Meeting News - May 5, 2008 - (Page 34)

Live from the Forum @ MeetingNews.com TOPIC: Do you give out your cell phone number on site? W hen you are working on site, do you give out your cell phone number to attendees? Or, is it for internal purposes only? Anonymous Do you have a burning question to ask your peers? Log on to the MeetingNews Forum to get answers fast. meetingnews.com/forum I think staff members, plus the convention services manager and the director of security and any other hotel personnel and vendors may need it. Attendees? Never. Years ago, before cell phones existed, I had an attendee pull me aside in the hotel lobby—while I was escorting a VIP—to ask me how he could get extra toilet paper in his bathroom. That has always stayed with me. Deborah Gaffney, Director of Conference Planning Tax Executives Institute, Washington, DC I only publish my cell phone number for very small groups (under 50 attendees). I suggest that if you have a hospitality desk at the hotel, etc, get the direct-dial number for the desk and publish that along with the hours that staff will be at the desk. If you go this route, make sure you get the hotel to put the phone number in writing and test the number as soon as you are on site. Megan Moiles, Program Manager Metropolitan Marketing & Event Group, Chicago I give my number to anyone who might need it for any business-related reason. I want to be as accessible as possible, whoever is having an issue—with rooms, food, whatever—can reach me ASAP, and I can more quickly solve the problem. I really think it’s part of being service-oriented. Heidi Chapman, Meetings Manager National Grain and Feed Association, Washington, DC Absolutely—once I go on site, I will have e-mailed my cell phone number to all speakers and guests, as well as entertainers and any vendors I’m using. My voicemail message also references the number. I had a problem last year with a car service not being able to locate one of my speakers at the airport. The car service had my number, and during the conference dinner it called me. I went to my room and tracked down the information on my laptop (my assistant had relayed incorrect information). The car service found the speaker and got her to the hotel with no problems. Bobbie Connolly, Member Services Coordinator Prairie Health Ventures, Lincoln, NE TOPIC: Programming the right number of concurrent sessions? F or those who have worked on conventions with large numbers of concurrent sessions, what is that magic number before it just becomes too many and overwhelms attendees? Lisa Dyson, Director of Conference Services Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Alexandria, VA accountant in the plumbing industry using Software A has at least two choices for each time slot. We cross-reference every attendee type. Karen Brown, Managing Partner, Conferences by Design, Salisbury, MD Karen, I love your reply—great advice for everyone to consider. A good goal is to have enough sessions so that as many folks as possible have a tough time deciding whether to attend one session versus another. Part of retaining and attracting registrants is having enough content that intrigues them and hopefully makes companies send more people so they don’t miss anything. It all boils down to delivering programs that meet the needs of each major segment in each time slot. For organizations like Lisa’s, it’s easier for teachers to get approval to attend if they are accepted as speakers on the program. So having lots of session rooms and speakers really helps drive attendance. What’s important, though, is to make sure you keep good data on speaker performance and the number of folks the speakers attracted. If they are not in your top 50 percent, keeping them should be debated; if they are not in your top 50 percent twice in a row, they should be downgraded to poster presenters. You have to keep raising the bar on quality and cycle in new and different speakers. Dave Lutz, Managing Director, Velvet Chainsaw Consulting, Aurora, OH I believe it depends on the profession. Our technology clients run between 35 and 58 concurrent sessions each day for ﬁve days and never get overwhelmed. In fact, they meet in evening sessions to discuss the day’s sessions. The trick to holding many concurrent sessions is also having enough participants to ﬁll them all. Instructors know the optimum number of participants in their sessions for the best learning experience. I can then determine the number of sessions needed based on the total attending community. Nancy Wilson, Principal, Meeting Strategies Worldwide, Portland, OR I do an annual conference with a number of concurrent sessions for a software users group. The number of sessions grows every year. I design the program to have tracks based on software platform, and subtracks for line of business (e.g., paper industry, plumbing, etc) and [job role] (operations, ﬁnance, etc). By the time we’re ﬁnished, we want to be sure that an MEETING NEWS (ISSN 0145-630X, USPS No.356-010, May 5 2008, Vol. 32, No. 9 is published semi-monthly except for August and December, which is monthly, by Nielsen Business Media, 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003-9595, tel. 646-654-5000. Subscriptions are offered free of charge to individuals actively engaged in planning meetings or conventions in the U.S. and Canada. The cost of a subscription to non-qualiﬁed subscribers is $79 in the U.S. and $95 in Canada (Canada Post Publications Mail Agreement No. 40031729). 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Meeting News - May 5, 2008