PCMA Today

Building a strong team,
developing new sponsorship
partners and promoting
greener meetings are all part
of the agenda for PCMA’s CEO,
Deborah Sexton, shown here
in her office in Chicago’s
McCormick Place.

Founded as a society for health-care association executives in 1957, the Professional Convention Management Association is quietly celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. In fact, the party took place last year, at the 2006 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, where in 1956 a small group of executives first gathered to discuss creating a formal organization.

Over the years, the society became known as the place for meeting planners from all kinds of associations to network and learn, but as PCMA’s reputation for offering quality, in-depth education grew, planners from for-profit organizations started joining.

The 6,000-member group’s current makeup is about 44 percent planner members and 56 percent suppliers. The planners, who average about 10 years’ tenure in the industry, are primarily from associations (63 percent); however, 15 percent work for corporations, while 10 percent are independents. Association executives and other meeting professionals make up 6 percent each. The current chair of the board of directors is its first independent planner, Sharon DelaBarre, CMP, who runs her eponymous business out of Sequim, Wash.

New partners

So far, the 21st century has presented its share of challenges to PCMA, but the ship seems to be righting. In 2000, the association moved its headquarters from Birmingham, Ala., to Chicago, at the same time adjusting to new leadership as longtime president and CEO Roy Evans Jr., CAE, retired.

The organization went through two other CEOs by March 2005, when Deborah Sexton was hired away from the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau to fill the position. “My initial goal was to stabilize the staffing,” says Sexton. “There had been a lot of turnover for a number of reasons. I had to build a strong team to support what PCMA is all about.”

Another challenge for the organization was the fallout from 9/11, when sponsorship dollars were next to impossible to win. Sexton says PCMA is trying to reinvent its relationship with suppliers with a partnering program, now in its first full year, headed up by chief partner relations officer Sherrif Karamat. By July, 85 percent of this year’s partners had reupped for 2008.

“We needed to examine how we deliver to these strategic partners, because the old sponsorship relationship doesn’t exist any longer,” Sexton says. Individual contributions like coffee breaks or lanyards at the annual meeting no longer are offered to single sponsors. Instead, suppliers can buy into opportunities to help PCMA create new programs and tools to help members do their jobs better.

For example, the Canadian Tourism Commission helped PCMA establish the invitation-only Executive Edge program, offering business sessions created in conjunction with such vaunted institutions as the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

In another partnership, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide chose to launch Meeting-Metrics with PCMA this past February. Developed by New York City-based GuideStar Research, MeetingMetrics is a meeting performance-measurement service that helps planners calculate return on investment.

The new partner program “was a smart way for PCMA to go, because any vendor or supplier is looking for a measurable return,” says Christie Hicks, senior vice president of global sales for White Plains, N.Y.-based Starwood and a 22-year member of the association. “Absent having one-on-one time with customers, there are better ways to get that return than putting the banner up or buying the conference bags. The little-party-favor days are over.”

Member focus

PCMA has 16 chapters so far, the board having approved their formation in 1990. The latest to join, chartered in 2002, is called POWER, for the Pittsburgh, Ohio, West Virginia and Erie Region.

Christine Melendes was hired in June as PCMA’s member relations director, charged with several objectives. “Our goal is not numbers; we’re out for quality education,” says Sexton. “I want to improve the retention percentage. If we can improve it by a few points a year and keep it in the 80s, that would be good. Then we can go out and look for new member prospects.” PCMA’s current retention rate is 75 percent.

PCMA’s bylaws decree that only planners can chair the board. The current slate features 14 -- including Kati Quigley, CMP, group manager of events for Microsoft -- and four suppliers.

When asked what keeps them coming back to PCMA, members tend to put education first and networking second.

“I got an inquiry [from the group] when PCMA started to open up more, welcoming other planners,” says DelaBarre, who has been an independent planner for her entire 30-year career and a member for more than 15 years. “They had the kind of education I needed.”

Not that the opportunity to meet peers and suppliers didn’t count. She adds: “I was struck by how little of an old-boy network I found. I felt included. And I wouldn’t have been able to function on a higher level [without those networking opportunities]. You need the contacts on that national level.”

It’s networking first for Patricia Mahoney Rivera, national director of meetings and travel for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International in New York City and a member since 1995. “The relationships I’ve made have helped me professionally as well as personally,” she says. “If there’s a challenge on the job, you have a long list of colleagues and friends ready and willing to share experiences.”

A hallmark of the yearly meeting is its lack of a trade show, so planners and suppliers interact in sessions and at meals without a scripted opportunity for suppliers to pitch their products. “One of my board members pointed out that you sit next to peers and suppliers, and you’re here to learn,” says Sexton. “I don’t feel the buyer/seller relationship as much.”

Outside learning

In order to give education opportunities to those who aren’t able to attend the annual meeting, PCMA offers a number of free-standing events and online programs.

The newest is the online Live Learning Center, which launched in June. The center will offer live programming from the annual meeting and the Leadership Conference, plus stand-alone sessions. Already available are recordings of sessions from the 2007 Annual Meeting and the 2007 Leadership Conference, along with presentations, handouts, speaker biographies and other resources. The sessions are free for attendees; members and nonmembers pay fees for various parts of the content. The association hopes soon to offer a system for awarding continuing education credits to those who complete online sessions.

Also online, PCMA has a Certified Meeting Professional study course -- the only web-based one in the industry. And coming soon is a totally revamped website, going live possibly by November and definitely in time for the 2008 Annual Meeting in January.

Green efforts

Last January’s convention marked the association’s first try at a “zero waste” annual meeting at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. All paper products and promotional materials from meeting rooms were recycled, all leftover food was donated to a local food bank or composted, and all bottles and cans were recycled. Other materials such as badge holders had to be thrown away but might be recycled at future events.

Continuing its support of such efforts, PCMA’s new Masters Series Ñ forums featuring expert education on business topics Ñ in June featured a program called, “EC is the New PC: How to Make Your Association More Environmentally Conscious.”

“We don’t necessarily feel comfortable that we know how to deliver a green meeting,” says Sexton. “But we gave the encouragement to begin the process and learn new ways to become environmentally responsible.” She adds that the organization will be creating information for its members to put in their contracts and RFPs.

Up next

PCMA’s main tenets -- education, advocacy and research for senior-level executives in the industry -- are about to go under the microscope, as the board and the staff reevaluate the current strategic plan, which is almost three years old.

“I’m hoping our revamped strategic plan will have a little more emphasis on the advocacy part,” says DelaBarre. “We’ve stepped out over the last couple of years to enhance the research to support the education. But we don’t advocate for ourselves or for our industry enough.”

Sexton looks forward to learning where the board wants the organization to be in the next 18 months or so. And both women emphasize the need to address issues raised by the membership.

“We’re continually trying to increase our responsiveness to ideas and problems that are facing our industry and our individual members,” DelaBarre adds. “It is a very member-friendly organization, and that is what I want our members to know and to feel.”