CIC Panels To Meet To Sustain Standards Effort

The Convention Industry Council's longstanding effort to develop standard practices for many aspects of the meeting industry continues to move forward, as two panels by February will begin work on the organization's final two topics for its Accepted Practices Exchange program.

The panels of delegates, representing a cross-section of interested industry concerns, will address meeting and site profiles, and contracts—the latter probably the trickiest topic involved—marking the beginning of work on the full complement of topics the CIC includes in its APEX effort. The other five panels handle industry terminology, meeting history and post-event reporting, requests for proposals, resumes and work orders, and housing and registration.

"The panels are fast and furious," said Mary Power, president and CEO of the McLean, Va.-based CIC, an umbrella organization of 30 industry associations, including Meeting Professionals International, the Insurance Conference Planners Association and the Society of Corporate Meeting Professionals.

The seven panels, organized by CIC to begin work roughly inversely to the difficulty and potential controversy their task entails, currently are in varying stages of the standards-developing process. Three panels—terminology, history and post-event reports, and resumes and work orders—have created preliminary reports to be assessed by the industry at large through a series of discussion groups in various cities. Eventually, panels will create a white paper based on feedback on the preliminary reports for approval by a broad APEX commission of industry executives and the CIC board of directors and delegates. Each panel also works in conjunction with a separate APEX technology advisory council.

"The terminology panel is close to putting out a product," Power said. "They've made a big push to develop a searchable online terminology tool." The terminology panel's preliminary report, submitted in December 2001, included more than 2,300 entries.

There are no hard deadlines for any step of the process, Power said, as all panelists are volunteers. CIC continues to turn to fundraising to finance the effort, to date holding about $980,000 of its $1.9 million goal. The first number, Power acknowledged, is lower than CIC had hoped for by this time, likely attributable to a downturn in corporate charity during an economic downturn and following Sept. 11, 2001.

"If there is a strong push, raising funds will be a little easier once people see what we're producing," Power said. "It is a bit tough to do when everything's conceptual. It's been a tough year for everyone."

Power is heartened by interest in city discussion groups, called throughout the United States and Canada to address particular APEX topics. Her goal is to have 80 separate discussion groups.

"People are very interested when it comes to their backyards," Power said, also pointing to a newsletter the organization created in August to drum up discussion group interest.

The discussion groups arguably have had their most direct impact on the RFP panel, Power said, as delegates were asked to submit copies of the best RFPs they had seen or used. "We received 324 different RFPs and only two were electronic," she said. "Goes to show, we think we're on the cutting edge of technology and so much planning is still in Microsoft Word or Excel."

As such, the panel is focused on creating standards that can be applied to basic technology but also capable of incorporating more advanced systems. It is an effort that is applied to each panel, Power said, as the rise of the Internet creates new levels of standards industrywide.

"Housing and registration is a big issue with side issues," Power said. "Now, it's, 'How do you deal with Web fares?' That alone could be a topic."

The APEX project has spanned years from its conceptual origins to its current status, and Power said CIC has no intention of speeding up the process simply for its own sake. "We'd rather take longer and do it right," she said. "Otherwise, we'll come up with something and people will say, 'Is that all?' It's a slow system, but it's working, and it will be a very good system."