whole
approach to developing educational programming has changed in the
last four months, which will be evident at our conference in
Houston in February as well.”
LOOKING AHEAD
“One of our strategic priorities is to evolve into more of a community-type organization.”
--President and CEO Bruce MacMillan
A long-anticipated overhaul of MPI’s bylaws, unchanged in 15 years, is in the works. The governance committee, chaired by Mark Andrew, CMP, CHA, will review MPI’s entire structure, function and communications, with results expected by next June. The committee will be looking to remove some barriers to membership and perhaps create a more flexible fee structure.
“It’s really just catching up with the 21st century,” says MPI president Bruce MacMillan. Already this year, a change to the bylaws was passed to allow the formation of student chapters. -- S.B.
Fountain of youth
The latest chapter to open, following a
change to MPI’s bylaws (see “Looking Ahead,” right), covers the
fastest-growing segment of membership -- students. As a result,
MPI’s student body has swelled by 48 percent to 4,800 members.
The association also is developing a
college internship program. The idea came from meetings with 16
senior pharmaceutical planners. “We have worked with them to find
out their needs and then identify candidates,” says MacMillan. “We
hope to activate the program by the end of the year, so it will be
in place for the end of the spring semester.”
Trying new things
The MPI of today is up for
experimentation. MacMillan blogs occasionally on mpiweb.org, as do
Tom Domine, editor in chief of The Meeting Professional
and MPI’s director of publications, and Rob Price, the director of
web experiences.
A database of member expertise is
growing online in MPI’s wikis (web pages where the community
contributes and creates the content). As of the end of October,
more than 250 wikis had been started, covering topics such as green
meetings, workplace flexibility issues and professional conference
organizers.
Offline, at the WEC in July, MPI
expanded its trade show, MeetingPlace 2007, from the usual
four-hour format to two three-hour segments on Sunday and Monday.
The reaction was mixed, and the old format will be reinstated at
the Professional Education Conference North America, to be held
Feb. 2-5 in Houston. The PEC Expo, once again, will be held on
Monday only, for four hours.
Many held the same opinion as Dave
Scypinski, senior vice president of industry relations for Starwood
Hotels & Resorts Worldwide: “The two days were busy, but not as
busy as it would have been in the old four-hour, one-day format,”
he says. “I’d rather go back to a one-day format and have more
opportunity for education.”
At Hyatt Hotels Corp., Fred Shea, vice
president of sales and operations, is not sure the MPI trade show
still has value. “For a show to work, you have to present
information the attendees can’t get anywhere else,” he notes.
“There are so many other places to get [hotel information].”
An experiment this year aims to address
that concern. Exhibitors can opt to rent “connection spots” to
encourage one-on-one conversations with attendees, or premium
island exhibits in high-traffic locations. Standard 10-by-10-foot
booths will ring the perimeter of the hall for exhibitors who want
to stick with tradition.