Understand ROI in 20 slides pecha cucha style with Elling Hamso

MPI names 2012-2013 Board of Directors

New Leadership at MPI

Who cares about CSR anyway??

Think about it: We are living in the most digitalized world ever. Everything is electronic and information in huge quantities is transferred around the world in nanoseconds.

BUT:

We moved office just last weekend with 400 reusable paper cartons. And as with every move you start to sort out. And what was I sorting out: Tons of PAPER. Printed paper, catalogues, flyers, brochures, of all sorts and of all categories. Selling products and services by sending fat thick catalogues around the world still seems to be very fashionable. And I guess there still must be people out there actually reading a city destination catalogue with 200 pages which by the time it is printed is already outdated and inacurate.

IS there anybody out there that actuall READS them??? I don’t. I have no opt-out solution so I have been sent approx. over 200 kilograms (400 pounds) of 4c printed paper over the last 4 years.

Now I know that the internet also is a very energy consuming media, but it is at the tip, it is acurate and available 24/7 globally.

Dear publishers, dear catalogues producers around the world, I know you will hate me for this, but please do NOT send me unrequested paper, think CSR.

Beginning Of The End Of E-Mail

Are you or are you not sick and tired about the current most popolar method of global communication? Is it not ineffective, time consuming, error-prone, hard to manage and after all to fast to cope? Yes I am talking about emails.

And yes eventually Emails will be gone!!

We will have to get used to new communication tools that enable us to work more efficiently on our daily projects. Emails will not vanish but will have to be cut back to what they were in the beginnings of the digital world: A digital letter. Projectbased communication via email is a waste of time and resources however it is difficult to eradicate.

I found the below article from Lisa DiCarlo in forbes.com. It was written in July 2005, so you can tell the problem is not new but for me personally the situation is getting worse.

NEW YORK - Earlier this week I was reminded of the opening lines of the popular 1980s Whitney Houston song "The Greatest Love of All," which declared that "children are the future" and that adults should "teach them well and let them lead the way."

If that's true, then e-mail may be at the beginning of a long, slow decline in usage. According to a study by the Pew Internet and American Life project, barely 5% of American teens aged 12 to 17 prefer e-mail over instant messaging as their digital communications method of choice. Teens view e-mail as a way to talk to "old people" or institutions like companies. Kids, it seems, prefer the immediacy and mobility of instant messaging and text messaging to e-mail, which they might some day refer to as snail mail, the same way most people over 30 refer to the U.S. Postal Service.

Pew reports that some teens have as many as seven screen names to accommodate their enormous IM buddy lists, which typically limit users to 200 names. Why does any of this matter? Why should you care how kids spend their parents' dough? Well, like Whitney says, these kids are the future and they're leading the way. American teens, an astonishing 87% of whom are online, are what's helping drive the consumer electronics industry, including development of new products. Witness the Walt Disney Co.'s (nyse: DIS - news - people ) foray into the kiddie-cell phone business with Sprint (nyse: FON - news - people ).

Further, millions of today's teens will become tomorrow's white-collar workforce. What they are used to using and prefer to use today will carry over to corporate America in the next decade. As the younger digital generation infiltrates the workforce they will take their preferences with them. They will set the technology agenda. That's not to say that e-mail use is dropping. It is still the most popular Internet application. According to the Radicati Group, over 130 billion e-mail messages will be transmitted worldwide every day this year. That number should more than double to 276 billion in 2009.

Corporate users and consumers will swap 14 billion IMs per day worldwide this year, a figure that Radicati expects will more than triple to 46.5 billion by 2009. The number of free public IM accounts will grow to 1.1 billion in 2009 from 816 million today, while corporate IM accounts will more than double to 126 million in that time frame. Pew says that 89% of Internet users use e-mail daily, about the same percentage as 2000, but that the "popularity of e-mail and intensity of its use is waning" in favor of IM. For corporate users, IM might provide a good alternative to e-mail. The scourge of spam and viruses have not yet hijacked IM services as they have e-mail systems like Microsoft's (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) Outlook.

Further, so-called "presence" technology, which lets users know when and if you are available, are becoming an increasingly valuable business tool. Businesses "see the value of IM and are giving in to users' demands for it," says Teney Takahashi of the Radicati Group. On top of that, Microsoft itself may be helping to marginalize e-mail with the upcoming version of Office. It lets teams of people work together in real time on documents, which bypasses the need for e-mail altogether. It's not likely that IM will ever replace e-mail, simply because the latter is such an ingrained part of daily business life and because the lack of IM standards and protocols inhibit interoperability between different systems. But there's no denying where the momentum is. Just look to the children.

P’CONCEPT JOINS MCI FAMILY IN BERLIN, GERMANY

My team and I are thrilled about the new opportunities and growth potential the merger with MCI will provide. Together with the already existing Pharma Team, our goal is to further develop our live-communication business in the fields of corporate meetings, incentives and DMC-services. Our existing clients will be served with continuous quality and will benefit from the business network and the large global community MCI provides.

p’concept staff and operations will be fully integrated in to MCI Berlin offices, which are managed by Gunda Stickan (Managing Director). As Director of the strengthened Corporate Division, I will drive the Pharma-, Event- and Live-Communication business. The p’concept team will move into MCI Berlin’s Markgrafenstrasse offices end of September 2007.

Following the 2005 merger with the highly established PCO-company Congress Partner GmbH in Berlin, MCI, Europe’s leading company in the meetings industry, is continuing its expansion in Germany with the acquisition of p’concept Berlin, headquartered in Berlin, Germany. Together with the former Congress Partner they will operate as MCI Berlin Office.

p’concept Berlin (“The agency for congress & event management”), was founded in 1991. Initially planned as a Destination Management Company (DMC) for Berlin, it rapidly became a partner for local corporate clients throughout Germany. It then gradually grew to become a pan-European actor. p’concept Berlin has a particular expertise with clients in the banking and financial sector and has a strong client base from the US market. p’concept’s clients include, amongst others, DZ Bank, Vodafone Foundation, McKinsey, Morgan Stanley, Bloomsbury Publishing, Bausch & Lomb, Berlin Tourism Marketing, General Motors Bank and American Chamber of Commerce in Germany.

Polo Looser, responsible for MCI Central Europe, mentions: “With the experienced talents of p’concept joining our MCI Berlin office, we now have a solid base for further growth. This step strengthens our position and our client base”.

About p’concept Berlin
p’concept Berlin was founded in 1991. It uses the slogan “powered by personality” throughout its operations. p’concept Berlin has a particular expertise with clients in the banking and financial sector and a has a strong client base from the US market The company counts 6 employees and reported a turnover of € 1.9 Million for 2006. For more information, please visit the company’s website http://www.pconcept.com/

About MCI
Founded in 1987 and with offices in Barcelona, Belfast, Berlin, Brussels, Dubai, Dublin, Geneva, Gothenburg, Lyon, Madrid, Paris, Petersfield/London, Prague, Shanghai, Singapore, Stockholm, Stuttgart, Vienna and Zurich, MCI is the foremost global Association, Communication and Event Management company. Thought-leaders in building community around brands, products and services for companies and institutions, MCI holds a strategic alliance with SmithBucklin for a Global Partnership. MCI currently employs more than 615 talents and its turnover by year-end 2006, was €118M. For more information, please visit http://www.mci-group.com/.

The end of the CD is near

Turnover figures decrease rapidly. Finally the silver sound carrier really seems to fade away.

Three weeks ago two million readers found a CD in the "Mail on Sunday" of the musician, who today is called "Prince" again. "Planet Earth" as the current album was also presented at the entrance free of charge to the guests of his London appearance .

Now the extravagant publication methods of the dwarf from Minneapolis are as legendary as his early records. But obviously Prince again sharpened his sense of business: What is a CD worth after more than hundred years of recording? And after 25 years of digital self-destruction?

If even local bands do no longer sell CDs at concerts to not endanger their fan t-shirt business? What‘s a CD for 15 Euro worth, if a t-shirt brings 30 Euro and is produced in Bangladesh?

For years obituaries have been written about the CD. Now Robert Sandall who was Director of communication at Virgin Records during the crisis years from 1996 onwards is seriously singing the swan song so one can only comment: “It comes to an end”.

Sandall writes in the reputable "Prospect Magazine" that we are to blame.
In the 1982 CD rush nobody in the industry listened to Maurice Oberstein, Polygram boss at that time who said: "We are giving away our master tapes!"

The short term price duplication for CDs was followed by a disastrous decline in value. Musicians realised that concerts served no longer to promote CDs but the other way round.

The figures: In the first business quarter 2007, compared to last year, world-wide CD business again lost around 20%. Sandall writes about the German market: "82 million Germans converted into a nation of bootleggers, who are spending cents on albums, which did cost 40 DM in former times.

The once largest market of Europe today is not larger than the Dutch." The "Prospect Magazines" does not event count the percentage for Germany anymore. France went down 25 percent, Great Britain 20, America 15. The record store chain HMV halved its business within only a year. More severe than the numbers however are the conclusively voiced concerns about the future.
Robert Sandall thoroughly destroys exaggerated hopes that losses can be adjusted by an exploding download trade (40 percent growth in Germany). For him the download boom is hardly more than a proof for the fact that the music consumption changes and recorded music rapidly loses value.

One accumulates music pieces as rumbling files in cheap devices. CDs and MP3s are what musicians distribute for free, what sticks on magazines or falls out of Sunday newspapers.

In April “Mail on Sunday” was already delivered with "Tubular Bells" to the readers. An album, which established Mike Oldfield’s fame in 1973, above all however it established Richard Branson’s conglomerate Virgin, today a part of the EMI.

While canned music loses out, live performances seem to be moving very dynamically in the opposite direction and are experiencing a renaissance.

If even conservative music buyers, i.e. Heavy Metal fans use free download offers today in order to save their money for journeys to live festivals there is not much to promise to the old CD.

Translated from an article from Michael Pilz, published in the Berliner Morgenpost Newspaper on August 9, 2007.

Ice Lounge in Dubai, Cool?

I got this piece of information today from a German marketing agency promoting Dubai.

Looking at ever decreasing energy resources this bar in Dubai is surely not on the energy conservation side of things.

But then again if you think about it that Dubai is willing to host one of the next WINTER OLYMPICS this icy bar is just the "icing" on the cake of energy consumption.

What comes next? Air-conditioned motorways? Frozen beaches? Ice skating on the Persian Gulf? Beach resorts at the north-pole? Here ist the article:

Dubai has a new attraction: a chill-out bar entirely made of ice. Patrons step into a sub-zero environment with the walls, tables, chairs and even their own personal glass with a cool mocktail made out of ice.

Chillout will be the first Ice Lounge in the world serving a selection of cold sandwiches and salads apart from a range of beverages such as Asian Mount Everest, Canadian MT Logan, The Chillout Mix, Lawrence of Arabia amongst others.

And it's not easy to build. The ice for the Chillout restaurant will be shipped in freezer trucks from Canada to freezer containers aboard ships in Montreal that will embark on a 6,500-nautical-mile voyage to Dubai. In total, four containers, each holding about 23,000 kilograms of Ontario-made ice, will set sail to the Middle East. It will take nearly a month to get there, and the $150,000 worth of ice will take eight Iceculture workers about seven days to assemble into an 1,800-square-foot eatery. But how will they stop it from melting in the searing heat of Dubai I hear you ask? Chillout will be constructed in a large freezer.

Said Ibrahim Sharaf, chairman of the developers, Sharaf Group, “There are a very few ice lounges in the world, and those mainly at places with a cold climate. So, the idea of building an ice lounge in Dubai was not only intriguing but also challenging.”

When guests arrive at Chillout, they are provided with thermal clothing – a designer parka with hood, one time use hand gloves, and protective footwear.
Next, guests step into an air lock, close the door, and open another door that leads into the Chillout’s frozen inner sanctum. To prevent body heat from damaging the pristine surface of the ice blocks, it has a maximum capacity of 45 visitors.

The ice used in Chillout is made by a special process so that it is crystal clear with no opaqueness providing an immaculate look to the entire lounge. Other ice features at Chillout include a seven feet high chandelier, ice curtains, a coloured ice portrait of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and the skyline of Dubai along with other points of interest.

MPI Names 2007-2008 Board of Directors

Meeting Professionals International 2007-2008 leadership assumed their roles July 1, bringing in a board of directors led by Angie Pfeifer, CMM, assistant vice president, corporate meetings, travel and incentives, Investors Group Financial Services Inc., Winnipeg, Manitoba.
In addition to Pfeifer as chairwoman, the Board of Director’s Executive Committee includes:
Chairman-elect:

Larry Luteran, vice president, group sales and industry relations, Hilton Hotels Corp.
Vice Chairman of Administration:

Paul Kennedy, MBE, group exhibition director, Reed Travel Exhibitions
Vice Chairwoman of Finance: Ann Godi, CMP, president, Benchmark360 Inc.
Vice Chairman of Member Services: Eric Rozenberg, CMP, CMM, president, Ince & Tive
Immediate Past Chairman: Mark S. Andrew, CMP, CHA, president and CEO, Andrew Hospitality Inc.
Ex-Officio: Bruce MacMillan, CA, president and CEO

Other members of the 2007-2008 Board of Directors include Marge Anderson, associate director, Energy Center of Wisconsin; Betsy Bondurant, CMP, CMM, Coronado, Calif.; Matt Brody, CHSP, director of marketing, JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort and Spa; Luca Favetta, director global events EMEA–APA, SAP Swisse SA; Caroline Hill, strategic development manager, conference and events, Roche Products Ltd.; Karen Massicotte, CMP, CMM, BA, director of operations, PRIME Strategies; Carole McKellar, MA, CMM, MCIPD, managing director, Resources for Business Group; Michael Owen, managing partner, EventGenuity LLC; Ole Sorang, director of regional marketing–Nordic countries, Rezidor SAS Hospitality; Sebastien Tondeur, CEO, corporate division, MCI; Alexandra Wagner, director of corporate meetings and events, Sun Trust Bank; and Carl Winston, program director, hospitality and tourism management program, San Diego State University.

The board’s European Council Representative is Gerrit Jessen, CMP, managing director, P’Concept Berlin.

The MPI Foundation Board representative is Michael Beardsley, CEO, Inn Fluent LLC. The International Chapter Leadership Committee representative is James McDonough, director training and meeting services, Fusion Productions, and the board’s legal counsel is Jonathan T. Howe, Esq., president/senior partner, Howe & Hutton, Ltd.

MPI to Sign the United Nations Compact on Corporate Social Responsibility

MONTRÉAL (July 28, 2007) – In a bold leadership statement, Meeting Professionals International (MPI) today announced that it will sign the United Nations (UN)Global Compact on Corporate Social Responsibility. The MPI Board of Directors gave the unanimous approval during the World Education Congress à la Montréal.

The United Nations Global Compact on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the world’s largest corporate responsibility initiative with more than 3,700 participants and stakeholders from more than 100 countries. It provides an unprecedented and powerful platform for participating organizations with respect to advancing their commitment to sustainability and global citizenship. It consists of more than 50 national networks in developed and emerging economies and provides an opportunity for signatories to further their corporate social responsibility objectives.

“This is the first step in making a commitment to this growing global focus,” said Angie Pfeifer, CMM, chairwoman of the MPI board of directors. “By supporting the UN Compact, MPI continues to position itself as an industry leader and elevates the conversation for our members by informing them about Corporate Social Responsibility and the role that meetings and events professionals can play in supporting those principles for employers and clients. As more and more successful organizations focus on CSR, it is the right thing to do at the right time.”

There are 10 principles in the UN Global Compact in the areas of human rights, labor, environmental sustainability and anti-corruption. The Compact asks companies to support and enact, within their sphere of influence, these principles as core values.

The global compact is a voluntary initiative to promote good corporate citizenship, a set of values based on universally accepted principles, and a forum for learning and an exchange of experiences.

MPI has retained Wallace and Partners to assist them in developing emerging educational and marketplace opportunities related to Corporate Social Responsibility for MPI’s global community. They also have been tasked with accelerating MPI’s commitment to environmental sustainability at its events, including the introduction of a number of new practices at its World Education Congress currently under way in Montréal.

“One of our four strategic imperatives is to elevate the conversation and experience for our members,” said Bruce MacMillan, CA, MPI president and CEO. “Committing to the principles of the UN Compact is a first step in educating our members about a growing global initiative that will impact their professional world. It is also meant to inspire them to take action and make them more strategic to organizations and clients who have or would like to make a similar commitment.”

For more information on the UN Compact go to http://www.unglobalcompact.org.

About MPI
Meeting Professionals International, the global meetings industry community, is committed to delivering success for its more than 22,000 worldwide members by providing innovative knowledge and learning experiences, connecting people and ideas and creating rich marketplace opportunities. Founded in 1972, the Dallas-based organization delivers global human connections through its 68 chapters and clubs in 20 countries around the world. For more information, visit www.mpiweb.org.

BE SMART

This is a personal love affair that I have with this beauty. My last car was a Range Rover, before that I had a 5 Series BMW.

The Range did about 1 mile per gallon which at German gas prices is a killer (even for a compay car). But as it is with guys and cars the decision to buy a Range was not entirely rational. So when I had enough of it (and enough fun with it, I have to admit) I decided that now it was time to do something about my CO2 balance. So I bought a SMART. And I bought it fully loaded. Only thing it does not have is power steering (tough guy!) and a GPS (I only use it in town). It is a convertable and has the smallest Diesel engine on the market and it does about 60 mile per gallon in town. Now beat that!!

It has this funky semi automatic, no clutch but stick shift. It is fun to drive and once I am in it, I have more headspace than I had in the Range. I will probably have to drive it for the next 100 years to bring my CO2 balance back to neutral, but I am somehow looking forward to it.

SMART in the US in Fall of 2007 at a dealer next to you. From 14.000 US$

P.S. SMART is a Brand of Mercedes-Benz!