Have You Ever Thought About Taking a Sabbatical?

In July of 1995 IBM acquired Lotus Development Corporation. This was big news in the technology industry at the time. You know what was big news with the IBM employees when we started talking to our new Lotus colleagues??? That they were eligible to take a sabbatical year. WHAT??

A sabbatical, just in case you are interested in the official definition, is a prolonged hiatus, typically one year, in the career of an otherwise (love that “otherwise”) successful individual taken in order to fulfill some dream, e.g. writing a book or travelling extensively.

Based on research by the University of Illinois Office of the Vice President of Academic Affairs, it is estimated that 14 – 24% of corporations in America has established sabbatical programs…usually in companies that by virtue of their product are particularly sensitive to the costs of employee burn-out; many corporations consider the benefits of sabbaticals so self-evident that they forego the expense of documenting them.

Lucky you if you are working for a company who offers sabbaticals.

“Some dream”. I have one of those. It involves traveling extensively. And, maybe, writing a book afterwards.

Yes! I’m taking a sabbatical.

This will be my last blog for this year as an employee of Meeting Consultants. My last work day will be 15 March.

On 14 April I will be taking that first step in the ‘journey of a thousand miles’. Ok, it’s actually 2172 miles but who is counting? And, it’s estimated that the average hiker takes 5 million steps in the journey from Spring Mountain, GA to Mount Katahdin, ME.

It’s the Appalachian Trail.

I am thrilled beyond words. This has been my dream for years, at the top of my bucket list.

I want to thank my bosses Casey and Chris Cote. They have been very enthusiastic supporters. Casey didn’t hesitate to give me his blessing when I told him my plan. Chris is planning to come meet me in North Georgia for a day – providing some trail magic.

I also must thank my wonderful husband, Garry. He has been my Rock and will be my logistics team – sending me supply boxes, encouragement and prayers along the way.

Also, my Reunion Sisters, Diane, Carol and Cheryl who will cover me in prayers.

My CHS friends, Priscilla, Nancy, Jan, Libbet, Michele and Connie who will also be praying and enjoying themselves at the beach – go Girls!

And, my sweet daughter, Danielle, whom I wish with all my heart were making the journey with me.

If you are interested in reading my Trail Journal here is the link http://www.trailjournals.com/skerry/

I am planning to keep it updated as I take my journey from Georgia to Maine. Trail Journals has a guest book, please write me, I’d love to hear from everyone!

Last, but certainly not least, please visit the Clean the World website, http://www.cleantheworld.org . Shawn, Paul, Calum, and all the folks at CTW are doing amazing work supplying soap to people all over the world to literally save their lives. 95+% of all money donated goes toward the mission. When I first heard about Clean the World I was blown away by the grassroots efforts these 3 guys had started by gathering used amenities from hotels. Now they have partnerships with major hotels across the US and Canada. Every dollar makes a difference and every volunteer makes a difference!

Thank you and God Bless!

Does Your Company do Volunteer Work?

I talked about Corporate Social Responsibility a while back and today I’d like to talk about Volunteering.

Personally, I think most everyone has good intentions. If we see a need, and can fulfill it easily, we are more than happy to do so. It’s the ‘fulfill it easily’ part that is a stumbling block.

We are all busy. For those of us fortunate enough to have a job we are probably working longer hours than we previously did and, in addition, we still try to maintain some semblance of a personal life with family, friends, children and find some down time just for ourselves. So when these opportunities to ‘fulfill a need’ arise we too often find we don’t have the time.

That’s where volunteering through work can come into play.

As a business owner or a manager it is important for you to remember that your employees are looking to you for leadership. If you are taking time to give back to your community your employees will be inspired to give back as well. And, if you have a ‘cause’ that is important to you – share it with your employees and find ways that you can all give to the cause together.

Encouraging your employees to slow down and take the time to give of their time, energy and resources will give a huge morale boost to them and to yourself.

Volunteering makes people feel good about themselves. Most volunteer projects have immediate results, too, which is encouraging and motivating.

In the meetings/event industry doing volunteer community service projects as part of a conference or event has become very popular. Clean The World and Habitat for Humanity have opportunities for volunteers in almost every city. Meeting planners should also check with the local CVB for area specific ideas. Many CVBs, cities, convention centers and even some large hotels have service projects they can recommend to you depending on the size of your group and the amount of time you have to volunteer.

Additionally, employers can contact their local communities, parks, churches or civic organizations to find opportunities to volunteer.

Remember to solicit your employees for ideas. Involving them gives them ownership and pride in completing the project.

Employees, make suggestions to your manager for places a group can volunteer. Rally your co-workers and get out there together to fulfill a need…you’ll all feel good!

Do you have a volunteer opportunity to tell us about? Or a story about volunteering? Please enter your comments below and Thanks!

Are You Spreading that Cold??

I realize this may not appear to be a business blog. However, I have strep throat and it is most definitely affecting my business. It came on fast and furious and has laid me low for almost 3 days now.

So, a few reminders to everyone regarding how to stop the spread of infection and help keep everyone healthier.

I hope it goes without saying if you are sick – STAY HOME!

When you are in the office, or any public place, be mindful of those around you by sneezing or coughing into the bend of your elbow or a tissue. If you use a tissue, dispose of it properly and wash you hands.

Speaking of washing hands, according to the Mayo Clinic, hand washing is one of the best ways to avoid getting sick and spreading infection.

As you touch people, surfaces and objects throughout the day, you accumulate germs on your hands. In turn, you can infect yourself with these germs by touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Although it’s impossible to keep your hands germ-free, washing your hands frequently can help limit the transfer of bacteria, viruses and other microbes.

Always wash your hands before:
• Preparing food
• Eating
• Treating wounds or giving medicine
• Touching a sick or injured person
• Inserting or removing contact lenses

Always wash your hands after:
• Preparing food, especially raw meat or poultry
• Using the toilet
• Changing a diaper
• Touching an animal or animal toys, leashes or waste
• Blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing into your hands
• Treating wounds
• Touching a sick or injured person
• Handling garbage or something that could be contaminated, such as a cleaning cloth or soiled shoes

Of course, it’s also important to wash your hands whenever they look dirty.

Normally I would say I’m climbing off of my soapbox now but since I’ve been reclining on the sofa hardly able to move it would be a stretch to be climbing anywhere.

Have a good weekend and be healthy!

How do You Negotiate?

Negotiating is one of those things I’ve found people either are comfortable doing or they hate it and avoid it at all costs.

I think the main reason we feel uncomfortable with negotiating is because we enter in to the process linking there must be a winner which by default means there must also be a loser and we don’t want to be that loser.

Negotiations are really about conferring with someone else to make a decision that you can’t come to by yourself. You require the cooperation of someone else.

Here are a few tips to guide you through your next negotiation meeting:
• Prepare yourself prior to attending the meeting by doing research on the product, person and/or company
• Always do negotiations face-to-face; being able to see facial expressions, body language and other physical indicators from your partner are important and enable you to adjust your style and approach to be more effective
• Spend some time talking about the similarities in your needs and goals, this sets a good base for understanding why requests are being made
• Ask questions to understand why a requested item is important
• Really listen to the answer; hear everything before suggesting a solution
• Restate what you heard and ask if you are understanding correctly; this helps the requestor feel you are truly interested and gives them the opportunity to explain more if necessary
• Listen 80% of the time and talk 20% of the time
• Be certain to explain your own needs and goals and why these are important to you; often the person with whom you are negotiating will be able to offer an acceptable alternative once they understand your needs and why those are important
• Prior to meeting, do an outline of a clear set of options for yourself: what is the your ultimate goal; what is the best alternative option; and when do you need to walk away from the deal
• Create a safe environment for discussion, help your partner feel safe and smart
• Give people the benefit of the doubt
• Create closure and get to yes; focus on the issues and work out the details in a follow-up meeting
• Always be courteous, smile and be civil; give credit to others and thank your partner

Do you have any success stories to share? Or, would you like to share a learning experience on how not to negotiate? Please click below to comment.

Sustainability – How are You Doing It?

Webster defines sustainable as of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged. The words in the thesaurus really caught my attention: nourish/nurture, keep/maintain, hold up, support, affirm, confirm, corroborate and substantiate.

Isn’t that what we want to do? Nourish and nurture, support and affirm.

Sustainability and Going Green have been the buzz words for the past few years. When the economy took a downturn it appeared the Green Initiatives may have been put on the back burner. The reality is just the opposite which is exciting news.

A Forbes Corporate Responsibility Blog, on 27 January, shows the results of a recent survey where CEOs see sustainability shifting from choice to corporate priority. According to the survey 80% of top management says the economic downturn raised the important of sustainability as an issue; and, 74% says the downturn lead the company to align sustainability more closely with core business. Read the complete Forbes Blog through this link:
http://blogs.forbes.com/csr/2010/06/23/ungc-survey-ceos-see-sustainability-shifting-from-discretionary-choice-to-corporate-priority/

There are many things we each can do in our work environments to be more eco-friendly. Start with your work commute, could you carpool? Could you adopt a flex-schedule to allow employees to not be forced to drive during the worst traffic there by saving not only gas but valuable time? Other ideas include changing out those old light bulbs for the new compact fluorescent bulbs – they save money and last longer. If you are not already recycling your trash what are you waiting for? It’s easy to recycle your paper, cans and glass at work. If you don’t want to actually replace the trash containers simply write on the bin which type of trash should be placed inside. Most large cities have recycling programs, check with your county if you aren’t sure about the process or pick up times.

Here are some ideas for making improvements in your home. Replacing your light bulbs should be top of your list. Check your windows and doors for drafts. For doors you can use inexpensive items like ‘door snakes’ to block drafts along the bottom. Or, if you are handy, replace (or add) weather stripping along the doors and windows. You can also check your insulation to ensure it is adequate. Many improvements have been made in this area including the ability to add insulation to walls without major renovation. Check out the US Department of Energy for additional information on products and tax credits http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/insulation_airsealing/index.cfm/mytopic=11440

The Global Footprint Network is an international think tank working to advance sustainability using a resource accounting tool that measures how much nature we have, how much we use and who uses what. Their web site is http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN , very interesting what they are doing.

Pink Magazine did a great series on sustainability this week which is where some of the information in this blog originated. Take a few minutes to read their articles and get more ideas on what you can do. http://www.littlepinkbook.com/little-pink-book

So, how are you doing the sustainability thing? These are the three questions Forbes asked the CEOs, what would your answers be?

– Sustainability is changing, how is your company addressing it
– Next Steps: going from strategy to execution
– What’s ahead: competing in an era of sustainability

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Everyone! I feel safe still saying HNY since it is technically still the first week of the new year.

I’m going to start off this year by giving credit to Denise Wakeman,
http://www.buildabetterblog.com/ , for being persistent in encouraging me to ‘blog on’ and, after reading Mari Smith’s blog yesterday, http://www.marismith.com/, I feel I’m in good company albeit starting a little late.

Let’s jump right in…

I want to tell you a little bit about Meeting Consultants and the people who make up the company.

Meeting Consultants was founded in 1979 by Carol Cote. Carol was one of the first event planners in Atlanta.

As the company grew Carol was joined by her husband, Jerry Demery, and all three of her children, Beth, Chris and Casey. Casey is now our President and Chris is our Director of Operations.

Here we are 30 years later and still growing!

We have 8 Senior Project Managers with an average of 14+ years in the business who are supported by an amazing customer call center, IT manager and marketing team.

One of Meeting Consultants’ strengths, and how we bring added value to our clients, is through our software development team. The developers, lead by Michael Kennedy, have over 15 years experience developing software tools specifically for the meetings and events industry. Their expertise has enabled us to bring a suite of products including a SAS tool and enterprise solutions to meet our clients’ needs.

Obviously I’m very excited about our team and our company.

I want you to be excited about us, too!

I invite you to visit our website, http://www.meetingconsultants.com/index.html , post your comments or send me a direct email, ksmithwick@meetingconsultants.com .

Thanks @denisewakeman for another great webinar – I’m working on my visibility schedule.

Summer Catchup!

The good news is we are really busy at Meeting Consultants!

Through the late Winter and the Spring months we concentrated on getting our new Event Registration Master product launched. It’s exciting to have the registration product out in the market place and we are very pleased to be working with some wonderful clients who are using the product.

We are also happy to welcome a new sales rep to the company, Randy Woodard. Randy brings great contacts along with his years of high-level, revenue producing experience.

I jumped right into the SMMP certification classes offered through NBTA. The first elective session, held at the Emory Conference Center, was intense. Lot’s of valuable information available in two half day sessions. In hindsite I do think I would have absorbed more if I had been through Core Week 1 before starting the electives. The next core Week 1 is in October…bad timing for me as we are triple booked. All goodness!

Soon we will be launching our newest product, Event Portfolio Master (EPM). EPM will enable you to track and manage multiple events with one tool, do reporting, audience generation and integrate with your CRM as well as our Event Registration Master.

Just to round out the activities and bring all our work to fruititon, we’ve been out and about with the AAHOA conference in Chicago and IBM events in NY. Part of our team is in Vegas doing a site visit for an IBM event in October. We will also be in Austin and Florida in October. Looks like 4th quarter is going to be a busy one this year.

At the end of this month we will be at WEC in Vancouver – exhibiting and speaking. We would love to meet anyone who can make it by our booth or who just sees us in the hallway and wants to chat.

How is your year shaping up? Are you seeing an increase in activities? Are you attending and/or exhibiting at WEC? Let us hear from you!

Strategic Meetings Management Program

Sometimes I find it hard to believe I’ve been in the industry long enough to remember the days before capturing ROI on meetings and events was important not to mention before SOX was even a twinkle in the eyes of Sarbanes and Oxley.

Today we recognize that meetings and events are important touches in our sales cycle. According to Oxford Economics USA, The Return on Investment of U.S. Business Travel, research report for the United States Travel Association, September 2009, executives identified the average return on conference and trade show participation to be in the range of $4.00 – $5.99 per dollar invested. Further, both executives and business travelers estimate that roughly 40% of their prospective customers are converted to new customers with an in-person meeting compared to 16% without such a meeting.

With those figures to back up the continued need for business meetings, conferences and trade shows it is more important than ever to have the tools and technology to assist you in tracking your meetings, total spend and reporting your ROI.

Don’t let the Strategtic Meetings Management Program (SMMP) name scare you off.

SMMP is the next generation of meeting consolidation which started with the travel industry back in the 1970s and 80s. In the early 1990s the consolidation or centralization that had started in the travel industry migrated to the meetings and events industry. Large companies, with the objective of cost savings, were the first to try the strategy of centalizing meetings. By creating one large meetings department they did recognize savings through the: buying power of consistently booking hotel rooms with one brand; reducing the number of suppliers; and, recognizing there was overlap in their meeting schedules both with messaging and the audience and could thus reduce the number of meetings held.

Now, about twenty years later, we have the Strategic Meetings Management Program. The National Business Travel Association has a white paper on the topic. Originally published in 2004, they updated the paper in 2008, which is available on their website under the Resource Library tab, http://www2.nbta.org. One of the most important lessons learned is that SMMP is dynamic. You do not implement the progam and never make any changes. SMMP changes as your program matures and you understand what is important to make your program fit your needs.

SMMP is not only for large companies with a complex meetings and events schedule. Almost all companies are able to benefit from adopting the basic principles of the program. I’ve worked with international companies holding thousands of meetings a year and smaller , domestic companies who participate in 15 to 20 conferences and tradeshows in a year. The common thread is developing a strategic way of handling their meetings and event programs.

In addition to the NBTA white paper you might also check out the white paper written by Corbin Ball, Strategic Meetings Management Program Implementation and Idea Guide available on his website, http://www.corbinball.com, under the Articles tab.

The authorities agree the components of a Best in Class Strategic Meetings Management Program are:
–

Registration of Meeting/Event
Approval
Sourcing/Procurement
Planning/Execution
Payment/Expense Reconciliation
Data Analysis/Reporting
all revolving around a technology tool

Have you implemented an SMMP in your company and would you share some of your best practices? Are you interested in discussing how to implement SMMP in your business? Please add comments and discussions.

What Does Social Responsibility Mean to You?

According to Wikipedia, Social Responsibility is an ethical or ideological theory that an entity, whether it is a government, corporation, organization or individual, has a responsibility to society at large.

Now this is not a new concept. Many corporations call it being a Corporate Citizen; or, more pointedly, they aim to be ‘good’ Corporate Citizens.

Take The Gap for instance, they now have a Social Responsibility website, http://www.gapinc.com/socialresponsibility/, and state, “it means everything from ensuring that workers are treated fairly to addressing our environmental impact”.

I like it. I like that MeetGreen, http://www.meetgreen.org, completed a study on Social Responsibility in partnership with Vancouver Island University and meeting professionals.

Meeting professionals have long subscribed to ethical standards and, in fact, the Certified Meeting Professionals (CMP) designation requires it’s members to uphold the highest levels of ethical standards or risk loosing the designation.

In the MeetGreen study the group discussed topics such as “The Law” which encompassed paying a minimum wage, operating a safe work environment, providing insurance and abiding by fire codes.  Also “Ethics” which we also refer to as moral values.  In some locations the laws do not exist to ensure fair wages and safe working environments.  The group determined meeting planners have an opportunity to help and improve conditions for our fellow human beings through meetings by volunteering, donating, involving students and providing education.  The third topic was “Stakeholders” which we often call those individuals who have a financial investment in the event.  The MeetGreen group suggests that social responsibility extends beyond those people to include the people in the cities where the meeting is held.  It is the responsibility of meeting planners to understand how the meeting can have a positive impact on the quality of life for those people.

Take 5 minutes to read the article, http://www.meetgreen.com/files/articles/SR_Issues_Brief_032010.pdf, and determine in which category your company falls:  First Degree, Feel Good Look Good; Second Degree, Responsible Action in Planning; or, Third Degree, Advocacy for Social Responsibility.

As meeting professionals we have the opportunity to influence and make a difference when it comes to holding social responsible meetings.