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The Future of Corporate Meetings; A Revolution

Which Is The Best Way?

Which Is The Best Way?

Meetings have always been part of our lives. Why is that? Meetings have great impact on exposing people to new ideas and they help them think more.

Meeting in different locales can add to the intended learning of a meeting as each location in the world or in a country has its unique characteristics, such as geography, weather vegetation wild life, customs, cuisine, etc.

Meetings hopefully have been and will continue to take advantages of these differences.

However, we seem to be at a revolutionary crossroads:

The affect of technology on meetings is taking us one way and the affect of budget cuts in another direction. Many have been forced to go the budget cut way. Some have chosen to go in the technology direction.

There is though, another way. Combine those darn budget cuts with the right use of technology.

The major impediment to embracing the “other way” is the large consulting firms. There are corporations paying big bucks to consulting groups who advise them and steer them away from meetings and conferences. There are lots of good reasons to hire a consulting firm, such as helping recognize and improve revenue streams and analysis of different areas of a company. Except, these consultants don’t get people together to learn and to work together. They work either one on one or in small groups. Yes, this can be helpful, but probably not for the greater good of the company. This method produces a silo mentality.

We need to have executive retreats, to begin the process, but then we need the employee meetings, such as sales, marketing, product development, etc. to bring together all or most of the employees to learn and play together.

Rather than the other road, we need to bring back meaningful, useful, educational meetings. The outcomes for the meeting can actually come from the results of the Executive Retreat. Just think, no consultant. Well, maybe a consultant should facilitate some of the sessions of the retreat as this will help to accomplish successful results. The executives will hopefully have recognized needs of the company, found problems and the path to solutions.

Now we have interest in a company wide meeting! That’s a good road to choose.

The planner needs to work with the consultant and probably the C Suite to determine the goals and objectives of the big meeting. They’ll be thinking of why they are having this meeting and select relevant content.

Another crucial element is location and type of venue as these two elements can make or break the event. Consider the demographics of your attendees. Millennials most likely want a different type of venue and thus experience, than Boomers. Of course, too much generalizing may not be good either, therefore, consider very carefully your destination and venue selection.

With valuable content and a destination and venue that compliment the content, you have an opportunity to deliver a conference that has meaning and value to participants and all stakeholders. This should show the value and importance of meetings and will encourage the C Suite to prioritize holding company wide meetings.

Which road will you take?

This Way? That Way, or The Other Way?

Your comments are important.