Writing this book started on Friday June 1 2007, right after we moved to a new house in the country. Every Friday I took the day off to write in the peace and quiet of a unique piece of land next to a 240 hectare (2.400.000 sqm) natural reserve. Compared to North American national parks (some bigger than my country), that is small, but for me, a 'petit Belge', it is huge. I am an entrepreneur and so I had to leave my team alone on these Fridays but I did not worry a bit about work. That is only possible thanks to the great individuals that make up that team. I want to start with thanking each of them for making it possible for me to do this. Writing this book means a lot to me and being able to concentrate one full day a week is just what I needed.
The house was built in the 70's and it is a neo-modern, white painted brick walls, floor to ceiling windows, one story house. "Clearly inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright!" said a friend form Norway when he visited last week and showed pictures in his facebook of his parents' house, clearly inspired by the same architect. The silence and beauty of the location combined with the authentic modern architecture and the perfect quality of the house made my wife Kristin and I decide to come live here.
In a way this book is about that same combination of the location and the architecture. If I remember well, an ad in a meeting magazine a few year ago shouted "Location, Location, Location!" As the three key reasons for successful meetings. In Google a search for - meeting and "location location location" - results in 331.000 hits. This is in a way the state of the industry today. I am glad I have my found my dream location but without the house, built by a good architect, we can not live there with our two boys. Location for meetings (destination and venue) is well developed in this industry but can anyone tell me where to go to find an architect to build the meeting?
Some people will say I am a meeting architect, but in this book I demonstrate no-one is. This book is about the creation of meeting architecture, ultimately a master degree and its potential influence on meetings and the meetings industry. I asks some questions about the current state of the industry and the book challenges it in a few ways. It addresses a lot of topics in a concise manner: each of these topics needs the space of one book to be fleshed out. This book therefore is not complete; it's the prologue of a series, and like the bibliography it is merely exemplary.
The book may leave the reader with more questions than answers and all these questions need to be addressed in the near future; I do not have ready answers for all of them. It is also possible that this book may generate some adversity or slight irritation, but if that makes people discus the topic, that may well be a good thing. My hope is to get the attention and engagement of a few people and the belief and support of many to make the meetings industry move forward in a direction that is currently covered in the meetings industries fog.
Although I am not a typical constituent of the meetings industry, let me assure you I love and admire the meetings industry since many years and I know it has great growth potential. Like my team, I make a living out of real, face-to-face meetings and let no-one challenge the value of meetings or conferences when I'm around! Meetings are extremely valuable for individuals, organisations, society and economy but the industry does not play that tune like it could. The ignoring of the real value of meetings by the meetings industry is precisely why I had to write this book. The real value of meetings and conferences is seriously underestimated, under-researched and under-documented and the future profession of Meeting Architecture, will address that challenge more than ever and in a professional and scientific way. The industry is in good shape so it is not waiting for my ideas, but I believe Meeting Architecture is a great opportunity to lift the industry to a higher, more strategic level. Getting that seat at the table will only succeed with the industries support.
I wish the meeting industry a stable and strong future,
Maarten Vanneste, CMM
