Meeting Professionals International in the next 12 months will dedicate significant financial and technological resources to the development of research and educational content that supports the tenets of its strategic plan, including metrics designed to better measure return on investment and prove the financial value of meetings to senior execs, according to the incoming MPI chairman.
Hugh Lee, president and co-founder of Webster, N.Y.-based meetings production and technology firm Fusion Productions, will assume the association's leadership from current chairwoman Theresa Breining
(Meetings Today, July 7, 2003) at MPI's annual World Education Congress, held in Denver from July 25-27. Lee's main goals will be the further execution of MPI's year-old strategic plan, developed during the chairmanship of George Aguel. "Aguel set the future with the strategic plan to elevate the role of meetings, and Terri Breining brought the organization into alignment around that strategy," Lee said. "My goal is to ensure the transformation of MPI to get to that level, which will be a lot of heavy lifting. My focus is execution."
Much of Lee's plans revolve around the creation of new tools and information for the association's members and their bosses. One aspect of that strategy will be the development of educational offerings that can speak to planners at different points in their professional development. "We want to hit the entry parts of their careers to the senior parts," Lee said. "We want to develop information, resources and tools for whatever point they're in, so they can have methods to solve day-to-day problems. We will need a technology infrastructure to deliver that, and it's a big task, but it's exciting and it's never been done in the industry."
One new offering will debut at the Denver WEC, in the form of an extensive ROI summit. Lee, who has developed and led many ROI-related educational sessions in the past, said the event will include the presentation of measurement metrics and best practices of ROI calculation. "We want to give some teeth to ROI," he said. "At the summit, we will have some of the top names from inside and outside of the industry talking about measuring the effects of programs. We've spent nine months developing processes applicable to meeting planners. We've asked planners to submit their measurement tools as well."
Efforts like these, Lee said, are designed to buttress another pillar of the strategic plan: equipping planners with the requisite skills and tools to allow them into positions of influence in their organizations. Planners can achieve that, he said, only when senior executives are convinced of the financial and strategic value of those skills. "It all comes down to respect, a seat at the table and input," Lee said. "That requires a demonstration of the value of meetings, and that requires a two-pronged approach."
The first prong, Lee said, is a direct appeal to organizational executives as to the quantifiable worth of effective meeting and event management. That approach must be backed with hard data, including some from independent sources other than MPI, he said. As such, the association has retained independent research groups charged with determining the best methodologies to find the most influential types of data and information to present to senior executives.
"It's not a simple answer," Lee said. "We've talked with established research groups to determine how exactly we should go about it. We have to define who the stakeholders are and prioritize them. We have to determine what will be the most credible research that will have the most impact. Our preliminary thought is that third-party information will be much more credible to them. And, how should we deliver that information? Hypothetically, we could ask a business journal that stakeholders read to publish the information."
The second aspect of the approach will be to ensure planners are equipped to operate in tune with the ways in which that research quantifies a meeting's value. "We need to prepare senior meeting professionals to influence management, through leadership academies, the ROI summit and the efforts of the Corporate Circle of Excellence," Lee noted.
He said MPI membership has fared better of late, with the overall total reaching 18,580 at the end of May—lower than the association's 2001 highs, when membership cracked 19,000, but Lee noted member retention has improved.