Meetings Beat - 2004-10-18

MPI Revives Corp. Circle, Ponders Procurement

Meeting Professionals International late last month announced the restoration of its Corporate Circle of Excellence, a group of high-level meeting managers and buyers who meet to develop best practices and research for the meetings industry. Now dubbed the Global Corporate Circle of Excellence, the group will center its work on strategic sourcing, including policy development, education, alliance building and communication. The GCCOE, now co-chaired by Betsy Bondurant, associate director of meeting planning and travel services for Amgen Inc., and Luca Favetta, EMEA global event director for SAP, will guide MPI's nascent focus on the effect of procurement departments and strategies on corporate meeting planning. The association offered a handful of sessions on that topic at its annual World Education Congress in July that addressed issues including procurement, policy, technology and return on investment. "Procurement officers are just one of many senior stakeholders who must be educated about the value of meetings," said MPI chairman Hugh Lee. "MPI's work in this area will continue in order to empower our members with data and tools to influence procurement, [senior management] and all executives about the ROI of meetings and meeting professionals." MPI said it will introduce a new education track with sessions designed to influence executive-level decision makers at its 2005 annual conferences and in January will distribute to chapters a free education session about ROI and executive influence.

StarCite Introduces RFP For DMCs

StarCite Inc. late last month introduced an online request for proposals form designed for use by planners seeking destination management company services. In addition to standard meeting and sleeping room and food and beverage needs, the DMC RFP includes fields for services outside of hotels, including transfers, transportation, tours, spouse programs and special events. StarCite officials said the DMC RFP is patterned after its hotel RapidRFP. Additionally, StarCite also launched an international version of its Web site, following the complete integration of Networld International, which the firm acquired in late 2002.

V-Span Debuts Webconferencing Service

King of Prussia, Pa.-based V-Span Inc. this week is expected to introduce a new Webconferencing solution that enables users to share documents and spreadsheets and integrate with the company's audioconferencing service. EngageWeb will be able to share Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, officials said, adding that those applications are used more widely than other applications. "The vast majority of Webconferences are comprised of a presenter sharing PowerPoint slides, and perhaps other documents, with the meeting participants," said V-Span chairman and CEO Ken Hayward. "These meetings might be internal project team updates, planning sessions, external sales presentations, etc. Most users do not utilize the application sharing and other Webconferencing features found in more complex systems, yet pay for them." Officials said EngageWeb is free when integrated with V-Span's EngageAudio audioconferencing service, but the company will charge companies undisclosed per-minute fees for use of EngageWeb as a standalone Webconferencing solution.

Infinite Conf. Upgrades Tool, Appoints Exec.

Millburn, N.J.-based Infinite Conferencing last month introduced a new version of its Webconferencing service and appointed a new chief administrative officer: Carol Suycott formerly was director of Rockaway, N.J.-based administrative support firm ExecAssist Virtual Assistant.

Infinite's upgraded Webconferencing tool, WebInterpoint, now allows users to poll and query participants during a session and integrate with Microsoft's Outlook e-mail tool to schedule conferences and invite participants from within the application. "We have experienced tremendous growth this past year and feel these upgrades will help meet the needs of our expanding client base," said Infinite president Keith Maddox. Infinite does not charge for use of the new features.



~Chris Davis