The Conference Publishers Newsletter - September 2009




September, 2009 UPDATE Focus Group Explores the Place of Conference Content The Conference Publishers hosted its first-ever meetings industry focus group during the 2009 World Education Congress hosted by Meeting Professionals International (MPI) in July. A dozen industry colleagues spent three hours sharing their thoughts on the issues facing meetings and events, and the place of content capture in the meetings mix. "We've wanted to ask these questions for a very long time, and by the end of the session our heads were spinning with new ideas and possibilities," said vice president and COO Woody Huizenga. A short synthesis of the focus group is available on The Conference Publishers' website, and we plan to host our next focus group at MPIs MeetDifferent 2010 in February.	In This Issue Focus Group Explores the Place of Conference Content Farewell to a Friend A Small Step for MPI . . . A Big Victory for Content Summer Bookshelf Team Conference Publishers Joins Annual AIDS Walk Celebrating our next 25 years
Farewell to a Friend To our great sorrow, our strategic partner Concepts Worldwide closed its doors July 31. CEO Terri Breining explained that the "loss of several anchor conferences this year, along with the ailing economy, prevents us from remaining viable any more. So, after more than 21 amazing years, we're calling this done." Concepts' friends, partners, and vendors across the industry expressed shock and sadness at the loss of one of the industry's most established and visible firms. Breining, a former international chair of Meeting Professionals International, will continue as chair of the Accepted Practices Exchange, an industry standardization project hosted by the Convention Industry Council. "This obviously isn't exactly the way I wrote the script for the end of this company," Breining wrote, but "my time in the meetings industry isn't over." We look forward to a long continuing business relationship with Breining and other members of the fabulous Concepts team. A Small Step for MPI . . . A Big Victory for Content A Tuesday afternoon session during MPI's 2009 World Education Congress may have been a small step for the association, but demonstrated the growing importance of content capture for meeting planners and participants. Continuing the Session Dialogue: Taking the Information Home to Spur Action was the first time an MPI conference had presented meeting content as an area of interest to the profession. Chaired by John McConahy of Imagination Plus in Pittsburgh, the panel featured The Conference Publishers president and CEO Mitchell Beer and MPI's Director of Content Management, Brooke Dillier. Jonas Løvstad of Arkena A/S delivered a virtual presentation from his office in Copenhagen, while Mathew Diamond of Richmond Hill, Ontario-based Content Management Corporation addressed participants from Chicago. Earlier that day, Beer co-presented a workshop on industry research alongside Bill Voegeli of Association Insights in Atlanta. Voegeli reported that the industry downturn may have hit bottom, with a small but significant percentage of survey respondents expressing guarded confidence about business prospects for 2010 and 2011. Summer Bookshelf Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization by Jeff Rubin You might not expect the former chief economist for a major investment house to produce a page-turner. But Rubin pulls no punches in this exposé on the sudden shocks to the global economy that will result from the end of cheap oil. The world already consumes far more of the oozy stuff than it produces each day, and while supplies won’t actually run out, the laws of supply and demand will drive the price of oil toward $200 a barrel. When it gets there, everything will change—from the price of gas at the pump, to the cost of hot beverages at your neighbourhood coffee shop, to the affordability of cheap products that will no longer be shipped to North America from China. (Watch for new jobs in the U.S. Rust Belt as a result.) How does this affect meetings? Rubin says airlines will lose what’s left of their business model when oil hits $80 to $100 a barrel. Rubin’s arguments are riveting—I finished this book about 36 hours after I bought it. (Reviewed by Mitchell Beer) Team Conference Publishers Joins Annual AIDS Walk On September 19, a team from The Conference Publishers will enter the 2009 AIDS Walk for Life, an annual, Canada-wide fundraising and awareness event for local HIV/AIDS service organizations. So far, our band of intrepid walkers includes Adam, Andrew, Biljana, Iana, Karen, Mitchell, Woody, and assorted family members, human and canine. To join or sponsor our team, please visit our AIDS Walk site. The company is matching individual donations up to a $300 maximum. Celebrating Our Next 25 Years In the last two weeks we've invited many old and new friends to our 25^th anniversary dinner at Ottawa's magnificent National Arts Centre. We hope you'll join us as we celebrate our milestone birthday and raise money for one of our favourite clients and causes, the Canadian Public Health Association. Will we see you there? See our website for more information.