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Meetings

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Simon Clayton, Chief Ideas Officer RefTech

Assess your tech supplier

Technology

Not only equipment has to be fail-safe

The Internet of things (IoT) has received some bad press recently when the company behind Revolv announced that they are withdrawing all support for the product. Revolv is a little device that sits in your home and allows you to control lighting, heating and other home functions remotely via an app on a mobile device. The company behind it announced a while ago that they would be halting manufacture, but only now have they completely withdrawn support. Without that support it simply stops working – rendering it ‘as useful as a tub of humus’ according to one disgruntled user.

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John Fisher, Director, FMI Group

How does terrorism affect destination decisions?

MICE
John Fisher reviews the factors to take into account
Terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels, Istanbul and elsewhere have prompted lots of media comment about ‘safe places’ to take corporate meetings and conference delegates. It makes interesting editorial copy, but it’s closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.

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John Fisher, Director, FMI Group

State your budget and save time

MICE

.. and events will benefit, says John Fisher, Director, FMI Group

When you walk into a shop, with the intention of buying something, you generally have a pretty good idea of how much cash you have in your pocket or what you might expect to pay for the item you are seeking. The only decision then is whether to pay slightly more for slightly better quality. It’s called consumer choice.
So, why is it that when you buy corporate services such as events and travel the buyer almost always says the budget is secret?

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John Fisher, Director, FMI Group

Are hosted buyers the answer?

MICE

Do compulsory appointments spoil the show?

So, you’ve got your hosted buyer status sorted, flights organised, dinner with a prestigious hotel group and promises of champagne receptions for several hours on the trot. Then comes the tricky bit…what to do about those troublesome timed appointments?
If you’ve ever been speed-dating, you will soon get the idea. The deal is that you have to see everyone, even the ones you think you would never in a million years be interested in.

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Simon Clayton, Chief Ideas Officer RefTech

Make event apps a necessity not a novelty

Technology

Apps will only be used if they bring obvious benefits

Google recently confirmed that in ten countries, including the US and Japan, more searches take place on mobile devices than on computers.
Couple that with research from Nielsen’s latest Smartphone App Report, which explained that adult smartphone users were spending an average of more than 43 hours each month accessing content via applications, and it’s easy to see why the events industry is trying to utilise the power of the mobile and, with it, apps.

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John Fisher, Director, FMI Group

When no show is a good show

MICE

Expensive extras can dilute the message

Once the venue is sorted, many conference organisers plunge headlong into ‘The Show’. But we know that deciding what to say can be problematic.
If the delegates are employees, there are sensitivities regarding who is delivering the message, how it should be said and what baggage they carry as internal speakers.
Add in that most finance or IT directors are not specifically employed for their sparkling charisma or ability to project a message and you begin to appreciate the complexities of mass human communication.

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Simon Clayton, Chief Ideas Officer RefTech

Low-cost spherical photography is a benefit

Technology
Meeting room at the Brooklands Hotel - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

See this example of a hotel meeting room

There is nothing new about panoramic imagery to capture 360-deg images, but before digital photography it was difficult to view the images. Now, with the technology is more practical and easier to use.
Thanks to digital photography, a panorama can be created using nearly every digital camera and smartphone and the results can be shared easily online and on most smart devices. The technology is now so readily available that it has moved into the mainstream, with even small businesses adopting the trend.

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Simon Clayton, Chief Ideas Officer RefTech

5 essentials for 2015

Technology

Concentrate on the basics and not the fluff

There have been numerous predictions over the past couple of months announcing the trends that should be adopted in 2015. They are, of course, as usual, ‘going to transform the industry’ and ‘not paying attention to them will be costly’. But, these dramatics aside, what I would actually like to see this year, is everyone, instead, getting the basics right.

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Sydney Paulden

More optimism in the MICE sector

MICE

Incentives are back in fashion

ITCM is in touch daily with scores of MICE correspondents around the globe. We are very pleased to report that we are receiving more and more notices stating that MICE business is on the up.
In addition to news material, we welcome enquiries from event organisers asking if we can be of assistance in bringing them up-to-date on specific destinations or venues that they are considering. These enquiries, too, are on the increase.

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Simon Clayton, Chief Ideas Officer RefTech

Make use of conference content after the event

Technology

It brings multiple benefits

When it comes to conference content, I think that the majority of organisers are missing a trick by not curating, or managing, their digital assets post-presentation.
By using simple technologies such as Keynote or PowerPoint, conference content can be transformed into video resources that, once published online, can help to build a bigger audience base for next year.
If a conference delivers compelling content, why would an organiser not wish to utilise it? The answer is simple – the age-old fear of giving everything away for nothing. Fortunately, today the world is different and it doesn’t necessarily mean losing revenue.

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Simon Clayton, Chief Ideas Officer RefTech

Meet with anyone from anywhere

Technology

Simon Clayton wonders if Facebook will change the format of future meetings

Discussions about virtual meetings seem to be on the increase again. Unfortunately some people seem to think it’s all new: in fact, virtual meetings have been around for years, although the technology used to be called teleconferencing. In that guise, it involved groups of people gathering in specially equipped rooms. They would be able to see and hear each other and it was fine as far as it went, but it never really took off.

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Sydney Paulden

Ebola can be a threat to international gatherings

MICE
Ebola precautionary measures

Behaviour protocol should be established for the future

The world has great sympathy for so many people in parts of West Africa who have lost family members to the dreadful ebola epidemic. No one can fail to appreciate how appalling it must be to live in an affected area and to see the fever spread around you.
It has at last become a priority for nations outside the affected areas to provide assistance as rapidly as possible – and, at the same time, to do everything possible to protect their own nations from its spread.

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Sydney Paulden

When the show goes on . .

MICE

. . . the destination is on show

Organisers of large events, with several hundred delegates up to many thousands, don’t just choose a venue. They choose a destination.
Large numbers of senior people from many countries, with lots of disposable income, will not only participate in sessions in a venue, but will be seeking alternative places to eat and drink, tourist sights to visit, attractions to take in on a leisure activity.

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Sydney Paulden

MICE on the move

MICE

Business is arriving – but from different sources

There is a definite sense that the MICE sector is showing signs of recovery. At present it is mainly in terms of enquiries for events, but there have been some notably big pieces of business. The interesting pointer is that recent big contracts, especially for incentives, have come from the emerging markets.
The outstanding source is China and there is also lots of new potential in countries such as India, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia and Korea.

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Sydney Paulden

Association meetings are still on the up

MICE

Paris and Madrid overtake Vienna

ICCA (International Congress & Convention Association) has released its statistics for meetings held in 2013. They show continued growth in spite of the years of recession. As many as 11,685 regularly occurring association events which rotate between at least three countries were identified as having taken place during 2013. This was 535 more than the previous year.

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