Nov 01
Ashley ChalmersTips for Meeting Planners ASAE & the Center, green meetings, meeting education, Washington DC
Here is an exciting, free learning opportunity for association professionals in the Washington, DC area that sounds too good to pass up! It is also being put on by our industry partner, The Convene Green Alliance:
What: Carbon Footprinting Made Easy 
Learn about today’s green meeting trends and define and explore renewable energy credits, carbon offsets, and other resources that meeting professionals can use to reduce the carbon footprint of future meetings.
When: November 8, 2011
Where: ASAE Headquarters Conference Center
Cost: FREE to association professionals
Registration and Additional Information: www.convenegreen.com
CP Director of Communications, Al Rickard, CAE, will be attending the event (and sharing the highlights with us). Say hello if you see him there!
Aug 09
maureen-pickellTrade Shows ASAE & the Center, Event Industry Networking, st. louis
Followers of the CP.com blog who are restaurant connoisseurs – take a look at this menu:
White mac with spinach and artichokes, grilled vegetable and faro salad, pistachio and prickly pear salad, and ancho roasted chicken with pineapple salad.
No, I wasn’t dining at one of St. Louis’ finer restaurants…this was actually the lunch served Sunday at the ASAE Conference in the Expo Hall. Kudos to the catering service – and especially to their chef who came out from behind the scenes to see how everyone was enjoying the fare! Just another glimpse into the splendid hospitality extended by St. Louis and its provider partners.
Aug 08
maureen-pickellTrade Shows ASAE & the Center
Your CP.com blogger got up early yesterday morning in order not to miss the speaker at the Opening General Session – Tina Brown. She is currently editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast, a news and aggregation website that has become one of the most visited sites since its launch in 2008.
Tina Brown
Last year “The Beast” merged with Newsweek magazine and together the two outlets combine “the warp speed 24/7 website with the depth, analysis and investigative power of a great print magazine,” as Brown puts it.
Your attentive Blogger couldn’t help but notice several similarities between The Daily Beast and CP.com. While Tina and her journalists scour the air waves to “curate” the most relevant stories to feature on the site, the CP staff finds the best suppliers to facilitate our planners job of placing events. In both cases, the sites deliver what the reader needs to know – and nothing more.
More to come…
Aug 08
maureen-pickellTrade Shows ASAE & the Center, Event Industry Networking, st. louis
“Heat me in St. Louis” could be this summer’s slogan for the city hosting the ASAE Annual Meeting & Expo being attended by your intrepid ConventionPlanit.com Blogger.
The three day conference with 5,000 attendees launched with the opening night reception held Saturday evening. With temperatures in the upper 90′s, the event was held outside on the grounds below the famous Gateway Arch.
Atendees had a wonderful time enjoying local cuisine presented by twelve St. Louis restaurants – ranging from char-grilled oysters, pizza and steak sliders to St. Louis’s own gooey butter cake and frozen custard.
Things “sizzled” even more when performers took the stage and showcased the city’s diverse musical influences. From local jazz singer Erin Bode to former Doobie Brother Michael MacDonald to St. Louis rapper Chingy, the evening was filled with eclectic sounds. A fantastic fireworks display capped the evening.
St. Louis may be reknowned for the 1904 World’s Fair, the Cardinals and Anheuser Busch – but they are also going to be recognized as a great city for a citywide event by the end of this meeting!
More later…
Jul 20
Ashley ChalmersNews, Trade Shows ASAE & the Center, meeting experiences, meeting guru, st. louis
Have you seen or heard about The Meeting Guru popping up at event industry functions lately?
What’s he all about? Is he a real meeting guru?
We went straight to the source to find out the scoop.
The guru is an elaborate marketing campaign for St. Louis during the months leading up to the ASAE Annual Meeting, August 6-9, 2011, at the America’s Center® convention complex in St. Louis.
“The inspiration for The Meeting Guru was Michael Scott’s character on the television show The Office,” explains Brian Hall, Chief Marketing Officer for the St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission. In the show, Michael Scott plays the role of the boss, who Hall describes as “arrogant and cocky but oblivious to the fact that he is a bumbling idiot. We wanted to create a Michael Scott-like character that people would enjoy laughing at.”
We found The Meeting Guru to be most similar to “Ace Ventura,” one of our favorite Jim Carey characters. His exaggerated body language and eyebrow raise are spot on! (All righty then!)
Yours truly and CP Sales Director Carol Mills had the distinct pleasure of chatting with the Meeting Guru at the Springtime Expo in April
The Meeting Guru has been patrolling the meetings industry, promoting his “book,” The Meeting Guru: The Quintessential Guide to Successful Events.
At every turn, there he is, with a Mr. Spock-style raised eyebrow, an all-knowing smirk and even his own entourage.
“I’ll sign a copy of my book for you at the ASAE Annual Meeting,” he claims, “If there are any left!” (Don’t expect to find any).
In a series of funny videos on The Meeting Guru website under the “Guru Speakers Series” tab, the Guru delivers interesting and useful facts about St. Louis as a meeting destination, amidst a blizzard of half-baked business advice (with PowerPoint) and self-promotional one-liners.
The website also features “Guru Resources” (guess what city they are in) and a “Guru Gift Shop” (most items are “sold out”).
The website also claims that The Meeting Guru “has held event planner positions on 6 of the 7 continents.” But Hall insists “he has only planned meetings here in St. Louis because he knows better!”
“Thousands of people have visited the website and checked out the videos,” Hall adds. “The number of people who have clicked the social media sites has been really encouraging. People enjoyed the joke and thought the antics of The Meeting Guru were very entertaining. We wanted to find a way to get people’s attention in an unconventional way and put a smile on their faces.”
Hall says that in the St. Louis booth at the ASAE Annual Meeting the meeting planner wannabe will “meet with the real meeting gurus of St. Louis who are members of our Customer Advisory Group.” Together they will explain to attendees what makes St. Louis a great place to hold meetings and events.
Hall says that in real life, The Meeting Guru is an accomplished St. Louis-based actor who has appeared on television network programs.
Click here to learn more about St. Louis. “It’s cosmo without the clutter,” according to the Guru.
And, if you’re attending the Annual Meeting, be on the lookout for ConventionPlanit.com team members Maureen Pickell (a frequent blog contributor), Julie Roberts and Al Rickard at Booth #2421.
Jun 01
Ashley ChalmersTips for Meeting Planners ASAE & the Center, green meetings, social responsibility
Organizations are beginning to place more importance on developing social responsibility strategies – which help accomplish business goals and reinforce values of an organization.
At a recent ASAE Convene Green Alliance CGA) Focus Forum, Jim Clapes, manager of conferences and events for the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), detailed why and how his association has conducted several legacy projects at USGBC annual meetings during recent years.
In 2008, for example, USGBC members volunteered to develop a green building education program and successfully integrated it into the K-8 curriculum in the Boston school system.
“We tried to capitalize on the building industry that was happening in Boston at the time,” Clapes explained. “The American Institute of Architects and the Boston Society of Architects were both meeting in Boston that spring, so that was a nice tie-in.”
The success of that effort drove USGBC to sponsor two legacy programs in Phoenix at its 2009 Annual Meeting. There, members built a net-zero energy LEED Platinum home that was given to a needy family at the end of the conference. The organization also built a solar commons in the light rail right-of-way that will provide solar energy for the Phoenix community for years to come.
In 2010, USGBC obtained community grants to conduct six legacy projects at its Chicago annual meeting, including building a Habitat for Humanity home, creating a mobile food market for underserved communities, planting a rooftop recovery garden, assisting a family shelter service, teaching elementary school students about environmental issues, and helping underprivileged youth with cleanup and environmental sustainability projects.
Clapes offered these tips to meeting professionals looking to create legacy programs:
- Identify the needs of the city/community in which you are operating an event
- Work with local communities (conference host committee, organizational chapter leaders, and experts) to select the highest value needs
- Leverage corporate partnerships and other nonprofit partnerships
- Measure the community impact and tell the story
Has your organization developed a social responsibility strategy? What are your thoughts on legacy programs? Share your challenges and success stories with us!
Apr 29
Ashley ChalmersTrade Shows ASAE & the Center, Event Industry Networking, Keep America Meeting, Trade Shows
Yesterday many of your favorite ConventionPlanit.com staff members attended the ASAE Springtime Expo at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
If the judging is up to us…we rule the event a total success!
The educational sessions were chock full of information (more on these later), and the General Session was pretty motivating, thanks to Bert Jacobs, Co-Founder of the popular clothing brand Life is Good.
Then it was onto the Expo Hall, which was filled with more vendors than ever! We are, of course, partial to the ConventionPlanit.com Booth!
Katherine Markham, CHME and Maureen Pickell, CTC at the CP Booth
We saw some familiar faces and many new ones at our booth. Much of the day was spent dancing to our catchy meeting planning music video, which was on display at the booth. Meeting planners can share in the fun of the video by entering a predict the future contest!
Another highlight were our friends from the Anchorage CVB, who generously sponsored our Grand Prize…a trip for two to Alaska! The gals even put together an adorable prize package, with a stuffed brown bear, moose and a gorgeous photo book of Alaska. We’ll show some photos of the prize early next week!
Sep 13
maureen-pickellContests, Places to Stay, Trade Shows anchorage, ASAE & the Center, memphis
This comes under the category of “better late than never”… we want to recognize two ConventionPlanit.com supplier members who were winners of the booth contests at ASAE’s Annual Meeting.
The Anchorage CVB came in third and the Memphis CVB won an honorable mention…both for inline booths. Nice to see that the judges appreciated the efforts of Anchorage and Memphis to attract and focus planners on their destinations.
To see how they continue their marketing efforts to meeting professionals after the trade show is over, look up their listings on www.conventionplanit.com!
Aug 25
maureen-pickellTrade Shows ASAE & the Center, attendee interaction, meeting industry, Tips for Meeting Planners, Trade Shows
The ConventionPlanit.com dynamic duo, Julie and mysef, attended a session entitled “What is the Future of tradeshows?” and learned a lot about charting the course for a new business model.
Instead of “re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” (as one supplier succinctly put it) we should be polling association members, staffers, meeting planners and exhibitors all to come up with a trade show that lives up to everyone’s expectations…as well as providing ROI.
The night ended with Cindy Lauper…talk about a “Grand Finale!”
Aug 24
maureen-pickellTrade Shows ASAE & the Center, economy, meeting industry
Second day of the ASAE Expo.
Haven’t seen any celebrities..unless you count the famous meeting planners who have stopped by the ConventionPlanit.com booth to view the website.
General sessions have been very creative with yesterday’s offering attendees a special screening of their very own sitcom…”Guilt By Association.” Humor abounded in a storyline that followed the trials and tribulations of association execs. studying for a CAE exam. As you can imagine, this is a topic that can be mined for lots of laughs:)
There are always quotes galore at a state of the industry breakout session…my favorite so far is this bit of enlightment:
“We have data indicating that things could turn around – provided they don’t get worse.”
See you tomorrow…
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