Published by Arj Devadas, VP of Sales & Marketing, ACGI Software
We’re looking forward to attending the CESSE 2013 Annual Meeting next month – July 16-18, 2013 – in Providence, RI. One thing you can learn about CESSE (Council of Engineering and Scientific Society Executives) from visiting the Annual Meeting website is that face-to-face meetings and events are still very relevant to its members and the associations they represent.
If you go to the CESSE sponsor page, you’ll see that of the 70 entities sponsoring the conference, 47 represent an event industry brand (mostly convention and visitor bureaus!). So, even though you may have thought face-to-face meetings were going the way of 8-track tapes, they’re still very relevant to scientific, medical and engineering societies. And, in case you were curious, the meeting industry is growing despite the advances in tools for digital (virtual, tele, etc.) meetings.
There are a bunch of inter-related reasons why members of science, engineering and medical associations enjoy face-to-face meetings. Chances are most of these reasons pertain to just about every other type of association too. It’s all about being human and giving another person or persons your full attention.
In our modern, mobile, digital world, many of us struggle to avoid the distraction of our connected devices. So, while we may tune into a tele-conference or webinar with the best intentions of not tuning out and checking email, Facebook, Twitter, Quora… We do. And, that mode of partial engagement is not adequate for advancing research – or even spurring rich, open and honest debate.
What makes a meeting memorable?
So, thinking about the elements that make for a compelling face-to-face event, the first thing you’ve got to have are great speakers/presenters. Sorry Orlando, Vegas and NY… For many associations, the speaker / presenter selection process requires submission of an abstract or other speaker application. This is followed by a peer review and scoring process. Followed by selection or rejection, and then coordination with meeting planners… It’s a lot of work.
The time and effort needed for executing the speaker selection process can be daunting, especially for those associations with large meetings with dozens or hundreds of presenters. Capturing and distributing submissions, coordinating volunteer reviewers, tracking and tabulating responses, maintaining confidentiality and enabling logistics consumes manpower that’s often needed for other important event management activities.
Your meeting represents your brand.
To help keep events on track, some associations outsource abstract management to third-party service providers. In doing so, they trade off gains in manpower for substantial fees, loss of control over a mission-critical process and the potential for data duplication or loss (that’s brand disruption).
When it comes to running events (digital, face-to-face or hybrid), all associations are interested in getting the most bang for their buck. This means eliminating unnecessary costs, increasing staff efficiency and producing the best possible experience for members and other event participants (that’s brand enhancing).
Recognizing the need for a cost-and operationally-effective way of managing abstracts and speaker selection, ACGI introduced our Submissions Management module for Association Anywhere this past spring. The module provides associations with control over every step of the submissions process — from defining the submittal, capturing the submission and engaging reviewers to events management and speaker logistics.
You can learn more about the application by visiting the Submissions Management module page on our website. We’ve also got a great case study highlighting the Common Application Membership Association’s use of the module for managing a detailed membership application process.
Let’s all get face-to-face at CESSE…
And, if you’re attending CESSE next month, please let us know ahead of time so we can make plans to meet during the conference. We’re looking forward to giving you our full attention and having a blast in Providence!
Photo credits: research-live.com,ecoea.ohea.us
