February 2008

MEETING TO CHANGE THE WORLD - MY EXPERIENCE AT PEC-NA 2008

by Robyn M. McCamy, Associate Director of Sales, Destination Nashville and
Vice President of Education, Tennessee Chapter of MPI (TMPI)

I have to start out by saying... I get so much out of these educational conferences. As a relatively new member of MPI (4 years), I walk away with information that not only pertains to the industry but my daily job responsibilities as well. At this year's Professional Educational Conference in Houston, they called it MeetDifferent to capture the flavor of adventure and exploration. We learned new ideas to create a sense of bravery in meetings and events. Below is a short abbreviation of what we did, how the conference impacted me personally and what we did as an organization to start the evolution of change.

Sunday, February 3, 2008
Opening General Session and Chapter of the Year Awards
I loved the Opening General Session. Starting the energy of the General Session was a performance by Texas Southern University’s Ocean of Soul marching band. Following the opening, Bruce McMillan, C.A., MPI’s President & CEO, talked about corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the conference theme. MPI Chairwoman, Angie Pfeifer, CMM, later spoke regarding MPI’s global development and the role we all play.

Opening keynote, author and speaker Tim Sanders, was excellent! Tim talked about Corporate Social Responsibility asking attendees, “If not you, then who?”. He continued to say, “The only reason to have a meeting is to change the world.” According to Tim, businesses will be forced to embrace CSR by their younger employees who have been raised to understand that their survival relies on the kindness of strangers. Tim is the former Broadcast.com business development officer and Yahoo! Chief Solutions Officer and based his theories on his soon-to-be-released book How to Save the World at Work due out summer of 2008. I love that he views our profession as a key way to "change the world." Things are definitely going green and if every one of us did a LITTLE, it would make a BIG difference.
After the MPI Chapter Awards, the event concluded with a performance by the Kilgore Rangerettes. The look and audio visual presentation was stellar. It was produced and sponsored by VT2 Studios and PSAV.

Session - Leading with Heart
I attended an amazing session lead by Steve Gilliland, CSP, Professional Speaker and Author. His session offered insight and wisdom on choosing values, aiming for excellence, maintaining integrity, finding the courage to change and helping others reach their full potential. Steve talked about key attitudes and actions that impact the lives of others around you. I learned that influence is an art and it begins in the heart of a leader.

Networking Event - Rendezvous Houston
This event benefits the MPI Foundation and was held at a cool place in Houston called the Warehouse. It offered an evening of networking, live music and fun. This was a great opportunity connect with other industry professionals we only see at conferences such as these.

Monday, February 4, 2008
Unconference
On Monday morning, MPI held its first Learning Village. The educational experiences and learning space were transformed into the "MPI Learning Village." There were two streets, Technology Way and Unconference Boulevard. Each street lead you to a different type of learning and discussion experience. Conference attendees were free to wander the streets of the MPI Learning Village – joining conversations in the Café Conversations and playing with different technologies in the Technology Playgrounds. We actively demoed and experienced technologies learning about future trends and how these tools can enhance the event experience.

Trade Show
The trade show was set up in a completely diverse way. MPI threw out all those we’ve-always-done-it-that-way preconceptions and took a fresh approach with the 2008 PEC Expo. Instead of row after row of booth after booth, they designed an open environment that produced a different sort of interface. I really enjoyed the straightforwardness of walking the space to see the vendors of interest to me.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Session 1 – Boomers to Nexters in the Workforce
The majority of the knowledge session rooms were set in rounds to encourage interaction facilitating an extremely interactive session. We split up in groups according to our generation. Then we answered a list of questions from the perspective of the alternative generation. This session explored alternative communication and rewards in the workplace. The session also touched on how to be more solution oriented to change your thinking and behaviors when it comes to our own personal generational values and preferences at work.

Session 2 – The “How-to’s” of NetWeaving and Pay it Forward
Okay... this session may have changed my life. I truly believe in this principal and the value of “NetWeaving”. It was an interactive session concentrated on the importance of inspiring meaningful dialogue to transform the process of relationship building. The facilitators helped us all understand the importance of being unique and remarkable so in turn we can be truly referable. What I took away from this was the knowledge that we are all in this together. And the more I find out about a person and their business the more I can understand who in my network has the needs for their personality type or service. I like “paying it forward” and I love when the universe brings it back full circle.

Closing Night Reception
The Grand Ballroom of the Hilton Americas looked like a trendy, high class lounge with multiple stages and rotating entertainment. They had so many delicious cuisine stations and the four corners housed bars and specialty drink stations. The evening was a great way to end a conference and a wonderful representation of Houston’s bands, entertainers and hospitality.

This was a small snap shot of the PEC-NA conference from my perspective. These conferences are invaluable experiences that I would love to share with you. I hope to see you for the MeetDifferent conference in Atlanta, GA, February 7-10, 2009. I want to leave you with some important information on having your own green meeting and starting to “change the world”. Leading by example, this is what MPI did in Houston with true conference CRS in action!

Registration Bags, Lanyards and Airport Greeter T-shirts – All of these products were made from organic cotton, which supports sustainable agriculture. The bags can easily be used again as grocery bags, book bags, travel bags, etc.

Hybrid Technology – Hybrid vehicles were used for some airport transfers.
Donating Registration Bags – Any extra or donated registration bags were donated to a Houston charity after the conference.

Shuttle Buses – The shuttle buses used during the PEC-NA featured ultra-low sulphur diesel fuel (which enables the use of cleaner technology diesel engines and vehicles, resulting in significantly improved air quality), paperless tracking of riders and recycle bins.

Renewable Energy Credits – The City of Houston Energy Management purchased Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) in the name of MPI for the energy consumed during PEC-NA at the George R. Brown Convention Center. RECs are the property rights to the environmental benefits from generating electricity from renewable energy sources. These certificates can be sold and traded, and the owner of the REC can legally claim to have purchased renewable energy. In states that have an REC program, a green energy provider (such as a wind farm) is credited with one REC for every 1,000 kilowatt-hour of electricity it produces. The green energy is then fed into the electrical grid (by mandate), and the accompanying REC can then be sold on the open market.

Water Bottles and Water Coolers – Attendees received a re-useable water bottle which they filled with water at one of the water coolers available throughout the Convention Center.

Community Service Project - Get “Hands On” and Support SEARCH! – Founded in 1989, SEARCH has become the leading homeless service provider in the Houston community, serving more than 10,000 men, women and children each year. Participants visited the SEARCH facility in downtown Houston and participated in various "hands-on" projects such as: painting the SEARCH building, power-washing their sidewalks, sorting and organizing donated items, making sack lunches for distribution to Houston's homeless, etc.

The Foundation for Hospital Art PaintFest® – The Foundation for Hospital Art is a non-profit organization whose mission is to involve patients and volunteers around the world in an effort to use art to transform hospitals and nursing homes into soft, comforting places for healing. Over 30,000 paintings have been completed by volunteers and donated to hospitals since 1975. At the PaintFest® located in the Global Village, participants painted pre-drawn, color-coded designs on canvas. All the artwork was donated at no cost to hospitals in need.

Gamelet – Students developed a gamelet on “How to Go Green at Meetings”

Recycled Paper – All conference marketing materials and the On-Site Guides were printed on recycled paper.

Vegetable-Based Ink – All conference marketing materials were printed using vegetable based ink.
Digital Signage – Digital Signage was used when possible to reduce the use of paper and cardboard
Print Kiosks – These eliminated unnecessary handouts. Attendees only printed what they needed
Recycling – Recycling receptacles for paper, plastic and aluminum were located throughout the convention center

Reduced Lighting – Lighting was used when necessary. They installed motion sensors in the convention center to reduce lighting when not required.
Reduced Water Usage – Motion sensor sinks and flush valves in the convention center helped to save water.

Food Products and Service Ware – Aramark used organic and locally grown food products and compostable service ware when possible at the convention center.
Donating to Local Shelters – Aramark worked with local shelters after the conference to pass along extra prepared food and supplies.

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