Meeting Architecture

 A search in Google of ‘Pecha Kucha’ results in 474,000 hits.

The FutureWatch 2010 report, by Meetings Professional International (MPI), finds out that ROI is ‘a major preoccupation’ for event planners.

And according to the study Convention 2020 (Talwar & Hancock, 2010), if event planners want to stay competitive in the near future, the two most important needs are to ‘improve the use of technology before, during and after the event’ and to ‘innovate on event formats’.

These facts give us a hint of the main trends that are currently shaping the events industry: the increasing use of innovative formats and technologies and the need for events to create more value.

Lately I’ve been watching closely many different events, and I really see more innovation and creativity being used. Some meeting planners are introducing the latest gadgets in the market to be ‘on the edge’.

However, are these event planners doing their homework and really increasing the value of their events?

Does it make sense to use the most incredibly networking tool just for the sake of it? In my opinion, it not always does.

In the same way that it did not make sense to spend thousands of pounds in opening ceremonies of corporate events, we should learn from the mistakes of the past and this time get it right.

And for me, the answer has been found in a book published by Maarten Vanneste in 2008, the now well-known ‘Meeting Architecture, a manifesto’. For those of you who might not have heard about it, the book is a wake-up call for event planners: if you want to get the most out of your event, you must first start by establishing (measurable) objectives and then design the whole event around them.

Maarten is not alone in his quest to make the events industry move forward: many others share his vision.

Midori Connolly, owner of an audiovisual production company, put it this way in a presentation she recently made on Event Camp Twin Cities: ‘technology is just a toy until it serves a need’ (Minneapolis, US, 9th September 2010).

Even outsiders of the industry, such as Jack J. Phillips, the founder of the ROI Methodology, agree with him. Phillips, together with Theresa Breining and Patricia Pulliam Phillips, has stated that ‘what the industry needs is more alignment and more focus on specific outcomes’ (Return On Investment in meetings & events, 2008).

So how do you reconcile all the different tools available with the objectives of your event? How do you know if you are creating value for your stakeholders?

In other words, how do you solve the puzzle? The answer is using the Meeting Architecture Process.

MAP has also been created by Maarten Vanneste, and on the 2nd and 3rd of September I attended a course in Hertfordshire, UK, to learn everything about it. Called ‘Meeting Architecture – Designing meetings for results’, it was part of the ROI Week, which consisted of 5 different courses on how to achieve and prove ROI, organised by the European Event ROI Institute.

MAP could well be adopted as a standard procedure for event planners. Like an instruction manual, it guides you through all the stages of an event: from the initial analysis of objectives, the design of the meeting, to the execution and finally the assessment of the results. In this way, you are comfortable knowing that you won’t miss anything and probably, you will be amazed by how much you can do with your event, which otherwise you wouldn’t have think of.

It is a tool that helps you to think about what you can do before, during and after the event to reach your goals, at all levels: from choosing an innovative concept to trigger the learning, to selecting the right technology to boost the networking. Besides, it is embedded with concepts from the ROI methodology, which assures you that this method is really based on research.

Does it sound like hard work though? Well, there are no shortcuts and you’ll certainly have to spend more hours in each project than you used to. But think about the benefits: if you can justify to your client every single thing that happens on the event with sound arguments, and even more, provide him or her with the ROI of the event, don’t you think you would stand out from the crowd?

If you are interested in knowing more about MAP, then I’d recommend you to join its community on LinkedIn called ‘Meeting Architecture’, where you can interact with like-minded people and stay tuned with the latest developments of this ‘movement’.

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