Author Archives: MeetingsNet

5 Ways to Disaster-Proof Your Meetings

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From time to time GovEvents will come across information we feel our members and audience would benefit from. Here's something we wanted to share:

Disasters can take many forms--from earthquakes and floods that damage infrastructure and halt business, to war, terrorism, cyber attacks, and pandemics, to technological failures such as power outages. The one thing they all have in common is the potential to cause trouble for, and perhaps even shut down, your meetings.

And yet planning for a disaster is something many meeting managers tend to give short shrift to. When meetings go off year after year without a hitch, it's easy to relax your guard. After all, what are the chances a tornado will hit during your meeting in Salt Lake City? While unlikely, it has been known to happen. And earthquakes aren't just an issue for California-based meetings--Oklahoma actually is the most seismically active region in the U.S. If your meeting is being held in the Pacific Northwest, are you prepared for cyber attacks? Continue reading →

Dogs Save Phones, Attendees Save Dogs at SXSW

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From time to time GovEvents will come across information we feel our members and audience would benefit from. Here's something we wanted to share:

Originally posted on http://meetingsnet.com/

As much as I love the puppy-cuddling stations Meeting Professionals International has been including in its World Education Congresses in recent years, I think the huge music and film festival SXSW coming to Austin, Texas, this week may have them beat in the sweetest/coolest canine corporate social responsibility offering. Attendees who find their mobile device batteries running low can tweet to have a charger brought to them by a St. Bernard! As a Fast Company writeup says, "Dead-battery rescue dogs! It's like the Alps, but way nerdier."

Mobile battery-case maker mophie is partnering with the Saint Bernard Rescue Foundation to send the dogs (and their handlers) to those who tweet a screenshot of their device's perilously low battery to #mophieRescue from noon to 7 p.m. March 13-15 Continue reading →

Government Meetings Still in Freefall

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From time to time GovEvents will come across information we feel our members and audience would benefit from. Here's something we wanted to share:

Originally posted on meetingsnet.com

Corporate meetings have seen steady positive growth over the past year, but the government meetings segment continues to struggle, showing little sign of regaining its footing, at least not in the quarterly Meetings Outlook report published by Meeting Professionals International.

MPI asks planner and supplier respondents, "Compared to one year ago, which client segment of your organization's meeting and event-related business has seen the greatest decrease in activity?" In the Winter 2015 report, whose data was collected in November 2014, almost half of respondents saw government meetings in decline. That's even more than the 43 percent who reported declines in the August 2014 outlook, which itself was a dramatic increase over the 31 percent who saw declines in the May 2014 survey. (And in response to the converse question in the current report--asking which segment showed the greatest uptick--no one said government.) Continue reading →

Shutdown Ends, But Uncertainty Doesn’t for Government Meeting Pros

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Originally posted by  on MeetingsNet.com

Government meeting professionals are happy to be back at work after the Congress agreed to a resolution that ended the 16-day government shutdown on October 16. "Unfortunately, continued uncertainty remains for our members and this industry," said Rob Bergeron, executive director and CEO of the Society of Government Meeting Professionals.

"While SGMP's furloughed members are glad to get back to work today," said Bergeron on October 17, "we certainly recognize that this was a short-term deal and not a long-term fix." The resolution only funds the government through January 15, 2014, and raises the debt limit until February 7, 2014. "Our government and contract meeting planners who serve the federal government are eager to continue their important training mission for federal employees and to be appropriately compensated for those efforts," added Bergeron.

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