Skift Take

Conferences and conventions need to be re-imagined as mass-personalization platforms that segment audiences into different sub-groups to provide greater returns for individual attendees.

The Future of Meetings & Events

There’s a growing focus in the meetings industry around segmenting event design for the individual attendee by developing sub-meetings for different groups. In effect, meeting planners are creating platforms for mass-personalized value exchange, similar to companies driving the digital platform economy.

“It’s about the race for relevance and trying to really find your tribe,” says Dave Lutz, managing director of Velvet Chainsaw Consulting. “I think, over time, people are getting smarter and more precise about what those tribes might look like, and trying to have ‘birds of a feather’ come together by design more than by serendipity.” Read the full Skift story here.

Kickstarter co-founder Charles Adler makes the same assertion. Now part of the FreemanXP group, he says, “Any event is a platform for creative expression, from the artist in the back of the house producing the whole thing, to how people work together creatively to enhance the experience or potential of what can be done. You just have to view the event from the perspective of how it can enable people to do what they want to do.”

—Greg Oates, meetings editor

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Next Generation Event UX

Why Meetings Within Meetings Matter for Large Events: The purposeful creation of meetings within meetings is important for the continued vitality of large meetings because it offers attendees focused discussions and connections in intimate settings, with more opportunities to plug in to the dialogue. “Meetings are increasingly focused on participant-driven learning,” says Adrian Segar, founder of Conferences That Work. Read more at Skift

Rethinking Events as a Platform for Creativity and Innovation: Charles Adler, co-founder of Kickstarter, proposes the value of designing meetings and events as platforms. He says, “I don’t like to view technology as a product but rather a platform. As an example, Kickstarter is a platform. Technology is involved, of course, but it is a means to another end — helping entrepreneurs get their projects off the ground.” Read more at FreemanXP

Planning International Meetings in the Era of ‘America First’: Although it hasn’t been implemented, Trump’s travel ban is shifting global sentiment and corporate policy with regard to international meetings. However, some prominent meeting planning organizations argue the impact is minimal. Read more at Successful Meetings

The Blurring of B-to-B and B-to-C Lines at Mobile World Congress: The next generation of retail experiences and the latest insight into shopping behavior are inspiring new thinking for trade show exhibitors, who are attempting to deliver brand experiences that marry the business, tech, and consumer sectors. Read more at FreemanXP

Planning Specific Business Outcomes With Advanced Meeting Design Strategy: Bruce Mau, co-founder and CEO of Massive Change Network, will be a keynote speaker at MPI’s upcoming World Education Congress in Las Vegas, themed around: “Stop planning meetings, start designing experiences.” Mau says, “Design is a method of leadership. With design thinking we have the capacity to envision our future and systematically build the vision.” Read more at MPI

Destination Disruptors

Building A Tech Hub: Why Conventions Mean More To Las Vegas Than Just A Tourist Draw: This is an overview of Skift’s recent research report examining how cities are leveraging conventions as innovation and economic accelerators. Richard Harper, co-chair of Meetings Mean Business, is quoted saying: “This report showed that the meetings industry is evolving into a global innovation distribution channel. State and local governments are getting behind it, they’re seeing the benefits of the interaction of the attendees when they come to town. It’s drawing business, it’s drawing residents, it’s drawing intellectual capital.” Read more at Las Vegas Sun

Airbnb, Civic Entertainment Group Win Event Marketer’s Best Campaign Of The Year: Using an entire city as a branded backdrop in Los Angeles last year, Airbnb and Civic Entertainment Group pushed the boundaries of business-to-business events by aligning the home-sharing company’s tagline “Belong Anywhere” and the overall conference design. Read more at Event Marketer

U.S. Is Top Country, Paris Is Top City in 2016 ICCA Rankings: While the U.S. typically tops the International Congress & Convention Association’s annual rankings for the most popular meetings destination in the country-wide category, it’s a bit of a welcome surprise to see Paris move into the top spot among global cities. Read more at Meetings & Conventions

Meetings Mean Business Coalition Goes Global: The Business Events Industry Coalition of Canada, founded in 2009 to advocate on behalf of the Canadian meetings industry, is the first to execute the Meetings Mean Business licensing agreement and will soon be rebranding as Meetings Mean Business Canada. Read more at Corporate Meetings Network

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The Skift Meetings Innovation Report is curated by Skift editor Greg Oates [[email protected]]. The newsletter is emailed every Wednesday.

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Tags: meetingsiq

Photo credit: Airbnb Open 2016 won Event Marketer's best event award for last year. Airbnb

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