A High-Level View of Association Meetings
Originally published in MeetingsNet, May 2023. Reprinted with permission
Rob Carey | May 03, 2023

ASSOCIATION CONVENTIONS AND EXPOS

Karin Soyster Fitzgerald, AMC Institute’s new chief operating officer, came up through the meetings department to arrive in the C-suite. Here’s what she sees happening with association meetings right now.

In mid-February, the AMC Institute appointed Karin Soyster Fitzgerald, CMP, CAE, as its chief operating officer. The organization represents 180 association management companies that manage more than 1,800 associations and provide project support to another 900 associations.

Fitzgerald brings more than 30 years of meetings, membership, and operations experience to AMCI from both trade associations and professional societies. In fact, the first half of her career was spent in meeting and education departments, where she rose from being a novice meetings manager to a vice president of education in less than 15 years. Then, after five years as a vice president of membership services, Fitzgerald has been a chief operations officer for two associations over the past decade.

Now, her executive role at AMC is focused on advancing the value of the AMC model to associations. “The AMC model has seen tremendous growth in the last few years—even through Covid—and I am thrilled to join an association that represents such a unique industry,” said Fitzgerald.

But throughout a career of escalating roles and responsibilities, Fitzgerald has always maintained her keen interest in the meetings function and its importance to associations’ future health. MeetingsNet caught up with her recently to ask about her observations of the meetings landscape.

MeetingsNet: Which aspects of your new role are you most looking forward to taking on?
Karin Soyster Fitzgerald: I have a much more hands-on role than I’ve had over the last 15 years, with responsibilities in many other areas other than strategic oversight. What I’m looking forward to the most is learning more about the association management company model. While it has been around my entire association career, I’ve never worked for one, so representing the entire industry is a new challenge. The AMC community has grown substantially since the start of the pandemic, as boards have looked for solutions to run their organizations more efficiently.

MeetingsNet: What’s a good way for association planners to find some new, innovative ideas for their events?
Fitzgerald: It is so valuable for planners to see first-hand what other organizations are doing. I’m hearing more and more about planners swapping out time at each other’s events, where they help with on-site duties in exchange for the opportunity to find new ideas for their own events. It’s a win-win for both groups.

MeetingsNet: After Covid, how should associations maintain their virtual-attendee components for annual meetings so that they get a wider audience but not cannibalize in-person attendance? And what’s your take on virtual-networking elements for those meetings?
Fitzgerald: Virtual is definitely here to stay, whether stand-alone or hybrid. As we learned during the pandemic, hybrid events are costly and require extensive coordination. Recording sessions for on-demand viewing afterwards seems to be the most economical approach. The recordings can be edited to focus on content, without the parts of a session that pertain only to the live audience.

As for virtual networking, people became “Zoomed out” in the pandemic and I’m hearing less and less about it. Virtual networking can still be valuable, but it must be done in small chat rooms. Some virtual platforms offer chat rooms that randomly change participants on a timer, and that seems pretty interesting.

MeetingsNet: What are the most important things that associations’ meetings departments should understand as they strategize with their executives about in-person meetings?
Fitzgerald: Follow the money! When I first started in the association world, dues were the largest revenue source. That changed drastically over the years, with meetings and sponsorships becoming a much bigger pieces of the pie. With the pandemic, though, many organizations have moved towards relying too heavily on meetings income. Understanding your organization’s bottom line is paramount, regardless of whether you work for a non-profit or a for-profit organization. Whatever your role in an association, you need to know the value of your work and how it fits into the big picture.

MeetingsNet: If you could get association executives to better understand one thing about the meetings function, what would it be?
Fitzgerald: Right now, the biggest concern is understanding that prices are not going down, ever. The costs of running an event—from flights to guest rooms to materials to AV to F&B—are way up across the board, and executives need to know that adjustments to the program simply must happen.

MeetingsNet: What else should associations’ planning departments take into consideration?
Fitzgerald: From a logistical perspective, with costs continuing to escalate at a rapid pace, I encourage planners to reach out to their venues ahead of time and see which other groups will be in-house at the same time. This way, the planners for overlapping events can share their food-and-beverage requirements as well as their specs for audiovisual and rigging, and maybe figure out where they can get better pricing or share some costs.

From a strategic perspective, sustainability and community service are areas that are becoming more and more important to younger generations, so offering on-site programs for attendees to give back to the host destination is a very attractive element to get them to attend events.

Also, I’m quite concerned about the growing sentiment for boycotting cities or states due to political issues. I hope this slows down, because such boycotts usually end up hurting the wrong people in a destination. A meeting boycott lands on the backs of the local hospitality workers who don’t have much influence politically, and their livelihood relies on our business. Organizing fundraising or other events for causes in a destination is a much better practice.

The post A High-Level View of Association Meetings appeared first on Speed Networking.

1. It’s not Zoom Rooms or Similar!
   Virtual matchmaking solutions are much more comprehensive and offer strategic matching supported by a well-orchestrated process to take attendees through a series of one-to-one private engagement meetings based on pre-defined matching criteria. These solutions save tremendous time on trying to match people up and dealing with the myriad of headaches that can be endured trying to match people together and then place them in a private virtual room.  
2. Solves Inclusion and Diversity Management
   Diversity in the workplace has long since been of paramount importance. Putting aside the social awareness benefit of a great diversity program, the outcomes significantly impact recruitment, retention, innovation, opportunities for new markets, financial outcomes, employee satisfaction and overall corporate culture.
3. Diversifies Attendee Networking Options
   Networking programs are like a financial portfolio; you don’t put all your eggs in one basket and financial professionals strongly encourage diversification. Not all networking programs fit the needs of individuals.  Diversify networking programs ensures opportunities for all types of attendees.  Programs can include buyer/seller, mentoring, leadership training, team building, knowledge sharing, cross department collaboration and much more!
4. Reduce Administrate Time & Stress
   Today’s solutions, such as SpeedNetworking.com, significantly reduce organizers administrative time and reduces stress as the tools today assist with set up, marketing, matching and the engagement of people is an innovative, engaging, and meaningful method.
5. Improve Meeting Quality
   Utilizing match making platforms significantly increases the chances that people meet the right people and helps ensures new smart connections. Additionally, SpeedNetworking.com allows organizers greater control through customization to ensure the best possible matching outcomes. 
6. Increase Attendee Engagement
   Attendees are busy people. When they know there is a solution to help ensure they meet the right people, participation significantly increases as this type of platform provides a greater opportunity of meeting the right people, as such, organizations have seen an increases in participation. 
7. Boost Recruitment / Retention
   Connecting attendees to the right people shows them the organization takes great interest in ensuring matching with the right people is important. In return for the organization’s efforts, attendees show their appreciation in turn by increased loyalty and retaining their relationship and spreading the good word about the organization on to others.  
8. Create New Revenue / Sponsorship Opportunities
   For organizations seeking to increase revenue opportunities, platforms, such as SpeedNetworking.com, offer multiple strategic sponsorship opportunities to maximize their sponsorship dollars and increase the chance for the best ROI.
9. Increase Attendee & Organization ROI
   For the organizers, reduced administrative, production, marketing and sponsorship opportunities supported by increase attendee participation and satisfaction leads to an elevated ROI. Furthermore, with quality reporting, the ROI can be validated to share with other staff and senior leadership.
10. Obtain Real Time & Comprehensive Valuable Data and Analyzing Outcomes
    Identifying a platform that provides smart reporting helps organizers understand the matching needs of their attendees. After reviewing all the data and analytics post an event, organizers can make smarter decisions on how to plan future events as they identify the very specific needs of their attendees.  Additionally, working with a platform that not only delivers the solution but works directly with the organizer to make suggestions for future events….is a no brainer…check out SpeedNetworking.com (we had to end with a plug!!!!)

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Diversity in the workplace has long since been of paramount importance. Yet we have never before been so keenly aware of the need to create an inclusive culture. With the advancements of social media, movements such as Me Too and Black Lives Matter have raised awareness of the lack of equality across racial and gender divides at an unprecedented level.   These actions have impacted recruitment, retention, company perception and impact to the financial outcomes.    In this article we define three major components:

• Diversity Training Defined
• Notable Benefits of Diversity Training
• Successful Diversity Strategies

Diversity Training Defined
A diversity training program aims to boost participants’ awareness about different types of diversity, appreciating differences among co-workers, and provide knowledge and strategies to enhance employees’ interpersonal and communication skills to help build a positive work environment.  Training begins with developing a comprehensive framework that will work through the entire organization.  You should be offering diversity education to all levels of staff.  The benefits of diversity programs are evidently clear.    Putting aside the social awareness benefit of a great diversity program, the outcomes significantly impact recruitment, retention, innovation, opportunities for new markets, financial outcomes, employee satisfaction and overall corporate culture.

 Notable Benefits of Diversity Training

• Retention and Recruitment Employee Retention Impact
  Retention is one of the most concerning terms to companies and organizations today. Ensuring you are truly fostering internal growth and supporting additional efforts to achieve diversity in your workforce…its absolutely essential.    Mentoring, knowledge sharing, cross-department engagement, and team building are the major ingredients to significantly increasing your retention….and you’ll be surprised to how it impacts recruitment, just consider how more appealing qualified applicants will be once they understand your corporate inclusivity agendas.
• Innovation and Access to New Markets
  Empowering a diverse culture can lead to access to untapped markets. Diverse communities can deliver easier access to markets as team members will better understand different cultures and their purchasing behaviors and knowing the company supports diversity will encourage purchasers.
• Employee Productivity and Corporate Culture Enhancement
  Consistent programming leads to higher employee satisfaction which decreases the need for recruitment, focus on employee growth and over all increasing productivity.    Collectively, a positive and inclusive environment impacts corporate culture, public perception and bottom lines.
• Financial Outcomes
  Reduction in exhausting and expensive recruitment processes, increased employee productivity and access to markets via a more diverse organization can significantly impact the bottom line and minimize stress in your staff.

Successful Diversity Strategies .

• Well Defined Plan for Diversity and Inclusion Training
  Your staff members who will be overseeing your diversity programs are going to need a comprehensive plan to follow to maximize the benefit. Providing a strong plan illustrates to all levels of employees the serious emphasis you are placing on inclusion and diversity. 
• Recommendation of Programs that Foster Inclusivity
  1. Retention and Recruitment
  2. Mentoring Programs
  3. Knowledge Sharing / Team Building
  4. Cross Division Training
  5. Internal Innovation Pitches
     
• Implementing One to One engagement Tools Ensuring Inclusivity
  Technology advancements have greatly provided opportunity to engage our communities.   However, the latest challenge has been ensuring all are participating and engaging.   Hosting zoom calls has been widely popular but fail on inclusivity.   Consider platforms such as SpeedNetworking.com that specialize in structured one to one inclusivity programs and training for organizations of all shapes and sizes.  The benefits are enormous as everyone participates in private one to one engagement based on the matching needs of the client.  This technique ensures participation and is measurable.  Contact us to learn how we have assisted from Fortune 500 to small businesses and organizations with their diversity training. 
• Measuring Metrics and Implementing Improvements
  Tracking your success is critical. Upon creating determining your goals and implementing an application that can clearly track engagement and outcomes is essential.    Holding managers and other team leaders accountable will elevate the organization as a whole.     Ae we all know, many companies outside of the organization monitor and rank a company’s diversity score cards publicly, make sure you are on the top of the list.

Please reach out to one of our team members who can help you implement a comprehensive diversity and inclusion plan.  It’s our specialty!    Click Here To Get Started

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