Gang welfare: A CMP study
group belonging to the MPI Southern California Chapter gathers at
the Los Angeles Marriott Downtown: a) from left to right, Michele
Em, John Squires; b) Julia Tsai, Katy Metoyer, unidentified; c) Jan
Weiner; d) Libby Zarrahy, unidentified
On a Wednesday evening last October, Julia
Tsai, event manager at the Renaissance Long Beach Hotel, climbed
into her car and joined the long line of rush-hour traffic heading
to Los Angeles. More than an hour later, Tsai arrived at the Los
Angeles Marriott Downtown, where nine other meeting-industry
professionals sat around a conference table, caffeinating
themselves in preparation for the evening ahead.
Tsai and her colleagues were a group of Southern California
meeting professionals hoping to obtain their CMP (Certified Meeting
Professional) designation a credential commonly considered the
foremost certification in the meetings and conventions
industry.
In order to become certified, Tsai and her fellow group members
would have to pass the rigorous CMP exam sponsored by the McLean,
Va.-based Convention Industry Council. To help them prepare for the
January test, they joined a local study group. Operating
independently of the CIC, the groups are formed by local chapters
of the council’s member organizations, such as Meeting
Professionals International and the Professional Convention
Management Association.
Tsai’s group, formed by the Southern California Chapter of MPI,
had 10 weeks to cover 27 subjects, including site selection,
contract negotiation, budgeting, and food and beverage.
Considering the amount of material for review, Tsai came to her
first class feeling apprehensive. “I was nervous because you are
sitting in a room filled with industry people,” she says. “But at
the same time, you know you are all in the same boat and you’re all
going to get through this together.”
With a fleet of study groups meeting nationwide the CIC
website lists more than 100 across the United States and Canada
it’s not surprising that groups can be as varied as their students.
To get a sense of what a team effort might mean to CMP candidates,
M&C took a close look at how one group operated in Southern
California.
Strength in numbers
Libby Zarrahy, CMP, director of sales and marketing at the
Los Angeles Marriott Downtown, has been a study group facilitator
in Southern California for the past five years and also ran the CMP
Boot Camp at the recent MPI meeting in San Antonio. She says study
groups are worthwhile because the test is more difficult than many
people think.
“There is an impression out there that you simply can send in a
check, say you work for such-and-such company and get your CMP,”
Zarrahy notes. “But there is far more to it than that. You need to
be qualified to sit for the exam. Then there are 150
multiple-choice questions one must complete within three
hours.”
According to the CIC, research indicates those who participate
in study groups have slightly higher scores than those who don’t.
It’s not just a question of cramming, say experts: The meetings
also act as a kind of support group.
“When I got the CMP application back in 1999, I honestly
freaked,” says Jan Weiner, CMP, vice president of education at the
Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based MPI Southern California Chapter
(MPISCC). Weiner says her fears subsided, however, after talking
about the exam process with CMP veterans.
Indeed, one reason Weiner helps organize orientations in the
Los Angeles area is to lessen anxiety over the application
procedure, as well as inform candidates about the study group. “I
tell people to set their minds to it,” Weiner says. “This is your
goal, and for the next five or six months, you are devoting your
time to it.”
Getting involved
Most of the MPISCC candidates at this fall 2003 study group learned
about the sessions by going online. The CIC website (www.conventionindustry.org/cmp) is a common starting
point. The webpage offers details on the CMP and contact
information on study-group leaders throughout North America. The
MPI website (www.mpiweb.org/education/cmp/cmpchap.asp) offers
similar links.
MPISCC’s CMP participants pay an enrollment fee of up to $125,
a policy the association says helps defray administrative costs
and reduce attrition rates. Not all groups charge this fee,
however.
Classroom activities
The CMP group, says Zarrahy, spent most of its three-hour sessions
going over material from the CIC’s recommended textbooks: the
Convention Industry Council Manual, Seventh Edition, and The PCMA’s
Professional Meeting Management, Fourth Edition.
For 10 weeks, participants took turns presenting on one or two
subjects, often with PowerPoint slides and supplementary handouts.
Some of the points tackled during these sessions included
negotiating contracts with facilities, setting budgets, helping
hotel staff prepare for meetings and creating comprehensive
marketing plans.
Michele Em, Certified Special Event Professional and a Sierra
Madre, Calif.-based independent planner, gave a presentation on
special events, which she calls “a piece of cake,” as this has been
her area of expertise for over 12 years.
For Lana Markey, corporate events administrator with Los
Angeles-based Sempra Energy, it was hard to get the group fired up
with her presentation on facility contracts and insurance. “They
are very dry aspects of the business,” she says, “but some of the
most important.”
Julia Tsai addressed the group on the Americans With
Disabilities Act and convention centers. “It wasn’t a formal
stand-up presentation,” she says. “I can see where some people
would find it nerve-racking, but most conducted themselves very
well.”
After the presentations, Zarrahy would review the main points
and end the session with a short oral quiz, in what the group
called “family style.” Participants offered their answers, along
with how they came to their conclusions.
For fellow group members, listening to other participants talk
about the material was a huge help. “There’s no substitute for
being in a group and learning from other peoples’ experiences,”
says Em. “It really reinforces the lessons and the advice from the
book.” She notes that she, in particular, learned a lot about
audiovisual equipment and stage management, knowledge she can put
into practice with vendors.
In such tightly knit clusters, participants form relationships
that often continue for years. Members of the MPISCC group often
dined together or met informally to chat about the material. In
fact, members of previous groups report staying in touch long after
taking the test. “In today’s economy, anyone who can refer business
to you is a valuable resource,” Zarrahy points out.
Overcoming hurdles
Balancing work and studies was not easy. John Squires, a corporate
event planner with Santa Ana, Calif.-based Ingram Micro, devoted
two hours per night to studying. Another candidate, who asked not
to be identified, spent many weekends at the library, since her
weekday evenings were occupied with caring for an ailing relative.
Sometimes, busy workloads toppled the balancing act: Michele Em,
for example, was forced to miss the last review session when she
had to plan a Las Vegas event.
Taking the test
For suppliers, who take the test as well as planners, the exam
requires a different mindset one requiring them to think like
planners. For instance, a participant might be asked what follow-up
question to ask when assessing a $15 steak meal option. A planner
focused on expenses might properly ask whether the $15 includes
service charges and sales tax. A supplier, on the other hand, would
logically (but incorrectly for the CMP test) ask how many ounces
the steak weighs. “Sometimes you have to throw your perspective out
the door,” says Tsai.
After nine weeks of study, Zarrahy gave the group a mock test,
which left most participants feeling confident. The practice run,
they said, stuck very closely to the books and the sessions.
For John Squires, however, the final weeks proved especially
stressful. Occupied with planning a symposium in Phoenix, Squires
realized he had spent too much time away from the books. In the
end, he says, “I wasn’t able to put as much time into studying as I
wanted, so I wasn’t comfortable about taking the test.”
Disappointed, he finally decided to skip the exam in January.
Squires plans to enroll in the next study group and will sit for
the CMP test offered this summer.
After 10 intense weeks, the group finally found themselves on
the eve of the exam. To avert test anxiety, members were urged to
avoid last-minute studying and try to get plenty of sleep
instead.
Some participants decided to take stress-reduction even
further. Michele Em opted to rent a hotel room near the test site a
temporary classroom trailer at the University of California, Irvine
and timed the drive to campus. “I got lost, and it took an hour and
a half,” she says. “But the next morning it took only 10 minutes,
so I avoided that stress.”
That morning, the group headed to the test site and collected
their Scantron forms. Three hours and 150 multiple-choice questions
later, the candidates emerged from the trailer. “Some group members
looked confident, while others looked a little pale,” Em says. “A
couple of us went to lunch and had a beer.”
Waiting for results
Looking back, the CMP candidates see the study group as a positive
experience.
At press time, both Michele Em and Lana Markey had just found
out they had earned their designations; the others were still
waiting anxiously for the results. Some expressed a wish to pass,
if only to do their part for the group. “That’s why it’s so nice.
You have a bunch of people looking to you to bring them honor,”
explains Em. “So you work. There’s a good kind of peer pressure
pushing you to do a good job.”
Four months after the study group met for the first time, Julia
Tsai reports feeling anxious but hopeful. “I’m counting down the
days until I get the results,” she says. “I’m waiting to update my
business cards.”