Welcome to the Daily Plan-It (published quarterly) designed to inform and inspire your meetings and conferences to higher levels of success! Read on for ideas and tips to expand the strategic importance of your meetings, enhance your delegates’ satisfaction, reduce costs and help the planet. Further ideas and information can be found at www.meetingstrategiesworldwide.com. If you prefer to not receive future issues of the Daily Plan-It, please contact editor@meetingstrategiesworldwide.com.

In the News & Announcements

Please help us give a warm welcome to our newest team member. Cija Huntley is our talented new registration manager.

WE'VE LAUNCHED MEETGREEN^SM!! You've asked for more green meetings resources and Meeting Strategies Worldwide has answered. Check out our exciting new website and line of products developed to help you produce better green meetings. MeetGreen

Is My Meeting Green?
By Amy Spatrisano, CMP

We're often asked, "How do I know if my meeting is green?", "If I provide recycling or use china service, does that make it green?" - Good questions. The fact is since our industry has no standards or approved practices for a green meeting, it has been difficult to assess the "greenness" of meetings.

As an editor's note before I begin: We have avoided using the articles in this e-newsletter to directly or obviously promote our business services or products. However, we felt it was important to share with you a tool we've created as a solution to "Is my meeting green?" So, please forgive us if you find this too much of a sales pitch. Truly our intention is to inform our readers about how this tool was created to help you.

The tool is our new MeetGreen^SM Calculator. We've taken years to develop this online tool that we feel will revolutionize how you measure the environmental impact of your meetings. Maybe that's just how we feel, but I encourage you to check it out www.meetgreen.com.

The evolution of our tool: The tool represents years of collecting data and implementing green meeting policies and procedures for our clients. We've been using this tool internally as a way to measure the "greenness" of our meetings for about 2 years. Then, one of innovative staff suggested we make it an online tool that others can use.

So, we began by using the Convention Industry Council Green Meetings Report as a foundation of measurable green meeting practices. The report is the only published document in the meetings industry that has been approved by 30 industry associations. From the report we created almost 100 survey questions most of them requiring quantifiable data for verification as the basis of the tool. The next step was to have our processes and measurement criteria assessed by an advisory council of environmental industry professionals. Using their feedback, we adjusted, refined and produced the tool in its current form.

The tool is the only measurement tool on the market currently that measures meetings in all the areas of meeting management. We are banking on the old adage "what gets measured, gets managed" in hopes that others will begin to implement green meeting practices. We sincerely hope you find this tool is a fabulous way to benchmark and assess the progress of greening your meetings.

Web 2.0 -- What It Means for the Meetings and Events Industry
Corbin Ball - Guest Expert Contributor
Copyright 2006 Corbin Ball Associates

Meetings bring people together -- it is the most fundamental job that meeting professionals do. Our industry is highly social, mobile and collaborative. These characteristics are ideally suited for benefit from the online transformation that is occurring. Web 2.0, the second generation of the web, brings richer and more efficient means of planning, collaborating, communicating and promoting events.

Web 2.0 comes with a whole new vocabulary that meeting professionals should understand. This article will sort through some of the terms and discuss why it is important for our industry.

What exactly is Web 2.0?
Web 2.0, more aptly named the "participatory web," enables users to collaborate and share online information more easily. It is a blanket name for number of advances combining to provide a richer online experience:

Wikis: Wikis are interactive websites allowing teams to add, remove, share, exchange and edit/change the content.

Web Services: This group of applications is an alphabet soup of acronyms, but at the core they allow different web-based databases and software applications to work well with each other.

Web Syndication: Users subscribe for new specific content from many sites delivered automatically directly to their desktop in one neat package - a much easier system than having to go to each web site or blog for new content.

Social Software: This broad range of applications allows people to connect, collaborate and generate content online, and includes blogs, Wikis, and web collaboration tools.

Online Collaboration: Many virtual meeting and collaboration tools are available. Documents can be shared, annotated, edited and worked with online by geographically distributed participants.

Meeting Industry Applications: There are many ways that Web 2.0 tools can help meeting professionals. Here are a few examples:

Wikis and Google spreadsheets can track event management details in a common document, and can be used by speakers to upload abstracts, bios, photos, podcasts, video clips, RSS feeds to their blogs, PowerPoint slides and more.
APEX standards, enabled eventually by web services architecture, will help planners and suppliers communicate electronically on the same page.
Event marketers will have the ability to market inexpensively to targeted audiences using audio/video blogs and RSS newsfeeds.
Meeting attendees will have the opportunity to rate, rank and rant about meeting content.
Presenters can submit proposals to a website where attendees could comment, ask questions, pan the speaker from previous presentations, and more.
Speaker and paper selection, often a team effort, will be made easier using Web 2.0 collaboration tools.
Social software, business networking and matchmaking programs have direct applications to bring people together at meetings in a more efficient manner.
Hotels and other industry suppliers could be rated and ranked by planners in a manner similar to how eBay or Amazon has buyer and seller ratings.

Web 2.0, the participatory web, is already having a significant impact, but the major changes are yet to come. Those that understand, prepare for and use these changes will be able to provide better service to their clients.

Case Study - World Urban Forum
By Nancy Wilson, CMP

The UN-Habitat World Urban Forum3 (WUF3) held in Vancouver, BC in June 2006, was established to address rapid urbanization that is taking place on a global scale. Organized by The GLOBE Foundation of Canada, they sought to minimize the environmental impact of their event, in the spirit of both minimizing waste of precious resources and reducing any detrimental impact that bringing over 12,000 people into a city would have. An in-house environmental specialist worked closely with the conference team to account for the environmental implication of every aspect of the event.

To bring credibility and validity to the environmental practices implemented, The GLOBE Foundation of Canada sought MeetGreen^SM Certification by Meeting Strategies Worldwide. Furthermore, the organizers sought to benefit by independently assessing the performance of the WUF3 Conference, to include environmental metrics. This would give them vital information about their current level of operations as well as environmental practices and strategies to implement in future World Urban Forum conferences.

Highlights of the many achievements include:

Four (4) Star MeetGreen^SM Certification
WUF3 is the current top-ranking green meeting as measured by the MeetGreen^SM Calculator
The environmental expectations were so well established several exhibitors took the initiative to "EcoAudit" their own booths
41.4% of the food served was either local or organic
Free transit passes were handed out at registration
A climate legacy program was developed and implemented
2,065 tons of carbon was offset which accounted for 100% of all local road travel, organizer travel, meeting venue energy and accommodation energy. 15.6% of participant travel was offset
Bike racks were rented for the event and were always full
4,100 kg of mixed paper, cardboard, and plastic were kept out of the landfill and recycled
A green patrol was established to provide environmental information and encourage recycling
1,760 kg of food waste was composted
A Habitat House was built and donated to New Orleans, Louisiana

The Certification provided not only a legacy for future World Urban Forum Conferences, but also a management tool for The GLOBE Foundation of Canada. It illustrated their leadership in the industry as an example to other like-sized conferences on how to save money and make a real difference. A full report is available at http://www.meetingstrategiesworldwide.com/articles/WUF3_MeetGreenCertification.pdf.

Upcoming Events!

Everyone in the industry knows that fall season is conference season! And we're working hard to make this conference season a great one!!

Conferences/Events:

2007 "Greening the Hospitality Industry" Conference — February 6-8, 2007, Portland, Oregon
Hosted by the Green Meeting Industry Council, hospitality industry professionals will gather for the 3rd annual Greening the Hospitality Conference to learn more about green meetings and share their organization's environmentally responsible practices. Leaders in the field will be on hand, sharing their insights on industry issues and environmentally responsible approaches to processes such as registration, site location, marketing and exhibiting, and much more.

EclipseCon 2007 — March 5-8, 2007, Santa Clara, CA
The 3rd annual conference Meeting Strategies Worldwide has organized for the Eclipse Foundation, EclipseCon is the premier technical and user conference focusing on the power of the Eclipse platform. From implementers to users, and everyone in between, if you are using, building, or considering Eclipse, EclipseCon is the conference you need to attend.

2007 Spring VON 2007 — March 19-22, 2007, San Jose, CA
One of Meeting Strategies Worldwide's oldest clients, pulver.com produces the bi-annual VON conferences. VON is the industry event for VoIP, and is now in its 11th year. The Spring VON Expo is the largest VoIP exhibition in the world, showcasing the very best of IP communications technology and solutions.

2007 Ceres Conference 2007 — April 25-26, 2007, Boston, MA
Ceres is a national network of investors, environmental organizations and other public interest groups working with companies and investors to address sustainability challenges such as global climate change. The Ceres Conference 2007, brings together and mobilize CEOs, corporate directors, investors and national environmental leaders to take action on these vast challenges.

Recommended Resources

BEST (Business Enterprises for Sustainable Travel)
Extensive list of links to sustainable tourism and business organizations, including a breakdown by global region.
http://www.sustainabletravel.org/resource_links.htm

Convention Industry Council
Green Meetings Report (Detailed report about minimum guidelines for green meetings)
http://www.conventionindustry.org/projects/green_meetings_report.pdf

Environment Canada's - Green Meeting Guide
Extensive guide for producing green meetings
http://www.fhio.gc.ca/9076E298-09C2-4EA8-BDBD-57F3BBB296B1/WEB_GreenMeetGuide_E.pdf

Environmental Resource Center
Links to several environmental organizations and state agencies
http://www.ercweb.com/resources/

EPA - Environmentally Preferable Purchasing
Host of tools, guides, and databases to assist in making environmentally responsible purchasing decisions.
http://www.epa.gov/oppt/epp/index.htm

Climate Care
Carbon offset program and calculator.
http://www.climatecare.org/

Climate Trust
Overview article about carbon offsets and carbon offset program.
http://www.climatetrust.org/about_offsets.php

Greenbiz.com Tools
Comprehensive list of green resources for business. Covers a broad range of topics and areas.
http://www.greenbiz.com/toolbox/tools.cfm

Green Meeting Industry Council"
Organization that promotes green meetings. There is also a discussion forum to exchange and discuss topics related to green meetings.
http://www.greenmeetings.info

MeetGreen
Tools for measuring and implementing green meetings. Calculator tracks green practices at meetings.
https://www.meetgreen.com/

The Natural Step
Organization that uses a science-based framework to help organizations, individuals and communities move toward sustainability.
http://www.thenaturalstep.com/com/nyStart/

World Resources Institute
Extensive publications and links to policies, reports and resources regarding sustainability and environmental issues.
http://www.wri.org/

Web 2.0 -- What It Means for the Meetings and Events Industry
Full article by Corbin Ball
http://www.corbinball.com/articles_technology/index.cfm?fuseaction=cor_av&artID=3725

Contact Us

Meeting Strategies Worldwide
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Portland, Oregon 97213
U.S.A.
Phone: (503) 252-5458
FAX: (503) 261-0964
operations@meetingstrategiesworldwide.com
www.meetingstrategiesworldwide.com